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Sept. 21, 2008 - No Agenda

01:34:41

48: How to Survive the Economic Collapse

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	Amidst a financial crisis akin to a financial 9-11, it is time once again for the program that comes to you from both ends of the spectrum of Gitmo Nation.
	Coming to you from Gitmo Nation East, I'm Adam Curry.
	And I'm John C. Dvorak up here in Gitmo Nation Northwest, Pacific Northwest to be specific.
	Ah.
	Washington State.
	Studio B today.
	Studio B. Yeah, you sound okay.
	This is just on the headset, right?
	Yeah, I know.
	I don't have any gear here.
	Well, John, let me ask you a question.
	Do you feel the bottom yet?
	Do you feel it?
	That was the bottom.
	Oh, please.
	Oh, please.
	That was not the bottom.
	Well, you know, the bottom was 10,000.
	I've said that a million times.
	And I actually expected it to pass through to, you know, 98 or something like that, but it didn't.
	And it just, you know, it was just about to smack it.
	And then it just said, well, I think this is close enough.
	And now we're on an upswing.
	I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed your, what do you call it, random podcast with Andrew Horowitz.
	Yeah, that was good.
	You guys really got down to some good stuff in that about the financial markets.
	Eh, he's cynical.
	I mean, he's like you are about the bottom, you know.
	Yeah, uh-huh.
	I can tell.
	That's why I liked it.
	Most of the brokers that I know who are in the business, they're all singing the blues.
	And then when the bottom is like saved, you know, you bounce off of it and the government, you know, turns us into a socialist country.
	Then they complain.
	This is baffling to me.
	I'd actually take it one step further.
	I know we're just kind of jumping in the middle here, but I looked up the definition of a fascist state, and I think we're pretty close to it.
	Oh, corporatism, yeah.
	Yeah, it's when the corporations and the government basically collude.
	But in this case, it's not the government taking over the corporations, it's the corporations taking over the government.
	But I think the result is the same thing.
	It's been baffling to me.
	How we can let this happen?
	Yeah, but, you know, so besides the stock market, which I agree, you know, sure, it's going to go up, you know, mainly because you can't bet against it going down, effectively, with the ban on short selling, or at least the ban on short selling of financials.
	But that ends October 2nd, I think?
	Yeah.
	Right.
	That's when you're going to start to see the bottom.
	That's when they'll come rushing up at us.
	I don't think so.
	Really?
	I mean, you don't think that this has been a complete beginning of the destruction of everything that makes America's economy work?
	It's a base for the future.
	Really?
	And you're really that optimistic about it?
	For the next year, yeah.
	Man, I see this in such a different way, John.
	I really do.
	And actually, to be honest about it, even though I don't want to sound like a communist, we've had to do something with our financial structure to deal with the Chinese.
	Because they own so much of us?
	Is that what you mean?
	Well, that, but no, they run a kind of a corporate...
	Well, it's in reverse.
	They have their government telling corporations what to do more than we do.
	We have our corporations telling the government what to do, but it's the same.
	There's this collusion between the government and these companies that makes it hard to compete with them because they'll have the government bail out their companies that are screwed up.
	We've never done that before because we believe that technically if the company, you know, because we talk a big game about free enterprise and capitalism, we believe that if the company is run by a bunch of boneheads who are raping the shareholders and stealing the money and pocketing it and buying houses in Gestalt, we believe that if the company fails that these people should be run out of town or run out of business or should go broke themselves.
	But a more corrupt system, which doesn't allow for that, seems to be what the Chinese have.
	And so I think we're mimicking it.
	But all, but you know, I mean, I'm really struggling with this mainly because I've been talking about something like this happening and it actually taking place and I'm trying to understand what it all means, but.
	But all these measures and these bailouts, but that's not to save anything in the real economy.
	I mean, yeah, maybe saving the auto industry is one thing, but this is just saving guys who are pushing paper around.
	Yeah, I know.
	It's hilarious.
	Well, you don't hear me laughing.
	I'm almost shell-shocked.
	On Friday, I went to Amsterdam for a number of reasons, and I'll tell you exactly what they were.
	And honestly, one, to go get some physical gold.
	I told you I was going to do that.
	And by the way, do you know what a bar of gold weighs?
	A lot.
	Twelve kilos.
	Yeah, how much do you have any bars?
	Twelve kilos.
	One?
	Are you kidding me?
	We barely made it off the ground.
	But that's 12 kilos.
	That's huge.
	I thought it was a little more...
	I don't know.
	So let me get this straight.
	You went to Holland.
	Uh-huh.
	And made this pod show, delayed the pod show a day, I might add.
	Yeah, of course.
	And to pick up a 25-pound bar of gold.
	Yeah, amongst other things.
	I also, I was invited to a party, which had been planned well in advance, but turned out to be a very, the timing turned out to be really interesting, of the private...
	of Mace Pearson, which I've been a client with them for 10 years.
	And they were bought up by Fortis a couple of years ago.
	Oops.
	Oops.
	Exactly.
	But the party still went on.
	And I was the only client, I might add, that showed up to the party.
	The only one.
	And it was, I mean, people were just, dude, they were like shell-shocked.
	And the stories they were telling me, it was, I mean, it was, they, the past two weeks have been so horrible, just for them business-wise.
	And they, I don't think they even believe that they're going to, that they have any type of future.
	Everyone was pretty much like, well, that's it.
	You know, it's over, done with, forget about it.
	They felt this way because they thought that the government now will be running the finances and they are out of business?
	No, they felt this way because of the enormous outflows of cash.
	So they manage private individuals and also non-profits.
	Oh.
	Well, I see that.
	So people are pulling, it's like, for example, clients might be buying bars of gold.
	Yeah, that would be one example.
	They'd be like, you can buy the gold, it'll just be on paper.
	I'm like, no, no, that's not the point.
	We can do that too, but I actually want to have the physical gold.
	That was not easy to arrange, I'll tell you.
	That's because they don't want anybody having the gold.
	No, of course not.
	But it's also not easy to obtain, is what I found out.
	And they were like, you should go buy diamonds.
	I'm like, I don't know shit about diamonds.
	And that's not a very easy market.
	That's a cartel, you know.
	That's De Beers.
	Right, yeah, that's no good.
	Yeah, that's exactly.
	Yeah, you can go into any, you know, kind of Old West honky-tonk bar and you got the gold, you know, you get a drink.
	So what I also did is I spent some time, because the equivalent of the FDIC guarantees in Europe are a little different.
	They're significantly lower, I might add.
	So I think per account, they insure 100% of the first 20,000 euros on deposit.
	And then 90% of the second 20,000.
	So, what's that?
	38,000 combined.
	But, you know, it's like, where are you going to go?
	You've got Fortis, you've got AB and Amro, which, oh, by the way, part of that bought by Fortis, part of that bought by Royal Bank of Scotland.
	And you only have one other one, which I really like, is the Rabobank, It's not publicly listed, and it's a cooperative.
	So they have hundreds of small banks all across the country, and they're open on Saturdays.
	I don't think there's a bank in the United States that's not open on Saturday.
	Oh, it's very atypical for the Netherlands to have a bank open on Saturdays.
	Very atypical.
	Yeah, but I'm just amazed at what's going on.
	Money markets are now also returning negative equity, money market funds.
	Yeah, that's because, yeah, that was that one, I think we talked to, if you listen to the first Dvorak Horowitz market discussion, we talked about that.
	Back up to the first one.
	But anyway, so, I mean, forget about...
	By the way, anyone who wants to listen to that stuff, it's on Dvorak.org slash blog.
	Yeah, do you have an RSS feed for that?
	Are you going to do more?
	What's the deal with it?
	I think it's an outstanding conversation.
	I really like it.
	Well, the RSS feed exists.
	Yeah, it's all a prelude to this book that I have to finish.
	You know, I'm laying the marketing groundwork.
	Yeah, okay.
	And Horowitz and I are actually going to do a little thing together, which is going to be to dissect Yahoo Finance.
	Oh, wow.
	Because he can answer the questions that I've been asking around.
	Like, for example, if you have a book value of $3 billion and an enterprise value of $2 billion for one company...
	And you have a book value of $3 billion and an enterprise value of $3.5 billion for another company.
	Which is the better investment?
	Oh, okay.
	My head hurts.
	Yeah, no, I know.
	It's just like...
	You know, I know because I've always asked that question when I look at these numbers and I say, does that mean this is better than this or that?
	And he's going to explain it.
	The guy's amazing.
	Anyway, so...
	We'll probably do one or two more of those before I shut it down.
	Before the big crash, exactly.
	No, the big crash is...
	We've got a year to go on that.
	I don't think so, John.
	Well, okay, maybe it is a year, but...
	Can I just play out my scenario?
	First of all, what has been done here with this, and I guess they announce it tomorrow, what do they call it, the Resolutionary Trust Corporation?
	The Revolutionary Trust Corporation?
	The Resolution Trust Corporation.
	Yeah.
	So basically everyone gets to put all their bullshit in there and the only ways to actually pay for that or to be able to afford it is by either, well I guess one of three scenarios, maybe four.
	Collecting higher taxes, printing up more money, borrowing more from China, which I think is pretty much out of the question, or complete collapse.
	Right, I think the last alternative is to be avoided.
	Right, but how can you avoid that?
	I just don't see how it can happen.
	You know, it's like a deflationary crash, which we try to avoid, with a buyout that, you know, you've been talking about this for a long time, which will be hyperinflationary.
	Yeah.
	And it just buys us a little bit of time.
	Yeah.
	And that's bad?
	If you're in a sinking ship, you want some more time...
	You don't want the thing to go to the bottom in two seconds.
	No, I understand that, but no one else understands that.
	Joe Public doesn't get it.
	There's one other element here that everybody seems to overlook.
	I had a conversation on the plane coming up here.
	Virgin America, by the way, they should be sponsoring the show.
	We sure as hell seem to be sponsoring Virgin America.
	Well, you in particular.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Yeah, really, they should cost some of that money back up.
	We keep mentioning them fondly.
	Richard Branson...
	You know, he has to start slamming him.
	Maybe that'll work.
	Well, Branson's now going to buy Gatwick Airport, so he's busy.
	You're kidding me.
	Yeah, it's up for sale because BAA, which is run by the Spaniards, I might add.
	Senor.
	Yes, Senor BAA. Get on the plane.
	Please, for ticket and passport.
	So they own Stancid, Heathrow, and Gatwick.
	And all three airports are shit.
	I haven't actually tried Terminal 5 yet, but we know they had plenty of problems, which was attributed to BA, British Airways.
	So they've been broken up, essentially, and it's for sale for 2 billion pounds, 4 billion dollars, or actually a little less now.
	What, BAA? No, no, not BAA. Gatwick is for sale.
	Just that one piece they have to spin off.
	And so immediately...
	Well, you know, Richard Branson is just the brand and he has these huge hedge funds that sit behind him.
	Right.
	Or he stands in front of them, I should say.
	So that would be interesting.
	But I don't know if anyone would put up $2 billion.
	I don't know if they can even get that type of financing in today's situation.
	So he's working on some sort of a deal?
	Yeah, well that's what the Financial Times said.
	Financial Times, by the way, I went out and got the Saturday-Sunday edition.
	There's not one, yeah, there's like two articles about sports and one of them was about the owner of Newcastle United who just lost $300 million backing HBOS, the bank, which was just taken over by Lloyd's TSB to avoid the financial meltdown in the United Kingdom.
	But everything else is all about this financial crisis.
	Nothing else in the paper about anything.
	Anything.
	So what did you learn?
	What I learned is that this is just the collapse of a multi-level marketing Ponzi scheme.
	Yeah, seriously.
	And I think it's going to take everything down.
	I think it's going to be really, really serious.
	You don't think it's serious already?
	Yeah, no, but I don't think it's hitting people yet.
	I don't think they understand what it means.
	When markets collapse, we need markets even just for our food to get transported.
	You need all kinds of financial markets to make shit run.
	And when that all comes down, they're probably going to close markets and try and make up new regulation.
	How is business going to be done?
	That's what I don't see.
	There's a real risk in that.
	There really is.
	I think the whole basis for this is to get the housing market jump-started.
	That's interesting you say that, because there's a couple things that I'm picking up on, and so here's what the public is being taught.
	And I learned this from Sarah Palin, and I want to talk about her specifically, because I've been paying attention to her as well.
	So the message going out to the average American, which I would say is 99% when it comes to understanding this type of stuff and what it really means and what they're fed through corporate news media, is this problem was created by short sellers.
	Bad guys, bad, bad.
	Gonna stop them.
	I read a great quote about this.
	The analogy of banning short selling is the fire department, fire investigators investigating a number of arsons and then saying, okay, we're going to stop this.
	We're going to ban the sale of matches.
	Yeah.
	So that's the main message.
	This was done by rogue traders, bad bankers, short selling, shouldn't have it, shouldn't be done.
	And of course, the real blame is being put on homeowners.
	You bad homeowners.
	You lied on your application.
	It's all your fault.
	And no one better than Sarah Palin, because I've been studying her, man.
	Wow, did the Republican Party do a great job by getting her in.
	Now I know why she didn't do an interview for about two weeks after the convention.
	It's because she went to the George Bush training school of repeating the talking points.
	And if you listen to her, she sounds just like George Bush.
	Not in the voice or anything like that, but she's spitting out the talking points in the simplest way by saying, and she talks really fast.
	Well, of course, we've got the financial crisis.
	Bad traders, bad practices, got to regulate that.
	And she's just like George Bush, only faster and prettier.
	Have you listened to her?
	And then it's like, well, did you see the Saturday Night Live skit about you?
	And she's already been trained to say, so what they told her to say was, yes, tell him you saw it, you loved it, but you didn't actually hear it because, of course, she can't respond to any of what was discussed in that skit.
	And if she's asked about policy, then all she has to say is, of course, John McCain has the right policy for that.
	John McCain has all the policies on the table.
	And she says, oh, well, yeah, I saw it.
	It was fantastic.
	I loved the skit.
	I laughed.
	Well, I couldn't actually hear what was being said because I had the sound turned way down.
	But boy, I really loved it.
	Miss Palin, could you play Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live?
	Absolutely, I could.
	You better believe I could.
	And she'll be on, too.
	You can count on it.
	And she is an actress, and a really good one.
	Well, here's the thing that got me about that.
	Now, you're her, and you're just out of Alaska, and you sound like you're from Minnesota, and you're somehow sitting around, or you've heard about Tina Fey on a national television show, is going to imitate you.
	And you're going to keep the sound down.
	I mean, how about for a bold-faced lie?
	What?
	That's an out-and-out lie.
	Yeah, of course it's a lie.
	Because I don't care who you are.
	Even if you know they're going to slam you, if it's going to be Tina Fey doing a comedy act, you have to see what she's saying so you can at least be upset about it.
	So, gee, that's a revelation.
	Liars and politicians.
	Wow, that's a big one.
	That could happen.
	But anyway, so that was pretty lame.
	But pay attention to it, John.
	Pay attention.
	She's passing on the talking points just beautifully in very short, understandable Joe Blow bursts of sound bites.
	It's awesome with it.
	It's awesome.
	Yeah, well, that's what you're supposed to do.
	The problem with Obama is that he doesn't keep track of the talking points, so he's always going, uh...
	He's thinking and making these Berkeley-like sounds.
	Going through the list.
	Yeah, of which one to pull up.
	Well, you can see when John McCain, when he said, he alluded that the fundamentals of the economy were strong.
	And then the press jumped on that.
	I guess the press being maybe CNN jumped on it.
	And then they gave him new talking points for him to explain what he exactly meant.
	And you can see him looking down at his cue cards the whole time, bumbling around, trying to read the lie and still look kind of comfortable because there's no teleprompter.
	One of these kind of like stump speech scenarios.
	It's just they're actors and they're not writing anything.
	They don't know what the hell to say.
	They're not in touch with anything.
	They're not in touch with what's going on.
	They don't even have time to read a newspaper except for the headline, let alone listen to the sound of the skit.
	Right.
	Hey, look, I'm on television.
	I haven't got time for it.
	I don't want to hear it.
	Ah, shit, who cares?
	But she looks like me.
	Oh, man.
	Actually, that was a pretty funny bit.
	It was great.
	And it wasn't particularly insulting by any means.
	It was actually quite funny.
	Yeah, it worked.
	Yeah, I thought it worked.
	The thing that she did the most, because I was annoyed by this, and apparently Tina Fey, who's a fairly good mimic, she does a Condoleezza Rice that is absolutely hilarious.
	But she did that thing with her mouth that Palin kept doing, which was either putting your lower lip up above the upper lip and then, I guess, wiping your teeth with your tongue.
	Well, your mouth's closed.
	It's kind of like a MySpace picture pose.
	Yeah, so Tina Fey was just doing that just constantly.
	There's this funny looking thing that she does.
	Yeah, it was very good.
	Which is not attractive, by the way.
	It's Palin.
	Somebody in Palin's camp should tell her to stop it or wear better lipstick.
	Because the only reason, you know, a lot of women get into the habit of cleaning their teeth with their tongue.
	Because they get lipstick all over their teeth.
	And she's wearing her hair down now, which I like.
	I was waiting for that.
	We didn't actually see the transition, but yeah, I like that.
	What a circus, man.
	What a circus.
	Anyway, so here's what I predict will happen, John, if you don't mind me just going out on a limb, because you're much more positive than I am, I think.
	But I see the market moving along.
	I see this RTC getting put in place, and I see October 2nd, they take off the short-selling restrictions.
	It takes about a month for shit to start barreling down.
	We go into full-blown crisis, and the elections are postponed.
	My brother.
	I think that's a very feasible scenario.
	And it won't be because the financials are dead.
	It'll be because food's not rolling.
	Elections are postponed.
	Alright, well that's a good theory.
	People out there listening.
	You think that's crazy?
	People out there listening, take a note, please, because I can't...
	You know, we've said stupid things on the show before, and nobody documents it.
	And the two of us...
	It's all a matter of history.
	Let me finish.
	The two of us are too lazy to ever go back or even take notes while we're doing this show.
	So it'll be some vague reference six months from now.
	Yeah, didn't you say...
	It was like two old men...
	So I want the public out there that listens to the show to do it.
	There's got to be some guy out there that just likes to document everything.
	Besides Bubba, who does a good job with the notes, but he's not going to go back and give us the history.
	No, no, no.
	People are documenting this because they've all called me on my $200 a barrel oil, which of course is because you keep calling me on it.
	Oh, you mean were you bought into that bullshit?
	Like, we got pretty close.
	We got to almost $150.
	Well, sorry.
	Yeah, come on.
	But anyway, so I said, all right, I'm wrong.
	But now, you know, I'm pretty sure we're going to write it down to 60.
	And if I'm wrong, I'm wrong.
	That's all right.
	Okay, here's what I think is going to happen then.
	If you're going to make the prediction, the key element of your prediction is that the elections are going to be postponed.
	Yes, correct.
	Yeah.
	Well, that's not going to happen.
	Okay.
	What's going to happen is kind of what you're seeing.
	There's going to be a hesitation around the day that the short selling is reinstituted, but it's probably going to just be a blip.
	But people are going to know there's an election coming and things are going to change because the administration is going to be swapped out.
	The election is going to take place, and everyone knows what I think is going to happen, but it doesn't make any difference.
	Either guy can win.
	Whichever guy wins the stock market starts to take off.
	And it'll be on that within a week.
	People reevaluate everything and they're going to, you know, say it was Obama.
	Oh, he's got all these experts.
	He's got economic experts.
	He's got a new way of doing things.
	The Democrats have had a lot of prosperity under Clinton.
	You know, he's more of a Republican in my way of thinking.
	And then things are going to skyrocket.
	Same thing with McCain.
	Oh, good.
	The Republicans, at least we don't have to worry about the Democrats screwing things up.
	So things are going to skyrocket.
	So the market is going to rocket.
	And here's the basic premise that I always have.
	But you're talking about the market, John.
	The market is one thing.
	I mean, the market can do whatever the fuck it wants to do.
	But what's actually going on is what's happening to the real economy and the wealth of people and the value of their money.
	I mean, the market, yeah.
	Yeah, no, I'm just saying, but when I say the market, I mean the stock market plus the general economy.
	But you know what?
	It's taken me 48 shows to understand that when you talk about the stock market that way, that doesn't actually have anything to do with what the actual economy will be doing.
	Yeah, no, we'll still be in the toilet.
	Okay.
	People, there'll be more jobs, and the housing market will recover.
	The value of things will go up, and the value of the dollar will probably improve, and everything's going to be rosy.
	And the reason for that is, and this is what I was trying to say earlier, which is that you can't really have an economic collapse the way you're describing it.
	Why not?
	Because the public's not involved enough.
	The only time you have an economic collapse is when the entire system...
	And I'm a little cynical about this, and people think, well, you're just kidding, as usual.
	But I think that if you look at the way these things work, it's never the guys at the top, and we see some evidence of it with these creepy executives who, you know, took $200 million a year out of their companies while they were losing money.
	Until the public at large is invested into the market where it's their money, where they're the end result, the suckers.
	At the very end that are suddenly back in the market.
	And we haven't seen that for a while.
	I mean, they were in the market in the late 90s when it tanked.
	You know, they were heavily in the market in the 1920s when it tanked.
	They were in the market in the late 60s.
	I remember my parents.
	Bought some stock in some dipshit company in the middle of nowhere out of the blue, like in 1968 or 1967.
	You know, I'm a little kid, but they're going...
	Oh yeah, we had to buy this stock because my sister-in-law is working for this company and it's going to do this and that.
	They never owned stock ever.
	But now they're buying stock.
	So until that...
	So you have to set up...
	The game has to be set up in such a way...
	That the public at large jumps into the market, pushes this thing into some ridiculous highs.
	I'm thinking Dow Jones 30,000, by the way.
	And then you pull the rug out from under it, and everybody's out except the public.
	They're the ones who take it in the shorts.
	This is like everything else that the public is screwed over with, like lotteries, for example, where they only return 50% of the money.
	But who buys those stupid lottery tickets?
	It's the public.
	So every state now has some lottery, so every dummy in the world can give their money to the government freely.
	They like it.
	They like to gamble, and maybe they can win the $10 billion.
	It's ridiculous.
	It's a joke.
	It's hilarious.
	Okay, but so following on...
	So that hasn't happened.
	So there's not going to be any collapse.
	Okay.
	Well, I just see it differently.
	I mean, I think...
	I think the collapse of these, you know, look, every company, every publicly listed company has all kinds of debt and, you know, it's just, I don't know, I just don't, I see it more as a direct hit to, you know, well, A, to the value of the dollar, which they can only keep, you know, propped up so long.
	It's going up.
	And, you know, I think the pension funds, you know, those are pretty much wiped out.
	Yeah, that's the public.
	They won't get their pensions.
	But what I miss is the outrage.
	If we can spend, I guess it's going to be at least a trillion dollars, maybe much, much more than that.
	How come we couldn't fix healthcare with that kind of speed?
	That's the one that kills me.
	The hell is that all about?
	We can throw a trillion dollars at these crooks.
	And we can't spend a couple of billion on healthcare.
	It's hilarious.
	That's unbelievable.
	I mean, even the $180 billion for...
	I've lost track now.
	It was $85 billion for AIG. Right.
	I mean, that could have fixed healthcare for a long time.
	I know.
	We could have had colonies on Mars for this kind of money.
	But so how come no one's pissed?
	Am I the only person that's, like, pissed off?
	No, there's a lot of guys that are pissed off, but they're all like you.
	They read the Financial Times.
	You know, it's just a minority of people.
	It turns out to be inconsequential.
	Unless there's riots in the street.
	Well, why wouldn't that happen?
	You know that there are now tent cities being built in every single major metropolis around the United States.
	And don't think about green army tents.
	I mean, these are like commercial tents.
	And these people just have no home anymore.
	And they're just going to go live in a tent.
	I don't know of any tent cities around the San Francisco Bay Area.
	I know there's one in San Diego.
	I was reading that.
	Well, it's probably for the illegal aliens that came over.
	They need some place to stay.
	No, no.
	These are people like you and me who happen to have a tent in their garage.
	And people living in a garage want to stay in that.
	Sorry.
	Because they get kicked out of their houses.
	In hard times, tent cities rise across the country and then they show a map.
	And this is an AP story from two days ago.
	A few tents cropped up hard by the railroad tracks, pitched by men left with nowhere to go once the emergency winter shelter closed for the summer.
	Then others appeared.
	People who had lost their jobs to the ailing economy.
	Or newcomers who had moved to Reno for work.
	This is a Reno story.
	And discovered no one was hiring.
	Within weeks, more than 150 people were living in tents, big and small, barely a foot apart, in a patch of dirt, slated to be a parking lot for a campus.
	This is written by some novelist wannabe.
	Why are they a foot apart?
	I mean, if they're just building tents in the middle of nowhere in the Nevada desert, they could give themselves a little space.
	I mean, this doesn't spring right when I'm reading it.
	It is kind of a nice piece of prose there.
	It's a little corny.
	And that's only in Reno?
	It doesn't have any other places listed?
	No, no, it goes on and I'll continue.
	Let me read another couple more paragraphs, or another paragraph.
	Within weeks, blah, blah, blah, it was building its homeless population.
	It says, patch of dirt slated to be a parking lot for a campus of shelters.
	Reno is building for its homeless population.
	Like many other cities, Reno has found itself with a tent city, an encampment of people who had nowhere else to go.
	From Seattle to Athens, Georgia, homeless advocacy groups and city agencies are reporting the more visible rise in homeless encampments in a generation.
	Nearly 61% of local and state homeless coalitions have said they've experienced a rise in homelessness since the foreclosure crisis began.
	Oh, that's the reason.
	You know, does anybody remember Hands Across America?
	Yeah, I remember that, sure.
	That was supposed to end homelessness.
	Are you telling me it was just a big scam?
	It didn't work!
	Crap!
	Well, it's not like we don't have homelessness in San Francisco, John.
	I mean, you can't walk down any street without tripping over someone.
	This has been going on.
	This has been the earmark of the entire eon beginning in 1980.
	It actually began probably in the 70s during the economic crisis of that era.
	But it pretty much established itself as just going to be here.
	You know, basically it's kind of medieval.
	In San Francisco, there's so many homeless people.
	You have to pay toll, literally, like you would have to in the Middle Ages.
	And when you're crossing some part of Italy.
	Yeah, when you're walking down a certain block.
	Yeah, you got to give this guy some money and that guy some money and you can get to the end.
	I mean, it's not a lot of money, but, you know, it's basically a redistribution of wealth.
	You know, a buck here and a buck there.
	You, you're the big spender.
	You give him five.
	It was funny.
	So, I was outside this party in Amsterdam.
	I was going for a smoke.
	So, I'm standing there.
	I'm looking at my mail and stuff.
	And a guy walks by and homeless.
	And he says, you know, he mumbles something, whatever.
	I think he spoke German.
	And I said, I'll give you some money.
	So I reached my pocket and I gave him a coin, which I wasn't quite, you know, I thought I gave him a two euro coin.
	And the guy comes back.
	He said, this is not real money.
	It was a two pound coin.
	And I said, well, it's two pounds.
	It's real money.
	Yeah, but I can't spend that.
	I said, well, keep it for good luck.
	Go away.
	Give you the finger and walk away?
	Yeah, you came back, goddammit.
	Came back.
	Came back.
	This isn't real money, dude.
	This is probably from England.
	One time I was in, I think it was London, floating around, and there's some really guy with a sad story, some, you know, homeless, whatever you want to call him, beggar.
	Comes up to me, and so I gave him like a pound or something like that.
	And I swear to God, a truck was driving by with a bunch of guys in it, and they stopped and started screaming at me.
	Yeah, because, yeah, don't give money to them.
	Yeah.
	I mean, they were really mad.
	And I said, wow, the British, these guys are harsh over here, you know.
	Has there ever been an instance in U.S. history where the elections were postponed?
	Nope.
	Well, maybe in the 1700s or the early 1800s as possible.
	I mean, I don't know if there was even a firm date.
	That's a good question.
	As a matter of fact, I should know that, but I don't.
	But no, not in modern history.
	Because there is all kinds of stuff on the internet about, I guess, some policy or something that the Bush administration has done to be able to cancel the elections.
	Here, now that the Bush administration has let it know, it's laying the foundations for the postponement and cancellation of the elections.
	Yeah, this is a...
	This is a big meme, right?
	I'm sure this is running around.
	It's a crock of crap is what it is.
	It is a meme.
	It's bull.
	I mean, they want to get out of there.
	Bush doesn't look like a guy who wants to be.
	They're going to be, you know, they have to get out of there.
	They're scrambling to get out.
	I don't know.
	I don't think they even care who wins.
	I mean, the logic would, and by the way, if they postpone this thing for one day, they might also just give the country to the Democrats.
	Well, they can't do that.
	Well, all I know is I think our founding fathers were very, very, very, very smart when they introduced the Second Amendment.
	Seriously.
	It was armed to the teeth.
	Well, it says right there to protect the country from enemies from, what is it, the outside and from within.
	I don't know.
	Does it say from within?
	I think it does.
	I think it literally says within.
	That's why I like it so much.
	We're referring to the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms.
	Because, of course, if you only had 1% of the guns in America take to the streets, that would be millions of guns.
	Millions.
	And we could actually take back what's rightfully ours.
	A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of the free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms should not be in prison.
	That's about enemies within.
	Are you sure?
	Read the whole thing.
	I'm looking at it.
	There's got to be some fine print there.
	It doesn't...
	I thought it said...
	I've always understood it said enemies from the outside or where they would protect it from evil, from...
	No, it sounds like a...
	I mean, that's...
	Well, are you reading it or what?
	I'm looking at it, but I'm going to have to get the whole...
	I'm trying to find it.
	The problem is it had two versions that went out.
	What, two versions of the Constitution?
	No.
	There was a, no, this is a Bill of Rights.
	A Bill of Rights, I'm sorry, yeah?
	Yeah, there was a version that went out, that was passed by the House and Senate, and there was another copy of, slightly worded slightly differently, that was sent out to the states.
	Really?
	I didn't know that.
	That's interesting.
	So which one is valid?
	The difference is like the one or two words, it doesn't mean anything.
	But there's not, I don't see any enemies.
	I'm trying to find a...
	The text is simple, straightforward.
	A well-regulated militia being necessary in the security of the free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
	That's it.
	It doesn't say anything about enemies from within and without.
	Okay, then I'm wrong.
	Then I stand corrected.
	No, everything's pretty succinct.
	You know, they don't go into a lot of theoretical reasons.
	Okay.
	And in case anyone named Bush is president...
	Well, anyway, I can still hear you calling Ron Paul a kook.
	A kook?
	I like Ron Paul.
	Yeah, well, he's definitely been predicting a lot of this shit happening.
	He was Mr.
	Get Rid of the Fed, Investigate the Fed, this is all messed up.
	They've created a bubble.
	Well...
	I think he totally nailed it.
	We should have him on this show.
	He should be the guy calling the shots here.
	He's actually predicting stuff that's happening.
	We don't need him here with you on the show.
	You know, here's something really cool, or cool, or interesting, that popped up on some of the aviation forums.
	You know what a NOTAM is?
	It's a notice to airmen, and they're issued, a couple of people can issue them, FAA in America, of course, can always issue one.
	But certain air sectors, a JFK could issue, every airfield has no TAMs.
	It just tells you different stuff to look out for.
	And you can also call a temporary restricted area, TRA or TRS, which would be for space.
	Where you're not allowed to fly.
	And what's interesting about this no-fly zone that was set up all along the coast of Texas, where Ike went through, there's a no-fly zone there, and no one knows who put it up.
	Which means it was probably FEMA at the end of the day.
	And so none of the news helicopters can get any footage.
	It's a really thin strip of land.
	Right...
	You know how if you look at the...
	Ah, what's it called?
	What's that area called?
	If you look at the south coast of Texas, there's this kind of like Long Island strip.
	You know what I'm talking about?
	Galveston.
	Galveston's on it.
	So that entire island is now a no-fly zone.
	And so new helicopters are not allowed to shoot any footage.
	Have you seen the pictures that were shot?
	Yeah, it's nothing.
	There's nothing left.
	It's flat.
	It's unbelievable.
	They literally flattened the place.
	But did Ike do that?
	Yeah, I think so.
	I don't know what else would have done it.
	Well, I mean, that's pretty devastating.
	Yeah, it's a mess.
	But why aren't news helicopters allowed to fly over and take footage?
	As far as I can tell.
	I think it's probably just some bureaucrat for some reason or other.
	Who knows?
	The problem is these things get into the system and then nobody can reverse it because nobody knows who did it.
	Yeah.
	Well...
	You still there?
	Yeah, yeah, no, I'm looking at the, what does it say?
	It says, reason for NOTAM to provide a safe environment for disaster response and relief operations.
	They didn't do that with Katrina.
	It's suspicious.
	I don't know why they wouldn't.
	I mean, it doesn't make any difference.
	They've got plenty of pictures and it looks like crap.
	It's suspicious.
	And the place is just obliterated.
	I'll tell you what else is highly suspicious, John.
	We have had, since Friday, the most absolutely stunning weather.
	It has been beautiful.
	I mean, almost no clouds in the sky.
	Blue skies.
	Nice and warm.
	It's the 21st of September.
	And this weather all of a sudden is beautiful all across Western Europe.
	And of course I completely attribute that to the switch off of the Large Hadron Collider.
	I don't think it was ever switched on.
	Yeah, of course it was.
	They switched it on on September 10th, and that's when the weather went bad.
	It didn't work.
	No, no, but that's when it was...
	My understanding is we blogged it.
	There was a thing came out.
	It turned out that they never got to do the experiment.
	No, they haven't done the experiment, but they were spinning it up.
	They were spinning it in one direction, then the other direction, and they didn't get to the actual collision part.
	But the spinning it up, I mean, there's stuff going on with that as well.
	Do you have a lot of magnets around the house?
	Magnets are magical things, man.
	I'm telling you, there's magic in damn magnets.
	There sure is.
	Yeah, you laugh at me.
	You laugh at me.
	I don't know where you get this stuff.
	from youtube so the uh you should look at some of that shit so you got good weather I like the way you just make the leap of faith.
	No, it's not a leap of faith.
	Strange occurrence of actually nice weather in the British Isles, which is like...
	It's rare in itself.
	Something worth noting.
	But not just in the British Isles.
	But it can't be just a coincidence that the weather happens to be nice for whatever reason.
	It has to be because of some man-made Hadron Collider spinning some magic.
	Someone sent me a scan of the New York Times.
	You need to blog this if you haven't seen this already.
	The New York Times misspelled Large Hadron Collider and made it late in the Large Hardon Collider.
	That's funny because I accidentally typed it in a post when I was talking about the Hadron Collider.
	I typed in hard-on, which is easy enough to do, and the spell checker has a little squiggly.
	I said, what?
	Oh, geez, that's hilarious.
	So the New York Times did it.
	But the New York Times apparently doesn't use a spell checker, or hard-on is in their dictionary.
	Particularly a large one.
	A large hard-on.
	A large hard-on.
	I'll make that the album art.
	That was too funny.
	Way too funny.
	Skype is weird today.
	Do you just have the headphone?
	Do you have nothing else?
	No mixing board?
	I hear myself coming back from time to time.
	Oh, that makes no sense.
	Alright, what else you got there, John?
	You've been thinking about something besides how to make a buck when the market goes out of control?
	I was looking at the Bill of Rights.
	No, everything is very succinct in here.
	Yeah, what does it say about who's in control of the frickin' money, huh?
	What does it say about that?
	It doesn't really care.
	But isn't there something about the currency can only be controlled by the government?
	Please tell me there's something like that.
	That's in the Constitution.
	Okay.
	Oh, okay.
	That doesn't really matter, I guess.
	No, apparently not.
	A little booklet called The Constitution.
	Well, anyway.
	There's not that many, Guy.
	I mean, yeah.
	Well, it depends on, you know, there's two schools of thoughts about the Constitution.
	I mean, one's the Scalia thing, which is that it's...
	It's not fixed, but it's a document.
	Oh, is it meant for interpretation over time?
	It's not meant for wild...
	It's not thought of as a living document that's changing, you know, with the time.
	So, you know, suddenly you can have gay rights or gay marriage when the Constitution...
	Like Scalia will say that gay marriage isn't covered in the Constitution one way or the other.
	It doesn't care.
	And other people would say, no, the Constitution guarantees it, but it doesn't.
	The reason that people have to be...
	Whoever wins the presidential election is one thing, but there's a big concern that there's always...
	Especially if somebody stays in for eight years, which won't happen this time, but it can happen, that they appoint these various...
	Judges like that one woman whose nickname is actually Kiki.
	A Supreme Court judge?
	Yeah, what's her name?
	Ruth Ginsburg.
	Ginsburg, yeah.
	She's like a communist, I mean, for all practical purposes.
	Like a communist.
	Dude.
	America is a socialist communist state now.
	It's the end of it.
	Yeah, well, that's the irony, I suppose.
	Although somebody should maybe sue them and then see if they can get to the Supreme Court.
	I mean, yeah.
	Listen, you're an old-school American.
	I mean, they don't come much more American than you.
	You know, you like your cars, you like your guns, you like your money.
	Doesn't this piss you off?
	Cars, guns, and money.
	Yeah, and women.
	And babes.
	But doesn't this piss you off?
	No, it doesn't actually.
	What pisses me off of these guys who walk away from these companies, and this has been going on for years and it's very annoying, guys who run companies into the ground, they don't care about the community whatsoever, they run the company into the ground, they rape it, they take the money as much as they can, give themselves bonuses for doing a lousy job, and then moving to Switzerland and not even paying their fair share of taxes on all this ill-gotten good gain.
	That's what pisses me off, and that's going on constantly.
	That has to be, you know, I mean, you were the big defender of this some months ago.
	Oh, the CEOs, you know, people bitch about their pay, but they do so much hard work.
	I'm not talking about CEOs of financial companies who...
	And by the way, I think a lot of these guys, you know, hedge funds, it's all in fees and it's set up a little bit differently.
	But, you know, look, that's a game that doesn't concern me.
	I don't give a shit what they're doing.
	That's not a company that makes actual stuff or provides anything of any real value.
	It's just...
	They provide the financing for people who do make real stuff.
	Ah, thank you.
	That's what I was waiting to hear.
	So, this is why I feel bad.
	They stole money.
	They took a whole bunch of money.
	I really don't care.
	What's happening is all the real companies that make real stuff that employ real people, speaking as an employer here, by the way, they get hurt.
	People get really, really hurt by this shit.
	But maybe I'm just more of a socialist than you are.
	You might be.
	I mean, that's what really pisses me off.
	I'm really...
	I said earlier, I really feel shell-shocked by this.
	I just can't believe it.
	And the billions and the trillions, and it all starts to run together at the end of the day, and you kind of forget, right?
	And then, oh, this was so fantastic.
	You remember Nick Leeson?
	Does that name ring a bell?
	No.
	Well, it does, but I don't remember it.
	Nick Leeson was the derivatives trader, I think, who brought down bearings.
	Oh yeah, that's a famous guy.
	Right.
	Well, he was famous back in the day, so he wrote an excellent article in, I think it's, maybe it was The Guardian?
	I'll find it for you.
	And he said, you know, it's pretty amazing.
	I went to jail for six years because I basically stole $600 million.
	You know, I've been in all kinds of programs.
	My reputation has been ripped to shreds.
	And now, we've got these guys who are responsible for a huge multiple...
	Of what I did, and they're just walking away with hundreds of millions of dollars.
	He didn't go all the way.
	He's probably resentful.
	What am I doing in jail?
	Well, look at Michael Milken.
	This poor guy can't even trade stocks anymore, and he was like a financial genius, and he really didn't do much more than invent junk bonds and get involved with a little bit of shady trading that the whole company was doing, and he took the fall for.
	And...
	He must be irked.
	I'd like to get his take on this, by the way.
	Somebody out there needs to find Michael Milken's press secretary and let me get a hold of him.
	It's the same press secretary as Michael Jackson's, I think.
	Weren't they buddies?
	Weren't Milken and Jackson buddies for a while?
	Not that I know of, but it's possible.
	I think they might have been.
	I don't see how that could even happen.
	Okay.
	So...
	I'd just really like to just pick your brain and just, you know, when you look at all of this debt, which the Congressional Oversight Committee or whatever feels should be on the books of the United States, isn't something going to happen?
	Aren't we just out of financing, John?
	Who's going to pay for it?
	Forget the stock market.
	That's not important right now.
	How about just the money that America owes the rest of the world?
	How does that work?
	Does it just keep on going?
	Well, it seems as though we're doing our best to keep it going forever.
	I mean, essentially, you know, it's like you keep borrowing money to stay.
	Eventually, you have to pay somebody.
	It's a problem.
	I'm trying to find this list of debting countries.
	It's on one of the CIA fact books.
	Yeah.
	And they have the worldwide list of all the countries in debt and how much debt they owe.
	We're like so high.
	It's like, if I find it in the Senate, you're going to go...
	Yeah, it's...
	You just go, holy crap.
	Isn't it nine trillion?
	No, I mean, there's actually something...
	We have a...
	According to this, it's ten, but there's another thing that's even more frightening.
	List...
	While you're looking at that...
	Supposedly, this were $10 trillion in debt.
	This is on some...
	I don't even know what this website is.
	Hold on, John.
	John, while you're looking at that.
	March 27, 1993.
	Michael R. Milken, one of the world's most infamous financiers, claims to have the backing of Michael Jackson, one of the world's most famous entertainers, to form an interactive educational television network, as spokeswoman for Mr.
	Milken said today.
	Well, you got me on that one.
	Take that.
	I told you.
	I remember them standing together.
	Remember these weird things.
	Yeah.
	Well, you know, that's important stuff.
	Yeah, 10 trillion.
	I've got this weird site that shows all these deading countries.
	I was listening to the BBC today on Radio 4 and I heard them talking about, for the first time I heard someone use the word quadrillion, which I guess is a thousand trillion.
	Is that a quadrillion?
	Probably.
	I don't know.
	I would think of a pet a trillion or something.
	Anyway, so this is interesting.
	If we're 10 trillion in debt, what do you think the UK, which has only a portion of our population, is in debt?
	I'll bet you they're pretty high, man.
	They've got to be...
	So we're 10 trillion.
	I'll bet you they're 3 trillion.
	8.3.
	Wow, really?
	Yeah, no wonder you guys are in the tank.
	Shit.
	Germany is 3.9, France is 3.5, Italy is 2, Netherlands 1.9, which is high for that little country.
	Spain is 1.6, which is probably low for them.
	Japan 1.5, Ireland 1.4, and Switzerland.
	Why are they in debt?
	1.1 trillion.
	They had their own financial crisis years back, didn't they?
	They must have gotten out of it somehow.
	I don't keep track of the Swiss finances.
	Wow, 8 trillion.
	Yeah, so, you know, United Kingdom, that sounds worse than R10. That's pretty outrageous.
	And that's from, like, the CIA factbook?
	This actually comes from a thing called Swivel, which I think is derived from the CIA factbook.
	But now, meanwhile, now those come...
	For example, now if you look at the countries that aren't in debt...
	And you compare the lifestyles, and let me just name a few.
	Samoa, Solomon Islands, Bermuda, Etria, Namibia is not in debt, Belize is not in debt, Guayana is not in debt, Haiti is in good shape, Uganda, there you go, you want to go there?
	Yeah, you know, been there, done that, got the t-shirt.
	Laos, you know, Iceland, which is a nice place.
	Hardly, you know, a jumping place, but Cuba, Morocco, you know, Vietnam, all these places.
	Oh, Vietnam is doing great.
	Yeah, actually, Vietnam, I think, is going to be a...
	Especially if McCain wins, because he's supposedly going to...
	He's going to go hook him up.
	Hey, thanks.
	Hook them up so they can punish the guy that was beating them, I guess.
	Sweden is in debt to $600 million.
	It's not much.
	That's pretty amazing.
	Denmark.
	0.4.
	Well, over here, Gordon Brown is under severe, severe pressure.
	And...
	I mean, he's a real dummy.
	I don't know if someone set him up for this or not, but one of his big campaigning slogans, or slogan is not even the right word, but he promised the British public there would be no more boom and bust cycles in the economy.
	It's like, huh?
	And now, of course, he's being called on it, but isn't that how the economy always works?
	It's like you always have a boom and bust.
	I mean, that's just the way it goes.
	It's the business cycle.
	You can't do anything about it.
	Yeah, and now he's sitting here, and they just had their big party, poo-how, pow-wow, whatever, and he said to them, what will I do to fix the British economy?
	Whatever, no, three words, whatever it takes.
	So I think the British populace is about to get raped some more.
	Whatever it takes.
	Can you believe that?
	Can you just believe the bullshit coming out of these guys' faces?
	I think one of our guys said something stupid like that.
	One of our guys?
	Eliminate the business cycle.
	One of our guys?
	Oh, you mean said something like that?
	Like what Gordon Brown said?
	Yeah, I think it was almost identical.
	It was like the same thing.
	Somehow you're going to magically eliminate the business cycle.
	We're not going to let it happen anymore.
	It's like, how do you do that without having a communist central-controlled economy, which you'd call all the shots from some government office, and we already know how that works.
	Yeah, you never have a boom and bust again.
	It's just all busts.
	Well, anyway, I mean, I don't like it because I've got an 18-year-old daughter who is about to enter the workforce.
	What is she going to enter?
	What kind of economy, what kind of non-prosperous times are it going to be?
	That just bugs me, John.
	I know it maybe doesn't bother you, but it sure as well bothers me.
	Just give it to her.
	It has nothing to do with that.
	Come on.
	Why don't you have her work for you?
	Why are you so...
	In the olden days, people had family businesses and they weren't...
	You didn't raise their kids and say, well, I hope they get a job.
	They say, no, you're going to be a blacksmith just like the old man.
	Okay.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	You're going to be an ex-BJ just like your old man.
	The daughter of two relatively famous celebrities, depending on the country you're in, because I'm sure that you're not as well known in Hong Kong, but...
	Famous celebrities that know...
	Tokyo Joe would have to argue against that, John, but okay.
	Okay, well, it's fine.
	It's good that you're...
	Actually, there's big money there.
	So you have this situation.
	It's essentially a family business, a showbiz family.
	And now you're worried about your daughter getting a job as a secretary?
	Are you kidding?
	Okay, well, I understand your point.
	But what you're saying is we are going to have to radically adjust the way we, whatever we do, I mean, just suddenly radically because of whatever circumstances have been created which were beyond our control.
	That's the end.
	Yeah, no, I'm not saying that's not true.
	I'm just thinking you're disingenuous with this concern of yours.
	Okay, so I'm not just talking about her.
	I'm talking about all 18-year-olds.
	I'm talking about your kids.
	It's the same thing.
	So, great.
	Dad, can I join the family business of being grumpy and cynical as a profession?
	I think many of them have cheated without my help.
	Please teach me how to be just like you, John!
	I mean, come on.
	That's not fair.
	I'm just saying there's adjustments need to be made.
	Well, yes, okay.
	All right.
	You're not going to get into it with me, are you?
	Not with that.
	I think it's not a legitimate argument, especially when I'm the one predicting the gloom and doom when it really boils down, because I'm talking about a longer cycle, a more impactful collapse.
	I'm not seeing what's happening now as that meaningful.
	Okay, then would you please explain how long is this collapse going to take and what will be the end result, and when does life get back to something fun again?
	I'm not saying normal, but something a little more positive.
	Well, it's not a pleasant story.
	That's okay, but I'm interested.
	Please.
	If the cycle is what it appears to be, which I pretty much...
	I've got to interject from time to time.
	First of all, you're calling it a cycle.
	You're saying this is a cycle of how things go, and it's not because of a bunch of jack-offs who want to ruin the economy and kill everybody.
	Exactly.
	Okay.
	So it's just a cycle.
	If the jackoffs weren't around, it would still happen.
	That's the truth that nobody, or the ugly truth that nobody wants to, nobody likes the idea of cycles, economic or otherwise.
	Even though they exist, seems to me the sun comes up at a certain time, you know, and it's not exactly the same.
	And may I point out, in your conversation with Andrew Horowitz, may I point out that you got awfully close, awfully close, To actually agreeing with multiple theories about dates and time.
	You even at one point said, these cycles, it's almost like the earth is standing still and then everything changes.
	That, by the way, is the 2012 conspiracy theory right there.
	Yeah, whatever.
	So the 2012 thing is interesting because it would be right at the bottom of an economic collapse or close to it.
	My year would be 2013.
	But essentially what we're seeing now is just nothing.
	That's why I don't take it too seriously.
	In fact, I think it's a good time to invest.
	And that's what I keep saying to people.
	If you can get some mortgage money, buy a house now.
	I would wait a little bit longer.
	Well, you don't want to wait forever.
	So anyway, no, it'd be a 10-year downside.
	It'd be just like the Great Depression.
	You know, it's just a mess.
	Seven million people starved in America in the Great Depression.
	Yeah, there'll probably be more this time.
	Yeah, I mean, like actual starvation.
	Okay, so it'd be, all right, all right, all right, okay, you're pretty light about that.
	Well, what am I supposed to do about it?
	It's a cycle.
	You get stuck with it if you're in the wrong side of the...
	You get in a situation you can't get out of and you can't get food because there'll be food riots and you're living in a city.
	You're predicting this in the 10-year cycle, this downturn that's coming up?
	You're predicting food riots?
	Yeah.
	Well, this is the kind of stuff I want to get to, John.
	It doesn't matter how it's happening.
	The fact that it's happening...
	It's not happening now.
	...in the next ten years.
	That's here.
	It's so people can prepare.
	They can do something.
	Do you think that gold bar is going to get you food?
	No, but I'm also planting...
	You can get somebody over the head with it.
	And then eat them.
	I'm also planting vegetables.
	I'm doing all kinds of stuff.
	I'm getting a diesel generator.
	And I think power could easily...
	In ten years' time, yeah, I think power could go off.
	Oh, God.
	You know, these things always look worse.
	I mean, yeah, there will be food riots, but they're not going to be like a barroom fight scene in a sleazy B movie where everyone's just punching each other and going crazy.
	I mean, these things are isolated.
	Okay.
	I mean, it's like the riots that took place in the late 60s.
	We had all the, you know, Detroit caught on.
	They burned Detroit down, and there was a bunch of protesters that were burning down certain cities.
	They were burning down the ghettos.
	It wasn't happening in like, you know, Fremont, California.
	You know, it wasn't happening necessarily in, you know, Bellevue, Washington.
	It was happening here and there.
	And that's what, you know, downturns do.
	And it's, yeah, 7 million people.
	Over a 10-year period, starve to death.
	I'm assuming that's true.
	I don't know any facts there at all.
	I don't have...
	This is just what I've heard.
	But just assuming.
	Let's just take it as a possibility.
	That's, what, 700,000 a year in a population that back then was, what, 120 million?
	You know, it's not even one out of 100 people.
	Unemployment was a little high, probably...
	Okay, so that means about 30 million people could starve to death during this next 10-year cycle.
	Could be.
	Okay.
	I mean, let's face it, we're not equipped.
	I mean, the farming business has become this big, you know, it's become a manufacturing business.
	We don't have that many self-sustaining communities that have small farmers where you can buy local year-round and actually do it.
	I mean, it's like we can up here in Washington because we're in a rural area where we have a lot of farmers.
	We get raw milk here and we get dairy products.
	In fact, we just got a pig butchered and we got it in the freezer.
	It's like 200 pounds of pork meat.
	So let's just say that this depression comes, money's tight, there is no money, or the money that you had is...
	Or it could be a hyperinflation, don't forget that.
	It could be either way, absolutely.
	It is too much money.
	What skill are you going to use?
	What trade are you going to have to get your fresh milk and your chickens and your other food supplies?
	What is John C. Dvorak going to use?
	Well, there's a couple of things you should note about if you look into economic downturns.
	There's a number of businesses that always flourish.
	The restaurant businesses do well.
	In fact, in 1933, I think more restaurants were open in the United States that year than any time previous in any one single year.
	In fact, some of those places stayed in business until deep into the 70s and 80s.
	Sure, because you're providing food and whenever someone has some coin, it's probably easier to go buy some food that's prepared.
	So being in the food service business is a good one.
	But curiously, one profession that usually does quite well during a downturn is writers.
	How about entertainment in general?
	Entertainment in general does very well.
	That's what I thought.
	So you've got writing.
	If you think about it, these are things that get people to think about something else.
	Food, you have to have.
	So food's always a big deal.
	So being a farmer is a winner.
	Running a restaurant and having a deli is a good thing.
	So you have access to the infrastructure of food distribution itself.
	Shit, you're already set up, man.
	You are a true survivalist.
	I hadn't even thought about the deli.
	You've got your ducks in a row, Dvorak.
	Liking that.
	And so you have that.
	That's always important.
	And then there's other elements, like being in entertainment.
	You know, it usually does very well.
	You don't make as much money as you did in other eras, but you survive very easily and you do well.
	And then being a writer for some reason, because I think people need to read and write, and they need to mostly read about trying to understand what's going on around them, and there's no shortage of punditry.
	Once you've established yourself, people will see what you have to think about.
	You know, what does this idiot think?
	And they read it.
	Oh, that's interesting.
	Did you read what this guy said?
	Yeah, yeah, I read it.
	The guy's an asshole.
	I mean, that's basically the response I get to everything.
	But they're still reading it, so I mean, that's the main thing.
	And no matter what they think.
	And there's probably some other ancillary things that are safe.
	That doesn't help people with manufacturing, who relied on being on the assembly line, but I think handmade products and things like that.
	Do you think my airplane and pilot skills will be of any use?
	Maybe.
	To you.
	Ah, okay.
	You're a good entertainer.
	You keep up with technology, so whatever is happening, the technology scene is not going to go backwards.
	You have the internet now, so there's new opportunities that people can make money by exploiting it in some way, shape, or form.
	There's a lot of new businesses that start.
	I mean, it's not...
	It's not World War III. Yeah, that would be different.
	But remember, I don't think that's going to happen.
	I do not believe in a global thermonuclear war.
	I don't see that happening.
	But the images that I grew up with of the Great Depression is Little House on the Prairie.
	So that's basically my image of it.
	And I think a whole generation of me like that.
	That's kind of what we envision.
	Yeah, well, if you were on the prairie, I suppose that's the way it would have been.
	I know, I'm just saying...
	If I'm not mistaken, you're in a small mansion in Guilford, British Isles.
	Yeah, then there's the other side, which is like Escape from New York, you know?
	Right.
	My generation has grown up with these images.
	Oh, man, they had...
	Mad Max, don't leave them out.
	That was on Dvorak.org slash blog, I think.
	The new radar imaging.
	Oh, I haven't seen that.
	I'm sorry, X-Ray, the new...
	It was in connection with the TSA headquarters now being called the Freedom Center.
	Oh, yeah, right, right, right, yeah.
	The Freedom Center.
	Yeah, McCullough, who's our...
	wingish of the group went nuts and posted a whole bunch of stuff.
	But that one, I mean, that was great because you, for the first time, I'm seeing these full body scans of this new x-ray that they've installed in, I guess, a couple airports.
	I don't know if it's rolled out wide yet.
	And, you know, it's like you standing in your underwear, basically.
	Yeah.
	But it reminds me of exactly like one of the Terminator movies.
	When you walk past security and you see the skeleton, right?
	And you see anything else that's trapped in it.
	And we're there!
	We're living in fucking Terminator!
	That technology's been around for a while.
	And did you see, I think I sent it to you, the YouTube video about the TSA with their new badges?
	No.
	I guess I didn't.
	Well, normally the TSA has a patch, which says, you know, if they're a TSO, a Transportation Security Officer, now they've been given badges, an actual, like a police badge.
	Oh, please.
	Uh-huh.
	I'm telling you.
	And there were people, and they gave them out like an awards ceremony.
	That's what the video is of.
	They gave them out like an awards ceremony.
	They called up each officer.
	So they're screening officers, right?
	They sit there and they yell at you to take your laptop out of your bag.
	Now they're cops.
	Exactly, they're fucking cops now.
	They call them up one by one, you know, team leader, blah, blah, blah, transportation security officer Jones, come on up.
	And then the guy ceremoniously pins the badge on them and then they interviewed people, a couple of these screening officers later.
	And they were like so proud that they had this badge and finally they felt like they really meant something in Homeland Security and they were crying, John.
	They were crying with how happy they were that they had this badge and the new uniform and they looked like cops!
	So here's the deal.
	Taser's next.
	Most people who carry badges around or have them, they like to flash them When they get pulled over by real police for speeding.
	Now, I know there's got to be a couple of cops out there who listen to this show, and a lot of people out there know policemen.
	If anybody ever pulls over one of these jokers, and they flash their TSA badge, hoping to get out of the ticket, you should just give two tickets.
	Arrest them.
	Arrest them on the spot and beat them.
	Ah, yeah, that is true though.
	And actually the TSA people themselves should have said, is this in, you know what it was, it was in lieu of a raise.
	Oh, that's a good point.
	It's like, oh, now here's a badge, you get a badge because you're so, you know, stupid that we'll give you a badge instead of more money.
	I think they already made pretty good money.
	I think they already made pretty good money.
	I mean, it's fine, but I don't like seeing badges on every jerk-off that works for the government.
	Why don't we just have everybody get a badge?
	We should just marginalize the whole concept of a badge.
	Well...
	Let's have some badges at Mevio.
	Let's just have a Mevio badge.
	You and Ron can have a big gold one and give everyone else a silver badge.
	Sheriff star.
	Sheriff star.
	That's what I want.
	Get a sheriff star and then it's a Mevio boss.
	When we lived in New Jersey, I'd been pulled over like three or four times by the same cop for speeding in this one particular spot where it was like 20 instead of 30 or whatever.
	I won't say his name.
	Um, and then, you know, but I got friendly with him because he let me off every single time.
	He said, hey man, you should come work out with us.
	Um, okay.
	And he was, you know, maybe 50, 53 or something like that.
	And I said, yeah, and you can hang out with the other guys.
	They're from the fire department and, uh, All right.
	So it happened.
	I got stopped too many times for me to no longer actually go and work out with them.
	I don't exactly have the physique of a guy who works out.
	So I started working out with him.
	And actually, I just showed some pictures.
	It actually kind of worked on me, and I should do that again one day.
	I should get back into it.
	But, you know, got really, you know, was friendly with these guys, particularly this one cop.
	And we had a babysitter for when we'd either be on a trip or whatever.
	And, see, we had, she would often be there, she really was more like a house sitter.
	But then this guy also knew her because, you know, just of the association.
	And when we were gone, we were out of the country, he would park in front of the house and call her up and say, and she was heavy, big bones, shall we say.
	And he would say, hey baby, I take care of a lot of the big women in this town.
	Why don't you let me in?
	And that really changed my perception of...
	I mean, of course, not all cops are like this, but that was scary.
	Yeah, well, you know, welcome to the world of some cops.
	Yeah.
	But that badge thing, it has a lot to do with it, man.
	I think there's a lot, you know...
	Yeah, no, these guys will be flashing that badge left and right.
	You walk around town with the badge.
	You know, I think the real police have to be very annoyed by this sort of thing.
	Annoyed, absolutely.
	But I have a feeling, John, that I think we're going to see actual behavior change in the TSA staff.
	You watch.
	They're going to start being a little bit more militaristic.
	Well, you know, at some of the airports it's already...
	You know, the weird thing is in the smaller podunk airports is where the guys are the worst.
	You know, there's like nobody, there's no chance of any terrorist even passing through some of these little towns is zero.
	And these guys are all, they're all stuffy about everything, and they're in these formal, and they're all, you know, big shots, and they're making people do this and take their shoes off.
	And then the worst part about it, which really bothers me to know, because I do fly out of small airports every so often...
	It's the passive docility of the locals who just think it's so cool to get this kind of attention because they're flying from, you know, Wichita to, you know, bumfuck North Dakota.
	And they just think it's cool that they have to take off their shoes, you know.
	And then old Jim, you know, in his wheelchair has to take his shoes off and they have to carry him, drag him through the metal detector and he just thinks this is fine.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, it's not fine.
	It's so wrong in so many ways.
	But anyway, so that's...
	Yeah, you run into...
	It's actually annoying, to say the least.
	But I actually haven't had any real bad experiences recently because I'm flying on, like, when you fly Virgin America, since they were a new carrier, they're always in some, like in San Francisco, they're in the international terminal where they don't belong.
	And they're at the far end of this, it's got to be one of the worst terminals in the world, by the way.
	They just built this thing new.
	You can't find anything in there.
	You don't know where.
	Which terminal is this?
	Which terminal?
	The international terminal at NSFO was built recently.
	They closed the original one, which was fine and dandy.
	The original one worked just great.
	What's wrong?
	I fly out of that all the time.
	There's nothing wrong with that terminal.
	It's fantastic.
	No, it's a piece of crap, and I'll tell you why.
	If you're walking down toward the end where you get to the A gates, which you're talking about for the Virgin America stuff, look into those areas where all the ticketing is and tell me if you could even guess where your Air China flight is checking in.
	There's no signage.
	There's no indication anyplace.
	When you're checking in?
	I mean, you have to literally wander around like you're in Vietnam, by the way.
	This is the last airport I ran into that you had to do this in Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City.
	You had to literally go from counter to counter looking up at the little monitors up there to see what airline was checking in where because there was no signage anywhere.
	And that's where this crappy terminal is.
	Yeah, if you're flying in and out on, you know, you know where your thing is.
	It's Just go in there casually and find out where the Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt is checking in just by wandering around.
	You can't find it.
	Okay, I don't have that problem.
	Because you're not taking a variety of flights.
	The sign on the outside of the terminal where you're dropped off says this is where the check-in is for these airlines and that's it.
	Yeah, but you go in there, it's not the case.
	It's not like the ticket.
	The ticketing at the international airport or the international terminal, terminal whatever the hell it is, where you get out of the car and you go right to the ticketing, that's not what it is at that part of the airport.
	You have to go around and up to the escalators and over to a spot where it's just a random thing.
	It's unbelievable.
	The thing is, I have to post some movies.
	It's the worst place I've ever been.
	Well, I have a very different experience.
	And it's huge.
	I'll walk you through with it.
	Walk with me through that terminal next time you're in town.
	I also invite you to come and enjoy Gatwick Airport, okay?
	We'll see what you think is really bad, my friend.
	It's worse than Gatwick.
	Gatwick does have the new Dyson hand dryers.
	Have you come across these yet?
	You know Dyson, the guy who remade the vacuum cleaner?
	Yeah.
	And he has these, you know, the traditional blow dryer where you hit the button and you rub your, you lightly, but rapidly rub your hands underneath the scalding hot air until hands are dry.
	So he's got this thing, you stick both your hands into this like slot.
	It's like a kind of a wide, but it's like a male slot.
	And within three seconds, your hands are dry.
	It's an amazing, it's like a suction blowing experience and your hands are dry.
	Three seconds.
	Huh.
	It's the kind of thing you want at home.
	Do you stick your hand?
	Do you have to push a button?
	You can't.
	No, no.
	You have to push a button and shoot your hands in?
	No, it has a photoelectric sensor or whatever.
	Yeah, because those other things are unsanitary.
	They're nasty.
	You know, you've got to press the button that everyone's hand's been on the button.
	Right, and their hands have been in, you know, whatever.
	Covered with your feces and urine.
	And so they bang the thing.
	I gotta tell you, I am not a fan of men's bathrooms at airports, dude.
	That's pretty nasty.
	Well, apparently nothing like...
	I've never been into these bathrooms.
	I was warned years ago, don't go into the bathrooms at a European train station.
	Oh!
	Oh, no.
	Oh, horrible.
	It's like, no, no, don't go into those bathrooms ever.
	Yeah, I mean, the best thing that could happen to you is you find George Michael there, but...
	Well...
	Poor guy.
	You hear about that, that he got busted again in a bathroom?
	This guy's got a problem.
	Well, Patricia and I were talking about that.
	Unfortunately, it's not just marijuana.
	They say that he also had crack, which is a pretty bad sign.
	So he was smoking crack in a bathroom looking for some guy?
	No, I don't know if he was smoking anything, or at least any drugs, in the bathroom.
	But this is a big part of a particular form of gay lifestyle, is this bathroom cruising.
	It's pretty big.
	Soon to be an Olympic sport, I'm told.
	So he got caught again.
	Jeez.
	Oh man, I wonder.
	People forget this, but I don't even remember the name of the song.
	He did the song that had a video of Tony Blair being George Bush's lap dog.
	Do you remember that music video?
	No, I don't.
	I think it was right after, maybe it was 2003, right after we invaded Iraq.
	And he made this real big political statement, and everybody slanted.
	I mean, I don't think his career actually...
	I mean, he's done his tours and everything, but he's been pretty much persona non grata in a lot of mainstream because of that.
	And, of course, everyone was laughing at him at the time, and he turns out to be absolutely right.
	And I think that pushed him over the edge, or something happened from that moment on.
	But people forget that he was getting busted left and right in bathrooms way before that.
	No, that happened before that.
	I mean, that happened, I think, in 99, maybe.
	But that might have been a setup.
	I don't know.
	Look, I don't know.
	I'm sorry.
	I stopped following George Michael's career a long time ago.
	Yeah, well, I didn't even know he was gay until he was busted that first time.
	Are you kidding me?
	No.
	No, you're kidding me.
	I wasn't a fan of the band.
	No, he's not a band.
	George Michael's not a band.
	He's just a guy.
	Wasn't he the lead singer for Queen for a long time?
	This is probably what I sound like to you when I'm talking about people, the economy collapsing and people dying.
	You say, wasn't George Michael in Queen?
	Yeah, okay.
	Like you said, I don't know.
	I mean, I don't follow the guy's career.
	That's funny.
	That style of music is nothing I like.
	Wham.
	Wham was the name of the band.
	Oh, it was Wham.
	Wham.
	Yeah, Freddie Mercury was Queen and he's dead.
	He's gay?
	Yes, and he's dead.
	Oh, right.
	I knew that.
	Yeah.
	I think I knew all this.
	I just don't really care.
	Well, useless 80s and 90s trivia is what I'm all about, John, because that's me.
	Yeah, well, you were in that business, kind of.
	Yeah, no, more than kind of.
	That's funny, though.
	I've got to remember that.
	George Michael.
	I never liked that band, George Michael.
	Wasn't he the lead singer of Queen?
	Well, you have to get your shot in once in a while.
	Between the flying saucers.
	I haven't said anything about the flying saucers.
	I'm just waiting quietly for the 14th of October.
	Yeah, you'll be waiting on the 15th and on the 16th.
	Maybe, maybe not.
	I don't know.
	We did mention this, I think, but I looked up that whole thing, which was commonly mentioned here and there.
	But everything that What comes out by all these crackpots and dutters is the fact that this saucer or whatever is supposed to arrive is going to be in the southern hemisphere.
	Well, the name Alabama, the state Alabama, the southern...
	I mean, there's a whole bunch of different variations to this, so I don't know what that means.
	I would presume that if this is going to mean anything, it's got to show up and it's got to be clearly visible and it's got to mean something no matter where it pops up.
	I would think.
	But of course, if it pops up in China, it's going to be no good.
	That won't be enough proof.
	That'll be no good.
	Or Siberia.
	That wouldn't work out either.
	It has to pop up in America.
	Otherwise, it just won't suffice.
	Well, you know, why would the aliens want to prefer America?
	They've had a warm welcome in Russia, apparently.
	Yeah, well...
	You can read Russian newspapers and there'll be mentions of, you know, especially the Greys, casually walking around town.
	Yeah, but the Greys aren't the good guys.
	The Greys are not, they're kind of opportunistic aliens.
	Well, that makes sense then, the Russians and all.
	Yeah.
	No, these are the Pleiadians.
	Yeah, okay.
	So what else is going on?
	That's it, man.
	We've been through just about everything.
	That's all that I'm really interested in at the moment.
	You're just preoccupied with the bottom here.
	Well, not with the bottom.
	I just don't take it for granted.
	This is historic stuff, and I want to make sure that Grandpa Adam can say, well, I remember when it all came down.
	And maybe we should watch this stuff so that we learn from it.
	So we've got to learn something from it.
	What am I looking to say here?
	I'm sorry to hear that you actually predict such a bad economic downturn.
	Yeah, but that's not tomorrow.
	I know it's not tomorrow, but, you know, so what are we going to do?
	Sit around and wait until it happens or just let it happen slowly?
	I mean, I'd like to get ready for it and do something.
	Well, you already are getting ready for it.
	You've got your hold up.
	You're reading weird stuff.
	You've got a bar of gold.
	I need a deli.
	You're like the only guy I know that actually now has a whole bar of gold.
	Dude, you'd be amazed.
	I am not the only guy who has that.
	I am not the only guy who has that.
	So what does a bar of gold sell for?
	Take a guess.
	Well, I mean, I could do the calculation.
	I'd just have to bring the calculator up.
	Yeah, go ahead.
	Would you mind?
	And that'll be the last thing we do on this show.
	Well, let's see.
	How many ounces in a pound?
	Or how many ounces in a kilo?
	Here, hold on.
	Let me go to the...
	See, I can't do this because you have American pounds, and then you have British pounds, and then you have European pounds.
	Well, no, you're going to do it by kilos.
	Yeah.
	So we're going to go to dvorak.org slash home.htm and go to the converter, which is a converting tool.
	Oh, this is a secret little site we have here.
	Hold on.
	Go to the converting tool, and we're talking about, this is, what did you say, two kilos?
	Home.htm or HTML? Home.htm.
	Dvorak.org slash home.htm.
	What, are you running on a Windows server?
	And you go down to Reference and Special Sites and click on Converters.
	Wow, this is a great site, John.
	With the converters?
	No, just your Dvorak.
	Oh, the home.
	He has a lot of good links.
	In fact, they're all great.
	Okay.
	So you go to mass and weight conversion, and then you find kilograms, and you have two kilos.
	Then you hit the tab key, and it converts it to all kinds of stuff.
	So we're looking for...
	Twelve kilos.
	Per ounce.
	How many kilos?
	Twelve.
	Two.
	Twelve.
	You bought twelve kilos?
	That's what the bar weighs.
	Oh, the bar weighs 12 kilos.
	Okay.
	All right, good.
	All right, 12 kilos.
	That should be enough data for you to figure it out, right?
	Well, yeah, because now I just go to ounces, which is 423.3 ounces.
	I bring up the calculator and take 423.3, multiply it by, what was the latest price?
	Let's just say 900 bucks.
	Okay, fair enough.
	So that baby cost $380,000?
	It's around that region, yeah.
	That's a nice piece of gold.
	It's not at home.
	Do not come to my home.
	It is not here.
	I wouldn't think.
	It is not here.
	Now, because we're at the bottom, you paid probably, we'll say something like this, and the gold is actually probably only worth...
	But you're there.
	$400.
	No.
	I mean, what is actually worth?
	A couple hundred thousand dollars in that bar of gold.
	Yeah.
	But you'll have the gold.
	And it will be worth, again, $900 someday.
	Yeah.
	And it's cool.
	Well, it's not that cool if you don't have it in the house so people can lift it up.
	Well, only certain friends get to hold my gold.
	I think it'd be cool just to, whoa!
	I was surprised.
	I'd never held a bar of gold.
	And I'm like, wow, man, this is like heavier and bigger than I thought it would be.
	Oh, was it bigger than you thought?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Well, again, what have I been watching?
	Oceans 11, 12, and 13.
	I mean, that's my reference for the world.
	Right, people are tossing bars of gold around.
	Yeah, it's like, here, Brad Pitt, catch this!
	Oh, well.
	Okay, call me crazy if you will.
	Call me kooky.
	Well, you are kooky.
	Ah, it's something to do.
	Crazy like a fox.
	Something to do.
	Are you going to do another Andrew Horowitz call?
	Well, we don't have anything planned.
	Horowitz will call me once in a while, ranting about some crazy thing, and I say, well, let's get this down on tape, and we record it, and then I just post it.
	All right.
	No, it was good.
	It's not produced.
	No, but it was cool.
	I liked it.
	I think it's going to, you know, what's happening, you know, is I think it's going to blow over in a week or so.
	So we'll probably do two more of those and that'll be the end of that.
	And we'll do what we're supposed to do.
	Okay.
	Help people invest.
	Anyway, I'm glad Leo didn't invite me to be on Twitter again this week because I just can't concentrate on technology right now.
	Yeah, well, I'm not going to be working on Twitter.
	I never get invited anymore.
	I don't know why.
	I bitch about it, but they don't pay any attention to me.
	Really?
	Oh, you actually speak up on my behalf?
	That's nice.
	All the time.
	Really?
	I appreciate that.
	Well, anyway, I don't know.
	Maybe I'm too wacky.
	Well, you know, you come and do Cranky Geeks once in a while and would make up for it.
	Good point.
	Okay, well, I'm coming out again soon.
	So we'll set it up.
	Alright.
	Okay, John, good talking to you.
	You're supposed to say, yeah, it was fun.
	Nice talking to you.
	It was a ball.
	Coming to you from Gitmo Nation East in Guilford.
	I'm Adam Curry.
	And I'm up in Washington State, Gitmo Nation Pacific Northwest.
	I'm John C. Dvorak.

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