1458: ‘Plandemic’ Investing, Jim Puplava Financial Sense Newshour
7 Dec 2025 · 39 min
Podcast episode (May 11, 2020) of Creating Wealth with host Jason Hartman and guest Jim Puplava. Topics: rental market resilience (Invitation Homes ~80,000 homes; May rent collection ~80–83%), debate over investing now for new investors (recommended higher cash reserves—4% baseline, 6–8% pandemic), macro outlook (short-term deflation followed by potential inflation as demand returns and supply is constrained), oil market crash and storage constraints (Cushing near capacity, supertankers used as storage), unemployment surge (~26 million initial claims referenced), and technological acceleration (telemedicine, takeout, ecommerce) driving creative destruction.
Questions this episode answers
May 11, 2020
About 80,000 homes
26 million people (filing for unemployment claims, five weeks into the crisis)
Normally at least 4% of portfolio value; during the pandemic increase to 6–8% minimum cash reserves
Text the word 'income' to 480-360-4303
Chapters
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 and done it. 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.
Welcome listeners in 189 countries worldwide, the heroes of the real estate investing landscape that is you. I'm here to guide you through this crazy, crazy and some would say treacherous time. But I don't know if it's that treacherous really because, you know, a lot of people have talked about rent strikes and will the tenants be paying their rent. And so far, knock on wood, let me knock on my head here. That's wood. Knock on wood. It's working out pretty well. I talked to my mom yesterday and she said that 100% of her tenants are paying 100% of their rent the last couple of months. So no problems there. I look at my own portfolio, I'm getting paid at least so far as I know. I don't have all the reports in this month from all my managers, but for self managed, 100% of the rent coming in on time, if not a little early. And now let's turn to some of the stuff in the news about rent collection. So housing wire article says that 80% of renters were still able to make a rent payment this month. Now remember, that's inconclusive and I'm sure that number will go up. Not it can't go down because they've already paid. So it will go up because it is still early in the month and there is no month when 100% of rents are ever paid. Okay. If you're looking at a big portfolio with thousands and thousands of properties or if you're surveying, you know, thousands or millions of properties, of course even in the best economic boom time, people do not always pay their rent. It's, it's just, you know, the law of large numbers. You're just not going to collect from everybody. That's the way it is. So this is a Property Nest survey so far, month to date they say that 82.9% of renters made a payment. Looks pretty good. Looks pretty good. Now there's a couple other things I want to quote you here. So Invitation Homes, you've heard me talk about them before. They are the country's biggest single family rental company. They have you ready for this? I've talked about embrace the fragmentation. And the market is still very fragmented because small. Somewhere around 15 million homes are owned by small mom and pop investors. And those are rental properties, okay? Not owner occupied homes. So Invitation Homes, the largest in the institutional space for single family homes, has about 80,000 homes. Okay? Now whatever goal you had for your portfolio.
Makes us all look like small potatoes, doesn't it? Because we've got to do more. 80,000 homes. Wow, that is a lot of homes. And again, remember before the Great Recession, this kind of thing was unheard of. You know, this was not something institutional investors did in any real way. If you wanted to be an institutional investor, you were always buying apartment complexes or some other type of commercial property. But here, a whole bunch of single family homes and you can tell by 80,000, of course it sounds like a lot, but in terms of the overall market, that's a drop in the bucket. It's like nothing. Okay, it's nothing in terms of the overall market when you're looking at 15 million homes owned by small mom and pop investors. But listen to this Wall Street Journal article. Okay? Oh, wait. Well, let me finish the first thing about Invitation Homes, okay? With their 80,000 houses, they say they are experiencing a better than normal on time rent payment situation in May, despite the pandemic leaving millions of Americans unemployed. So still, still getting paid. Okay, this is pretty good. Now granted, this could change in the future, but it's looking pretty good so far. By the way, we would love to hear from you, our dear listeners and our clients. How are your rent collections going this past couple of months? Please go to jasonhartman.com ask and let us know. Tell us what's going on so we can share it with everybody else. We love that you are part of the community and you are sharing, sharing, sharing. You will be rewarded, if not in this lifetime in heaven. Okay? So there you go, I promise. Okay, so Wall Street Journal article. Now the share prices. This is another interesting component. The share prices, the stock prices of the largest US Landlords of rental houses have outpaced the stock market despite worries about the impact of coronavirus. Hmm. It makes you go, hmm, that's pretty interesting, huh? Well, Wall street bets that virus meltdown gives landlords a chance to grow. A chance to grow. Largest home leasing companies have strong occupancy, strong rent collection, and expect demand for suburban homes to rise. Yes, Jason, you were talking about this two months ago, right, Jason, before anybody else was. Yes, you were.
I'm giving myself a hand, okay? You know, sometimes you just deserve to give yourself a hand. And this is one of those times.
Okay? So there's a graph here that's interesting. In the WSJ rental home share price performance versus the stock market. Wow, this is a lot better. It's a lot better than the general stock market. So there you go. Now. Now listen, I'm no fan of investing in pooled money assets. You know me. Commandment number three, thou shalt maintain control. Do not invest in a pool. Pools are for fools. Right? As I've long said, pools are for fools. So be a direct investor. That's the way to go. Now, percentage change in household ownership status since 2007. Another interesting graph here, and it shows that the rental market has exploded. 18.29% is the percentage change in homeownership status in terms of. That's the rent. The increase in renting. Okay, since 2007. So a lot more people are renting. We are becoming a renter society. And as I have long said for many, many years, this whole narrative about how the homeownership rate should be high is bull. It's bs. Okay? Don't believe it. That is a dumb idea. Homeownership is overrated. Homeownership is overrated. And renting can definitely be the best option for people. So do not be hypnotized by this crazy homeownership rate stuff you hear from the politicians. It just. It's just dumb, I tell you. It's just dumb. Don't listen to it. It's not necessarily a good thing. It's kind of counterintuitive sometimes. Okay, what else did I want to tell you? Have you seen the movie, the documentary Plan Demic? It's not pandemic, it's Plan Demic. And it talks about COVID 19. Now, this was of course taken down from YouTube because Google is our sensor. They want to protect us from news they don't like. So it was taken down, but you can find it elsewhere. It's on this site called Videos Utah. Utah Gun Exchange. That sounds like a right wing thing, doesn't it? But hey, regardless of their political philosophy, you've just got to see this. So you get the other side of the story, because YouTube took it down. YouTube took it down. And then Lifehacker.com, which is an interesting website, has some different stuff. By the way, Carmen, thank you for sending that to me. Oh, that reminds me, I want to talk about one more thing. So we have a new listener to the show, and you've heard Carmen on the show many times. But we now have Carmen's mom listening to the show. So I want to say a big welcome to her, but she made me think of something because she questioned Carmen was telling me this, so this is like secondhand information. But, you know, I think Carmen's accurate in what she's telling me. She said, you know, my mom was questioning your comment a while back about how new investors should not be investing right now. And I want to clarify that. I did kind of clarify it before, but let me go a little deeper on that. By the way, our guest today is a returning guest, Jim Paplava. He is host of the financial sense NewsHour, a great show I've been listening to for many years, although not lately, I must admit. But Jim's got some interesting stuff now. You know, he's more of a Wall street guy, commodities guy, you know, pooled money, investments. I'm no fan of that. As you know, Commandment number three, thou shalt maintain control. Because when you relinquish control, you leave yourself susceptible to three major problems and you already know what they are. So if you don't, just listen to the old episodes and you'll hear more. But Carmen's mom was asking about my comment about how, you know, and many of you have asked about this how I said about six weeks ago, maybe I told new investors not to invest. I said, stop, hold it, you know, just don't do it right now, okay? Just wait and see how this thing plays out a little bit longer. So it's fair to ask in the whopping long term period of six weeks, because now we have to operate like we're in dog years, right? For every one human year, it's seven dog years. And that's how it feels during this whole plan. Demic, to quote the name of the documentary, plandemic, because news is changing so quickly. And for a while we were doing seven days a week on the show. There's just too much to report and we've still got a backlog of guests that we've got to get out to you. But I said, look, new investors just don't invest right now. And I want to clarify that comment because it wasn't exactly the right thing to say. What I should have said, had I not misspoken, is I should have said, if you are the type of investor who has just saved up your first 20 or $25,000 to buy one property through our network@JasonHartman.com properties, or maybe you've saved up 40 or $50,000 and you say, and you call us up and you talk to one of our investment counselors and you know, after you dial 1-800-hartman and, or you go to Jason hartman.com and find properties you like and you, you reach out and you say, hey, I'm ready to buy two properties. I just saved up my 40 or $50,000. I don't want you to invest right now because you have to have a bit of a cushion. It doesn't matter so much if you're new to investing or if you're experienced with investments. What matters is how much of a cushion do you have? How much do you have in reserve to see you through uncertain times, to see you through a storm? That is the question. Like Shakespeare said, to be or not to be. That is the question. To invest or not to invest? That is the question. Well, I think you can see from what the big institutional players are doing, it is definitely the time to be investing. And I think you're in good shape. But if you are just squeezing into the game and you don't have adequate reserves, now, we've stated for a long time that you must have at least 4% in reserves, 4% of the portfolio value. I would up that during these pandemic times, okay, where you should have probably 6 to 8% as your minimum cash reserves. Okay, that's probably a good thing. At this particular time, you got to increase your reserve ratios, to use a Fed term, your reserve ratio. It's your personal reserve ratio. Okay? So keep that in mind. But if you're new to investing and look, you've got a cushion, you've got several hundred thousand dollars or millions of dollars, it doesn't matter. If you're a brand new investor, that's fine as long as you've got enough of a cushion. That's my only point. That's my only point. Okay, what else, what else, what else? Gosh, we've got some good stuff. We've got. Coming up on other episodes, we're going to talk about why governments are creating inflation. We're going to talk about Jerome Powell and his. This is really, I mean, this is super interesting. It's like, it's like Jason Hartman circa 2004 okay. Yeah. Well, I guess our Fed chair is finally catching up with yours truly. Because he, in a Bloomberg piece, alluded to how inflation was a great way to pay off debts. Imagine that. Imagine that. Imagine that. It's pretty funny. It's pretty funny how long it takes for the rest of the world to come around to stuff we've been talking about for years and years and years. Oh, boy. It's a strange world. Okay, hey, I've got a listener comment here. Let's read this one. This one comes from Andy Ward. Andy, thank you for the comment through Jason hartman.com ask says Jason. My wife Sarah and I love listening to the Creating wealth podcast, but after listening to your Thursday episode, I have decided you need to rename your podcast to Complaining all the Way to the Bank. That's in quotes, by the way. That would be the new name of the show. Listeners, do you think we should call the show Complaining all the way to the Bank? You know, I am a bit of a complainer, I will admit.
And he goes on to say, but seriously, you should really do a podcast or a ninth episode on Creating wealth called Tangent Alert. One of our favorite parts of your show is when you go off on a tangent. Anyways, keep up the great work and hopefully you will be able to have a live event in Florida soon for us to attend. Well, Andy, I certainly hope you and Sarah can attend attend a live event soon. I really do miss our live events. But hey, we're in the midst of a pandemic, so we're not having any live events, at least not on the new horizon. Also, we got a couple of great reviews on itunes. I really apologize that we don't have time to share all of these on the show, but I'll just quickly share these before we get to our guest today, Jim Paplava. Coming right up here is one from Mentally Strong is their handle. 5 star review, incredible content, exclamation point. I just listened to Jason's interview with James Altucher. Incredible. What an amazing podcast that helps make the world a better place. Well, thank you so much. Mentally Strong, I tell you, that's why I do it. I could have retired a long time ago. I'm long past the point of having to work. You know, my lifestyle is fairly modest and. And I don't need to work. I do this for comments like that, so I appreciate it. And like the next one, this one is from the Food Heals podcast. Okay, so we got a listener from that podcast reviewing our podcast. So thank you for that. Five star review Informative, educational and entertaining. Great new discovery. Jason has great energy and very high end guests who address creating wealth with real estate investments. Now that everything has changed with this pandemic, the show has done a great job of addressing how things are changing rapidly and what we can do to pivot our plans accordingly. Excited for this new discovery. Referring to the podcast. Thank you so much and food eels. I got to check out your podcast. That's great. Appreciate the reviews. And folks, if you if you haven't reviewed the show on whatever podcast platform you're listening, please do. We really appreciate your reviews. We appreciate you sharing the podcast with people you know, with your friends and family. And let's get the word out there. Let's help make the world a better place together. And let's create more real estate heroes that take control of their financial future, that become direct investors and really just have that great sense of control. And by the way, one last thing before we get to our guest. If you text now, I'm going to give you a phone number and we'll put this in the show notes. We have a new review system and we love to hear your feedback in your reviews. And this is different than itunes or podcast platforms like I was just talking about, but you can text the word income. Income. Hey, that's what we're all about here. Income, income, property. So text the word income to this number, 480-360-4303. That's text income to 480-360-4303. Of course, that number will be in the show notes and you can get it there. But if you text the word income, you'll be sent a link where you can leave a review for us. And we really appreciate that, folks. That's what keeps us going. And we're happy to keep the content coming your way and all the great guests. And we just appreciate your reviews and your engagement in any form. So thank you for that. Without further ado, let's get to our guest today, Jim Paplava.
It's my pleasure to welcome back a returning guest, and that is Jim Paplava. He is founder, president and CEO of Financial Sense Wealth Advisors, and he also has his podcast where I came to know him many, many years ago. Financial Sense NewsHour Jim, welcome back. How are you?
Hey, great, Jason. Great to be back with you. Hope you're safe and you're not going crazy staying inside.
You know, I hate to say it because I know some people are having a really tough time with this, but I kind of like it. I've been enjoying this break from travel and I used to live in Scottsdale, where I believe you are. Right. Are you in Scottsdale?
No, that's where I grew up. I grew up in Scottsdale and moved to San Diego.
Ah, got it. And I lived there for a short time too. And from. From LA and Orange county most of my life. But now I'm in Florida and the weather is absolutely stunning. So this is not too bad for me. But I know it's hard on some people, so I don't want to minimize that or take away from that. And, you know, let's hope this all lifts soon and we get back to the new normal. I don't think we're getting back to normal, but we're going to have a new normal. And Jim, I'm going to start off with a big macro question. What's the long term play here?
You know, I think what we're going to go through, Jason, is a major whiff of deflation here. I mean, the supply chain has been disrupted and that's going to take a while to correct. I think in the longer term it'll be better because we'll need to bring some of that manufacturing. I don't care if it's vaccines to drugs back here and very bullish on Mexico because I think that's where a lot of manufacturing is going to be going. But in the short term, when you don't have supply and you have great demand, how are you going to get that? And you're shutting down businesses, you're shutting down demand. So usually when you see something like this happen, which is a shock to the system, the first wave is deflation.
But haven't we already had that? We're in the deflation now. Look at oil prices, for example. Right? Yeah.
But I mean, in the short term, I still think that we're going to be in a deflationary environment. And it's only when things get back to, I guess, if you can call it the new normal, when demand starts to pick up. I mean, you know, I live in California and this is the first time I've been able to go anywhere on the freeways without a traffic jam.
Yeah, it's kind of pleasant in some ways, you know.
Yeah. I mean, you don't have traffic jams. You've got airplanes parked at airports, they're not in the air. And so eventually when we start to return to whatever that normal is going to be like and people start filling their tanks, demand starts to go up and all of A sudden you go from a base where oil prices are 11 and 12 and let's say a year from now they're over 30, that's going to start working its way into the economy. And then also there's going to be goods that are going to be in shortage and you're going to have to pay more for them. And so eventually, and especially if the government keeps injecting money like they're doing, then what's the definition of inflation? It's a lot more money chasing fewer goods and services.
And when you have the demand destruction that we've had, that is deflationary, then you have a supply demand shock after that. Because after the demand's destroyed, the companies go out of business already the supply chain has been massively interrupted. Then when demand comes back, it causes inflation because now you have supply shock. There's no supply.
Right, yeah. Let me give you a good example. Since we've been quarantined, of course all gyms have been shut down because they're petri dishes for infection. Try to go to a health place, try to order a pair of dumbbells, exercise bands, home gym machines. They're sold out.
Yeah. And so the prices have gone up.
Yep. They're raising the prices. Why not? If you can sell everything, you can get out the door. And then you got to remember, you got to make new stuff and then the new stuff is harder to get. So you have a shortage of materials, you have a shortage of labor because a lot of people can't get to the factory. If you bring them back, you have to pay them more. Just take a look at what Amazon and Walmart are doing. All of that's going to be reflected in the cost of goods you're going to be buying. And now we're running into a food situation where you have places like Tyson are shutting down their meatpacking plants and so that's going to drive up the cost of food.
Yeah, it's really something. And I'll tell you, I would pay a lot of money for a haircut right now and to get my dog a bath because everything's closed. And charge me quadruple what you usually charge. I don't care. I pay it for both of those things. So yeah, it is really something. It is. But let's dive into this a little further. I mean, we have put the economy in hibernation mode. It is absolutely astonishing what has happened in maybe the world's first self induced recession, maybe depression, I don't know. You can chime in on that. But what is that going to mean more broadly? Let's just unpack this a little more.
Well, let's put it this way. The longer they keep this in quarantine, as some governors are doing, although that may be challenged by the Justice Department, the longer they keep this going, they're going to turn a recession into a depression. And this reminds me of the early 30s where we took what should have been a recession, turned it into a depression, then turned it into a great depression. The strength of this economy is a lot of small businesses account for most of the job growth. Well, those small businesses, when they did the NFIB survey, most businesses, over 50% of them said we can't last more than two months. And then when they did the stimulus for the payroll protection plan, 4% of the companies, Jason, got 80% of the money. And so that's why they had to do stimulus too, and replenish the stimulus fund or the PPP plan by another close to $350 billion. So you start putting small businesses out of business. I don't care if it's restaurants, small hotels, the local barber shop, local service companies. Then all of a sudden you are creating higher unemployment. I look at figures, who knows what will be this third Thursday, we're doing this interview on a Tuesday, but we have 26 million people unemployed right now filing for unemployment claims. And that's in five weeks. And think about it, Jason, five weeks ago or six weeks ago, we were at three and a half percent unemployment. Now we're going to be in double digit unemployment. So the longer they keep this going, the worse that this can be. Which is why I'm really afraid that they could be making a major policy mistake here.
Yeah, that's quite a big deal. No question about it. Look at supply demand shock. In terms of restaurants, the demand collapsed and then a significant portion of the supply will collapse because these restaurants are just going to go away. Then when they do reopen, as some are starting to, like in Georgia and so forth, the new rules will only allow them to operate at a small percentage of their prior capacity. So, so can you imagine the price of going out to dinner is probably going to skyrocket because the remaining restaurants that will still be there, everything will be spaced so far apart, all these new protocols will be burdensome on the restaurants and so forth, and it just won't work.
No, because you take an average restaurant, let's take Friday and Saturday night, most people go out for dinner, you want to fill that whole restaurant and you want to Turn those tables over two or three times and because that's where you're going to make your money. Well, what are you going to do now on a Friday night when you can only fill your capacity by 25%? It's just economically, how are you going to pay for the chefs in the kitchen, the food supplies, the waiters, the busboys, the people that have to come in and clean when you're only operating at 25% capacity?
Yeah, it's something. I mean, going out to dinner is going to be a big, huge luxury in the near future, I believe, because they're going to have to sell those tables for a lot more money than they've been selling them. Right?
Yeah. And it's like manufacturing, Manufacturing. Any manufacturing plan, I don't care if it's GM or Ford or 3M, they have fixed costs. The fixed cost of the factory, the personnel, the management team, the workers, those are fixed. Then you have the variable cost, which are based on the amount of units that you're going to make. Well, that fixed cost, you need to have enough sales to cover your fixed cost. And then it's the additional sales where your profit margins come from. Well, think of a restaurant or any kind of business where you don't have enough in sales because of capacity to cover your fixed costs. You're going to be losing money.
So what do we do? What does this mean? I mean, I think we all get the problem. What does this mean to the broader market and what other types of businesses are affected? And you know, there's such a knock on effect to all of this in so many ways, right?
Well, there's going to be a number of things and thank goodness for the American economy if it's allowed to operate. I think you're going to see some technological changes that are going to get around this. Let me give you a good example. We've got Amazon, which is the retail behemoth. And Amazon was overtaking companies in terms of market cap like Walmart, Target, Costco, what did all three of those develop? A major online presence. So in order to compete now, Walmart will have delivery. You can deliver, you can pick up stuff at the store. So this is going to create a lot of innovation. I've seen interviews of major restaurateurs who are saying, you know what, we're going to develop a takeout business. It's going to be a major part of our business. Ruth Crisp restaurants now has a takeout business. So businesses are going to adapt to that. Some that won't or don't innovate, will fail and it's going to be creative destruction. We're going to have to adapt.
Jim, that's why I like your show. I say the same things and I haven't been listening to your show lately, I must admit. But Joseph Schumpeter, one of my favorite economists, the creative destruction is happening much more quickly and that's one of the great things that is coming out of this. My veterinarian the other day sent me an email saying now we can see your dog via telemedicine. My doctor sent me the next day, the following day, telemedicine app, download it so you can see your doctor over your iPhone. I mean, I've been asking for this stuff for years. The technology is not new. They could have done it years ago, but they had no impetus, they had no motivation and this has forced them to do it. So that's great.
Yeah, so you're going to see that. In fact, you speak of a pen. I took my dog out and he got bit. I don't know if it was a scorpion, black widow or brown. Look, clues. And we just did it by video, showed the paw, the swelling and the doc says bring them in. That we didn't know if it was a snake bite or an insect bite, but apparently was serious enough to bring them in.
Here's the thing that happens though. These businesses, those efficiencies stay with that business even after the pandemic ends. And now those businesses are much more efficient all of a sudden. And that goes to productivity. Because now that veterinarian and that doctor can make more money because they can see more patients and the consumer or the patient benefits because they have better access to that doctor now too, rather than waiting two weeks for an appointment. You know, the doctor can be working at home and can do telemedicine appointments. The cost of all that real estate and staff that they used to have, a lot of it goes away. And so these are good efficiencies that are developing in the system and I think they eventually create more prosperity. Yes, there is a change over time. Yes, people lose jobs. Yes, there's creative destruction, we all know that. But ultimately it's better. Don't you agree?
Oh, absolutely. I mean we have an office building. Last year this might have been prescient by accident, but we took our cubicle space and turned it all into individual offices. So when we do go back to work, we will. You could be self quarantined by just being in your own office rather than bullpen area where you're more susceptible. And the other thing is we're adding more brokers and they can have their own office and operate remotely. So I don't need any more brick and mortar space. So it's more efficient.
It is more efficient, but commercial landlords hate it. Carl Icahn is shorting commercial real estate, and that is bad news for commercial real estate. And the retail apocalypse is only going to get worse, sadly. It's pretty crazy what's going on out there. So, Jim, talk to us about oil and the other commodities, if you will, for a moment. It's absolutely astonishing what has happened in the oil market.
Well, I mean, it was the perfect storm. You had demand destruction coming in from the COVID 19. So, you know, I saw a picture of a major airport. I'm trying to think of it as Dallas or it was Chicago, where the planes were parked on the Runway like a parking lot. So there's 75% of the planes that aren't in the air. And if we're all quarantined in our homes, you're not driving to work. So you had demand destruction at the same time you had this price war between the Saudis and the Russians flooding the markets with oil. And then on top of that, you had other things that were going on in the global economy. So you've got a glut of oil. There's like 750 supertankers in the globe and 85 of them are now being used for storage. You've got Cushing, which has about 10 million barrels of oil storage left. They project by the middle of May, Cushing will be completely full. So you had all of that occurring at the same time. Then you have the problem between the paper market, which is futures, and the fiscal market, which is oil companies, refineries, buying oil. And you had an etf. This is something I talked about three years ago with this index bubble. And you had this fund called USO. They owned 25% of the May contract. Well, USO typically rolls over its contracts every single month. In a normal market, Jason, you're able to roll that over. But USO is not in the business of taking delivery. What happens is they got to a point there was no place to roll that over and they couldn't take delivery. So they ended up selling their oil, paying people close to 40 bucks a barrel to take it. So we had a 300% drop in oil. Now what you have going is they have roughly about 40% of the June contract and over 40% of the July contract. So you could run into the same problem, but this time Cushing could be empty, or not empty, but completely full because they were at 85% capacity heading into May. And with May they could be at full capacity. So the only alternative would be for the President to open up the strategic oil preserve and allow that for storage.
The opposite of the problem they created it for. Right, Yeah, I know.
Isn't that funny?
Created it to let the oil out in case we were cut off. Right, yeah. In case we had a disruption. So this is the exact opposite. Fascinating.
Yeah. So this is going to be with us and it's not going to be until we are somewhat normal. Now, here's the real key thing. Whether in my opinion, whether we go into a recession and come out with a U shaped recovery or we go into a depression, and that would be what happens in the fall. Because we know right now we don't have a vaccine. And I think we're better able to handle if it comes back. We know more about protocol, social distancing. But if we start shutting things down when the next flu season starts in October and we do the same thing, we're in a depression.
Well, there's no academic definition for depression. Right. But what do you consider 4/4 of a flat or declining GDP? Is that what you're calling it?
I would say more than a year. And then you're looking at unemployment rates that are in the high double digits and they're talking right now 13 to 15% to 16% by June. And then you've got Bullard and Janet Yellen talking about 30%. So a lot of that is all dependent on what happens this fall. If we get a second wave and if the second wave is deadlier. So a lot of this is. And here's the thing that this is where I want to be on the positive side. When you look at the Oxford study coming out, there was going to be 2 million deaths. Every single one of these COVID 19 models has been far off the mark. A good example is New York. Cuomo wanted 40,000 respirators. They only used 5,000.
So, yeah, you can definitely short ventilators.
They're going to be in massive oversupply. It's going to be like oil with those things. Soon they're going to pay you to take them.
So a lot of this is a big if right now, but I'm a little bit more optimistic that we're better prepared for it. A lot of these things and also the taking a look at a lot of the death rates A lot of those death rates, Jason, were associated with comorbidities. So people that heart disease, autoimmune disease, other respiratory copd are associated with those deaths.
Sure, sure. And so it's not really necessarily a COVID death death. And the world may never know, you know, as to the miscategorization. But. And, you know, I have not seen, heard, or seen this anywhere. It's just my own thing. But, you know, the federal government came out a few weeks ago and said, don't worry, we'll pay for Covid treatment for anybody, you know, regardless of, you know, Obamacare or nationwide insurance, you know, whatever. Just no matter what, we'll just cover it. Okay? And you might remember when they said that, well, why wouldn't they categorize everything as COVID 19? Because the hospital wants to make sure they're paid, and they know the government's gonna pay them. So that seems like an obvious reason to miscategorize a lot of this treatment, right?
Well, yeah, there were two doctors that work in ER that put out a video that said that a lot of their peers are getting pressure from the hospital to add Covid to their autopsy report. And a lot of it is for that reason. You know, if it's Covid, they get paid.
Yeah, it's crazy. This is ridiculous. You know, every time the government and the central bank gets involved, you get all these distortions and all this false reporting and all this abuse and corruption. It's just too bad. It really is. This will be continued on the next episode. Thank you for listening and happy investing.
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