'Nightmare Scenario' Unfolding for Market – 'Something's Got to Give': Dave Collum
Summary
Market Outlook: Dave Colum argues that the current market is in a complacency bubble, with investors overly reliant on the MAG 7 tech giants, which he believes are overvalued and could face a crash as AI investments fail to deliver expected returns.
Commodities Insight: The rise in gold, silver, and other commodities like uranium and copper suggests a potential shift in capital from overvalued tech stocks to hard assets, as these commodities show strong performance.
Economic Concerns: Colum highlights the potential for a financial crisis similar to 2008, with underlying systemic issues and the possibility of subprime loans starting to unravel, which could trigger broader market disruptions.
Investment Strategy: Despite the volatility in the metals market, Colum remains a long-term holder of gold and silver, cautious about selling due to uncertainty about whether the market will correct or continue to rise.
Geopolitical Tensions: The ongoing trade war between the US and China, particularly around rare earth exports, and the geopolitical instability in Ukraine are seen as factors that could influence market dynamics and investor sentiment.
Global Economic Risks: Colum discusses the potential collapse of the fiat currency system, driven by geopolitical tensions and economic mismanagement, although he remains skeptical about predicting such an event.
Political and Social Dynamics: The podcast touches on the decline of democracy in the West, with concerns over political decisions that seem contrary to national interests, potentially driven by deeper systemic or psychological issues among leaders.
Transcript
Hello everybody and welcome into commodity culture where we break down commodities markets, sound money principles and geopolitics all with the goal of making you a better investor in the commodities sector. My name is Jesse Day. On this episode I'm thrilled to welcome Dave Colum to the program. A market commentator, professor of chemistry at Cornell and a man very outspoken against prevailing narratives on a variety of topics. We explore why Dave believes the broad market is currently in a complacency bubble as investors pile into what seems like the obvious choice in the MAG 7. But as AI spend ramps up for these tech giants and the returns don't play out as expected, Dave believes a lesson will be learned through the pain of a crash. Dave also muses on what the rise in gold and silver is telling us about the broader economy, the simmering trade war between the US and China, and who really holds the cards, the neverending war in Ukraine, and who stands to benefit from the bloodshed, and so much more. So, strap yourselves in for my conversation with Dave Colum. Dave Colum, great to have you back on Commodity Culture. I want to kick things off with your current assessment of the broad market. We did see a correction when Trump announced 100% additional tariffs on China and then of course he backtracked. Things have started to recover. Um AI continues to be pushed as a worldchanging technology that rightly deserves premium valuations and the MAG 7 keep grinding higher. Is this just a case of the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent or could we be nearing a top in your view? I can remain irrational longer than the market can remain solvent. Um yeah, I think it's a load of garbage. Um that to call it a correction, I I really think the word correction be should be reserved for when something corrects and correct implies undoing something that was wrong. Right? And so to me, a correction, I wouldn't even begin to call something a correction till at least we were in the sort of the minus 25 or minus30 category percent. Because you you have to you have to do two things. You have to correct the price, which I have 200% over historical average valuation, and you have to correct attitudes. And I don't see where either of those have been corrected in I don't know 30 years. So, is this just a matter of waiting for the black swan event and we can't see what it is yet, but there will come a moment where people will realize. I mean, we're already we're going to talk about gold and silver in just a moment. Um, but the dramatic rise of gold and silver, the mining sector, uranium is ripping, copper doing very well. It seems commodities across the board are starting to take off. Do you think that could trigger a kind of rotation of capital from these overvalued tech stocks and into hard assets? >> Everything's correlated now, so it doesn't seem to be drawing away from it. I I I've I've put out a tweet the other day that asked for what the hell's going on with gold and silver. And I explicitly tried to wave people off of saying,"Well, you know, we're debasing the currency and all, but there's there's there's 10,000 things that are wrong with the system." And they've been around for a very long time. And so those are not the answers I was looking for. I was looking for someone to tell me what the what the sort of the emergent behavior of the last few days, few weeks, whatever you want to call it, backwardation, all that stuff. What was there a trigger for that? Um, I think it's possible it's something like maybe the uh subprime uh loans are starting to blow up. You gotricolor and limited brands and another one I read about guy called me this morning from London who is clearly a prominent guy and I believe highly connected and he said there's a lot more of those blowing up right now under the surface. So, it's conceivable that that it's one of these things where we're going to read about in some number of weeks, months about what it was like in uh 089. Um I knew the markets were in trouble. I knew the system was in trouble in ' 07 thanks to a woman named T was talking about it in a blog. And it was literally one woman in a blog that was that was informing the bears that things were in a state of total chaos under the surface. And the market ABX index had left par and and a handful of people seem to be watching that. And uh and then seemingly later um the uh the two internal hedge funds at Bear Sterns blew up and they were only 600 million a piece. So on the surface that seemed irrelevant, but it was really the the first of many many many explosions. So maybe Tricirricolor and Limited of Rams, those guys are the first of many many many explosions. It's conceivable. Um I have this obsession now over the this bubble being misnamed. Um some people don't call it a bubble, others just call it a normal bubble, some call it an everything bubble. I I think it's a complacency bubble. It's kind of a I'm sure I'm not unique in using it, but it certainly isn't isn't being used by others that I know of. Um, and the complacency bubble is everyone seems to know the markets are completely insane, but they all think that somehow they will be protected. This isn't just I'm standing by the door and I'll get out when I can. you know, this is this this is more the Fed will lower rates and they'll do this and we'll be fine and it'll recover and don't worry about it even though they're insane. Now, every other bubble that I know of, there was a euphoric component, whether it was 29 or or or or you know, the Nikkay in ' 89 or or the dotcom bubble, even the housing bubble in '07, there was this euphoria over everyone, you know, the American dream was finally coming to the common man. Um, this one doesn't have the euphoria in my opinion. It has the mania, right? It has the a lot of capital flowing into stupid stuff, but you know, the AI story looks about as authentic as, you know, Charlie Kirk's assassination. Um, it it it everyone knows there's fundamental problems with the AI story and and I read somewhere that said that that the entire growth in the GDP is just the AI buildout. And if you take away that, you your GDP is not growing. And and I'm going, what does the AI buildout have to do with GDP at this point? How does that create jobs? How does that create? What's that do for 99.999% of us? This is not it's not a brickandmortar kind of thing. It's all done on, you know, roundtrip financing. It's done on vendor financing. It's done on huge amounts of debt. Um, the Mag Seven supposedly have burned down their balance sheet to zero collectively. Now, I I I haven't confirmed that, but that came from Jesse Felder, so I'm going to take it at face value. Um and and so we're putting hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars, I saw an estimate this morning of 10 trillion over the next, I don't know, decade into a buildout of a technology that unlike interstate highways and railroads and you name it, um cell phones, cell phone towers has a life expectancy of a fruitfly. It's it's if if you put a a trillion dollars into into AI, in a couple years you'll be having to put another trillion dollars into AI. So the Mag 7 has gone from huge profit margin overvalued companies, way overvalued companies in my opinion to capital inensive capital intensive like car companies. capital intensive um companies that are going to have to keep pumping capital in over and over and over to just keep up with each other. And so that this just this smells very bad to me and I'm admittedly the the biggest bear on Twitter. So your listeners should pay attention to the fact that I am the most bearish guy on Twitter. >> The sponsor of today's episode is Arc Silver Gold Osmium. Owner Ian Everard is praised even by his competitors as one of the most honest and level-headed bullion dealers in the United States. They have some great prices. You can see some of them displayed right now on screen. Take advantage of these specials today by reaching out to Ian at 3072649441 or by email at ianarchsg.com. Make sure to tell him of course that commodity culture sent you. And now back to the interview. I I want to pull in that thread regarding the gold and silver sector. You posted that uh survey on X. You asked, "Are there actually any coherent theories about why the metals are bonkers besides one, buyers are more aggressive than sellers, or two, the system is technically speaking all effed up?" I mean, I would lean towards number two. You touched on that, the currency debasement, but you mentioned there's so many other problems. Did you get any good answers first of all and and secondly in terms of the metals and the mining sector because the mining sector has been absolutely on a tear as well. Would you be cautiously sitting on the sidelines here or is is the greater greater fear that the metals and the miners will run away and and keep screaming higher? >> So, um first of all, I noticed you you picked up correctly more aggressive buyers than sellers. Um people often say more buyers than sellers, but by definition there's exactly the same number. So so so it means that the buyers want to buy more than the sellers want to sell. And so the the price discovery is occurring. Um if I wasn't a 25-y year veteran of of godling, I call it holding gold and silver um I'd be comfortable getting in here. Although um I would certainly also be uncomfortable selling because I don't know if the chaos in the metals market is foreshadowing a big correction or some sort of blastoff that will that will run away from anyone who's not in or anyone who's trying to get in it. And if all of a sudden gold is at, you know, 6,000, you're not going to want to buy it then. And and so uh I personally am not buying any more gold or silver because I I've got plenty. Um, and my cost basis, as you know, is triple digit, like 270 up to 457 is the one I remember the best. Um, and so when it goes up and down, it's up and down in this very lofty zone that I can live with. Although easy come, easy go is by no means applies to Wall Street. There is no easy come, easy go. It's easy come, horrifyingly go. Um, so with that said, I so I don't know what's going on. The the volatility, not the V per se, but the volatility tells me that something's got to give, but I don't know give in what direction. So, I'm I'm coin tossing on that. Now the gold and silver bug uh well it's not it's a dark fantasy but it is one of them is that the entire you know gold and silver ripping is signaling that the the fiat system that we've been living under is on the verge of collapse. I mean this has been talked about for decades but now it does appear to be perhaps playing out. You know people talk about the monetary endgame, the end of the fiat ponzi scheme experiment. You've heard all of these terms thrown out by people in the gold and silver industry. And of course, the ultimate endgame for many is global hyperinflation, hyperinflation of all fiat currencies. Do you think a such a scenario is even possible given with how much the government and and other um organizations that have an interest in the keeping the game going will try to stop that at all costs? Is it a realistic proposition in your view? And and if so, what could the consequences be? Well, predicting the demise of something is is always a lousy bet because it only happens once and so you'll be wrong every other guess until that one m one time. Uh I the these pressures that people again you asked did I get any good answers? I didn't get any. I got tons of answers that describe things that have been around for a long time and precious little information about what's happening right now. So, uh, it could be that this is a, you know, butterfly flapped its wings and it just happens to be time, right? It just it's it's when the the volcano decides it's time to let go. When the earthquake decides it's time to let go, um, then anything you find to explain it's likely to just be a coincidental, maybe trivial approximate trigger. it was time for it to let go, you know, and so we'll blame Tricolor, we'll blame Limited Brands, we'll blame whatever, but it was just time. Um, it seems unlikely to me. That's a bet I'm not making right now. Um, I should add, um, there is a steady, I think, positive push because of of that that began with the Ukraine war when we weaponized the dollar, we weaponize assets and said, you know, if you piss us off, we'll we'll steal them from you. and and so Putin uh Putin Putin at all sort of triggered the um I think the next run up in gold. I saw a plot to the extent you believe anything on the internet um uh of Poland's gold acquisitions and it they 2022 it just did a hockey stick. So, everyone got the message that piss off the US, you're in trouble. And and what we also know is that you can piss off the US without knowing you're pissing off the US. We're we're we're a bit of a bully now. I mean, there's at least one other country that's a bigger bully, but we won't talk about that. Um, not not on YouTube. Um and and uh so I think there is a sort of a natural bull market in the metals in play because I wouldn't trust us. And and I think this idea that Trump's onshoring businesses is bullish for America is right if you ignore time scale. But I think the time scales, you know, so let's say Apple decides to build a plant in the United States. How long before they put out their first phone? >> It's going to be a while. >> Eight years. >> Yeah. >> Trump's not going to see it. And and by the way, all these tech guys who promise, oh, we'll spend 500 billion in the United States, they know by the time they can they have to admit they lied, Trump will be at at best a lame duck. So sure, why not? I just saw JP Morgan talking about how they're going to dump trillions into the US economy and the the I realized as I read the article it was sort of griff from start to finish if you if you read carefully what each sentence said was really about grabbing money from the US government and it was just it was kind of a nightmare scenario to me. >> Speaking about a potential nightmare scenario, I'd love to get your thoughts on the simmering trade war between China and the US. We have China tightening rare earth exports which are vital to defense manufacturing for the US. Trump coming out and announcing 100% tariffs as I mentioned at the top of the show before backtracking but now the situation seems uncertain and we're not sure what's coming next. Um you know the US has been shipping its manufacturing base to China for a couple of decades now. At this point does China hold all the cards here? Particularly with all the global trade partners they've built. We've all seen the map which shows over the course of years how major trading partners with China has massively increased now all over the world. Is China best served or perhaps the best fighter in this battle to remain standing at the end of the day? What are your thoughts? >> Well, let's deal with the tariff first. Here's an interesting story. Um, we put tariffs on a on a country that had basically nothing but penguins, right? Do you remember that? where there was literally no population to speak of but for some reason was sovereign state and the question is why and the answer is because if you don't then that will become an entry point to the United States which is tariff-free and so all of a sudden it would become like a Cayman Island account type of a setup and you'd have all sorts of things going through that country the penguins would get rich um Trump, a lot of this is talk, right? So, we don't know what's actually going to happen. Trump throws out on a daily basis, right? And and what did he say? He said probably a week and a half ago, he said he thinks Ukraine can beat Russia. >> Yeah. >> I I mean, you can't make a more preposterous statement than that. The question that I found most interesting that what was it a Friday when the markets got sort of a little sketchy which again I will not call a correction because if if if you've corrected some with a what a 2 and a half% loss or 3% loss it wasn't a serious problem. Um the question I found interesting is the question why did all of a sudden the markets take them serious that day? and I I don't have a good answer. And they say, "Well, you know, he said he'd do this." I go, "He says like that all the time." And and it's just it's bluster. Um I'm terrified that we're talking about sending Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, which by the way, let's let's get the Ukraine story straight. There's no one left in Ukraine. Best I can tell. You're near there. I I know that's a hyperbolic way of putting it, but you know what I mean, right? They're recruiting guys who are 60 years old to hit the battlefield. So when there's some drone strike in Russia, which I'm not sure I believe is true, I I I have no idea how to ascertain if we're really hitting Russian, right? And I'm not blaming the Russians for lying about it. I'm blaming us for lying about it. Let's say we're hitting places in Russia. It's not Ukrainians doing it. And so we're already in a kinetic war with Russia, which my generation thought you never do. You never do. And so in this case, you can't blame the boomers in my opinion. This this is really stupidity. There might be a boomer doing it, but the boomers hate this idea. I think um and so then the qu so so so if we send tomahawk missiles to Russia, they're our missiles. We're not giving them to Ukraine. They don't know how to fire them off. The average Patriot missile takes something like Patriot installation takes something like 40 people to run it. We're not training Ukrainians to run these things. We might. The way I like to picture it is we've got all these NATO Americans in these facilities ready to shoot at Russia. And then someone says, "For technical reasons, they got a Ukrainian guy there says, "Okay, now you have to push this red button right there." and the Ukrainian pushes the red button and off the goes. But that's all it is that the guy technically speaking, you have to fire them, not us. So, hit the red button and they will go. That's that's my vision of what's happening there. It could be wrong. I'm a I'm an organic chemist for the record. Remind your audience. I'm an organic chemist. I don't know beyond just what I can figure out from reading and thinking and making up. Well, this appears to be yet another red line of so many that US, NATO, the EU has crossed when it comes to the Russia Ukraine conflict. Putin coming out and saying we will not accept X Y and Z and then they go ahead and do it and there's no direct or major repercussions. Obviously, he's he's walking uh you know, he's in a difficult situation because he can't just start, you know, nuking NATO countries or or directly attacking them. I mean, it could be a possibility at some point. I think that's what they're trying to provoke him into. But from a lot of analysts I've heard, Putin is actually one of the more moderate people in his administration and that we could even see a scenario where if he keeps allowing these things to happen, he'll get thrown out of power on the Russian side and somebody more hardline will come in um and and start actually attacking NATO and and uh and the US, etc. What are your thoughts on all of that? I mean, they've crossed these lines so many times. Is Russia going to be forced to respond in some way at some point? >> My suspicion is that Putin's safe? My I mean, he could get whacked. Someone could decide it, but I don't think it would be a collective whacking. I think I I I think Putin has negotiated a very uncomfortable situation with remarkable restraint and dexterity. So, I I'm I'm not a Putin fan to the extent that I recognize that he's not a a Cub Scout, but um but I think all things considered, he has made very measured responses and and that's why some guy like Victor Orban, who I also like, um has been pretty level-headed about about his public presentations. And I like Maloney. There's I like the wack jobs over there. Um, and and so I don't think Putin's going to fire us. I I think but but if we shoot a Tomahawk missile into Russia to the extent they are potential nuclear warheads, um, he has, I had to say this, the moral right to fire back. He he certainly has history will not write the bad chapter about him but rather the guy who shot the first tomahawk which means we should never move a tomahawk within a thousand miles of Ukraine. >> So ultimately do you foresee because the other interesting aspect of all of this is that NATO and the west refuses to really sit down at the negotiating table in a serious manner. It's interesting that Trump had EU leaders come to the White House with him to discuss peace in Ukraine and then he claims he called President Putin or something during this. It all doesn't make any sense because we're at a standstill where Zalinski and the EU will not accept Russia's demands and Russia is very clear on what they want. They want to keep all their captured territories. They want the demilitarization of Ukraine. They want Ukraine to never join NATO and and a and a pledge or agreement that that is going to take place. And on the other side, they're not willing to make those concessions. So, is the only solution, the only end to this on the Russian side, a military resolution to the conflict and a victory on the battlefield? >> Oh, there's so many layers to these onions you bring up. Um, I had a friend who's a foreign military strategist and we're talking about I thought Trump was going to wrap this thing up. This was earlier in the year, so we're talking about it in the context of the election. And he said, Dave, that this war is going to go on for years now. My bias is that Trump would love to wrap it. Putin would like to wrap it. NATO for some reason doesn't want to wrap it. Uh, non US NATO doesn't want to wrap it up. I don't know why. I do not believe it's it's military slash slash uh security. I I I don't think I just my gut feeling is is that NATO's not looking at Russia saying they're going to crush us if we don't fight them A, B, C, D, and E. Um, Trump wants to wrap it. He I think he'd give Putin anything he wanted. Well, probably try to get all sorts of bilateral trade agreements and stuff, which why Putin wouldn't do that is questionable, right? Put I think Putin would love to trade with the United States on all sorts of stuff, right? He benefits from that. Um, I'm guessing that that that non US NATO is in the way and it may be because they want Ukraine's assets. I I've heard people claim that. Um, I don't think Europe's in a position to grab them. I don't think I don't I think if you take the US out of the equation, I think Germany is a mess. Um, and without Germany, what do you have, right? I mean, you got Serbia. Um, you got Croatia. uh you you you don't you don't have a good situation. So the German economy is a disaster. So maybe Germany won't do it because they need they think this is their only hope is to grab up Ukraine or something. I don't know. But um I don't think it's a national security issue NATO's worried about. I think it's it's got to be a resource issue. Just a hunch. That's just a hunch. And I I want to talk more broadly about the EU and just kind of the decline of democracy in the West, so-called democracy. >> Oh my god. >> Now, we we saw recently in Malddova that there was, I believe, one party or certain candidates removed from the ballot for being supposedly subject to Russian interference. I mean, I can't believe they're still using this as an excuse. So, of course, the pro-EU candidate won there. uh you know a while back of course we saw in Romania the the so-called far-right candidate Georgescu get removed uh because of Russian interference once again the pro-EU candidate wins we've seen IFA uh members in Germany mysteriously die a bunch of them in a row now we have no proof there that's certainly bizarre but what we do know is that there was a mayoral election and the AFA member was removed by constitutional courts they were not even allowed to run. They were taken off the ballot, which means that's kind of it for Germany, I think, because if they were able to do that in a mayoral election, surely, I mean, they've already declared them an extremist organization officially, so that that all doesn't look very good. Of course, we have the UK descending into a total totalitarian nightmare. Um, digital ID coming out. Uh, you know, thrown in jail for holding up a flag or saying certain slogans or posting certain things online. German police also raiding people's homes for social media posts. Um, it's getting pretty crazy. Of course, with the US, we have the issue of Apac and Israel's influence on politics, which we're actually going to talk about in a bonus episode after this on Rumble, so we can say whatever we want about that. We've discussed this before, but things have been accelerating. Is humanity cooked? Is there light at the other end of this tunnel? How do you see it? I mean, you can take a fourth turning model and say that this is what happens in a fourth turning and that everyone just loses their right? And that's a very technical term for stops acting rationally because because in the fourth the fourth turning, the model is that bad things happen in every turning. There's four of them spanning 80 years total. But the fourth turning, the last 20, the ugly one, is where the bad things that happen, um, society responds irrationally and and aggressively and destructively and and fatally and and so it's conceivable we're looking at a global fourth turning and therefore it it's an emergent political situation. Emergent implying that it's no longer under control. It's it's like a uh it's like a forest fire that's with high winds. It's it's now on its own. And uh that's a little scary. Um and and I mean I don't understand. Do you have an opinion why Europe all of a sudden opened its borders to all the immigrants? What was it about five years ago? Six years ago, something like that. >> Yeah, I think there's >> lies. So it could be more. >> Yeah, I think there's a number of >> why they do that >> theories and reasons. I think one of the main ones could be to support the pension system to try to get more contributions to the pension system because of the declines in birth. >> That seems so that seems so incredibly not logical to me. >> Yeah, I know. But I guess if you're the political class and you're looking at the pension system as kind of the holy cow that you can never destroy because it forms the basis for the whole agreement between the government and the people, you work all your life and then we take care of you at a certain age. Um, so interestingly, Germany is now talking about raising the retirement age to 70 or 72 or something like that after the German government had actually declared part of the reason for immigration was so they could support the pension system. So that's pretty interesting. Um, so by their own admission, I think that maybe plays a little bit of a role. Other than that, you obviously have the great replacement theory, uh, which is some people consider more radical or fringe, that they're trying to replace nativeborn populations and erase cultural identity so that the population will be easier to control. And then, of course, bringing in a new voter base. if you bring in all these people and you give them free money and hotels and all of these sorts of things and you give them the ability to vote. Of course, that was a big part of the controversy and and one of the theories why the Democrats were allowing so many people through the border in the US that you can then turn these people into voters who will of course continue voting for these people that have given them benefits. That's kind of as far as I understand it, those are kind of the three reasons that um that I've heard. But these so-called globalists, right? Um, that shows us sociopathy or psychopathy that's so beyond I I'm I've been really really trying to understand why leaders of the world are making decisions that seem so contradictory to everything they ought to stand for. So, you know, when Biden let what is it 20 million across the border, he could not have possibly could not have possibly saying what's in the interest of the United States. So, to me, it's treasonous. To me, I I don't know if the law is there, but morally speaking, I'd charge him with treason if he got convicted by the highest standards of the law, if there's a way to do it. I mean, I I just that kind of behavior is just so inexcusable to me. And your Rumble Channel, we're going to get into more of that inexcusability crap. Um, so so the so the immigration story is an ugly one because it it seems to be so antithetical to what and I we know politicians are self-serving, but you think they'd have a basil level support for the system they're part of. And I that's what's missing. And and so um so I don't have good explanation. I I don't Is there some evil force out there? Is there, you know, is this China trying to destroy the West? And is that in China's interest? It's not obvious to me that's in China's interest. Um the one thing we never hear about is China really, right? We hear about China, but it's it's always very obtusely. So um so I don't know. Certainly not Russia. Russia doesn't care about this crap. Russia wants to sell us resources. >> Well, what are your thoughts about the fact that perhaps these people are committing evil for the purpose of committing evil? You know, you you touched on it there, the sociopathy, the psychopathy. The political profession, I believe, tends to attract an inordinate amount of people with at best narcissistic personality disorder, especially once you get to the higher levels. From what I've heard and from some research I've done, it's very difficult to get to that spot without being willing to stab people in the back and be without being willing to be successful at the cost of hurting or burdening others. And a lot of these people, you know, there's a really uh interesting psychologist from Australia, Neil McLaren, I believe his name is. He's got a really cool Substack, but he examines everything from a psychological point of view and says it's the innate need for humanity to dominate others that's in our genes, that's in our DNA. And so when these people get to the very top, particularly many of them afflicted are psychopaths or sociopaths that they then will continue to act with impunity to exert dominance and to prevent themselves from getting dominated and they will do so at any cost even if it means all of humanity gets destroyed. It's like a drug that keeps on giving um this feeling of dominance over others. I think they're because you have to imagine imagine you're you're that type of person. you give some sort of order that results in the death of thousands of people. I think that could be like a drug like I have power over I am God in a way and those those people are beneath me and they deserve that and and I think that mindset is prevalent amongst the political elite which most people can't come to terms with. So, so the sociopath sociopathy as the foundation level if you read or if you read about sociopathy you find that um you find that it's non-statistically located in positions of power. It is not non-statistically located in prisons for example. The the prisoners are not social paths. they are consequences of societal events that that led them to prison rather than to Wall Street, which is should be a should be should then lead them to prison, but it doesn't. Um, and and and so I think what you've just described is is that we all need neurotransmitters, dopamine, serotonin, things that make us feel good. That it is a drug. It is literally a drug. It's the same receptors that that the drugs go for when you take crack or something. You know, the brain is wired to get those neurotransmitters. Once you are in a position of great wealth and power, the question is what do you do to get more neurotransmitters? And it's certainly not making a million dollars or something. It's not it's not you can bang any chick in the world if you want. It's it's it's so so what do you do? Well, you start doing kinky stuff. You start doing pedophilia. you start doing all sorts of things that are needed to get the next fix because because the normal fixes no longer work. And so that's what's led me down a number of very dark pathways trying to understand if if that's it and what's the evidence of it. >> Well, we're going to go down some dark paths on Rumble coming up here. Uh search commodity culture on Rumble to find it. I do not post the links on YouTube because that is technically even against their policy. I have to be very cautious. Um Dave, before we do uh jump over to Rumble, for people who want to follow your work, where is the best place to go? >> There's really only one place and that's um well YouTube. I'm all over YouTube. I I had a computer that I I was locked in a cabin for a month and a half without a computer that had audio or visual. So I I I didn't do any podcasts. People were starting to think I'd been offed or something. Um, and uh, and so you can, if you want to look, you can just search YouTube and find all sorts of crazy I did a Tucker Carlson interview, which was rather entertaining and and that got me into a that got me carpet bombed by um, by some very powerful people. Um, I didn't realize there was an entire industry to attack anyone within reach of Tucker Carlson. There there clearly is. Um, and then of course my Twitter feed, uh, is David B. Column. Um, and my year in review that I write, which I'm not even sure I'm going to get it written this year because my brain is just not letting me do it. Writer I have writer's block and I normally don't suffer from that. Um, but I write I've written one every year since ' 09. And um, and Bob Morardi is binding them all for me and it's something like three or four thousand pages. It's really crazy. And um but it's my pin tweet. Last year's year in review is my pin tweet. And the the experience of going through those those 15 years um was interesting because I got to look back at what I had written and and I was stunned by some of it. I mean I was stunned by by some of the clarity. I'm going I didn't know you were really thinking that that clearly about that. Um the other thing is things have changed. So, so in 2015 things made sense and now they don't. So, um, so I thought I could see the world and make sense of it. In 15, I can't. I no longer can, which is I think the origin of my writer's block is that that I I can't just I can't just collect data and write coherent paragraphs um and write coherent paragraphs um because I I don't believe the facts. So, >> well, I'll put a link below to your ex profile and to that Tuckle Tucker Carlson interview so people can check that out. Now, let's jump over to Rumble and make some people really angry by talking about Israel. Thank you for joining us today. This episode is brought to you by Arc Silver Gold Opium. Take advantage of their great prices. You can see them on screen right now. Reach out to owner Ian Everard today at 3072649441 or by email at ianarchsg.com. and make sure to tell him that Commodity Culture sent you. Of course, pick up your Commodity Culture merch. Link is in the description below. Everything backed by a 100% quality guarantee. Head over to Rumble, search for Commodity Culture, and continue my interview with Dave Colum. Commodity Culture is a series on commodities and natural resources. If you would like to see more, be sure to subscribe and hit the bell notification so you're always up todate with the latest episodes.
'Nightmare Scenario' Unfolding for Market – 'Something's Got to Give': Dave Collum
Summary
Transcript
Hello everybody and welcome into commodity culture where we break down commodities markets, sound money principles and geopolitics all with the goal of making you a better investor in the commodities sector. My name is Jesse Day. On this episode I'm thrilled to welcome Dave Colum to the program. A market commentator, professor of chemistry at Cornell and a man very outspoken against prevailing narratives on a variety of topics. We explore why Dave believes the broad market is currently in a complacency bubble as investors pile into what seems like the obvious choice in the MAG 7. But as AI spend ramps up for these tech giants and the returns don't play out as expected, Dave believes a lesson will be learned through the pain of a crash. Dave also muses on what the rise in gold and silver is telling us about the broader economy, the simmering trade war between the US and China, and who really holds the cards, the neverending war in Ukraine, and who stands to benefit from the bloodshed, and so much more. So, strap yourselves in for my conversation with Dave Colum. Dave Colum, great to have you back on Commodity Culture. I want to kick things off with your current assessment of the broad market. We did see a correction when Trump announced 100% additional tariffs on China and then of course he backtracked. Things have started to recover. Um AI continues to be pushed as a worldchanging technology that rightly deserves premium valuations and the MAG 7 keep grinding higher. Is this just a case of the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent or could we be nearing a top in your view? I can remain irrational longer than the market can remain solvent. Um yeah, I think it's a load of garbage. Um that to call it a correction, I I really think the word correction be should be reserved for when something corrects and correct implies undoing something that was wrong. Right? And so to me, a correction, I wouldn't even begin to call something a correction till at least we were in the sort of the minus 25 or minus30 category percent. Because you you have to you have to do two things. You have to correct the price, which I have 200% over historical average valuation, and you have to correct attitudes. And I don't see where either of those have been corrected in I don't know 30 years. So, is this just a matter of waiting for the black swan event and we can't see what it is yet, but there will come a moment where people will realize. I mean, we're already we're going to talk about gold and silver in just a moment. Um, but the dramatic rise of gold and silver, the mining sector, uranium is ripping, copper doing very well. It seems commodities across the board are starting to take off. Do you think that could trigger a kind of rotation of capital from these overvalued tech stocks and into hard assets? >> Everything's correlated now, so it doesn't seem to be drawing away from it. I I I've I've put out a tweet the other day that asked for what the hell's going on with gold and silver. And I explicitly tried to wave people off of saying,"Well, you know, we're debasing the currency and all, but there's there's there's 10,000 things that are wrong with the system." And they've been around for a very long time. And so those are not the answers I was looking for. I was looking for someone to tell me what the what the sort of the emergent behavior of the last few days, few weeks, whatever you want to call it, backwardation, all that stuff. What was there a trigger for that? Um, I think it's possible it's something like maybe the uh subprime uh loans are starting to blow up. You gotricolor and limited brands and another one I read about guy called me this morning from London who is clearly a prominent guy and I believe highly connected and he said there's a lot more of those blowing up right now under the surface. So, it's conceivable that that it's one of these things where we're going to read about in some number of weeks, months about what it was like in uh 089. Um I knew the markets were in trouble. I knew the system was in trouble in ' 07 thanks to a woman named T was talking about it in a blog. And it was literally one woman in a blog that was that was informing the bears that things were in a state of total chaos under the surface. And the market ABX index had left par and and a handful of people seem to be watching that. And uh and then seemingly later um the uh the two internal hedge funds at Bear Sterns blew up and they were only 600 million a piece. So on the surface that seemed irrelevant, but it was really the the first of many many many explosions. So maybe Tricirricolor and Limited of Rams, those guys are the first of many many many explosions. It's conceivable. Um I have this obsession now over the this bubble being misnamed. Um some people don't call it a bubble, others just call it a normal bubble, some call it an everything bubble. I I think it's a complacency bubble. It's kind of a I'm sure I'm not unique in using it, but it certainly isn't isn't being used by others that I know of. Um, and the complacency bubble is everyone seems to know the markets are completely insane, but they all think that somehow they will be protected. This isn't just I'm standing by the door and I'll get out when I can. you know, this is this this is more the Fed will lower rates and they'll do this and we'll be fine and it'll recover and don't worry about it even though they're insane. Now, every other bubble that I know of, there was a euphoric component, whether it was 29 or or or or you know, the Nikkay in ' 89 or or the dotcom bubble, even the housing bubble in '07, there was this euphoria over everyone, you know, the American dream was finally coming to the common man. Um, this one doesn't have the euphoria in my opinion. It has the mania, right? It has the a lot of capital flowing into stupid stuff, but you know, the AI story looks about as authentic as, you know, Charlie Kirk's assassination. Um, it it it everyone knows there's fundamental problems with the AI story and and I read somewhere that said that that the entire growth in the GDP is just the AI buildout. And if you take away that, you your GDP is not growing. And and I'm going, what does the AI buildout have to do with GDP at this point? How does that create jobs? How does that create? What's that do for 99.999% of us? This is not it's not a brickandmortar kind of thing. It's all done on, you know, roundtrip financing. It's done on vendor financing. It's done on huge amounts of debt. Um, the Mag Seven supposedly have burned down their balance sheet to zero collectively. Now, I I I haven't confirmed that, but that came from Jesse Felder, so I'm going to take it at face value. Um and and so we're putting hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars, I saw an estimate this morning of 10 trillion over the next, I don't know, decade into a buildout of a technology that unlike interstate highways and railroads and you name it, um cell phones, cell phone towers has a life expectancy of a fruitfly. It's it's if if you put a a trillion dollars into into AI, in a couple years you'll be having to put another trillion dollars into AI. So the Mag 7 has gone from huge profit margin overvalued companies, way overvalued companies in my opinion to capital inensive capital intensive like car companies. capital intensive um companies that are going to have to keep pumping capital in over and over and over to just keep up with each other. And so that this just this smells very bad to me and I'm admittedly the the biggest bear on Twitter. So your listeners should pay attention to the fact that I am the most bearish guy on Twitter. >> The sponsor of today's episode is Arc Silver Gold Osmium. Owner Ian Everard is praised even by his competitors as one of the most honest and level-headed bullion dealers in the United States. They have some great prices. You can see some of them displayed right now on screen. Take advantage of these specials today by reaching out to Ian at 3072649441 or by email at ianarchsg.com. Make sure to tell him of course that commodity culture sent you. And now back to the interview. I I want to pull in that thread regarding the gold and silver sector. You posted that uh survey on X. You asked, "Are there actually any coherent theories about why the metals are bonkers besides one, buyers are more aggressive than sellers, or two, the system is technically speaking all effed up?" I mean, I would lean towards number two. You touched on that, the currency debasement, but you mentioned there's so many other problems. Did you get any good answers first of all and and secondly in terms of the metals and the mining sector because the mining sector has been absolutely on a tear as well. Would you be cautiously sitting on the sidelines here or is is the greater greater fear that the metals and the miners will run away and and keep screaming higher? >> So, um first of all, I noticed you you picked up correctly more aggressive buyers than sellers. Um people often say more buyers than sellers, but by definition there's exactly the same number. So so so it means that the buyers want to buy more than the sellers want to sell. And so the the price discovery is occurring. Um if I wasn't a 25-y year veteran of of godling, I call it holding gold and silver um I'd be comfortable getting in here. Although um I would certainly also be uncomfortable selling because I don't know if the chaos in the metals market is foreshadowing a big correction or some sort of blastoff that will that will run away from anyone who's not in or anyone who's trying to get in it. And if all of a sudden gold is at, you know, 6,000, you're not going to want to buy it then. And and so uh I personally am not buying any more gold or silver because I I've got plenty. Um, and my cost basis, as you know, is triple digit, like 270 up to 457 is the one I remember the best. Um, and so when it goes up and down, it's up and down in this very lofty zone that I can live with. Although easy come, easy go is by no means applies to Wall Street. There is no easy come, easy go. It's easy come, horrifyingly go. Um, so with that said, I so I don't know what's going on. The the volatility, not the V per se, but the volatility tells me that something's got to give, but I don't know give in what direction. So, I'm I'm coin tossing on that. Now the gold and silver bug uh well it's not it's a dark fantasy but it is one of them is that the entire you know gold and silver ripping is signaling that the the fiat system that we've been living under is on the verge of collapse. I mean this has been talked about for decades but now it does appear to be perhaps playing out. You know people talk about the monetary endgame, the end of the fiat ponzi scheme experiment. You've heard all of these terms thrown out by people in the gold and silver industry. And of course, the ultimate endgame for many is global hyperinflation, hyperinflation of all fiat currencies. Do you think a such a scenario is even possible given with how much the government and and other um organizations that have an interest in the keeping the game going will try to stop that at all costs? Is it a realistic proposition in your view? And and if so, what could the consequences be? Well, predicting the demise of something is is always a lousy bet because it only happens once and so you'll be wrong every other guess until that one m one time. Uh I the these pressures that people again you asked did I get any good answers? I didn't get any. I got tons of answers that describe things that have been around for a long time and precious little information about what's happening right now. So, uh, it could be that this is a, you know, butterfly flapped its wings and it just happens to be time, right? It just it's it's when the the volcano decides it's time to let go. When the earthquake decides it's time to let go, um, then anything you find to explain it's likely to just be a coincidental, maybe trivial approximate trigger. it was time for it to let go, you know, and so we'll blame Tricolor, we'll blame Limited Brands, we'll blame whatever, but it was just time. Um, it seems unlikely to me. That's a bet I'm not making right now. Um, I should add, um, there is a steady, I think, positive push because of of that that began with the Ukraine war when we weaponized the dollar, we weaponize assets and said, you know, if you piss us off, we'll we'll steal them from you. and and so Putin uh Putin Putin at all sort of triggered the um I think the next run up in gold. I saw a plot to the extent you believe anything on the internet um uh of Poland's gold acquisitions and it they 2022 it just did a hockey stick. So, everyone got the message that piss off the US, you're in trouble. And and what we also know is that you can piss off the US without knowing you're pissing off the US. We're we're we're a bit of a bully now. I mean, there's at least one other country that's a bigger bully, but we won't talk about that. Um, not not on YouTube. Um and and uh so I think there is a sort of a natural bull market in the metals in play because I wouldn't trust us. And and I think this idea that Trump's onshoring businesses is bullish for America is right if you ignore time scale. But I think the time scales, you know, so let's say Apple decides to build a plant in the United States. How long before they put out their first phone? >> It's going to be a while. >> Eight years. >> Yeah. >> Trump's not going to see it. And and by the way, all these tech guys who promise, oh, we'll spend 500 billion in the United States, they know by the time they can they have to admit they lied, Trump will be at at best a lame duck. So sure, why not? I just saw JP Morgan talking about how they're going to dump trillions into the US economy and the the I realized as I read the article it was sort of griff from start to finish if you if you read carefully what each sentence said was really about grabbing money from the US government and it was just it was kind of a nightmare scenario to me. >> Speaking about a potential nightmare scenario, I'd love to get your thoughts on the simmering trade war between China and the US. We have China tightening rare earth exports which are vital to defense manufacturing for the US. Trump coming out and announcing 100% tariffs as I mentioned at the top of the show before backtracking but now the situation seems uncertain and we're not sure what's coming next. Um you know the US has been shipping its manufacturing base to China for a couple of decades now. At this point does China hold all the cards here? Particularly with all the global trade partners they've built. We've all seen the map which shows over the course of years how major trading partners with China has massively increased now all over the world. Is China best served or perhaps the best fighter in this battle to remain standing at the end of the day? What are your thoughts? >> Well, let's deal with the tariff first. Here's an interesting story. Um, we put tariffs on a on a country that had basically nothing but penguins, right? Do you remember that? where there was literally no population to speak of but for some reason was sovereign state and the question is why and the answer is because if you don't then that will become an entry point to the United States which is tariff-free and so all of a sudden it would become like a Cayman Island account type of a setup and you'd have all sorts of things going through that country the penguins would get rich um Trump, a lot of this is talk, right? So, we don't know what's actually going to happen. Trump throws out on a daily basis, right? And and what did he say? He said probably a week and a half ago, he said he thinks Ukraine can beat Russia. >> Yeah. >> I I mean, you can't make a more preposterous statement than that. The question that I found most interesting that what was it a Friday when the markets got sort of a little sketchy which again I will not call a correction because if if if you've corrected some with a what a 2 and a half% loss or 3% loss it wasn't a serious problem. Um the question I found interesting is the question why did all of a sudden the markets take them serious that day? and I I don't have a good answer. And they say, "Well, you know, he said he'd do this." I go, "He says like that all the time." And and it's just it's bluster. Um I'm terrified that we're talking about sending Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, which by the way, let's let's get the Ukraine story straight. There's no one left in Ukraine. Best I can tell. You're near there. I I know that's a hyperbolic way of putting it, but you know what I mean, right? They're recruiting guys who are 60 years old to hit the battlefield. So when there's some drone strike in Russia, which I'm not sure I believe is true, I I I have no idea how to ascertain if we're really hitting Russian, right? And I'm not blaming the Russians for lying about it. I'm blaming us for lying about it. Let's say we're hitting places in Russia. It's not Ukrainians doing it. And so we're already in a kinetic war with Russia, which my generation thought you never do. You never do. And so in this case, you can't blame the boomers in my opinion. This this is really stupidity. There might be a boomer doing it, but the boomers hate this idea. I think um and so then the qu so so so if we send tomahawk missiles to Russia, they're our missiles. We're not giving them to Ukraine. They don't know how to fire them off. The average Patriot missile takes something like Patriot installation takes something like 40 people to run it. We're not training Ukrainians to run these things. We might. The way I like to picture it is we've got all these NATO Americans in these facilities ready to shoot at Russia. And then someone says, "For technical reasons, they got a Ukrainian guy there says, "Okay, now you have to push this red button right there." and the Ukrainian pushes the red button and off the goes. But that's all it is that the guy technically speaking, you have to fire them, not us. So, hit the red button and they will go. That's that's my vision of what's happening there. It could be wrong. I'm a I'm an organic chemist for the record. Remind your audience. I'm an organic chemist. I don't know beyond just what I can figure out from reading and thinking and making up. Well, this appears to be yet another red line of so many that US, NATO, the EU has crossed when it comes to the Russia Ukraine conflict. Putin coming out and saying we will not accept X Y and Z and then they go ahead and do it and there's no direct or major repercussions. Obviously, he's he's walking uh you know, he's in a difficult situation because he can't just start, you know, nuking NATO countries or or directly attacking them. I mean, it could be a possibility at some point. I think that's what they're trying to provoke him into. But from a lot of analysts I've heard, Putin is actually one of the more moderate people in his administration and that we could even see a scenario where if he keeps allowing these things to happen, he'll get thrown out of power on the Russian side and somebody more hardline will come in um and and start actually attacking NATO and and uh and the US, etc. What are your thoughts on all of that? I mean, they've crossed these lines so many times. Is Russia going to be forced to respond in some way at some point? >> My suspicion is that Putin's safe? My I mean, he could get whacked. Someone could decide it, but I don't think it would be a collective whacking. I think I I I think Putin has negotiated a very uncomfortable situation with remarkable restraint and dexterity. So, I I'm I'm not a Putin fan to the extent that I recognize that he's not a a Cub Scout, but um but I think all things considered, he has made very measured responses and and that's why some guy like Victor Orban, who I also like, um has been pretty level-headed about about his public presentations. And I like Maloney. There's I like the wack jobs over there. Um, and and so I don't think Putin's going to fire us. I I think but but if we shoot a Tomahawk missile into Russia to the extent they are potential nuclear warheads, um, he has, I had to say this, the moral right to fire back. He he certainly has history will not write the bad chapter about him but rather the guy who shot the first tomahawk which means we should never move a tomahawk within a thousand miles of Ukraine. >> So ultimately do you foresee because the other interesting aspect of all of this is that NATO and the west refuses to really sit down at the negotiating table in a serious manner. It's interesting that Trump had EU leaders come to the White House with him to discuss peace in Ukraine and then he claims he called President Putin or something during this. It all doesn't make any sense because we're at a standstill where Zalinski and the EU will not accept Russia's demands and Russia is very clear on what they want. They want to keep all their captured territories. They want the demilitarization of Ukraine. They want Ukraine to never join NATO and and a and a pledge or agreement that that is going to take place. And on the other side, they're not willing to make those concessions. So, is the only solution, the only end to this on the Russian side, a military resolution to the conflict and a victory on the battlefield? >> Oh, there's so many layers to these onions you bring up. Um, I had a friend who's a foreign military strategist and we're talking about I thought Trump was going to wrap this thing up. This was earlier in the year, so we're talking about it in the context of the election. And he said, Dave, that this war is going to go on for years now. My bias is that Trump would love to wrap it. Putin would like to wrap it. NATO for some reason doesn't want to wrap it. Uh, non US NATO doesn't want to wrap it up. I don't know why. I do not believe it's it's military slash slash uh security. I I I don't think I just my gut feeling is is that NATO's not looking at Russia saying they're going to crush us if we don't fight them A, B, C, D, and E. Um, Trump wants to wrap it. He I think he'd give Putin anything he wanted. Well, probably try to get all sorts of bilateral trade agreements and stuff, which why Putin wouldn't do that is questionable, right? Put I think Putin would love to trade with the United States on all sorts of stuff, right? He benefits from that. Um, I'm guessing that that that non US NATO is in the way and it may be because they want Ukraine's assets. I I've heard people claim that. Um, I don't think Europe's in a position to grab them. I don't think I don't I think if you take the US out of the equation, I think Germany is a mess. Um, and without Germany, what do you have, right? I mean, you got Serbia. Um, you got Croatia. uh you you you don't you don't have a good situation. So the German economy is a disaster. So maybe Germany won't do it because they need they think this is their only hope is to grab up Ukraine or something. I don't know. But um I don't think it's a national security issue NATO's worried about. I think it's it's got to be a resource issue. Just a hunch. That's just a hunch. And I I want to talk more broadly about the EU and just kind of the decline of democracy in the West, so-called democracy. >> Oh my god. >> Now, we we saw recently in Malddova that there was, I believe, one party or certain candidates removed from the ballot for being supposedly subject to Russian interference. I mean, I can't believe they're still using this as an excuse. So, of course, the pro-EU candidate won there. uh you know a while back of course we saw in Romania the the so-called far-right candidate Georgescu get removed uh because of Russian interference once again the pro-EU candidate wins we've seen IFA uh members in Germany mysteriously die a bunch of them in a row now we have no proof there that's certainly bizarre but what we do know is that there was a mayoral election and the AFA member was removed by constitutional courts they were not even allowed to run. They were taken off the ballot, which means that's kind of it for Germany, I think, because if they were able to do that in a mayoral election, surely, I mean, they've already declared them an extremist organization officially, so that that all doesn't look very good. Of course, we have the UK descending into a total totalitarian nightmare. Um, digital ID coming out. Uh, you know, thrown in jail for holding up a flag or saying certain slogans or posting certain things online. German police also raiding people's homes for social media posts. Um, it's getting pretty crazy. Of course, with the US, we have the issue of Apac and Israel's influence on politics, which we're actually going to talk about in a bonus episode after this on Rumble, so we can say whatever we want about that. We've discussed this before, but things have been accelerating. Is humanity cooked? Is there light at the other end of this tunnel? How do you see it? I mean, you can take a fourth turning model and say that this is what happens in a fourth turning and that everyone just loses their right? And that's a very technical term for stops acting rationally because because in the fourth the fourth turning, the model is that bad things happen in every turning. There's four of them spanning 80 years total. But the fourth turning, the last 20, the ugly one, is where the bad things that happen, um, society responds irrationally and and aggressively and destructively and and fatally and and so it's conceivable we're looking at a global fourth turning and therefore it it's an emergent political situation. Emergent implying that it's no longer under control. It's it's like a uh it's like a forest fire that's with high winds. It's it's now on its own. And uh that's a little scary. Um and and I mean I don't understand. Do you have an opinion why Europe all of a sudden opened its borders to all the immigrants? What was it about five years ago? Six years ago, something like that. >> Yeah, I think there's >> lies. So it could be more. >> Yeah, I think there's a number of >> why they do that >> theories and reasons. I think one of the main ones could be to support the pension system to try to get more contributions to the pension system because of the declines in birth. >> That seems so that seems so incredibly not logical to me. >> Yeah, I know. But I guess if you're the political class and you're looking at the pension system as kind of the holy cow that you can never destroy because it forms the basis for the whole agreement between the government and the people, you work all your life and then we take care of you at a certain age. Um, so interestingly, Germany is now talking about raising the retirement age to 70 or 72 or something like that after the German government had actually declared part of the reason for immigration was so they could support the pension system. So that's pretty interesting. Um, so by their own admission, I think that maybe plays a little bit of a role. Other than that, you obviously have the great replacement theory, uh, which is some people consider more radical or fringe, that they're trying to replace nativeborn populations and erase cultural identity so that the population will be easier to control. And then, of course, bringing in a new voter base. if you bring in all these people and you give them free money and hotels and all of these sorts of things and you give them the ability to vote. Of course, that was a big part of the controversy and and one of the theories why the Democrats were allowing so many people through the border in the US that you can then turn these people into voters who will of course continue voting for these people that have given them benefits. That's kind of as far as I understand it, those are kind of the three reasons that um that I've heard. But these so-called globalists, right? Um, that shows us sociopathy or psychopathy that's so beyond I I'm I've been really really trying to understand why leaders of the world are making decisions that seem so contradictory to everything they ought to stand for. So, you know, when Biden let what is it 20 million across the border, he could not have possibly could not have possibly saying what's in the interest of the United States. So, to me, it's treasonous. To me, I I don't know if the law is there, but morally speaking, I'd charge him with treason if he got convicted by the highest standards of the law, if there's a way to do it. I mean, I I just that kind of behavior is just so inexcusable to me. And your Rumble Channel, we're going to get into more of that inexcusability crap. Um, so so the so the immigration story is an ugly one because it it seems to be so antithetical to what and I we know politicians are self-serving, but you think they'd have a basil level support for the system they're part of. And I that's what's missing. And and so um so I don't have good explanation. I I don't Is there some evil force out there? Is there, you know, is this China trying to destroy the West? And is that in China's interest? It's not obvious to me that's in China's interest. Um the one thing we never hear about is China really, right? We hear about China, but it's it's always very obtusely. So um so I don't know. Certainly not Russia. Russia doesn't care about this crap. Russia wants to sell us resources. >> Well, what are your thoughts about the fact that perhaps these people are committing evil for the purpose of committing evil? You know, you you touched on it there, the sociopathy, the psychopathy. The political profession, I believe, tends to attract an inordinate amount of people with at best narcissistic personality disorder, especially once you get to the higher levels. From what I've heard and from some research I've done, it's very difficult to get to that spot without being willing to stab people in the back and be without being willing to be successful at the cost of hurting or burdening others. And a lot of these people, you know, there's a really uh interesting psychologist from Australia, Neil McLaren, I believe his name is. He's got a really cool Substack, but he examines everything from a psychological point of view and says it's the innate need for humanity to dominate others that's in our genes, that's in our DNA. And so when these people get to the very top, particularly many of them afflicted are psychopaths or sociopaths that they then will continue to act with impunity to exert dominance and to prevent themselves from getting dominated and they will do so at any cost even if it means all of humanity gets destroyed. It's like a drug that keeps on giving um this feeling of dominance over others. I think they're because you have to imagine imagine you're you're that type of person. you give some sort of order that results in the death of thousands of people. I think that could be like a drug like I have power over I am God in a way and those those people are beneath me and they deserve that and and I think that mindset is prevalent amongst the political elite which most people can't come to terms with. So, so the sociopath sociopathy as the foundation level if you read or if you read about sociopathy you find that um you find that it's non-statistically located in positions of power. It is not non-statistically located in prisons for example. The the prisoners are not social paths. they are consequences of societal events that that led them to prison rather than to Wall Street, which is should be a should be should then lead them to prison, but it doesn't. Um, and and and so I think what you've just described is is that we all need neurotransmitters, dopamine, serotonin, things that make us feel good. That it is a drug. It is literally a drug. It's the same receptors that that the drugs go for when you take crack or something. You know, the brain is wired to get those neurotransmitters. Once you are in a position of great wealth and power, the question is what do you do to get more neurotransmitters? And it's certainly not making a million dollars or something. It's not it's not you can bang any chick in the world if you want. It's it's it's so so what do you do? Well, you start doing kinky stuff. You start doing pedophilia. you start doing all sorts of things that are needed to get the next fix because because the normal fixes no longer work. And so that's what's led me down a number of very dark pathways trying to understand if if that's it and what's the evidence of it. >> Well, we're going to go down some dark paths on Rumble coming up here. Uh search commodity culture on Rumble to find it. I do not post the links on YouTube because that is technically even against their policy. I have to be very cautious. Um Dave, before we do uh jump over to Rumble, for people who want to follow your work, where is the best place to go? >> There's really only one place and that's um well YouTube. I'm all over YouTube. I I had a computer that I I was locked in a cabin for a month and a half without a computer that had audio or visual. So I I I didn't do any podcasts. People were starting to think I'd been offed or something. Um, and uh, and so you can, if you want to look, you can just search YouTube and find all sorts of crazy I did a Tucker Carlson interview, which was rather entertaining and and that got me into a that got me carpet bombed by um, by some very powerful people. Um, I didn't realize there was an entire industry to attack anyone within reach of Tucker Carlson. There there clearly is. Um, and then of course my Twitter feed, uh, is David B. Column. Um, and my year in review that I write, which I'm not even sure I'm going to get it written this year because my brain is just not letting me do it. Writer I have writer's block and I normally don't suffer from that. Um, but I write I've written one every year since ' 09. And um, and Bob Morardi is binding them all for me and it's something like three or four thousand pages. It's really crazy. And um but it's my pin tweet. Last year's year in review is my pin tweet. And the the experience of going through those those 15 years um was interesting because I got to look back at what I had written and and I was stunned by some of it. I mean I was stunned by by some of the clarity. I'm going I didn't know you were really thinking that that clearly about that. Um the other thing is things have changed. So, so in 2015 things made sense and now they don't. So, um, so I thought I could see the world and make sense of it. In 15, I can't. I no longer can, which is I think the origin of my writer's block is that that I I can't just I can't just collect data and write coherent paragraphs um and write coherent paragraphs um because I I don't believe the facts. So, >> well, I'll put a link below to your ex profile and to that Tuckle Tucker Carlson interview so people can check that out. Now, let's jump over to Rumble and make some people really angry by talking about Israel. Thank you for joining us today. This episode is brought to you by Arc Silver Gold Opium. Take advantage of their great prices. You can see them on screen right now. Reach out to owner Ian Everard today at 3072649441 or by email at ianarchsg.com. and make sure to tell him that Commodity Culture sent you. Of course, pick up your Commodity Culture merch. Link is in the description below. Everything backed by a 100% quality guarantee. Head over to Rumble, search for Commodity Culture, and continue my interview with Dave Colum. Commodity Culture is a series on commodities and natural resources. If you would like to see more, be sure to subscribe and hit the bell notification so you're always up todate with the latest episodes.