Transcription
Energy, metals, minerals, fertilizer and food. AI is a bubble. SpaceX is a bubble. Iran will respond by attacking Israel. A ship is a fool to fight a fort. Israel would end the war. And Israel can't survive not destroying Iran. Listen, we're going to see it hit 10,000. So, I think you're going to see something like Bitcoin that will be utilized as an alternative to the dollar.
>> Colonel Douglas Macgregor, decorated combat veteran, author and former advisor to the US Secretary of Defense. It is a true pleasure to host you on Palisade Gold Radio today.
>> Thank you very much.
>> Excellent. Coming Friday, the reported 14-point MOU, memorandum of understanding between Iran and the United States is getting signed, reportedly, in Geneva, Switzerland. Now, Dirk, I'm very curious to hear, what is your assessment of this leaked 14-point MOU? Would this be a strategic defeat for the United States? And or alternatively, are we on the correct path to a durable peace in the Middle East?
>> Well, like Richard Nixon said many years ago, I'm glad you asked that question. Let's start at the beginning. First, I want to say something about the larger strategic picture because yesterday evening, I was invited to go into DC and a friend of mine said, "Will you come in and talk to some of my business partners?" So, I said, "Sure." So, I I went in. There was supposed to be three or four people there. There were 40 people. And I said, "What are you doing?" He said, "Well, these are These are all people that we do business with." And I said, "What are you What Why do you want me here?" He said, "Well, I want you to talk about the strategic position that we should take." And I won't go into detail about their their area of business, but it's an important one. And I said, "Okay, you you ambushed me. I'll give you, you know, the best shot I can for about 15-20 minutes and then answer questions." I said, "Okay." So, I started off by saying, "First and foremost, energy, metals, minerals, fertilizer, and food are the businesses to be in now. Nothing else. That's where you put your money. Energy, metals, minerals, fertilizer, and food." And those are everybody's saying, "Wow, what about AI?" I said, "AI is a bubble." They said, "What about SpaceX?" SpaceX is a bubble. Let me say once again, you want to be in energy, metals, minerals, fertilizer, and food. And uh they said, "Well, what about this uh this new new agreement? Is this going to change everything? And uh is energy going to return to normal?" I said, "Energy disruption always detonates financial markets. The war is not over. Whatever we sign on Friday, the war is not over. The structure of the world is not yet changed. It's changing, but it has not reset. Will it reset? Yes. So, they said, "Well, then what what what What are you saying? We're we're confused, you know, we ha- has has America lost this war?" I said, "Yes. Iran has won the war. The United States has lost the war. Israel has not won the war. It has not yet completely lost the war, but it will." Well, then what do you mean by that? I said, "Well, I'm telling you that whatever we sign on Friday, shortly thereafter, the Israelis will resume the offensive. Iran will respond by attacking Israel. They said, "Oh, no."
>> [laughter]
>> I said, "Oh, yes." They said, "Well, what will Washington do?" I said, "Well, I can tell you what Washington will do. The pressure on President Trump to re-engage in support of Israel will be overwhelming. He will be pressured to re-engage." They said, "Will he re-engage?" I said, "Yes, I think he will. He'll probably say, 'Okay, we're going to go in here. We're going to try and help the Israelis.' Uh but then he's probably going to say, 'We can't stay in this. We cannot stay in this.' And whenever he goes in and whatever he does with our armed forces, once it's been done, he's going to say, 'I've done all I can. I can't do any more.' And then he will begin disengaging." And everyone was in a state of shock. They said, "So, you mean the United States armed forces have lost?" I said, "Yes, absolutely. This was inevitable. There's an old expression, 'A ship is a fool to fight a fort.' Yeah, you could have brought the entire United States Navy along with uh the naval power of all of our allied nations, and we still would have lost. The topography, the geography, all of it was against us. And the Iranians have mastered the real revolution in military affairs. That is, they've linked all the space-based and terrestrial based uh surveillance, intelligence, reconnaissance platforms to these thousands of ballistic missile platforms and cruise missiles and unmanned systems. And we can't possibly destroy them all, and they can reach all of us long before we reach them. And we engaged thinking that we could do all of this without ground forces, and then we decided, "Well, we we may need ground forces." And we discovered something we've all known for a long time. We don't really have an army. We have a gesture, not the real thing. So, everybody was very depressed at this and said, "Well, you know, where do we go from here?" Well, I said short-term you've got to be prepared for the price of oil to go back up again. Uh remember we had this the last couple of days we've had this sort of drop in oil prices. And I said, "That price is now going to go up." Uh because people are going to say, "My God, the Strait of Hormuz is not really open yet. The Strait of Hormuz is still at risk. We all can't get the energy we need." And they're right. They're going to They're going to find that out. So, it's going to go back up again. Will it ever come down? Well, it's going to It's going to take some time because first of all you're going to extract all the oil that you can and you're going to put that oil into your strategic reserves. We will do that. The Japanese will do that. The Chinese will do that. Everybody will do that in the in the advanced world. Uh and in the developing world, especially the global south where there were no uh reserves, they're going to build reserves. So, the demand for oil, the demand for liquid natural natural gas, the demand for all the energy that can be created is going to dramatically outstrip the supply. And as long as there is more demand than supply, the price of those things is going to go up. And somebody said, "Well, what else?" I said, "Well, we we talked about coal. The Indians, the Japanese, the Chinese are all going to run their plants on coal. Uh if you're in coal, you're very smart and you want to deliver as much of it as you possibly can because the world needs it and a lot of that coal will be liquefied. Some of it will be thrown straight into the furnace and burned to power plants, but a lot of it will be liquefied. I said, in addition to that, nuclear power is going to be on the agenda. And the states which have maintained their nuclear power stations are very fortunate. The French have done that. The Germans were very stupid in their fit of green [music] extremism, they destroyed everything.
>> Today's episode of Palisades Gold Radio is proudly brought to you by our parent company, Palisades Gold Corp, Canada's leading junior resource investment vehicle trading on the Toronto Venture Exchange under ticker symbol PALI with equity and warrant positions in over 200 companies, ownership of mineral projects and royalties, and a significant stake in New Found Gold. Palisades offers investors powerful leveraged exposure to precious metals, uranium, copper, and other critical minerals. Palisades shareholders directly benefit from our team's extensive industry knowledge and access to deal flow, opportunities historically reserved for a small group of investors. To learn more, visit us palisades.ca and join us in our mission to level the playing field for investors. Now, back to the show.
>> And uh you know, what what are you going to do? You're you're stuck. You have to go back to whatever you can find in the meantime. But in the meantime, what you have is all you're going to get because it takes time and capital to build refineries. Takes time and capital to drill. Takes time and capital to mine. These things are all going to be at a premium, which brings me back to my opening statement, which I think I'm going to think I'm going to start a song or something. Energy, metals, minerals, fertilizer, and food are the businesses to be in, you know, just repeat that over and over and over and over again. Because people need to get it. They need to understand it. Everything else is is a fugazi as uh you know, was mentioned in that movie movie Wolf of Wall Street. Everything else is fugazi, but energy, metals, minerals, fertilizer, and food, that's where you want to be. Now, the last thing, and this is very important. The world we live in today is changing, and structurally it's going to look very, very different in the future because, especially in the Middle East, the first thing that you're going to see is that all of the arrangements that we and our British and French allies reached in the Middle East after World War I and then subsequently were reaffirmed, only this time largely under American leadership after World War II, are all going to disintegrate. All the states that you see today in the Arabian Peninsula really are largely artificial. Before the First World War, yes, you had various Arab tribes that had areas of concentration and influence, but real modern states, in the sense that we think of it, didn't exist. These states can't protect themselves from determined enemy attack, wherever that comes from. We have now demonstrated conclusively that we cannot protect them. That means that they're going to have to search elsewhere for friends and allies that can help protect them. Now, who are Who are those friends and allies? Well, believe it or not, they're going to have to come to terms with Iran because Iran has demonstrated what it can do. Iran is on the road to becoming a great power. There's another great power in the neighborhood that is sitting on the sidelines. It's called Turkey. And the Turks have the largest military force. They also have substantial scientific and industrial base, everything from nuclear power to uh steel production. They are in a position to engage. And what do What do I mean by engage? As it becomes clear that Iran has won, and as we Americans disengage from the region, which we will do, we will pack up and we will get out. We are not going to go back into the Persian Gulf, pour billions of dollars into new facilities and new bases that we cannot protect. It's not going to happen. So, we're going to pull out. When we pull out, Iran rises as the leading Islamic power, and it becomes clear that Israel is now largely on its own, and it too cannot protect itself any longer. The Turks will engage. What are the Turks going to do? Well, they're going to crush the Kurds. That's a permanent thorn in their sides. They want to get rid of it. Guess who else wants to be done with the Kurds? Iran. So, you will have initially uh an alliance of convenience between the Iranians and the Turks regarding, you know, mutually shared threats. And that one threat that they would like to dispose of quickly is the Kurdish threat. And the Kurdish threat would not exist were it not for us, and more important, if it were not for Israel. Now, what happens to Israel? Well, my experience over there tells me, and I've been over there uh several times since 1999, that there are Israelis who are just as committed and determined to fight for their country as I am for mine or you would be for yours. But, they're in the minority. And the majority of Israelis will say that's it, we're leaving.
>> [clears throat]
>> why would they leave? Because they will not live in an Israeli state that is assimilated into the region. In other words,
>> [clears throat]
>> they will not live under arrangements that they cannot dictate, that they cannot control, and that they cannot dominate. And if they can't dominate and control the region that they live in thanks to us and our influence and military power. They'll go somewhere else. Now, where where will that be? I have no idea. More than a few Israelis tell me, "Well, if it gets that bad and we can't overcome the Turks and Iranians and everybody else, well, we'll go to New York City." Well, that seems to be off the agenda now given the Muslim mayor of New York City. So, where will they go? I I suppose they could go to Miami. They could go to Argentina. Uh there are other places they could go besides that. But, my point is the truth is out there and the truth is telling us that long-term, right now as I see the forces developing across the region and around the world, there's no future for Israel in the Middle East. That doesn't mean they're all going to die. It means exactly what I said that over time it will vanish.
>> [clears throat]
>> now, what about the rest of the world? Well, the rest of the world has watched what has happened to us, Stein, and they've said, "Well, these Americans have turned out to be incapable of coping with this new revolution in military power. Uh they can't protect us. That means if you're in Japan, we can't protect the Japanese. If you're in Korea, we can't protect the Koreans. If uh you want to start a war over Taiwan's independence, you can't protect Taiwan." Uh so, that means we're probably going to be invited to leave most places where we currently garrison. In other words, this American military hegemony, which has become global in the last 80 years, is going to go away. Now, we've already seen the outlines of this departure in Europe. It hasn't gone, you know, full-fledged uh in the sense that uh we're we're currently pulling forces out of Europe, but I think the handwriting's on the wall. We can't protect Europe from the kind of military power that we've seen employed in Iran, and the Russians have plenty of it. The Russians are actually the original creators of this ISR strike capability. You've got to go back to the 1970s. You look at the work of Marshall Ogarkov and his brain trust, uh especially Makhmut Gareev. These men put together everything that you've seen in Iran. Only they envisioned something even more powerful and profound, and that was orbiting around the planet. Which means that we're probably going to see either new treaties or agreements regarding what can happen in space, or if we're very stupid and we refuse to cooperate with these new treaties and new agreements, then we'll see uh enormous weapons platforms appear in space, which can target as as instantly as anything you've seen in Iran and anything that comes within 1,000 mi of anybody's territory. In other words, what I'm trying to say is that we usually treat military power as something separate from everything else. But in in reality, military power, economic prosperity, scientific science, technology, all of these things are inextricably intertwined. We no longer have a monopoly on many of the things that we've enjoyed for the last 80 years. And these things are proliferating. And it's not just Iran. And the point is you cannot do business in the future if you're an American the way you did in the past. Which also suggests that we have to turn back to the economic sector. And that brings me back to where everything started, and I tried to explain to these gentlemen and they're they're actually sort of on the periphery of this, but you know, energy, metals, minerals, fertilizer, and food are the stuff of everything. Everything. You can't operate as a civilization without those. If you can't secure those, if you can't develop those, and expand those, and cultivate those, you're going to go under. So, I think what will ultimately happen long term is it will come home to the United States. We'll come back to the the Western Hemisphere, and we will focus on exactly those things. And once we have regained much of our prosperity, I think we'll we'll begin to look around at the rest of the world. But, for the moment, I think we're going to be very focused at home. And that's a good thing, because we haven't focused there for a long time. And it's interesting that President Trump, who promised to do that, has violated his promise. And he's now put us in a very serious position. I don't know if you followed the accreditation that Fitch provides, but they published uh you know, a a statement about the credit creditworthiness of the United States and its economy, and it was pretty grim. Their outlook is terrible. And I think we're now on a sort of decline financially and economically, but we're going to hit a point where the decline then becomes a sudden drop. And I think we're going to find ourselves into something akin to a depression. Now, how bad that'll get, and how widespread, and how serious, uh you know, you're you've got other people that are better positioned to answer that question than I am. But, these are the these are the big trends. These are the big movements. And I think the Europeans, their governments haven't all figured it out, but I think the Europeans have figured it out. And if I were you as a Dutchman, I would find whoever wants to eliminate your agricultural sector, and hang that person, and get back to uh cultivating the kinds of crops that you have in the past because it's going to be uh gold, pure unadulterated gold.
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>> In incredibly dark future um on the short term that you're describing here, now the pathway of this [snorts] MOU falling through and and return to war seems clear. It it seems to be Israel's presence in in Lebanon. I'm curious to hear what is the pressure behind Trump for signing this 14-point leaked MOU? As perhaps you already mentioned earlier, the administration has been incredibly successful at suppressing oil prices or at least talking them down and keeping them at low levels thus far. So, where is Trump feeling the pressure from right now to sign this MOU that seems like an admittance admittance of defeat?
>> Well, he knows he knows three [clears throat] things. First of all, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is being drawn down very quickly. Uh depending upon whom you want to talk to, whether it's Steve Hanke from Johns Hopkins or uh uh what it Gundlach Gundlacha in the bond markets or um uh you know, Ray Dalio, any of these people will tell you the same thing. We're drawing that down, and we're going to get to the point where we cannot draw it down any further by the fall. Now, that could come earlier. It could come at the beginning of August or end of August. So, that's the first thing. He knows that. All of our refineries right now are operating at peak performance. We have not built a new refinery in over 25 years. So, we can't refine any more than we've already got. People are bringing us their oil to refine. But, pretty soon it's going to be very difficult for us to refine the oil and export it. And so, we may see a situation where the president intervenes and bans any more exports because of the position we're in with the strategic petroleum reserve. Those things have an impact. You disrupt the energy markets, the finance financial markets react. He's done a good job of talking people down from hysteria, and he's used the strategic petroleum reserve, but he cannot conceal the fact that we were defeated militarily. Can't conceal that. He cannot conceal the draw down in the strategic petroleum reserve. Now, there are ways to work around the strategic petroleum reserve. What are those ways? Well, you have these shadow fleets that uh move oil in and out of various places, and you have alternative ways to get it out of the Gulf. You have the pipeline across Saudi Arabia that I've driven up and down, uh that goes from east to west over to uh Yanbu and elsewhere to be tanked up and and moved out. But, all of that is very, very uh fragile. And you can only do so much with the alternatives to oil and gas at this point. You can't completely supplant them or replace them. We're not going to suffer as badly as perhaps other countries, but everybody is in a very similar position in that regard. And we've talked about the fertilizer problem, the absence of sulfuric acid, which means that you can't refine a lot of the minerals that you need to, the absence of nitrogen, you can't develop the fertilizer. All of these things continue to plague us. We're we're seeing record bankruptcies in the agricultural sector. He knows that. And finally, he knows that inflation has continued to climb. Wars breed inflation, which is one of the reasons he never wanted the war to begin with. Remember after the first sort of 12 days, we had this B-2 demonstration of dropping bombs on various things, and President Trump said, "War is over. It's over. We've destroyed everything. It's over. Go home." What happened? Well, Israel wouldn't end the war. Israel insisted on continuing. So, eventually, what's he do? He capitulates and is dragged back in to this very destructive, self-defeating war that Israel has begun. Then we go through this phony pause, phony ceasefire, whatever you want to call it, the on-again, off-again blockade, and now Israel wants to resume the war. Their view is until Iran is reduced to ruins and completely destroyed, there is no victory. And Israel can't survive not destroying Iran. Either Israel survives or Iran survives. But he's come back down and said, "Wait a minute. I didn't sign on for the chaos that you've created. I'm not I can't support unconditionally the mass murder of everyone in the region you don't like. I've covered your mass murder in Gaza. I've covered for your mass murder in Lebanon. I can't cover anymore. Now we'll see what happens. I think President Trump is in a a confrontation with the Israel lobby. It's billionaire contributors inside the United States who put him in a in office. I think their demand is clear and unambiguous. They want him to go back and finish the job. That's what the argument is. You got to go back and finish the job. In other words, bomb everybody that's there into the Stone Age. He doesn't want to do it. It's not a question of uh emotional commitment to the people of Iran. That's all nonsense. He doesn't want to do it because it could destroy the global economy. He knows that now. He understands that. He did not understand it when it began. He He no one ever briefed him on the probability of the Strait of Hormuz being closed, of our probable inability to reopen it, and the terrible consequences for the world economy. I don't think that was ever made clear to him, but he understands that now. And he understands that that cannot continue. So, what he will try to do is insulate the United States from what happens between Israel and Iran. He won't be able to do that completely. He'll be drawn back in in some fashion, but he won't stick with it because he knows he can't. So, that's why I'm suggesting that you know, oil prices are going to go back up. You're going to go back up over $100 for oil. I don't know if it'll go to 140, 150, or even higher. It all depends on how violent this next episode turns out to be. But the point is that structurally inside the United States, nothing has changed. He still is obligated to the people who put him in office. And that's the Jewish lobby, the Israeli lobby, and the billionaires. He can't simply ignore them. And if he does, who knows what could happen? Uh here in the United States, this is a revolutionary change. All you have to do is look at the uh polling data for the last 30, 40, 50 years. And you understand that uh Israel has enjoyed enormous support from us, popular and otherwise. That's almost completely gone now. And it's going to be very difficult to get that back. In fact, I don't think you are going to get it back. And then we have our own problems of all different types and kinds here inside the United States, and everybody wants to focus on those. So, I think structurally the United States is changing, and it's [clears throat] going to be very different in the future from what it's been in the past. I think they finally found uh a war that we could not easily win, and a war whose whose loss cannot be concealed.
>> I would also talk about the SPR, strategic petroleum reserves, for a bit longer. Of course, they are draining significantly faster now that oil is being talked down to around $75, $78 a barrel as we're speaking right now, compared to in the scenario where it would have been at $140, $150 a barrel, as there would at least be a little bit of of demand destruction. Is that a strategic mistake by the Trump administration as a petroleum reserve that's not really a reserve any longer as it's emptied is no longer strategic?
>> Uh yes. I agree with you. Uh but I I think the whole war is a strategic mistake. Uh because it's revealed that we are vulnerable. We are not invincible. We are not the almighty force on the planet Earth, and never were. That's always the case. If you claim that you're the most powerful, that's the first indicator that you probably aren't. Britain went into World War I thinking that it was the most powerful state on the planet. Discovered pretty quickly it wasn't. We came in and rescued them from certain defeat at the hands of Germany and Austria. The The point I'm trying to make is had we not engaged in this war, very little in the world would have changed dramatically from any years. These changes that we're discussing, this movement of wealth and power in many respects from the west to the east, just as this this began in 1492 with the movement of wealth and power from the east to the west. This was going to happen at some point. It was going to happen because of a lot of poor decisions that we made and our European friends have made regarding their economies and hollowing them out. Uh exporting manufacturing and and all this kind of thing. It was going to happen. But all of the bad things that were already in the mix have now been dramatically exaggerated. And the speed with which the changes are now going to occur has been greatly accelerated. In other words, everything is magnified out of all uh proportion to what it would have otherwise been. So, I think we're going to see all these changes, strategic, economic, military, all of these things are now going to sort of sweep across the planet. Can we adjust to it? Of course we can adjust to it. That This is not the end of the world. It's going to be very inconvenient. It's going to change the way we see ourselves and the rest of the world. But it's not the death knell of the United States any more than what's been going on is the death knell of Europe. Things will change again. Europeans and we are going to come out of this uh fog that we've been wandering around in, and we will regain some sense of ourselves and focus on what we do best. And that's ultimately what every country needs. It needs a competitive advantage. And the Europeans and we will find our competitive advantage again. But in the meantime, it's going to be very painful. And I don't think Donald Trump recognized that by engaging in this war on behalf of Israel against Iran, that he would precipitate the kind of destruction and chaos that has ensued. But I think he knows it now. And so even when the Israelis attack and the Iranians respond, he's going to try and limit our involvement in any way that he can because he doesn't want the strait to be closed again. Even though temporarily that may turn out to be the case.
>> And talking about agriculture for a second, you mentioned earlier sulfuric sulfuric acid, sulfur that's currently trading at all-time highs, well above the previously set all-time highs. However, I was very surprised to find that urea, one of the big inputs for agriculture, is actually trading at again at at pre-war levels, even though all the destructions. When we try to get a full sense of the agricultural complex, has a large part of the crisis that could have been been averted?
>> Well, you see this this is something that people don't know at this point. Uh they're hopeful that it has. But we haven't really experienced the first uh set of effects that came with the earlier closure of the gulf. Uh in other words, it takes time for these effects to be felt. Now, I I have a lot of connections to India at this point. And my Indian colleagues tell me that the United States, which has usually been favorably viewed by India, is now very negatively viewed. But India was always very pro-Israeli, at least in part because of their opposition to their Muslim neighbors. But right now, Israel is regarded as practically a demonic influence in the world. They see it as responsible for this entire catastrophe. India was not prepared, so the situation in India is pretty dire when it comes to energy and agriculture and so forth. Uh I'm sure that anybody who has any fertilizer anywhere in the world to sell could make a fortune if they can transport it to India right now. And I think that that's going to be the case in many places. So we haven't seen, you know, the first the first wave. It's sort of like standing on the ocean. And you know what a a tsunami is, and the first thing that happens is that the water moves out, and the tsunami builds up, and then starts to move in. I don't think the first tsunami has struck yet. So that's the best way I can put it. It will It will hit. The question is not will that strike, and will we survive it? Yes, we'll survive it. It's going to strike. It's going to make us all miserable. The question is, do we get another one? In other words, do we continue with this war? Once this initial agreement is signed and everybody celebrates and it breaks down as it inevitably will, because the Israelis don't support it, don't want it, is there another tsunami coming, too? Do Do Does that make sense? That's sort of the way I look at what's happening now. We're We're only beginning to feel the effects. And we're doing everything we can to mitigate those effects, as you would expect. But you can only do so much. And the question is, do we get another? I I don't know. It's too soon to tell. I am hopeful that if President Trump relents and goes back in again in support of Israel against Iran that it will be limited and short. Because of it's limited and short, we might be able to avoid an even worse catastrophe.
>> What would that even worst even worse catastrophe be? Would that be a ground component to it?
>> Oh, yeah. Massive Oh, no. No ground for it. There's no nobody to send. The Israeli forces in disarray. In fact, inside Israel the the situation is is very chaotic. You have the Israeli Defense Force on the ground cooperating with settlers on the West Bank to attack and drive out Christians and Muslims to destroy their villages. Uh you have unchecked violence against people in Gaza as always. You have a lot of violence inside Israel between Israelis who are fighting over what they think should or shouldn't happen. Uh that that is something that escapes everybody's view because we don't get a a true picture through the mainstream media. But I I think I think what we have to do is we you know, we're going to have to deal with the first effects. I think that many governments are working hard right now to prepare for those first effects. And remember, a lot of our strategic petroleum reserve was not used up within the United States. We sent a lot of that to Japan and other countries because remember, when we started this war, we did not consult with any of our friends or allies. So, you know, we've done what we can to try and mitigate this not only at home, but also globally. But right now, if you look at inflation, if you look at the markets, I don't think the Fed is in control anymore. And I don't think you can artificially suppress interest rates in perpetuity. And the bond yields continue to rise. So, I stand by the the prediction that, you know, we're going to be hit by this tsunami. The question is exactly when and how bad. But then the the more important question is is it one tsunami or are we going to go through some more? And that depends on what Washington does and how much influence the the Jewish state really has here in the United States. So, I think it's pretty substantial. So, I think, as I pointed out, we will re-engage. The question is how much and for how long.
>> In this world view that you have, how are you thinking about gold? This economic tsunami that you're outlining that sounds like a recipe for debasement. However, when the world becomes more unstable, there's also a good chance for gold I suppose to gain in relative value, not just nominal.
>> A good chance? Uh but you are the master of understatement. You sure you don't have any English ancestry? The The British are always re- renowned for their understatement. But I remember when people said, "Oh, gold will never reach 4,000. Impossible." And then they said, "Oh, it'll never reach 6,000." Listen, we're going to see it hit 10,000. You know, I My point is gold is going to become the currency once again of the realm. Now, is there Is there an alternative to it? Yes, I think you're going to see something like Bitcoin that will be utilized as an alternative to the dollar uh for transactional reasons uh as a way to create and sustain private credit. But ultimately, gold will be the coin of the realm. There's no question about it. So, at this stage, I would say to anybody that's thinking about investing in it, there is no ceiling for for your purposes. The long-term outlook is all positive and and up. And these sort of temporary corrections and then restarts back up the ladder are going to continue. But, where else do you go? There is there is no better alternative.
>> There is no better alternative. And of course, like you outlined, $10,000 gold certainly in a world of debasement is in scope. However, purchasing power of that gold is also very important. So, how are you thinking about that? Do you think there's a good chance for the purchasing power of gold to actually increase over the next few years?
>> Well, look, I'm I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a prophet. I think you're probably right, but that's why I bring up Bitcoin, you know, as a transactional means of doing business because it's very hard to move tons of gold gold tonnage from point to point. The Chinese, as you know, have set up vaults for that purpose in Riyadh and Hong Kong so that they can literally physically move the gold around from whatever country has purchased whatever they wanted in terms of petroleum or something else. Gold is effectively the reserve currency. That's clear. Uh we still call the dollar the reserve currency and it will at least in the popular imagination remain that for a while simply because there's so many dollars out there. So much is denominated in dollars and so much business still carries on in dollars, but ultimately it's gold will become the reserve currency.
>> This has been incredibly interesting as it always is. I would love for you to talk about your X and your Substack.
>> Well, thank you for you know, reminding me of that. I've got a new piece coming out next week on Substack that I think will be of interest to everybody because I try to make some of these points and I go into somewhat greater detail about how the map of the Middle East and Europe and elsewhere will change. You know, one of the funny one of the funny things uh Stein is if I remember back in the 19 maybe it was the '80s or the '90s talking to some to some European officers and they said, "Well, you know, we're now you know, NATO exists to ensure the peace of Europe." And I said, "Yes, that's right." "And this means there will be no more changes to European borders." And I burst out laughing and they couldn't understand. I was sitting in Vienna. It was at an OC OSCE OC OSCE or whatever, the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE meeting. And I started laughing and I said, "Gentlemen, you are Europeans. How many times have borders changed in Europe over the last 500 years?" And of course they they yeah, they said, "Yeah, it's changed a lot." Borders are going to change again. That's the nature of the beast. The question is how do you manage it? And that it's going to start changing radically in the Middle East and it will also change in Eastern Europe. Uh so, that's some of the these are some of the things I'm going to talk about in the Substack. And uh you you can find me on X. It's very easy. Uh I'm the only McGregor out there at the point at this point. Uh and uh I try to put out bits and pieces of interest and utility to people. Uh what I try to do is shorten some of the pieces that I write and pull out, you know, sound bites that will be of interest to people and lead them to other articles. So, but the Substack is very important and that's turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made to go into it because the Substack audience likes to read. The X audience, not so much.
>> That is certainly true and success has been well deserved. Colonel Douglas McGregor, thank you so much for your time and insights today. I really appreciate it.
>> Thank you, Stein. I appreciate very much.
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