1409: The Coronavirus, Tax Deadline Changes, The Doom Vortex, Oil Crash & Guest George Gammon Part 2
11 Mar 2020 · 36 min
In this episode of the Creating Wealth Show, host Jason Hartman welcomes guest George Gammon to discuss the cascading economic impacts of the COVID‑19 pandemic. They begin by noting the unprecedented possibility of the IRS postponing the April 15 tax deadline and the broader public‑health measures worldwide. Hartman then shifts to real‑estate opportunities, emphasizing ultra‑low mortgage rates, the flood of refinance applications, and the importance of locking in cheap financing for income‑producing properties. The conversation moves to the "doom vortex": a systemic risk loop involving soaring corporate bond debt (especially BBB‑rated issues), under‑funded pension funds, and the potential for massive downgrades that could double junk‑bond yields. They link this to the oil price collapse, arguing that low oil prices threaten both oil producers and green‑energy firms that rely on cheap credit, while also inflating government debt and future inflation. The hosts critique past fiscal policies, contrasting Reagan’s spending‑driven approach with modern stimulus, and warn that a looming recession could strain tax revenues and pension solvency, especially as baby‑boomers retire. Investment allocation is covered, with Gammon outlining an 80/10/10 portfolio split (80 % income‑producing assets, 10 % gold as insurance, 10 % speculative assets) and discussing precious‑metal exposure. Throughout, the tone is conversational yet urgent, urging listeners to stay informed, prepare for economic turbulence, and consider real‑estate and gold as hedges. The episode concludes with practical health advice (hand‑washing, avoiding handshakes) and a reminder to seek professional advice for legal or tax matters.
Chapters
I have to say that Meet the Masters is what really sold me on your group and just the turnkey world in general.
Welcome to the Creating wealth show with Jason Hartman. You're about to learn a new slant on investing, some exciting techniques and fresh new approaches to the world's most historically proven asset class that will enable you to create more wealth and freedom than you ever thought possible. Jason is a genuine, self made multimillionaire who's actually been there. He's a successful investor, lender, developer and entrepreneur who's owned properties in 11 states, had hundreds of tenants and been involved in thousands of real estate transactions. This program will help you follow in Jason's footsteps on the road to your financial Independence Day. You really can do it. And now here's your host, Jason Hartman with the complete solution for real estate investors.
Thank you for joining us today for part two of the last episode. Welcome to episode 1409. 1409. Thanks for joining me today. Obviously it is an absolutely scary world with what is going on due to the coronavirus epidemic, possible pandemic, the US treasury and I don't know that this has ever happened in the 105 year history of, of your favorite agency, the Internal Revenue Service. The irs, the biggest taxing agency on planet Earth. I know we've got listeners in 189 countries and you may not have to deal with the irs. Lucky you. Lucky you. But any American living anywhere on the planet has to, and I believe it may be the first time ever they are likely to push back the April 15th tax filing deadline.
Wow.
Are there enough indicators that this is serious? Italy has basically shut down their country. Israel is requiring two week quarantines for anybody entering the country to make sure they're not sick. South by Southwest, a giant annual festival in Austin, Texas has been canceled and there is a website to raise money for all of the people who lost their gig. Now this is the part where you're going to see this trickle through the economy. A lot of video producers, audio, visual.
People, et cetera, et cetera.
Now look, we had to postpone our Meet the Masters event. We had to postpone our Venture alliance mastermind trip to Austin, Texas.
Venture alliance was in San Diego, California.
Do I get a bailout? Is someone going to bail me out? Is someone going to set up a donation website to let collect donations for us? Probably not. Not holding my breath for that one. Okay.
That's how it always feels, you know.
Yeah. You know, from the government, from private fundraising, whatever it is. I mean, heck, I've Paid into the system forever. I never collected any unemployment. I don't even have a library card. What's wrong with this?
I tell you, that's the way it is.
It's the way it is. But here's something I wanted to tell you on the health side that I.
Think is very important.
There is so much misinformation about COVID 19 out there. It is absolutely ridiculous. First off, this is not a drill. Do not take it lightly. This could turn into something extremely serious within the U.S. it's already very, very.
Serious in several countries around the world.
But here's something interesting that I just recently learned.
I have been researching this topic ad nauseam since it really took hold in the media.
And this may surprise you. Younger people with stronger immune systems.
And this generally applies to, you know, people under 40.
Okay. You know, 40 is the new 25. Right. Those people may represent a high risk.
Factor for you, for other young people.
For, you know, whoever could be people.
In their own peer group. Here's why.
And this is what's interesting about it. As you know, one of the very dangerous things about the coronavirus is that it's asymptomatic for up to 14 days. Okay? Now think about it. Anybody with a compromised immune system is going to show symptoms.
They're more. Well, they're not necessarily going to, but.
They'Re more likely to show symptoms, and they're more likely to show symptoms more quickly. So you are going to have a scarlet letter, right, that you can see on them. Right. You're going to know they're sick and you're going to know you need to distance yourself. But the people with the healthiest immune systems are the most likely to be asymptomatic and be the carrier. Okay? So be careful. This is now an extra layer of caution that we need to think about.
So very important.
You know, there's many things to know.
We've talked about many of them there.
You know, you can go to the CDC website, the center for Disease Control.
And many other websites to learn more.
But I thought that one was particularly interesting and unusual and something people may not be thinking of.
And that's why I wanted to share it with you. Okay?
We have super low interest rates. And one of the side effects of this is that you can see the rates out there on websites like Bankrate.com for mortgages. However, when you actually go to shop for your mortgage, which is the free money that you can get now as a real estate investor, when you go to shop for that mortgage, you you may not be able to find rates that low. And it's kind of an interesting thing. These lenders are so busy now with the massive flood of refinance applications and purchase applications because everybody wants to take up this opportunity for this cheap or really free pay you to borrow money, which you should too. I mean, you know, this is a fantastic opportunity for real estate investors, but many of the lenders are basically increasing their rates even though they could give you a lower rate. They're stating the rates as higher to turn business away, to deflect business. Can you believe that? Like who would want to do that?
But that's what's happening.
Okay, now this won't happen forever, but processing mortgages is a real bear. You know, it's a complicated thing.
It's very labor intensive obviously.
And the mortgage lenders, many of them are just too darn busy so they can't keep up with the work. But listen, get in line, get your application in, buy your properties, lock in on these incredibly cheap mortgages.
That is the big bargain right now.
And think of it this way. Look, say for example, the coronavirus or just generally the asset bubble in many areas. I don't believe that's in the linear.
Markets we like, but I think certainly we have one in the stock market. Even still, we have one in the.
High end real estate markets for sure. Those high end cyclical markets around the.
World, they've already been suffering for a.
Long time outside of the COVID 19 scare. But think about it this way. Look it, if you get that mortgage today and you keep it for 30 years, you won't make the last payment till 2000. 2050. 2050. The sci fi future that we see in movies like what will 2050 be like? Will we be traveling at warp 8, 8 times the speed of light? You know, will we be. Will we have, you know, colonized Mars significantly by then? Well, we probably won't have broken the light barrier.
That's not what I'm predicting.
Okay, that one, that one's a bit difficult for sure. But you know, we will probably be, I mean there's a very good chance we'll be colonizing Mars. All the stuff that's going to change by then. There will be a huge space tourism industry. By then there will be massive government debt, not just in the US but in almost every government around the world. And what does that debt lead to? Inflation. If we have more bailouts from the.
Coronavirus scare, which we're very likely to have them. I mean it's, it's very likely we're.
Going to see an airline bailout, a cruise line bailout and many other bailouts and lots of money printing. What does that mean? It means inflationary pressure, right? It means inflationary pressure. And so say, for example, the economy goes into a recession and say that that recession is pretty bad and it lasts three years, okay? So we don't start coming out of the recession until 2023. Let's just say that happens. Say that this is a very harsh and significant impact. Well, if you get your cheap mortgage this year, or hopefully many cheap mortgages this year, you're gonna have 27 beautiful years ahead of you. Okay? With that super cheap money, even if we have a rocky road, like that's the worst case scenario. And next week when we discuss the return policy for real estate, I think you're going to be very interested in listening to that episode. It was recorded already with Evan Moffick, who's been on the show many times. And we're going to talk about how you can return your real estate. You know, say you don't like the deal, say the economy changes, say you want to get out.
We're going to talk about that. So that'll be coming up for you.
Next week, and I think you will be very interested. But today we've got part two with my friend George Gammon as we continue to examine the supply demand shock and how the tools that are typically used to stimulate the economy have limited effect in this type of environment. They have some effect for sure, but the effect is somewhat limited because of the supply and demand issue. And let me tell you something else you can be very grateful for, especially if you live in the US Love them or hate them, but President Trump has started the trend almost four years ago of bringing more jobs, especially manufacturing jobs, back to the US and that is great because it mitigates the supply demand shock problem with prior administrations. And mostly, if you want to blame.
The fact that you haven't had a.
Raise or your job got offshored, you can mostly blame Bill Clinton for that. Okay? Because when China got most favored nation trading status, that's what Ross Perot warned us about with nafta. And you can blame Bill Clinton for that one, too. That giant sucking sound, that's what happened. The jobs got sucked out of the United States, okay? And that trend has been reversed by Trump. Love them or hate them, that's good news because it does help mitigate the.
Supply demand shock that George and I are talking about.
Okay? If you have questions, if you want A portfolio makeover. If you need assistance from one of our investment counselors to help mitigate the potential for a very serious shock to the economy, that's what we're here for. Reach out to us. 1-800-hartman. That's 1-800-hartman or Jason hartman.com and specifically, if you have a question or comment on the show, jasonhartman.com ask.
You can go there.
All right, let's get to part two with George Gammon.
Let's move to the next concept here.
Yeah, so to give you kind of a better image of what the corporate bond market looks like, I'm going to go to a graph which is right here. The scary part is you can see how much corporate debt we had in 2008, let's call it 3 trillion. Well, now we've got 7.5 trillion, almost 8 trillion.
But this is not adjusted for inflation. Right. So I'll give it a little bit of a hedge.
Yeah, this is not adjusted for inflation, but we haven't.
It's still high, but it's not quite as high as it sounds. Okay, so a little bit of.
You'Ve got to look at the triple B market. So this is the gray shaded area and then the black, pink and red is the junk market. So you can see how small the junk market is compared to not only investment grade but, but Triple B more specifically. And the reason I keep harping on bbb, because that's the next step down for them is junk. So moving on to the next whiteboard, this is another example of how it looks and the systemic risks in the system. So instead of a circle this time I've got this square. We've got the triple B, 4 trillion, the junket, 1 trillion.
So these we're talking the bonds here.
Okay, yeah, the corporate bonds. Above the 4 trillion, we've got 2.5. Or above the BBB we've got 2.5. Those pension funds come in, they put in the money just like we talked about. And now I'm putting some numbers to it. So if the pension funds are getting a 4% return by buying this triple B debt, they've got to get that 7%. So there's a big delta there. So what do they do is they lever up. So if they buy a bond for $1,000, let's say that company gets downgraded, then that bond goes from $1,000 to $500, the face value of that bond. And if they got 50% leverage, well, their equity is completely wiped out, meaning the pension fund. And to Your earlier point, this is a pension fund that's probably already underfunded by 50%. So this is catastrophic for retirees. For retirees. For pension funds. You got it going just over to the right. I show the same squares, but this is if that 4 trillion got downgraded into junk. So now your junk, just to help.
Follow, okay, so the $4 trillion of now triple B bonds get downgraded to Jun bonds. Then instead of having 1 trillion in the junk bond market, we've now got $5 trillion in the junk bond market.
Okay, that's right. But the majority of the liquidity can't chase that because remember the pension funds, they're excluded.
Yeah.
They can't do junk. And that's your main buyer. So if they're excluded, you're Basically, you've got 4 trillion of supply coming into a market that only has 1 trillion of liquidity. That's why I say that it wouldn't surprise me at all if the interest rates in that junk market just doubled almost immediately. So then you say, okay, George, this sounds a little extreme. How would that 4 trillion go? Not that it would at the same time, but how would the majority of that be labeled as junk? Well, you've got to look at what's going on with the coronavirus. You've got to look at what's going on with oil. We didn't discuss that. But a good slice of that 4 trillion oil corporations. So if oil corporations have to deal with $25 oil, especially in the United States, they're not going to be able to pay their debts. So that's how a lot of that goes down to junk. Also, because you should, we should elaborate.
On the oil thing because that's a huge deal. That's hugely important. Yeah, but go ahead.
So, yeah, so that's why a lot of those oil companies could not only go out of business, but at a best case get downgraded. And then we go back to the Ford, the Heinz, all these non oil companies that are floating right on the cusp. Well, if the stock market goes down because of the coronavirus, that means the asset side of their balance sheet also goes down, but the debt stays the same. That's when Moody's comes in or ratings agency XYZ and says, okay, AT&T, there's no way that you can service your debt or you can't service your debt as easily as you could prior to this recession because your cash flow isn't there, your assets have gone down, your debt's still the same, or it might even be at a higher interest rate.
But George Moody's can just do what.
They did prior to the Great Recession. They can just lie about the ratings.
I know, I know. If anyone noticed. In fact, maybe I should go back. Let me go back to this slide really quick. I know you'll get a kick out of it. It's kind of cheesy humor, but this is kind of the way I do my videos. You can. Well, for the people who can see the video image, you can see I've got this stick figure which I use in a lot of my videos.
This little person. Yeah, he's got your, your family member, Fred or whatever.
Yeah. Well, this guy you can see is cross eyed. He's got kind of a twisted smile. He's actually holding a bottle of WH and his hat is M. And in the video, I look at the camera, I say, what do you think that stands for? Let's pretend it stands for Moody's.
Oh yeah, Moody's, the rating agency.
Yeah.
They're drunk on their whiskey all the time.
That's right. You got it.
You got it.
To your point, it does rely on Moody's, who is drunk half the time. But assuming that that downgrade happens with your oil, your AT&T, your Ford, that's how I'm getting that 4 trillion going from the triple B market into the jun debt market. So you've got the interest rates explode. And how does that affect the corporations? Well, we talked about how it affects the corporations that are moving into the junk status. But let's not forget the junk corporations that are already there. So first and foremost, a company like Tesla. Okay, well, yes, they have had a bump in their share price, but now it's going back down. But sooner or later, a company like Tesla or Uber who incinerates cash is going to have to go back and they're going to have to go and sell more bonds, they're going to have to sell equity in order to generate the cash they need to sustain themselves. Especially if we go into a recession. If they're able to borrow right now at 4% or 5% and their borrowing costs go up to 10%, they're done. They're done. Unless they have some sort of miracle, which could happen, but the probability is that they go out of business as well, which puts more pressure on the stock market.
The funny I got to just mention on Tesla, Tesla is built on a house of financial engineering beyond comprehension. I don't know how they did it. I don't know how they had that recent run in their stock. I just don't get it. Don't get it. And yesterday I discovered a Twitter profile, I think it might be Event Horizon or something, as the handle. And he said, preparing for the criminal trial of Elon Musk. Yeah, I mean, there's so much financial engineering in that company. I just have no idea what's going on. But yeah, and what's interesting about it.
Is you mentioned, I think this was.
Before we started recording. We Talked for about 20 minutes before we started. I'm not sure this got on the show.
Is that with the oil price collapse.
And maybe even a further collapse in oil prices, of course that means there's not going to be any shale oil industry because it's just too expensive and there's going to be a lot less production. So you may come into a future supply demand shock, but not in the foreseeable future.
But you talk about the green energy.
Companies and how they just won't get any funding because their business model only works if oil is expensive. And even then it's questionable.
Yeah. I'd take it a step further and say their business model only works when we have very loose credit markets and we've got really cheap money and we've.
Got the government acting as a venture capitalist or giving handouts, which they should not do. Like Solyndra and Tesla. Solyndra is gone. Tesla's still in business. If we get someone like AOC and her crazy green New Deal, I mean, you've got the government picking winners and losers. The government's in the venture capital business. Right.
Well.
It'S crazy. It makes no sense to me.
Yeah. Who knows what they'll do if they'll do something like that. Again, I'm not sure.
I'm not saying I agree with any of it. I think it's ridiculous.
I know. But if they stay out of the market, then it's those companies, the green energy companies are in a very similar position to Tesla that they don't make a lot of money, if any money at all. Sooner or later they're going to have to go back to the capital markets and if there's no money for them, then they're out of business. So you get this situation where a lot of the oil supply is going offline or potentially will go offline because of shale. You get tight money in the corporate bond market and you've got the credit markets collapsing. So the green energy companies can't be as competitive, so they're not as much of a threat to oil. And it goes back to the old saying where the cure for low prices are low prices, especially in the commodities space. So I'm not here to say whether green energy is good or bad or oil is good or bad. I am here to say that from my vantage point, the five year or ten year outlook for oil, if this plays out, could be very good.
Yeah, very interesting. But it's probably going to get a little cheaper. First, we might actually start giving some stock tips on this show. Even though we love real estate, we love income property. So that's kind of an everything is.
A function of price, right?
Absolutely. No question.
Cash flow, whether it's the mortgage, whether it's a real estate property or a dividend paying stock. And so many people accuse me of being bearish on the stock market, but that's not really true. I was bearish on the price of the stock market. If I can get the stock market at an 80% discount, well then I might not be so bearish.
Even me, who commandment number three, thou shalt maintain control. Which I don't like having middlemen in my investments. I don't like being subject to the graft and corruption of a fund manager, an investment bank, a CEO, a board of directors because they're skimming all the profits off the top. But when the discount's big enough, you really mitigate that problem quite a bit. So I agree. Listen, I'm an opportunistic investor, so.
Yeah, and I want to go back to the right hand portion on my right because I think there's a couple things that most people don't think about. So even if they've heard about the corporate bond market and they understand the tie between that and the stock market, I think they're not taking it another step, which I'd suggest, and that's to understand that these pension funds are going to be in deep, deep trouble. So what are they going to do? Most likely? And these pension funds are talking about state pension funds. Well, they're going to try to raise taxes. So they go in with property taxes, they go in with a vat, a sales, who knows, they're going to try to take every last penny that you have. And they're probably going to have to do that in a time where the United States is going into recession. So that's why I've got it written up on the board here. What that means is what presents another really big problem in the sense that during a recession, tax receipts plummet.
Right?
Tax receipts, Really? I know it sounds crazy to say this, but they don't have a lot of to do with tax rates, believe it or not. Right?
Oh, yeah.
Well, my listeners already agree with that concept. Mostly because you know that the point if you want to collect more taxes and you're the government, you need to expand the economy, you need to grow the pie, you need to increase the size of the pool. And the way you do that is by not intervening too much and not being too greedy, the pie gets bigger, okay? And then you get more revenue. You know, that's what Reagan really proved.
Remember Reagan, looking back on history, he did not have the benefit of the.
Fax machine or the Internet increasing the velocity of money and expanding the size of global markets.
He didn't have the benefit of globalization, really. I mean, most of this stuff that really lent a big powerhouse to the economy was post Reagan or at least at the very end of his term.
I don't know if you agree with that. I'd love to hear what you think of it, by the way, but most people don't recognize the Internet and the fax machine as any big deal. I think it's huge.
Yeah. What most people get wrong about Reagan is they always say that he had a revenue problem. He didn't have a revenue problem. He had a spending problem. And another thing I'd point out about Reagan is that keep in mind the interest rates on government debt during the time of Reagan. I don't know the exact numbers, but I would be willing to assume they were well north of 10% because of what Volcker had to do. And a lot of the debt is short term that the government has to roll over every two years or so. You compare that to an interest rate on the national debt of 23 trillion of maybe 2%. Although, yes, Reagan did have a spending problem. He also had a problem of the amount of interest he was paying on the national debt was much, much greater than it is today. But going back to.
But one more thing about Reagan, Reagan had a business plan for his spending, okay? His business plan was to bankrupt the Soviet Union. And that was achieved. I mean, listen, history can argue with this. People have different opinions, but that was a business plan. There was a finality to that that actually you could argue in the long run saved money because it ended the arms race to a large extent. There's no business plan for the welfare state, okay? Government handouts is not a business plan. It doesn't make people independent. You know, that's been proven over and over. So I don't know, we can argue about this till the cows come home.
I totally agree that the way that we're spending money is counterproductive.
It's not investment grade spending. Okay.
Yeah, exactly. You're not going to get a money multiplier on it. But going back, the key thing there, Reagan dropped rates to call it 25%. But if you look at tax receipts as a percentage of gdp, they were just as high as they were back in the 1950s when all the Krugmans of the world say that we lived in this nirvana because the tax receipts were so high. That is a complete fallacy.
Yeah, well, Paul Krugman doesn't know what he's talking about.
Yeah. The percentage of the receipts as a percentage of GDP were very similar in 1950 to where they were in 1980s. They really don't change too much if you look at a chart. My point is that what really affects tax revenues though as a percentage of GDP is the stock market and recessions. If we go into another recession, and in my opinion, if we do, it'll be worse than 2008 because the debt is so much higher. That means the taxpayer is not going to be able to fund these pensions. So this feedback loop that we've been talking about gets even worse. And to make it and to take it to the next step, you got to look at all these baby boomers who have been retiring and they're taking money out of the stock market. And if we go into this negative interest rate environment, they're going to have to save even more money.
Their retirement standard of living will be nowhere near what they expected.
So there's going to be not even close, but they'll be spending a lot less. And if you look at demographics, I think you just had Harry Dent on the other day, but the US Economy has gotten a lot of the tailwind or the headwind from the baby boomer generation. Whether it's the spending, whether it's their investment habits.
They changed the world as they were moving through the economy. The baby boomers, more than any other demographic cohort, just changed the whole world.
Yeah, right. So now you've got that massive glut of people that's going to be that would normally be reducing their spending habits because they're going into retirement now. They're going to be reducing their spending habits 10x because of the pension funds, negative interest rates, they can't get a return on their money. Then if you look at consumer spending being 70% of the US GDP, that's why I called this segment the doom vortex. That's what I call this feedback loop.
It's a feedback loop. That's a very good way to look at it. No question about it. Okay, so you invest in all kinds of stuff. You like real estate, you like income property, as do I. I think it's the best thing going. I can really only see two strategies for this. I think the cheap income properties that are necessity housing are great. All you have to do is people just got to pay their rent regardless of what values do we invest for yield. So we don't care about values too much. I mean, hey, listen, we're happy as a clam if they appreciate, but we're not expecting that. We're investing for yield. So if people will just pay their rent and we can maintain our expense ratio, we're in good shape.
Yeah. So I think it's really important to point out right now for people who are considering purchasing in this market that's kind of up and down. I think if I was buying right now, and I'd love your feedback on this, I'd be really trying to focus on really good neighborhoods where I'm getting a very quality renter that can most likely survive a downturn in the economy.
Yeah.
And our rents held up surprisingly well.
During the Great Recession. It wasn't perfect by any means. That was the worst economy in seven decades, for God's sake.
But I mean, it was surprisingly good, actually.
They showed a surprising amount of strength.
But you always have to ask yourself, compared to what, like, what else are you going to do?
So the second thing I was going to mention.
And listen, I'm not a precious metals.
Bug, you know, I own some of it in some of my businesses, but, you know, gold is doing pretty well. I mean, it's the fear trade.
Right.
What do you think about the metals? I just want to bring that to the fore again and then maybe some stock tips. Even when things really collapse, you know, if they continues to decline like this.
How much time do you have?
Well, not much.
Okay. Because gold is. I could go into the repo market. Repo fails, the oversubscribed. Because that really ties into gold. If you go back to 2008, first and foremost, I want to say the way I like to do it is I compartmentalize my portfolio into three categories. One, insurance. Two, investments. Three, speculation. So only insurance for me is gold. And that's only 10% at a max of my portfolio. That just is. I want to.
I think that's reasonable.
And is it just gold or do you like any of the other Metals.
You know, one of my companies had quite a bit of palladium. And I mean, when I say quite a bit, you know, I'm talking not that much, really, in the broad scheme of things. Not compared to the real estate and stuff like that. But, you know, that went through the roof. I was so surprised, you know, that. That did so well.
I like a lot of the metals. I like the miners, but I just don't put that. Put them in the same category. To me, they're not insurance. They're a speculation.
Oh, got it.
Okay.
So. So you do the 80, 10 and 10 strategy. And so 10% is insurance, which means gold, and 10% is speculative. Just a bunch of, you know, speculation stuff.
And the way I define that is I'm just betting on the price going up or down. And then the 80% is investment. The way I define that is it has to pay me to own it. And so real estate's a. You got it.
Yeah, yeah. So income, property. And you only like the linear markets unless you're doing a flip in Colombia, where you live. But otherwise, it's linear market investing. Just like my strategy, right?
100%.
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Good stuff. You can find George on YouTube. He's got a great YouTube channel. I've been on it a few times. And, you know, he just does a really good job educating people. Obviously, I think all our listeners and viewers can see that today.
So, George, thank you very much.
Any final comment?
No, I just want to make sure that the Americans that are listening to this, and I know you've got a worldwide audience, but specifically for the Americans, that they're not putting their heads in the sand. And I'm not saying that you should be worried that you should lose sleep, but I'm just saying pay attention to what's going on with the economy, what's going on with oil, what's going on with the repo market, what's going on with the coronavirus, and just be prepared. And what's your downside to doing that?
Yeah, not much downside. Be prepared. You know, I have my holistic survival show. You know, you can be prepared for very little money in terms of preparation.
And wash your hands and stop shaking hands.
The handshake. Maybe one of the silver linings that will come out of this is the handshake needs to just go away. I mean, it feels kind of weird when you meet people and you don't shake their hand. But, you know, maybe we should just bow like the Japanese. You know, it's very polite or you know, the elbow bump or something, I don't know. But the handshake is. You know, they say the mosquito has been the biggest killer of humans in history.
The mosquito. The little humble mosquito.
Right.
Because it spreads disease.
I'd say handshake might be number two. Yeah. All right, George, thanks for joining us.
Yeah, no problem.
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2482: AI Labor Displacement and the K-Shaped Housing Affordability: High-End Housing and the New Economic Divide with Adam Taggart


2480 FBF: Investor Mindset & DuckDuckGo Founder, Super Thinking Mental Models & Traction, How Any Startup Explosive Growth by Gabriel Weinberg


2480 FBF: Investor Mindset & DuckDuckGo Founder, Super Thinking Mental Models & Traction, How Any Startup Explosive Growth by Gabriel Weinberg


2478 FBF: Jim Rickards on The Death of Money, Aftermath, Currency Wars & The New Great Depression


2478 FBF: Jim Rickards on The Death of Money, Aftermath, Currency Wars & The New Great Depression


2477: Builder Profit Margins Hit 26-Year Lows and Solving the American Housing Crisis

