2344 FBF: Exporting Free Trade & Warfare with Sean Haugh - 2014 Libertarian Candidate for the US Senate in North Carolina

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Welcome to Creating wealth with Jason Hartman. During this program, Jason is going to tell you some really exciting things that you probably haven't thought of before and a new slant on investing fresh new approaches to America's best investment that will enable you to create more wealth and happiness than you ever thought possible. Jason is a genuine, self made multimillionaire who not only talks the talk, but walks the walk. He's been a successful investor for 20 years and currently owns properties in 11 states and 17 cities. This program will help you follow in Jason's footsteps on the road to financial freedom. You really can do it. And now here's your host, Jason Hartman with the complete solution for real estate investors.

Welcome to the Creating wealth show. This is your host, Jason Hartman and this is episode number 427. Thank you for joining me for episode 427 and today our guest will be Sean Ha, Senate Libertarian candidate from North Carolina. So we'll get to him in a moment. But first I want to talk to you about construction cost and when we're investing. As you know, my very unique risk evaluator model relies fairly extensively on construction cost and land cost as a way to determine how to minimize risk when investing in real estate. And it took me 19 years to discover that. And so far as I know, it is completely original thought. And my insurance broker at the time helped me discover that on one of my first nationwide property purchases. Before that I had pretty much been confined to investing in California and I did not realize there was a whole new wonderful, beautiful world of investing out there and great opportunities and I didn't have to rely on this speculative roller coaster of the California cycle to invest in properties. And it's been a great, great ride since then. So what I want to talk to you about today is different construction cost. And this was inspired by an article that just came out and this is the nahb, the national association of Home Builders. And they of course discuss economics and housing policy and they did an article and it is about construction cost per square foot, what it cost to build properties in these various areas and they look at contract price per square foot of new contractor built single family houses started in 2013. And this is Very, very enlightening. And you know, before I've talked about what I call, and this is one of my little trademark terms, trying to add to the language here of real estate investing and it is called regress to replacement cost, Regression to replacement cost. And this example that I give you, actually two examples, has a lot to do with it. So we know that the riskiest markets are high land value markets because those are the markets that are cyclical in nature and they have big highs and big lows and really ugly lows. And people lose fortunes in those markets if they don't time it just right. And we also know, and I've talked about this on prior episodes as well, and that is that over time the linear markets tend to do just as well as the cyclical markets or even better in many cases. And I've given the example of Kansas City, Missouri compared to Orange County, California, and you would think high flying Orange county, my former hometown, would be the one that would win because they have such extreme upsides in the market. But over the course of 18 years, Kansas City actually outperformed Orange county in the example I gave where Orange county averaged depreciation. And I'm just doing this from memory here, folks, but I think it was 5.2% on average and Kansas City was 5.8% on average. And remember the devastating things about these cyclical markets is that you give so much back when there's a downtime and in these down times, which are very hard to predict, as you know, I have never met or known of anybody, any guru, any economist that can accurately predict appreciation and depreciation. And the prudent income property investor is the investor who invests based on cash flow. And if the appreciation comes, it is icing on the cake. It's wonderful when it happens, but let's not count on it.

I.

Let's just have that be a pleasant surprise. So when you look around the country, according to this national association of Home Builders NAHB survey, you see that in the Pacific region, that includes California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska, the average or no, this is median prices. Sorry, There is a difference between median and average statistically and sometimes I prefer average to median. But again, this, that's a whole other discussion for statisticians. And I could chime in on it, but I, I don't know if I can lead that discussion because I'm not an expert, never took statistics class in college. I should have taken that one. I really would have liked to have been able to understand that stuff better. Anyway, the Pacific Region, the median price per square foot is $145. In the mountain region, which includes, you know, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, and, you know, all these states right in there, the four corner states, the median price per square foot of a single family home is 100 per square foot versus Pacific at $145. Now, occasionally you can have actual cost of construction that makes this happen. But the thing you've mostly got here in these variants in prices is you've got a regulatory environment which makes it more difficult to build. So that will drive the price up. But also you have higher priced markets. And when you have a higher cost of living place where you're hiring people, hiring contractors and all these subcontractors to build a house, of course you have to pay them more because they have to be able to afford to live in the place in which they work. Right? And so that drives up prices a lot, too. So The Mountain Region, $107 per square foot. Pacific, $145. The West North Central region, it's called, which is kind of this area that would include Illinois and just kind of that area above Texas. Okay, so that is $103 per square foot on the median price to build a single family home in the west south central region. And that includes Texas and all the states around Texas. It's only, get this, folks, $85 per square foot. $85 per square foot. And then the east South Central, which is just a little bit east of Texas, is $84 per square foot. Not much of a difference there. Those are both regions in which we like to invest. And then they pulled out another region here. They call it the South Atlantic region. So that'll include Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, and that is $88 per square foot.

Welcome to this week's edition of Flashback Friday. Your opportunity to get some good review by listening to episodes from the past that Jason has hand picked to help today in the present and propel you into the future. Enjoy.

And Mid Atlantic, which is a little bit above that, as we get close to the expensive areas, is $103 per square foot. And the New England states way back up, just like the West Coast. The Pacific region at $143 per square foot. Okay, and. Oh, and then you have the east north central region, which is near the Great Lakes. That's $90 per square foot. Okay, so you see how these prices vary pretty significantly around the country. What does this mean to us? Well, before I get to that, I want to tell you that the median for the entire country, by the way, is $93 per square foot. And none of these numbers include land value. They all exclude the value of the improved lot on which the house is sitting. Now, what do they mean by improved lot? What they mean is a finished lot that is ready to build a house on. You know, so it's graded, it's compacted, it has utilities pulled to the curb. And so a contractor can go and build a house there. It's ready to be built. Okay, so $93 per square foot is the US median price. Now, what does this mean to us? Well, it's pretty darn exciting because, as you know, next month, November 21st, I think it's November 21st and 22nd, or 22nd and 23rd. Forgive me for not having the dates on hand, but that is our Birmingham property tour. So I want to talk to you about a property that is available right now in Birmingham and compare it with some of these numbers and you will find them to be rather interesting. Here I've got a great property in Birmingham. It is for sale right now. You can go to jasonhartman.com click on Properties and you can find this exact property. And it is 1104 square feet and it's priced at $70,900. So that comes out to $64 per square foot that you see right on the Performa. And now let's take the land value out of it. So I am going to just take a very rough guess here, not knowing what the land value is. And there are three ways that you would basically know the land value. One is the property tax assessor has their own opinion of land value. Of course, these opinions vary. Nobody exactly knows. So they're all an estimate, but they give you some idea. So the property tax assessor, they separate the improvement, the house sitting on the land, or the apartment building sitting on the land from the value of the land itself. That is one way you would have a clue as to the land value versus the improvement or the house sitting on the land. And it's very important to dissect this and look at both parts of the value driving equation. Another way is you would get an insurance quote and the insurance company doesn't insure the land because the land won't burn down, but the house might burn down. And if the house burns down, they will have to pay to rebuild that house or at least pay some portion to after you haggle with them and possibly have to hire a lawyer to haggle with them or even sue them to pay the claim. You know how this can go sometimes. And that's why I always say the best insurance is a high loan balance. Let your lender haggle with them. Let them work with your insurance company to protect their collateral. Okay, this property, I'm going to estimate the land value just as a very rough estimate at $25,000. And the three ways you can find that out, I didn't tell you the third. Here it is. It's an appraisal. An appraiser will make an attempt to dissect the land value versus the improvement value as well. So three sources that I'm aware. The tax collector, tax assessor for property taxes, an insurance broker, an insurance company that's selling you a policy on the property, and an appraiser. So let's say just for argument's sake, for discussion sake, that this land is worth $25,000. So let's look at the land cost per square foot, not per square foot of the land, per square foot of the house. Because I want you to see how much of this equation is potentially land cost. Because we know we can purchase this property for $64 per square foot. But if you take $25,000, divide it not by the square footage of the land, but by the square footage of the house sitting on the land. We're going to divide it by 1104, which is the square footage here. And that means our land value integrated with the house value is $22.64 per square foot. Now, let's look at this. Let's take the purchase price of $70,900, subtract $25,000, leaving us with $45,900. So we took the price of both the land and the house. Let's subtract out the potential land value, and that's my estimate of 25,000. Let's look at 45,900 as the value of the structure or the house sitting on the land. The value of the improvement. Let's divide that by the square footage of 1104, and that means that the house cost is $41.58 per square foot. Well, I hope you're getting excited, because I am. Remember, I've talked on prior episodes about my trademark term regression to replacement cost. And the beautiful thing is that you can still fetch a few properties out there. Again, these are drying up. There aren't that many. There is real urgency to be investing because prices have definitely been going up and they continue to go up. And business is very, very strong. So you're going to constantly See a lack of inventory, at least now. And so Here you're at $41.58 per square foot is our potential for a calculation that we made in this region. According to the national association of Home builders, it cost $85 per square foot to build a house. Now, this house isn't brand new, but it was renovated this year, so it's brand. Newly renovated. Okay? So, of course, you know, there is a difference between a new house and an old house. And some people really like older homes better. I mean, there are benefits of older homes. They just tend to have, you know, more generous spaces in a lot of ways. And I don't know. You know, they just obviously have a very different style. Some like newer. It just depends. And, you know, many people would argue that older homes are built better than newer homes. You know, I don't know. I think older homes were maybe built with a little more care and quality, but newer homes are built with a little more technology. And so we could have that debate for a long time. But let's not bother to rebuild this house. If it burnt down, an insurance company would probably spend about $85 per square foot, according to the national association of Home Builders. Okay. And they. They have lots of members that build homes, so they should know. So if we take $85 per square foot, their number for construction, and we multiply it times the square footage of 1104, we can see that it would cost $93,840 to build this home today. Well, you can buy it for 70,900. So right there, you've got about $22,000 or $23,000 potential gain already. Oh, you say. But wait a second, because we didn't include the land value. That's just the improvement. It's just the house. It's just the house sitting on the land. What about the cost of the land? Well, let's add back in $25,000, our potential lot value estimate, and then we add those two together. 93,840 to build the house, plus 25,000 for the land, and we get a grand total here of $118,840. So we'll just call it $119,000. That means when all of those construction materials are worth what they actually cost. And I know that's kind of a funny thing to say. You know, it's like the concept of. And I've said it before, for when a piece of wood is worth what a piece of wood costs. Again, I used to say that during the down market. To illustrate my regression to replacement cost concept and my philosophy, when it regresses toward the actual replacement cost, you have a potential gain in this property. And this is not really the same thing as appreciation. Regression to replacement cost. I would argue that that's homeostasis, it's equilibrium. It's just what it should be worth. Intrinsically. You have a gain potentially here of $47,940. Now that's pretty great. Okay, that is pretty darn awesome. You can see examples. There aren't as many as there used to be. But if you go to jasonhartman.com you click on Properties and you start browsing through all of the property performas, you will see several examples. Not as many as you used to, because prices have gone up and they continue to rise. You will see examples of some lucky deals that you can still get where properties are priced below replacement cost. This is a good example of that. And if you want to see more properties like this, join us next month in late November as we look just the weekend before Thanksgiving as we look at properties in Birmingham, Alabama. And just like this property that I just told you about, where you are buying below the cost of construction, you've got regression to replacement cost opportunity built into the equation. One of the things I do is I will not allow our local market specialists to represent their properties as being below market value. Even though in my opinion, many of them are below market value, I will not allow them to represent the properties that way. So when you look on the performance that you see@jasonhartman.com you'll see one number for initial market value and another number for purchase price. And those numbers should always be the same unless they snuck one by us and we didn't catch it. But those should always be the same. But when you understand the math of the two components of an income property investment, the land component and the improvement or the structure sitting on the land component, the house or the apartment building. Or you know, if it were a commercial property, it could be an office building or an industrial building or a retail building, whatever. The point is there are two value drivers. Any real estate equation. One is the land, the other is the improvement sitting on the land. And you've really got to dissect those and understand them. One reason also is because you only depreciate the improvement on your tax return, not the land. The land will always be there. So the IRS does not allow you to have this awesome depreciation opportunity. And I should mention, for those of you who are the Gamblers and the speculators out there who like to invest in expensive markets, I'll call them overpriced markets, whether they be California, the New England states as we just saw, or whatever. You know, if they're Miami, you know, these, these expensive markets. Remember, you don't get nearly as much tax benefit in those markets because your land cost is so high and your improvement cost is so low as a ratio to land costs. And you only get to depreciate the improvement cost. The example I give when I talk about the risk evaluator and how to really, really reduce risk. If you want to hear more about this, just go to jasonhartman.com and there's a little search bar on the website. Just go ahead and search the Hartman Risk evaluator, okay? And you'll find prior podcasts where I've talked about that extensively and some blog posts and so forth that explain it. And you know, you really increase your risk when you invest in high land value markets, but you also massively decrease your tax benefits and of course your cash flow. And of course, we are prudent cash flow investors. We're not the gamblers, we're not the speculators. We're on the conservative side. So in this property that I've been talking about with you, I'll just tell you a few more things about it before we get to our guest. The projected return on investment overall on this property is 38% annually. 38% annually. Cash on cash return projection 15% and cap rate or capitalization rate of 9.7%. And get this, your debt coverage ratio with 25% down is 2. 2. That means you have your property could go badly half the time. And you'll still cover your debt service on this property because you've got a debt ratio, a debt coverage ratio of 2.00. A lot of our properties, they have debt coverage ratios of 1.4, 1.6, 1.8, something like that. I've actually been looking for one for you. That is a two, and this is a two. So what a champ. I mean, this property is, has a projected cash flow of $3,400, a little over $3,400 annually. So. And you know, that's with your maintenance, your property management, your vacancy, all imputed into that equation. So make sure you really know how to analyze these deals, folks. And another thing I just want to recommend is the podcast I have several episodes ago on how to read a property performer and the YouTube video that shows the visual and you can Follow along on how to read a property Performer. Just look for that. And it is a fantastic tool. It will make you a better Investor. It's on YouTube. If you look for our YouTube channel at Jason Hartman Media or you just type how to read a property performer, you can probably find it. You know, just add my name to it and you'll find that. And it's just a great lesson on how to read that. But it doesn't talk really much at all about this land to improvement value equation that I just shared with you. So this is for advanced investors who really are thinking about all the multidimensional aspects of their income property investments. And I know that's you because you listen to the show and you want to know more and you want to be a more prudent, more sophisticated investor. So thank you for doing that and thank you for doing your homework, really studying this stuff. And please do if you like the show or even if you hate the show, go write a review for us on itunes. We had a few reviews come in last week and I really appreciate that. I know I never ask, but it really helps us get the word out there about the show. So please take a moment and go to Stitcher radio or itunes and write a review. You can do it in just three minutes or less. And we really appreciate that. So thank you very much. And here is our guest, Sean Ha. It's my pleasure to welcome Sean Ha to the show. He is the Senate libertarian candidate from North Carolina, and it's a pleasure to have him on today. Shawn, welcome. How are you?

Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. It's a beautiful day here in North Carolina.

Well, fantastic. Where exactly are you? Are you in Charlotte?

I'm in Durham.

Durham, okay. Fantastic. Good place. Well, tell us about some of the issues in which you are running on and why they're important.

Well, the whole reason why I decided to run was simply as an act of conscience, really. I wanted to be able to walk into the voting booth myself in November and vote for a candidate who wanted to stop all war and stop spending more money than we have. And neither the Democrats nor the Republicans can be counted on for that at all.

You're definitely right about that. And war isn't a very good deal. It's not a very good investment. Do you think war can really ever be stopped when we've got so much interest in it? And of course, the military industrial complex, the central bankers, there's just too many people profiting from it. It's a disgusting situation.

Well, that's why we have a republic, so that the citizens can take back control of their government and set these things straight. One thing that really bothers me or that sort of motivates me to want to be in the Senate is that Congress needs to grow a spine. You know, they spend all of their time bickering with each other. They don't really do much of anything. Now, from a libertarian perspective, you know, only having voted on seven substantive bills in the last year might be considered a good thing. But, you know, Congress has fallen down on the job of monitoring the executive as the executive conducts war. So one thing that I feel very strongly about is that we can't go to war with anybody unless we have direct congressional authorization, as the Constitution specifies.

Yeah. When did that change? When did the war powers move into the executive branch where you can have these, like, undeclared wars? Can you distinguish that for the listeners and myself a little bit?

Well, I think it really kind of started in World War II, where we just started saying, oh, yes, the President, you can go ahead and handle it all. But it's really with the Iraq wars where it just came out, especially after 9, 11, when Congress just gave the President a blank check. It's like they passed what they called a declaration of war, but it was really, whoever the President names, you can go out and kill those guys. And that's not how it works. The authorization has to be very specific about who the enemy is, what the objective is, and just how far the President is authorized to go. Right now we see this power to the point where Barack Obama says he can kill anybody he wants to, anywhere around the world without any oversight.

That's a very terrifying idea that the President can have that much power when he can command fleets of drones and everything else, of course. Do you think, though, that just being skeptical here for a moment, if I may. Has the world changed? I mean, look it. Enemies aren't clearly defined anymore. The terrorist groups, they're not really governments like they used to be when it was, there's Japan and there's Germany. It's not that clear anymore, is it? What I'm getting at is has the world actually changed to where that rule needs to change? I'd like you to argue against that, if you would.

Well, what has changed is that everybody out there, friend and foe alike, is now armed to the teeth with American weapons and American training. You know, we have interfered with the affairs of other nations so much that we've created. You know, what Ron Paul explained to us with blowback where we just keep intervening in the affairs of other countries. We keep visiting war upon them, and we keep creating greater resistance to us and a greater threat. And now we're dealing with this Islamic State, which to me is a government. At least they're claiming territory, they're claiming to be a government. They may not be drawn on the official map yet, but they are completely armed with not only weapons that we gave them directly, but also weapons that we left behind in Iraq. And we've just repeated the same mistake over and over again by thinking that we can manipulate these people and turn them into assets to advance our aims. And they always end up turning against us. First it was the Taliban in Afghanistan. We thought they were on our side, and we armed them and trained them. And then Osama bin Laden was a CIA asset for a while, and you can find articles about what a great guy he was. And then now there's this photo floating around the Internet of John McCain posing with people who turned out to be the leaders of this Islamic State. And he's talking about how, oh, these are the great. I'm so happy to meet these great freedom fighters who are really going to help us achieve our objectives and freedom and whatever else in the Middle East. Then he comes back and successfully advocates for us to arm them.

Yeah, John McCain never saw a war he didn't like. His answer to everything is, let's launch some missiles.

And one of the first things that we really need to do as citizens is reject those politicians that talked us, that lied us into the last Iraq war. John McCain very much at the top of the list. It amazes me that Hillary Clinton can get any traction at all because she's just as much of a hawk as John McCain. And this is owned by both Democrats and Republicans. But people are, especially in Washington, are so locked up in this partisan battle that they lose sight of the fact that Democrats and Republicans are united on more war and more debt to pay for it.

It's just unbelievable. I mean, like you said, all of these assets, you wait 20 years, they become our worst enemies. And they're equipped with all sorts of information and all sorts of tools and weapons that they would not have otherwise had had we not interfered in the first place. The problem is we are where we are now. So what do you do now? They've got the information, they've got the weapons. Can we really live in a world where the US Becomes more isolationist and just doesn't engage in all of this stuff?

Well, I reject the term isolation.

Okay.

I like to often quote Jefferson, who was paraphrasing Washington when he advised us to engage in free trade with all and entangling alliances with none. You know, and you've also heard the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We have to stop war. We have to stop thinking that bombing and droning is the solution to our problems, that giving arms to anybody is a solution. The first thing that we can do to bring peace and stability to the region is to stop flooding it with weapons and cut off military aid to everybody out there. And also, if we stop our own wars and we stop interfering in the affairs of other countries, then we stop giving them a reason to hate us and to arm themselves against us. If we instead engage these countries with free trade, then we help ourselves externally through the relationship with them. We give them reasons to like us and want to be like us. I'm 53. I remember when I was a kid, everybody wanted to be like an American because we were the beacon of free trade and prosperity and freedom. And if we go back to that policy, I think we can fairly quickly win people over because we can also undermine them from the inside. As the average person gains more prosperity and gains more freedom and sees what freedom is like for other people, they start agitating for that for themselves at home.

So I agree with you. And, you know, what you didn't mention is that kind of prosperity also has the tendency, at least historically, to lower birth rates, which would be a good thing in this third world and developing world. But I was recently watching something about Belgium and how Belgium is maybe, as some predict, 10 years away from a real serious Sharia law movement there. So they've got prosperity, and the Muslims that have moved there just want to take over and institute Sharia. I mean, not all of them, of course. I understand it's a stereotype, but that's what this documentary I was watching was about. It was. It was pretty scary.

Well, I haven't seen this documentary, so I can't comment on it directly. I wonder if that particular fear is kind of overblown. But it might be. But there is a problem in Europe. I'm much more familiar with Scandinavian countries, Sweden in particular, and how they fail to assimilate immigrants and people of different beliefs. Now, here in America, we're founded on immigration. Our whole core principle is that anybody from anywhere around the world can come here and become an American. But let me underscore that last part. Become an American into our culture. And sure, you can keep your Religion, you can keep a lot of your customs that you bring from home, but we have certain standards that we're just not going to tolerate, such as oppressing people over race or gender or vengeful law. No cutting off anybody's hands for stealing or anything like that. No female circumcision that maybe some people from African countries might want to bring here. It's like in Europe they have this cultural relativism that I think has really failed them to try to.

I think we have that here, too.

I think we do, and I think we need to avoid it. I think it is important to establish moral standards. On the one hand, I don't want us to, as the federal government to be going to other countries and dictating their policy. I mean, that's obviously failed. But as far as our own policy here in the United States. Well, yes, everybody here has constitutional rights. Well, they have rights that are described in the Constitution. I'm sorry, I don't want to make it sound like the government gives anybody rights. But our government is a republic based on the idea that the first job of government is to protect the rights of the people. So if we stay focused on that, then people can come here and, like I said, keep their own customs up to the point where they start violating.

Other people's rights with isis. So what would you do if you were in the Oval Office? Would you just ignore it? I mean, I understand the background and I agree with you, and I agree with you about blowback and so forth, but what would you do now? I mean, would you just ignore it?

Well, I think, like I said, I think bombing them is, you know, it's just not working. As tempting as it is, I do think that there is. Obviously they're willing to talk to some Americans. We've seen pictures of Senator McCain talking to them. Maybe we could send them Senator McCain as an ambassador to negotiate. This problem has been a long time in the making, and we've done a lot to create it. And there unfortunately, really is no magic wand or magic drone to just make it all go away. We have to begin the harder, long term process of dealing with everybody from a stance of peace and prosperity and free trade. It's going to take a little bit to undermine them. Bombing them has created more problems than it solved.

Okay. About the free trade issue, though, I want to ask you about that one because I agree with you on the free trade concept. But when you say that, I mean, who are we not willing to trade with now besides North Korea and Iran, Cuba?

I Think still on the list. And then of course, we have. We're using economic sanctions against Russia over this Ukraine business. And I like to bring up Cuba because to me, Cuba is a fantastic example, well, not actually a horrible example of how economic sanctions don't work at all. All we've managed to do in the 50 years that we've imposed sanctions on Cuba is to entrench the communist government to make people poorer and to give them a reason to resent the United States.

Well, don't forget we gave Michael Moore a great documentary saying that the health care in Cuba was better. And listen, I've been to Cuba, okay? I've actually been there. Trust me, you would not want to go there for your health care.

No. And then by being so antagonistic, we sort of encourage the isolationism of those countries. And you look at a country like North Korea where the government has managed to keep a pretty tight control over the information that people have and that our involvement in the Korean War helped create that state which has managed to perpetuate itself ever since then.

So I agree we should open up Cuba. The embargoes haven't worked. That's one thing that Obama kind of was intimating that he might do. But, you know, I guess he's not doing that. But what do we do with isis? What do we do with this radical Islam? I mean, that is scary. You look at the beheadings, you look at the stonings, you look at, I don't know how Western liberals can support this kind of stuff. They're just mixed up. They're just clueless. I don't get it.

There's a lot of horrifying things going on all over the world. What sets apart Islamic State here is that we did quite a lot to create it ourselves. But you look at persecution of people for their religion all over the world. You look at non Christian countries, what it's like to try to be a Christian in those countries. You know, there are people who get slaughtered over that. There are people, you know, like I mentioned female circumcision in Africa. And there's, you know, we were all had the Tony scare out there a couple years ago, too. There's some horrifying things going on in Central Africa too. But I really think that the best thing that we can do in terms of supporting our allies who have to deal directly with these forces, is to pump them up economically, is to show people around the world the benefits of free trade with the United States and show them the money. Basically, you show people the Money and they're going to flock over to our side. So one thing that's very important to me, especially about the Islamic world, is empowering women, because the Islamists really hate that. But if you, by building up the economies there through free trade, they're going to have to start building factories, a manufacturing base, and they will have to hire women. I read an article during the World cup that some entrepreneur in Pakistan heard that China, who was making all the soccer balls for the World cup, was falling behind in production. So he fairly quickly was able to put together a factory, get a contract to make these soccer balls for, for the World Cup. And he employed all women because that was the workforce that was available to him. And he took a little special pride in giving women jobs. Once people start getting a taste of their own money and their own economic independence, they're going to want more of it and they're going to demand it from their leaders wherever they live.

I agree. Women generally are a more peaceful force, except for Hillary Clinton. And that's a good thing. I mean, empowering women, no question, that's going to be a very positive thing. But I don't know if it can be done. They're not allowed to drive. They got to cover everything up. This is just crazy. Level of oppression. No, not allowed to go to school. I mean, why would men want women like that? Why would they want them to be like that? That's just crazy to me.

Well, I mean, people do a lot of crazy stuff in the name of religion and we do crazy things in the name of religion here in the United States too. One thing that's really important to me is to keep theology out of legislation. Now my spiritual beliefs are going to inform absolutely everything that I do. But, and it's obviously not as bad here in the United States as it is in some Islamic countries. But the reason why I point to women in particular in those Islamic countries is precisely because of theocratic forces where oppressing women is a fundamental aspect of how they operate. But you look at Saudi Arabia, I mean, one thing that we don't talk about at all hardly is Saudi Arabia, because they're supposed to be our good friends and allies, but they are about the worst in the world in terms of the rights, not just of women, but of the average citizen, of imposing the worst forms of Sharia law on their people and funding the extremists that we end up fighting. And yet we never say anything about it and completely coddle them because we want their oil.

It is mind boggling. I Mean, the way we do that with Saudi Arabia, I mean, we. What a mind boggling story that we can have. Allegedly 19 hijackers on nine, 11 from Saudi. They're Saudi nationals, okay? And you know, nothing happens to Saudi Arabia, it's just. Okay. And Obama bows to Saudi kings. You know, it's just.

Exactly.

You couldn't write fiction like this. It's crazy.

Well, look at the edges. You know, we have a drone campaign going on in Yemen right there on the Arabian Peninsula, but it won't cross over into Saudi itself. And so because we are slaves to their oil production, we've given them a safe haven to be able to train people against this and to be able to plot against the United States. Of course, I'm obviously not advocating hostility towards Saudi Arabia, but I think we need to put it in proper perspective and really question how our close relationship with them is really benefiting the United States. So I think getting energy independence is a very important aspect of our foreign policy, not to be owned by anybody else. And there are other aspects of policy too. Like our debt to the Chinese is another example of how we're giving up our sovereignty economically and we don't have to do that.

I don't want to debate the China issue because I actually think we're kind of in the position of power there, if you will, because the borrower always has control over the lender. You know, most people think about that the other way around. But when it comes to energy independence, I mean, make a comment if you like. I don't want to just.

Oh no, I don't disagree with you in a sense. I did sort of jump from topic to topic, but I keep seeing these common themes. And one of those common themes is that we're willing to let others outside the United States dictate our policy to us because we've put ourselves in a bad economic position to do so. Now there's certainly advantages to Chinese investment in the United States, but as long as it's investment, if people want to come here and invest their money in us and build up international business, that's a positive. But to simply be in debt to not just China, but people, it's really just the debt itself, the huge mountain of debt that we need to get out from under that we can't saddle future generations with.

Just the last question on energy independence, how do we do that? I mean, are we going to do it with unproven things like solar and wind, or are we going to work on our vast oil and natural gas reserves here what's the energy independence plan?

Well, the answer is yes. Pretty much what we need to have is a free market in energy for government to stop gaming things in favor of the oil and gas companies and the car companies for personal transportation. But if we were able to take regulation away from alternative energy sources, then they would have an opportunity to innovate. And it's not my job. One thing I really kind of resent about the possibility of being a senator is that I would be expected to be an expert on everything because I would be ruling over everything. And I don't need to have the answers. I don't need to know how to create an alternative energy model in the United States. I need to try to get the regulations and restrictions out of the way of the people who do so that they can go out and create this. And they will do it. They're smart people. They'll do it in a way that is economically viable for them. And if they can see a profit in it, a way to do it without harming other people or creating liability, then happen more power to them.

Pardon the pun.

Well, exactly. I'm not necessarily against the oil and gas industry. I'm for, you know, like I said, as long as I want the people who are actually in business, who actually know what they're doing, who are going to look at their millions and billions of dollars and say, yes, you know, I've studied this and this is going to be a sound investment and we're going to be able to do this without creating legal liability through any accidents or harm that we might cause through it. And then go right ahead, you know, whether it's drilling for resources in the ground or alternative forms of energy. Like I say, I don't feel like I have to have an opinion on that. And that's just something so different from how people in Congress act.

You know what? I like that. I think you're right. That's a good philosophy. You know, they all act like know it alls. Like they can be central planners and make all the decisions and decide that, hey, wind is the way to go. And then they'll set up a bunch of windmills that they don't work, they don't finance themselves, they're guillotines in the sky for birds. I don't know why the environmentalists aren't outraged about that.

And then, and then you look at one thing that I don't think is talked about enough are the green energy scandals of the Obama administration, oh, Solyndra, etc. Picked winners and losers and thrown a lot of. Throwing a lot of money down a lot of rat holes over bad investments, no question. Essentially trying to pick winners that turned out that they really didn't know what they were doing or were just there to scam the taxpayer because they, they managed to give a lot of money to President Obama's campaign or to people he wanted to support. I mean, so much of this right now is ruled by corporate special interests. And that's one thing I really want to be able to replace everybody in Congress with people who are interested in the Constitution and the rights and needs of the people and the citizens as opposed to the rights and needs of the corporate donors.

Absolutely. Very good. Well, give out your website, Sean. Tell people where they can find you.

I'm@seanhaw.com that's S E A n H A u g h. I'm also on Twitter perorshawn and on Facebook. HA4 Senate is the name of my page there. I also have about two dozen YouTube videos up. I just put up another one this morning.

Fantastic.

And then you can just search my name on YouTube and you can find them.

Yeah. And that's Sean. S e a n and last name is H A u g h. What was that Twitter handle again? I'm not sure if I caught that.

Oh, Emperor Sean.

Emperor Sean. That's an obvious sarcasm.

Yeah, it's a little joke because I was kind of hoping somebody would figure out. I drop hints every once in a while. I work as a pizza delivery driver and it's a job that I really love. And one of the reasons why I love it is that children just revere me. They treat me like the emperor of pizza. The way I put it. I'm driving around town and they'll wave at me, say, oh, the pizza man. And I'll give them the royal wave back, ring a doorbell and hear children scream, oh, pizza's here. It's really after getting paid, it's the best part of the job. But if I have a moment, let me leave you with this.

You are like the common man. That's great.

Well, it's important these politicians only listen to each other and their donors. And after about. I used to be against term limits and now I'm for them. Once I started working with these people, I realized, yeah, it's about six years before they completely lose track of what life is like outside their little dome. I'll leave you this one example. Allegedly there's this problem with scheduling part time workers such as myself. And so Elizabeth Warren and A bunch of other senators want to try to pass this mandate that employers have to publish worker schedules within two weeks and, and guarantee them at least four hours a day and pay them all this different stuff or whatever. And I work for a large corporation. I get my weekly schedule two days before the week starts. That works fine. I'm not really being taken advantage of here. But if Elizabeth Warren and their ilk get their way trying to run every little business in ways that they don't even understand, and I can just see that is going to be a huge imposition on the company that I work for.

Yep, absolutely. Very good points. Very good points. Well, Sean, thank you for joining us. And I sure hope we get some common sense back in government. And I just want to leave you and the listeners with a thought. There's this constant debate about whether the government should be bigger or smaller. More activists or less activist, and everybody will agree, agree on both sides of the aisle. I mean, even the far left will pretty much agree that government is inefficient. Government is riddled with corruption and there are all sorts of problems. And so I just say this. If you want the corruption and the inefficiency to be less of an issue, just make the government smaller. Because all of that will always be there in any human organization. And if we just make it smaller, the bad things will be smaller too.

That's exactly right. People ask me about campaign finance reform and that's pretty much exactly what I tell them. The only way that you're really going to regulate money in politics is by abolishing the product. Because right now with Congress ruling everything, it's one stop shopping for special interest. I'd much rather Congress not get involved in certain issues and they make these special interests have to appeal to millions of consumers instead of a few hundred senators and congressmen.

Oh, it is absurd. I mean, my real estate company does market research on different markets around the US and ever since the bailout fiasco started in DC the real estate prices have skyrocketed as every business person from around the world flies into Washington to get their money. It's unbelievable. I mean, this is just so corrupt. It's absolutely absurd. We could talk forever, but keep getting the word out. This is important stuff. Thank you so much and I wish you luck in your campaign.

Well, thanks so much. I really appreciate you having me on the show and thanks for what you're doing.

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Want to be able to sit back and collect checks every month just like a banker. Jason's Creating Wealth Encyclopedia series is for you. This show is produced by The Hartman Media Co. All rights reserved. For distribution or publication rights and media interviews, please visit www.hartmanmedia.com or email mediaartmanmedia.com Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own and the host is acting on behalf of Platinum Properties Investor Network Inc. Exclusively.