Hey everyone welcome back to another episode of the meet kevin show. We have a very special guest today it is the most frequented guest. This is me kevin show and it is ross gerber from gerber kawasaki, ticker symbol, gk for their etf and check out their website. In the description down below for their financial advice, because ross actually gives financial advice, isn't that right ross you're doing a lot of it lately, so how much buy-in or selling did you all do today? Well, we don't we we don't sell on days like today.

We're buyers on days like today, um today, was actually pretty active for us. We've been kind of sitting on our hands as the market keeps going lower every day. You know so, as i think last time you know we talked about, we got into a position that we're comfortable with our core holdings, we're not going to change tesla and nvidia just because the stocks went down, so we have our cohortings and we're not leveraged. So we have cash available to invest so one of the things that we've done that we did sell was we sold a large portion of our government securities.

So, where we've been selling is in the government bond area, um part of our portfolio is in the bond market, and so we typically manage 20 to 25 percent of our assets are in bonds and we've been cutting that down. So so, when you're talking about where's the risk, in my mind, my my feeling is, the risk is in fixed income because we we're gon na see higher inflation rates over the next year or two, and so a two or three percent yield. Just is a money. Loser guaranteed so, and we saw those actually go up today, especially in the morning right.

That's a fear trade. So so, as yields were moving up uh before ukraine, it was like this relentless rise in yields and fallen bonds, as as all of us are selling our bonds and now because of ukraine. It created that fear trade. So when there's a fear, trade people just buy government securities irrelevant of you know whether it's a good investment long term.

So it gave us the opportunity to continue to sell, sell our bonds. So i'm very concerned for people who think fixed income is a good investment right now, because you know between inflation and taxes. You know you got to earn more like seven or eight percent, to make it worth your while than a fixed income, uh, pre-tax and um, and there are very few bonds that pay that so so that's where we've been selling and then where we've been buying, is As we talked last time, we don't try to like time the market and like today is gon na be the bottom or tomorrow. So we just buy a little each week you know and when we we'd like to buy when it's most painful so believe it or not, it's kind of like the way it works, so the more pain i feel you know the more i buy, and it's just Really it's really hard to do so.

I you know i was feeling it last night big time, because i was really depressed about ukraine. You know i i you know i my family's from ukraine. Actually, you know, although we left a hundred years ago, um my entire you know, i'm, jewish and and that entire region is where my family is from, and it's been a tough place to live for 100 plus years and and just to see more hardship reaped upon The ukrainians, again russians, have caused so much pain and suffering on the ukrainian people and to see this continuing again in history. It's tragic, it's really tragic um, so i knew the market was going to open down hard and i figured you know as painful as this is.

I got to buy some stuff today, yeah, so we did you know we did. I don't think that this is the turn in the market yet um, because i still think there's a lot of more news about this. That's not good! That's about to come yeah! I do have pretty good insights into national security because of my family, and you know the next couple steps aren't so great the next steps from the u.s or from both you know. So there are already protests in the street in russia right now, which is very positive.

You know i'm very, very encouraged that putin has overplayed his hand and the russian people don't want to suffer. They don't want they've all been arrested, they're all getting rounded up. There's a strong history of this going on in russia of you know: governments oppressing the dissidents, you know going back to the czars. So if you go back to like tsar nicholas before communism, before lenin, the bolsheviks rose to power because of wars that world war, one that the russians had tremendous costs and loss.

And it was a horribly mismanaged war by nicholas and rasputin was also involved, which was a whole another nightmare. So it was like this nightmare government and the people had had enough and they were super brutal against the people. Then too, but they overthrew the government and they shot all the roman offices. What happened wow, so you know russia doesn't have like a non-violent history, so so putin, you know this is a very a lot of things can happen here and there there's a lot of uncertainty.

How that all works out, yeah, yeah and so so you're thinking through what you're hearing through the grapevine or whatever, is that we should buckle up for more pain from both uh russia, uh, ukraine, the u.s response, uh and, and maybe even the fed. Or are you keeping the fed out of that one? Well well like so like like, let's separate like geopolitical and business okay? Okay, you know 100 of people in america today did the same exact things they were going to do yesterday irrelevant of ukraine, so there's zero economic impact on the united states. Okay, there's, maybe a couple more people who are scared and they're watching cnn. So it's good for cnn, okay, so cnn gets a boost as they always do when there's a war most of what we talk about with ukraine has no impact on our economy.

It just it just doesn't matter so we care because we're people and we care about freedom and we care about what's best for the world, but ukraine and russia have been doing this for like a long time, and so the uncertainties are where the markets get spooked. You know, like is putin gon na win is putin going to lose? Are we going to be drawn into a real war? You know like? Are they going to take over the whole they're going to hold the whole country? So one of the things people have to understand is putin can't hold the ukraine it's a massive country. You know he has 200 000 troops. It's not an occupation force so to occupy a massive country has never been done successfully if the people don't want it.

So in the past you have to overthrow the government and put in a new government so that the people sort of think they want it, but to just go in and start blasting everybody was gon na kill. 20 million ukrainians. I mean it's, it's crazy right. So nobody in the world is going to let that happen.

So the end game is really about pressuring nato not to join. I'm pressuring ukraine not to join nato. They take that region, dumbass region and they're just bombing military sites so that they have less defenses and and putin's trying to get a strategic win without having to commit the troops. Yet.

And if we don't get that he's going to have to commit more troops and he's going to have to try to take over parts of ukraine, and it's going to be an extremely difficult and painful process for him forever, it's not going to be short like a Crimea, annexation - this is much larger. Ukrainians are going to fight, see. Ukrainians are tough and they've, been fighting a lot of them for a long time and there's a lot of money on the line here, a lot of a lot on the line. So if the ukrainian people aren't going to fight for ukraine who's going to fight for ukraine, so i think they're going to fight and crimea was, i think, like yeah 120th, the population, so crimea was a strategically important port for russia.

That's why they took it. It was easy to take and it wasn't there wasn't much to take except the military. You know with ukraine, you got a massive country with major cities that are spread apart. You got a big river down the middle, which kind of cuts the country in half, and you got a lot of farmland.

So it's not like jungles and mountains, where you can hide, so you bring a bunch of tanks across a field with today's weapons. You can blow them all up wow, so you know there's a couple: video games that you can kind of try to act these out like tank battles with modern weapons. It doesn't, it doesn't end well for anybody, so so putin's got himself his new vietnam. That's what he's got he's got his new afghanistan and the best part is we don't have to lose anybody? You know it's ukraine versus russia, which is basically it's a regional conflict that we want to contain and we want the ukrainians to win, and it's really going to bleed putin and his government.

It's a huge positive for the u.s that this is a massive misstep for putin and it's rallied the world around ousting putin. This is a huge mistake for putin and i think it puts the us and and the rest of the world in a better place. If we successfully navigate this crisis, but we have we have so you expect, though, because i mean i think the question in everybody's mind is: is this going to be short, or does it mean long? So georgia and crimea were were two to six weeks? That's it. Are we talking about six months here? What are we talking we're talking about? We have no idea how long or bad this can be, and it was kind of like covet.

Oh it'll, be over in six weeks and we'll be back to work. You know. That's not 30 days 30 days to slow the spread man. That's it we'll be back i'll, be back partying, no problem, um, that's not how it works.

You got to put this in the context of history. This conflict has been going on forever forever. Stalin tried to starve all the ukrainians. You know this is the same conflict, the so in in it was only seven years ago.

It was a russian satellite state, seven years, that's it. So even the young people here watching youtube are old enough to remember when ukraine fell, it was this guy yanovich and he got run out by the democrats. You know like the liberals, they had enough for the corruption whatever it was a wonderful time and ukraine fell. This was seven years ago putin's not over it.

That's what this is about and as zelensky gained power and moved to the west and and modernized and people start having money and people start watching netflix and having a good time, and nobody wants to go back to the russian system. I get that. I get that, but this is not a new conflict and it's not going to end in six weeks it's going to go on and on and on and there's two outcomes, one where putin loses and he loses a lot of power and face, and maybe even his Government and another outcome, that's possible is that they win. I don't think his pride is gon na.

Let him give up, no, no putin doesn't give up at anything. What happens? Is you lose see so russia functions like a mafia, family and the mafia family? Has these oligarchs and the oligarchs control all the industries, and the only thing that matters to these people is money and power right and the only way we can get putin to listen is if all his partners get wiped out, so there's yachts all over europe. We should be seasoned right now from russian oligarchs. We should be taking their cristal and taking their you know, rolexes and and their houses in london.

You know how many oligarchs has a house in london. Do you know how much russian wealth is literally in the city of london right now we could see tons of penthouse. You know apartments were 100 million. Each these guys would have a heart attack.

I saw some kind of note about uh uk limiting how much cash russian nationals could have in uk banks. Do you think that's almost a way, a part of that that's the whole game, see what happens. Is they steal all the money from the russian people and then live this high life around the world? You know they have their 300 million dollar yachts their niece. You know in france, with on having the parties with all the girls and the alcohol.

That's the russian guys, okay, so we shut that down and they're stuck in their little cold shitty country. Well, let me tell you they're, not gon na be too happy with putin. Okay, so putin only controls these people because he'll kill them all. So putin's in control like, like you know, like john gotti, because he just whacks anybody, if you get too snippy with them, but if they lose all their money and they can't go travel and they can't have their girlfriends in there and their european vacations.

It's not. So fun to be a russian anymore, and how long are they gon na put up with that yeah no kidding, so you think, because here you know, we hear like politicians are funded by obviously big dollars. How does that then work in in russia if it's more like mafia style, because it's not like it's like? Oh yeah, here's five million dollars go run your campaign. Violence is how it works.

Violence, extreme violence, okay, the the brutality of a russian prison is hard to imagine it's hard to imagine the brutality of russian regimes to their own people in history. Only hitler was worse. So when you look at russian history and the brutality of the way they treat their own people, i mean just it's the worst history. I've ever read: it's horrible, so you're talking about a very unique place where a tremendous amount of hardship has happened, and yet these are sophisticated people who have the opportunity to have a great life and and putin's just dragging them into the gutter.

But that's how they maintain control is brutality. Just horrendous brutality. Now uh trending on twitter right now is nuclear because uh putin mentioned uh. If anybody messes with us we'll attack - and we have nuclear weapons to which the french government has responded, said hey, you know, nato's got nukes too, and now people are like, oh well.

This is not the conversation we want to be. Having tell me your thoughts, you want me to scare you some more. Certainly the united states is on full national nuclear alert. We have our nuclear bombers scrambled currently and we are prepared to destroy russia.

Currently, we are literally a button push away from destroying russia forever right now right now. So if you have any confusion about the strength of our military of our nuclear weapons and our preparedness to destroy russia, you should have no doubt that we will destroy them. Now. The other hand, the russian system has an aging nuclear arsenal that was mostly built long ago, and this aging arsenal has to be maintained very very expensively for a very long period of time, because these weapons have never been used.

If you don't use and test your weapons, you're not 100 sure that they work. Okay, we've had uh nuclear testing bans with russia for quite some time, so we haven't actually tested nuclear weapons in a very long time. Only north korea has been the one who's been testing nuclear weapons as they've been trying to develop them. So russia has a risk that these weapons have problems.

They don't know they don't know. So when you threaten nuclear destruction but you're not 100 sure how good your nuclear arsenal really is and you're taking on countries that have modern weapons, it's called mad. It's called mutually assured destruction. So if both sides have this situation, this is how i lived my entire childhood in the 80s.

It's a it's a wash, so putin can talk his and we're going to talk our smack but nobody's going to fire a nuclear weapon because it's mutually assured destruction, but the real loser would obviously be russia. But a nuclear exchange has never happened since world war ii and it only happened in world war ii because we did it. So i think that there's very little risk of this good. What about an attack on nato? Nato is really the united states, so so no no, but what's what what really it is is that the russian fighting forces would have no chance against any modern western military, especially the us, especially the u.s.

The us military is so good at what they do. Okay, we have been fighting wars for the last 20 years. 20 years we've been fighting afghanistan, we've been fighting jihadists, okay, when you fight a jihadist, they strap a bomb to their body and they have a machine gun and they run at you and they're. Not scared of dying, it's extremely difficult.

There is not one jihadist in the russian military. Most of them don't want to be there how's the morale going to be how's, the morale going to be taking on the western nations of the world, many of which have experienced militaries. It's not going to happen because they would lose. We spend ten times annually.

What the russians spend on the military ten times what they spend they're just trying to keep their force strong enough. Okay, so we're really talking about a guy who's so far past what his potential is? It's embarrassing and he's like grasping for relevance in a world where he's become irrelevant, he's no different than kim jong-un he's just got more weapons: okay and that's what this is about. He wants the greatness of russia to be back the great soviet union and it's never going to happen again. It's not going to happen.

So it's a trip time. You know. What's your take on uh oil uh energy prices, obviously we're gon na have a little bit of a shock in in europe for a period of time. It's probably gon na affect us out here for a bit uh and that's gon na lead to some more inflation.

At least from energy prices and producer prices for a while yeah - and this has happened a couple times and i'm thrilled about it - it's the best thing that could happen but to encourage an ev transition, you're going all in on tesla, i'm in that's the business, i'm In it's called the oil business them, russia, that's right i'll, say it saudi arabia and the best way you can do it is buying a tesla. You buy a tesla, you buy a pulse star, you put solar on your house, you buy batteries and you don't use oil because my my cost of living hasn't gone up at all. Your cost of living hasn't gone up same price. I don't buy oil, i don't buy gas and now uh.

What is a little more expensive. I don't know well sure - and i mean maybe even like natural gas or heating costs for some people or travel and and input costs, and things like that, i'm all for for not yeah, i'm all for having the evs but um. Well, how is the inflation going to play out for us? Then i mean it's adding fuel to a fire. You know no pun intended well.

This is kind of what i wanted to talk about today that the world isn't going to be the way it was last 10 years, the next 10 years, so we're going to have higher inflation and you can't bring supply chains back to the united states. You can't build factories in the united states. You can't employ u.s workers without getting inflation. Deflation was really caused by globalization by sending all of our business to china, so it was real easy to send people to china and lower our costs.

We don't want to do that anymore, so the upside of investing in factories in the united states and paying people more is that everybody in the united states benefits from this investment in our country. The downside is the cost of living goes up. Okay, so this economy is much more like the 80s, where, instead of inflation running at one to two percent, maybe it's gon na run at two to three percent, and when i started in the business we used to run hypotheticals with inflation running at five percent and Then we lowered it to four and then we lowered it to three. So we still run our baseline inflation rate at three percent when we're doing hypotheticals and to the future.

But it's actually been two percent for the last 20 years. We were about to lower it to two percent, but the reason i didn't is: i would rather overestimate inflation when you're trying to figure out your financial future right right. So a three percent inflation rate is what i expect over the next couple years and with that yields closer to three percent on the bond. Because that's why i'm selling my bond yeah? That's why i've sold my bonds, but also what you get is three to four percent growth of gdp versus two, and that means much higher earnings nominal just real dollars, right, okay, so so like, if you think about a company today, like home depot, just reported, and They reported a great number and it helps them that there's inflation because they pass that on.

So earnings go up, so you can say, like inflation. Adjuster earnings might not go up as much, but you don't do that with earnings. You don't adjust earnings for inflation. Yeah! You know it's funny or home depot did say they sold less stuff.

That's right. They had larger revenue because a sheet of plywood used to be spending. That's right. Plywood was fifteen dollars.

Now it's like fifty dollars home depot makes the same margin. So if they make a twenty percent margin on thirteen dollars versus a twenty percent margin on fifteen dollars, they make more money. So inflation is good for stocks. Most people don't understand that in stocks are a hedge against inflation, sure that's what they are when you own info technology, less so, okay, so so companies that build things.

You know i'll give an example. We we started buying a little bit of a mine mountain pass. Mp, it's lithium, it's a u.s producer. They got a contract.

It's a you know. The government is now making lithium production and mining a national security issue, because we can't get everything from battery supply chains from china because we're going to be totally beholden to china for all our new tech and battery. So the united states government is encouraging investment here. In the united states to build out the supply chain for batteries, but if you own a commodities company that pulls rocks out of the earth, so i'm buying rocks, because if i hold rocks the rocks go up in value when the dollar goes down, so mining companies Do well, you know it's like i own rocks um a lot of things do well.

If you could charge more if disneyland charges more, they just make more money sure so inflation hurts margins when you don't pass on the price increase. Okay, but if you pass on the price increase, it doesn't hurt you at all and that's what's happening right now: they're passing on the costs, and so the real issue is now that we've we're up at 100 a barrel and the cost of doing everything is more Expensive um is next year it going to be another five or seven percent higher, and i don't think that's the case. So i think the pace of inflation is gon na to get lower than obviously five or seven percent a year. So i think we're going to move towards three percent a year by the end of the year and i think that's partially going to be caused by a lot of these uncertainties, um and higher rates.

You know slowing the economy, which is what it's supposed to do. So, let's talk about that and the fed! Well, how responsible do you think they are for shock and awings, so to speak, the market yeah they're part of the problem, okay, part of the problem? Well, it's ballard! You know like the job of the fed, isn't to like jawbone talk at press conferences all all day. You got all these fed governors saying different and none of them have power. So a fed governor has no power over rates.

The chairman of the board decides what the fed's going to do so each fed governor says. Oh, we should raise rates this and we should raise rates that and then the fed you know then powell decides so bullard can say. I want 50 basis points and they put that on cnbc, but there were three other women came out saying: oh, we want 25 basis points and that doesn't make the news sure you know yeah yeah, daily master and all of them exactly none of them matter, and I'm like, why are why are they talking, you know? Is it their job to do press conferences who decided this, so it's become detrimental to the markets, and i think that you know we're going to be writing to the fed that this should stop. It's like the stock trading around it too, so they're commenting in the market and their stock trading.

So now the fed can stock trade. You know, and i'm like these goofballs should not be doing press conferences, including powell um. It just hasn't provided value or transparency um. That said, i have a lot of faith in the fed doing this right and now with crimea.

I mean now with ukraine. You know it. It sort of makes the ped be a little more cautious on how aggressive they're going to be, because you know do we want to really sink the u.s economy in a time of tension and war. Yeah right not good idea in an election year and all this kind of stuff.

So so i actually expect march when the fed meeting happens and we get certainty. Yeah it'd be a good point to look at markets again yeah. I couldn't agree more. I was looking at uh, some of the feds speak today.

I know you don't love some of these people but um the ecb, for example european central bank. They said this war. Uncertainty may delay the withdrawal of stimulus right, uh and then barkin daily mester all came out talking about how uh it's too soon to tell, but this could end up affecting demand and end up, naturally, lowering inflation right. That's correct! That's correct now! Fortunately, fortunately, nobody in america really watches the news they watch meet kevin so because everybody watches me kevin were informing people more than cnn is, and so actually most people don't give a crap.

You know i hate to say it because a lot of people on twitter and a lot of people on youtube are trying to be very informed, which is great, but that's not our country. Today, our country today is most people, don't care about the news and don't watch it, and so very few people have changed any behavior. I haven't seen any change in any behavior from anybody. I've got a lot more questions from people who watch the news, though.

What do you think about biden, saying uh that putin has greater ambitions than ukraine? What does that mean since everything around is essentially nato? I think what he means is that in his mind, he wants to see the soviet union be great again, you know it's like trump. He wants to make russia great again. You know make the soviet union great again, and what he's really seeing and what he's really seen is all his satellite countries go to the west and go to nato, and so when he says he has greater ambitions. It means that if he was able to take ukraine easily like it would only embolden him to look at the other countries that are seemingly independent like belarus, which is an ally of russia right now and and implicit in the genocide.

That's going on right now, um. He might just take that country over because they've had a lot of uh riots and uncertainty with the government. Remember he had to send his secret police in to brutalize the the uh. What are they bulgarians or something uh belarusians um and and so that government's teetering? So what he might end up doing is then every country that's teetering going west.

He then invades and creates his own soviet union again um. So that's what i think he means by greater ambition, but ukraine is the big prize. Ukraine is the largest country that they can take. That has the history that you know really makes it attractive and how hard this is for him very much will determine the future, and that's why i think biden is being so forceful now, which i think is smart and i think he's been handling this.

So far. Pretty good so we'll see we'll see how this goes as a wartime president moving forward. Yeah, that's a good point, because bulgaria is a member of nato. I think it was like 2004 or something like that.

But belarus isn't you're right and, and they are, they were the launching ground for this attack. So why not just take both ukrainians and that's the point, because if he takes ukraine, why not take belarus because they have an unstable government? The people are tired of the belarusian government too, and they don't want oppression. You know what i mean like in general, so this is what i was talking about at lunch like so some things have changed that putin hasn't factored and one of them is the internet. People today we live in a much smaller world and there's probably russians and ukrainians, watching your show and there's probably russians and ukrainians, watching netflix and they're, probably playing call of duty and our all of our global cultures have gotten closer together because of the internet and Social media - and so i think, putin has underestimated that the global community wants freedom and nothing is really secret and and this aggression is, is being played out full-fledged on social media, and it just makes russia look horrendous and i don't think he's factored all these things.

In in the modern era, but people don't want oppression in war across the board, it's just not what humans want and - and so i think, we're you know. This could be a huge mistake from putin, because the power of social media is much more powerful than the gun, actually wow wow. What? What do you think about uh? Like i mean you, do you think social media is essentially amplifying these protests, because now we're seeing the protests not just in russia but we're seeing them in france in the united kingdom in america, uh people are donating bitcoin to to the ukrainian resistance, and the army Said i think they got 400k in bitcoin donations right. You think social media is essentially amplifying this.

This look at isis. Look at what isis did. There were a bunch of weird jihadists that became a country because of social media. Okay, they were attracting thousands of volunteers a month to jihad, in the middle of nowhere to basically die through social media.

Okay, so the ukrainians are playing that game and they have got sympathy of the entire world. If you go onto twitter right now, the entire world is sympathetic to ukraine, yeah, yep and you're. Absolutely right. They also called they said.

If you want to fight come to ukraine and we'll give you a gun and you can fight and people are going to do that, because people want to go, kill the russians and putin, you know, and so, like you've got mercenaries, i mean you know. This is once again, it just becomes the next vietnam for russia, and so it's like in the social media era, the phone is more powerful than the gun wow. What do you think about the sanctions? You know i'm just looking here. The lithuanian president just came out just now minutes ago and said that we need substantially stronger uh sanctions that it's got to be done today tomorrow might be too late.

Right is what they're saying like ukraine needs, help and y'all you know, being babies. Yesterday, boris johnson got lambasted by the financial times in the united kingdom, obviously for for his peashooter sanctions and uh, you know biden's tranche one was a complete joke as well. The fact that they didn't go for the swift banking system today was also a shocker. Like sure, maybe italy and germany are a little poed, but but like let's go i mean, what's your take on all this yeah um? Sadly, sanctions don't do anything to russia.

You know this has been going on forever and that's the reality. So russia saved about 600 billion dollars in gold in for in foreign reserves. Russia has almost no trade with the united states. Most of their trade is with germany and it's mostly around energy.

Russia provides energy to countries around the world, including the united states, and that's the only way they make money and you can't say no, because it's like 12 or 15 percent of the global production. So the only sanction that would work is if we stopped buying russian oil um, we didn't sanction. We literally did not sanction the energy we can't, because we just pay more and and and so so so putin has been sanctioned his whole freaking life. If you think that bothers him now, where you cause, the pain, is, as i've said, is in the lifestyles of the people who benefit from putin's largest, which are the oligarchs and they're, as i said in london today in europe, today are billions in oligarch assets from Yachts to homes, to art, to everything that could be seized immediately if these people had the you-know-what and that's what i would be doing and if you were a russian oligarch that isn't in russia right now, i would arrest you wow, that's what i would do.

Okay, that's what putin will understand, but these sanctions aren't anything. We got to play hard and we got to play dirty and not only do you arrest them, you arrest them and you put them in a hole where nobody knows where they are. You don't arrest them and bring them back to the united states. We put them in that bulgarian prison where we used to put all the the jihadists wow wow okay, but you take a couple of these guys.

Abram off and all these you know, go oligarchs and you start messing with them and and stuff gets uncomfortable, real, quick and, and that would get back to putin essentially to get him to maybe chill out. They would be calling putin tomorrow if we seized their lifestyles. Uh-Huh: okay, okay, there's no need to be rich. If you have to live in siberia or moscow, 12 months of the year yeah, none of them are going to live there 12 months of the year 12 months they live in europe.

They all live in europe. We so we just got an update here that google is telling keeve employees to shelter in place as the city comes under fire from russian uh uh aggressors or the army. Good idea is keeve going to fall today. No, no keeve is a huge city.

It's a city where my relatives are from and kiev not only is a massive modern city just for russia to occupy. It would cause tremendous damage and destruction and death. I mean tremendous. I can't even imagine trying to take a city of millions of people with 150 000 troops.

It's it's not a pretty sight like it's genocide. It's like dead babies and all this kind of stuff. You know that's not going to play well globally at all. Keeve is also strategically a little bit in a difficult position to take too and and how far they spread their forces out.

You know there's a lot of strategic issues with dealing with that. I don't think that's the goal right now. I think if they can take dunbas and and these these outer regions and hold them they'll be pretty happy. That's the current plan, i think they're creating fear they're bombing, but what they're really trying to hit now is military installations, aircraft, anti-aircraft, um tanks artillery pieces because you can't invade a country if their defenses are up, so you have to bomb their defenses.

For a few days, and then we're going to see the mobilization, probably in in a few more days where then they'll move the actual troops into that area of eastern ukraine, so that they can take the separatist region. So that will be their first goal. Probably, to take the separatist regions that are most aligned with him, but to control a country that nobody wants you to be in control is a really really tough thing because you get you know terrorism, you know they'll they'll blow up the tanks, and you know it's. It's real hard! Well speaking of uh terrorism, it's almost like there's this update of of uh, essentially russian-style terrorism that just came through from zielinski zelinski, just said in a video address, uh that uh the enemies.

So russian sabotage groups have entered kiev and, and then he subsequently urged residents to be vigilant and observe curfew rules. How do you think i mean? Do you think they're going to even bother with keeve? Do you think this is how they start or, like you said, just control the separatist areas and just leave it at that? Maybe cause problems somewhere else, but no occupation right. So so, what's the goal, the goal is to get ukraine to be subjugated to russia and not join nato. I think they threw a flag up on the capital keith they they won.

Well, not if nobody in kiev goes along with it and there's unrest constantly right. So so the goal is to get them not to join nato and to become more of a russian state to overthrow the government. Okay occupying the country is not the goal, because it's you would need, like i mean we sent 500 000 troops into gulf war, one when we invaded iraq, we sent 500 000 troops to baghdad and that didn't work. So in vietnam, i think we had around five or six hundred thousand troops at any one time in vietnam that didn't work.

We never controlled any of vietnam as much as we thought we did. If the people don't go along with it, you don't control it. You know so they need to overthrow the government so by putting sabotage in by creating fear by blowing up stuff destabilizing the government getting the people of ukraine to be done with solenski, that he can't protect them. That's the goal so that they overthrow him and then putin's puppet can take over that's the goal.

But the idea of sending you know millions of russians in to peacekeep an entire huge country of 60 million people or whatever. It's just not going to happen. So they're trying to destabilize the government overthrow it just that's the simplest way to get control and it's the least painful. So you're saying we might end up with another dimitri right: that's what they want! That's what they want so you're.

Let's talk about investing now you so you're going. This has been your reason to go big on on tesla or one of the contributing reasons, but i want to hear more from you about tesla. I also saw some solar companies today. Yeah, like ease and and sunrun did did exceptionally well today, solar ads and um yeah yeah so tell me a little bit what what's the investing strategy what's going on with tesla, so, let's well tesla and sec is another conversation, not a good one um.

So so ever so when alternative energy in tesla was like, so if you go back, i think it was like 15 years ago, um united states came up with this thing called you know fracking, and we had these shale areas and we used to get all of Our oil from foreign countries and very little from domestic and what happened was we figured out through technology and through these shales that we were able to get tons of natural gas and oil very efficiently? And we grew our ability to produce oil from something like three or four million barrels a day to like eight to twelve million barrels a day. You know and we became one of the largest oil producers in the world equal to russia and saudi arabia. So currently the united states there's three main players, we're one of them and then it's russia and saudi arabia, and so during that period of time, oil prices were going higher and when we had no control - and it was like a national security issue like we need To have control of our energy, you know, and so we invested a ton uh as a country into building the shale players and they became really successful and it countered the power of russia and saudi arabia, because when they can just jack up prices to any level, It was like gouging consumers and making their pockets flush whenever they felt like it and what happened was under obama. They came up with this idea.

Well, we can't just have just help. Oil companies pump more oil because it's bad for the environment and it's not a solution, long term. We need to come up with alternatives. So obama had this program where he funded a bunch of green companies and he got criticized a lot because a lot of it were bad investments, but one of them was tesla tesla started as a government loan which they paid off and full with profits, and the Idea was how do we create alternatives because 100 oil is reality and - and you know just pumping more and more oil is a bad solution because of the environment and this whole industry, whether it be solar batteries and evs, was born.

So it's really only 10 plus years old. You know so tesla is a 10 year old company, it's it's like or it's older than that. But you know basically the first car was 2013.. So you know it's: eight nine years they've been making cars like total grand total of their entire, including like the the old roadster thing, just yeah yeah, but in as far as scale the model three started in 2018.

So right, nobody scaled ev production until literally three years ago. Okay, so when you think about what would get you to buy an ev back in the old days, it was oil prices. That was, that was the main reason. It wasn't better tech, it wasn't this or that the charging wasn't as good.

There was no infrastructure, but if you wanted to save money, you could do it, and that was like the bullish case for tesla back in the old days when oil prices was 100 bucks. Everybody's, like oh, this is a bullish case for tesla, because the longer it's at 100 bucks, more people gon na want evs yeah. When oil dropped to forty dollars. It was bad for tesla because it's like well, it doesn't cost me anything.

So why do i need to buy an ev right? Okay, so i have two goals: one goal is to save the environment and, and it would lower gas prices if we pump more oil, but it would be very detrimental for our environment. So i like high oil prices because it teaches people to use the alternatives, it's the technology adoption and that technology is battery technology, ev and solar and renewable energy. So when these things happen and now we're being dragged around by putin in saudi arabia again, it creates the government even more incentive to get a solar and renewable energy bill passed this year, which is on the agenda. It's we need to get off oil like how many times are you gon na pay 150 dollars to fill up your truck before you've had enough.

So what what uh? What's your take on? Because you know we're still not quite yet at that parity where it's like? Ah, you know it's: it's still cheaper to have natural gas and oil than solar and wind, at least for now, because because of the battery storage and the reliability in that right. So why not just have the keystone pipeline on for another 10 years or something while we get these costs down, we get the innovations and is it because you're trying to incentivize those those innovations or what's your take on that yeah and why not loot nuclear yeah? Well, yeah, it is why do i have to do that? Why do i, if we're gon na talk about? Oh so i got ta, keep keystone pipeline pumping oil and tons of oil. You know why don't we build a nuclear plant? There's not gon na, be a chernobyl we're very good at nuclear stuff actually, but because of you know fukushima and chernobyl, and three mile island. You know before you were born, nobody will build a plant and nuclear energy works and it's renewable or whatever you want to get green or whatever you want to call it yeah, and so the simplest solution in the world is to commission a couple nuclear plants and We're done well, i suppose we we always have that option, but uh what why why don't they uh? Is it just uh? Is it just politics these days, yeah, that's! Well! That's it! Okay, nothing! No big bull on tesla solar edge uh.

What? What else are you looking at right now? Well, this is this is where it gets interesting. So so, let's not talk about technology, because the next stage, even though technology always benefits you know like technology, is a core position for us in our investments. It's about 25 to 30 of our investments and that's not going to change you know so, there's great technology investments you can make right now too, but where the market's going and where the economy is going is where we're putting our money and that's the mgm hotels. That's disneyland, that's the going out play so we're looking at the going out play i'm looking at every theme park in the country, so a stock that i'm looking at right.

Now, it's company called cedar fairs. They own knott's, berry farm. If you've been down here, they own 13 theme parks around the united states. Some belt um they've been severely impacted by covid, like all theme parks last year, wasn't as bad as the year before, but none of the parks have been open the full year.

So this company called sea world which owns shamu, you know the in san diego and they had that whole problem with blackfish and the and and the torture of animals and so sea world was a very popular park. When i was a kid i was a big fan of shamu and all that i didn't realize they were torturing the animals and uh. But when you have kids - and you know you have kids and you go down to san diego, you go. Do these things? The animal park, the sea world, you know that's what you do so.

I've been looking at sea world for a while, but nobody in the company will, let me buy it because they torture, fish and um, even though they don't torture the fish anymore, they still won't. Let me buy it um and then there's uh six flags which owns a bunch of theme, parks and amusement parks and rides. Roller coasters and basically um sea world tried to buy uh cedar fairs just recently and they bid 60 bucks. They got turned down, they bid 63.

They got turned down again um cedar, ferris trades at 55 today because they turned down the deal, the stock's worth way more, that's why they turned it down and it pays out it's a partnership. It pays out its profits in cash, so it has a really high dividend when the parks are actually open and the dividend should be three to four dollars a share once the parks are open again in april, their season starts in april. So i'm taking a good look. I haven't taken a a real position in this company yet, but i value it at 70.

Bucks supposedly six flags wants it for 70 bucks um. What's the ticker, it's fun fun and that's the beauty of it. What a great ticker? How do you lose in a company? That's ticker, it's fun, you know um, and so it's like i'm looking at cedar fairs because i think, what's going to happen in spring, you know they're, taking the mass mandates off here in l.a today, um. You know my basic theory is people are going to go crazy this summer, the travel so we're.

I i've built mgm now into my number two position behind uh tesla. Actually, wow yeah, that's a big deal, so so i've been adding to disney. So i went through disney as well, so disney owns a tremendous amount of properties right, so they have hotels like in hawaii. They have cruise ships, okay and then they have this whole development outside of orlando and disney world, and now they're building this thing called storyville in palm springs, so they decided to build like even older communities for housing.

So it's a community for all. It's like a disney community for old people. I think now i want to go me too. This is how smart they are because they know, like my generation, that grew up on star wars were getting old and, and it and like i could go live at a star wars.

Community in palm springs. It smells kind of good to me. I was teasing people in the office this morning. It's like when i retire.

I want to dress like boba fett and like walk around you know and like palm springs is perfect because it's kind of like a moon. You know it's like super hot and like deserty, and i'm like this is the best idea i've ever heard wow so to disney, because i think their properties are going to do so. Well, i think people are going back to the theaters too. I think people movie business does well um theme parks.

Are you all in on amc? Then no amc is just poorly run. You know everybody likes this adam aaron guy, but i think he's a doofus. You know but he's an ape whatever they don't know him he's a doof and what happened was he took 10 million off the top right when this went down? I don't know if everybody realizes that oh yeah and i own amc bonds, though i do own amc i'll, take that back. I own the debt of amc, and so amc owes me money and they're paying a very high interest to me right now and you can buy it right now for 75 cents on the dollar, maybe 80 cents on the dollar.

I think i'm getting the cur when i bought it. The yield was 11, so you know it's quite nice. I bought it at 50 cents on the dollar, now it's 78 70 and 80 cents on the dollar. So i think you get something like seven.

Seven percent. Eight percent from amc it matures in three years and if it matures at maturity or you get another 25 percent gain if it have maturity, so i think amc stays in business. I just don't want to own the stock when did uh or what do you take? Then, or what do you think about, let's say cedar park, or even a dave and buster's carnival cruise lines? These companies are pretty saturated with debt. How do you handle that ones? I don't want the high debt one so carnival cruise lines pure cruise lines.

I don't want okay, super hard business, super expensive business to run and you got to go to foreign countries and let people off and get them back on and they're going to get coronavirus. So i don't like the cruise business as much and i can get that exposure in disney with a lot less risk, um yeah. So then there's restaurants. We looked at restaurants.

Today i hate the restaurant business. Typically, i i really think it's a bad business and all my restaurant clients are constantly suffering and the only reason they're in the restaurant business is they're either a chef or they love entertaining yeah. You know um, but profits are tough, but we looked at like ruth chris today, which is the stock that i've looked at for my entire career and never owned. And i have this partialness to ruth chris, because it's a new orleans company and they make steak and butter, which is my kind of thing and uh.

We should go no, and so so we think that restaurants are going to do well. You know we didn't get around to getting bullish on it, because i still don't like the business, but my restaurant guys are doing big money right now, they're making big money everything's packed packed and they have more space now. You know, because they've been allowed to go out onto the right into the parking lots and all that, and so even with the more space they're they're they're just super busy. And so you know, labor costs have gone up, food costs have gone up, but the cost of going out has also gone up and so finding employees.

Well it's funny because good restaurant people haven't had the problem because they just pay people yeah. It's it's really about the restaurant people who want to still pay people 15 bucks an hour, not gon na happen. There's nobody to hire in la for 15 bucks an hour anymore. No, so the going rate is now 25 bucks an hour for anything for anything.

So so i think if you pay people in your restaurant person, you'll be okay, a lot of the restaurant people. You know who've made it are the ones who've been here for a long time, so there tend to be better operators and uh. Have you looked into dave and buster's? You know not as a stock, you know, i. I don't think it's a bad idea.

I don't think it's a bad idea at all. I haven't looked into it. Maybe i'll look at it tonight. You know so i i bought it, i don't hold it anymore.

I bought it during the pandemic and wrote it for a little bit and uh one of the things i thought was really neat about. It is uh they. What they want to do is they want to open up smaller scale stores, because you know they're, arcade, restaurants, that's why i like to open up smaller scale stores in malls, and, i think, to myself. Well, the mall business is kind of dying.

Do you ride this and hope that maybe moles are like please dave buster is coming here, bring people to the freaking mall, that's what's happening, yeah, that's what's happening so malls suck still, which i don't really want to be in yeah, but the malls that are really Succeeding like the palisades mall have pivoted from retail to entertainment yeah. So what is the uh virtual reality thing? Yeah? They have like the vr things like the you like the like in the palace days. What caruso is doing like cariso's the model, so you put a bunch of restaurants, you have a theater, you have like fun things to do, and stores versus lots of stores and some stuff to do you know, and so the malls that are doing well will offer People like dave and busters like free, rent, basically yeah, because they can drive business in so restaurants and entertainment, can drive business in and and what crusoe just did, which was super smart. I couldn't believe it.

He put tesla's superchargers in the palisades, so we had like five or six chargers in this whole eevee area and he just took out half the parking lot and made it a tesla supercharger station and i'm like this is amazing. They just opened 20 superchargers here in santa monica, like it's amazing and i'm like. If you want people in your mall put tesla superchargers there good point yeah, and so i i think that dave and buster's is not a bad idea. I don't know how well run the company is, you know and that's the research we do dude i sold the company because in an earnings call the ceo is like all right to get people back, we're going to start doing like radio shows and like giveaways in The store and i'm like kendall, so you heard of snapchat dude, have you heard of snapchat? You know it's like yeah, like performances, could do so paul had an online strategy because it's like they should be like you play games there right.