Big Digital Energy

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;28;26
Unknown
Okay. Before we got started, I got one thing, to to share with you guys. Saturday night went with my best friend, fish to see Morris Day. And the time saw the picture. Wow. Oh, we. Oh, yeah. Exactly. I saw Morris Day in the time open for prints. I saw that tour as well. Yeah. Vanity six Morris day in the time and then prints.

00;00;28;28 - 00;00;50;22
Unknown
Yeah. No, it was great because fish and I were the only two white guys in the place. We were like the animals at the zoo. Like, what are these dudes doing here? And we just were screaming, looking like dorks. Everybody else was dressed up. Looked really great. We were kind of nerdy, but anyway, it was awesome. What venue?

00;00;50;24 - 00;01;19;19
Unknown
Smart financial. Down in Sugarland. So got to see a show there. So we're sitting on the front porch, listening to music here in Nantucket, and Lionel Richie comes on. I'm playing out of Spotify. I have a little, an island kind of, playlist, and we get some shade from people walking by, and I'm thinking, Lionel Richie.

00;01;19;21 - 00;01;51;12
Unknown
We were seeing Lyle Lovett at Jazz Fest, and it was such a bad show. We're like, let's go check out Lionel Richie on the other main stage. Totally not interested. Holy shit. Dude. That was fucking the best show I've ever seen live. We were blown away that Lionel Owen. The crowd here is amazing. So unlike Lionel Richie. Dude, go see him if you still can.

00;01;51;12 - 00;02;13;22
Unknown
But Lionel Richie. Well, when you used to play Los Angeles Country Club, I forget which hole it is, but let's just say it's hole five. Lionel Richie's house backs up into it. And if you knock a ball into his backyard, you know, people would walk up. He's got this big wooden fence, but there was a little mailbox.

00;02;13;22 - 00;02;36;04
Unknown
If you would drop your business card in there, he'd mail you a CD. I remember that. I've played it a couple years, a number of, like. Of course, you actually know a few members, so I guess I could do that. Ronald Reagan's club. I knew a few members there, and we, you know, obviously the Home Office was in LA, so we'd make it out there.

00;02;36;04 - 00;02;55;29
Unknown
I'd get to play it every once in a while. The, the guys in the locker room were always fascinated about no capital gains tax, no income tax and taxes. They were all like, really? How's that work? Can we get in on that where we're going to get to the world of energy in a second? But someone reached out to me.

00;02;56;01 - 00;03;20;27
Unknown
This is the difference between an entrepreneur and an executive. Someone reached out to me and said, hey, catch up soon. Hope all is well. I'm like, let's do it. They're like, when are you free? I'm like, you're around Thursday. And then this is what they say. Yeah. Let me get my agent, my assistant, to set that up for us.

00;03;20;29 - 00;03;46;10
Unknown
I'm like, that's such an executive. I'm like, that's so stupid. Just do it. I think that's an age thing. I don't know that that's executive versus entrepreneur, because I consider myself an entrepreneur. And the Greek, definition of the word of the word, right now. And I've got Stacy planning out my whole life. So I think it's an age thing.

00;03;46;13 - 00;04;12;25
Unknown
Chuck, it hearkens all the way back. I was thinking about this the other day. I was thinking about this. I got a similar email. Your first outreach to call back in 2020? Yeah. Which was called call me Chuck Yates. I thought it was Chuck Yates calling Chuck Yates here. Yeah. Check it out here. Call me. All right, what do we want to do?

00;04;12;25 - 00;04;46;12
Unknown
We want to get in the Middle East. We were just there on Friday. Well, let's go back. There were a lot of love taps, but there's been some pretty serious escalation. Not only immediately involving the straight, but some other things we'll talk about as well. I thought and also Alhaji and I think it was a post from this morning compared the IRGC to the drug cartels and said basically they're not interested in a functional country.

00;04;46;15 - 00;05;12;22
Unknown
They're focused purely on the tactical and basically don't like saying they don't care about winning the war. And that was followed by a, I think, a really good question, which was, how can anyone expect the US and the IRGC to agree on anything? And what iteration of the MOU, which is, I think, turned into the MOF? Few. Oh, nice.

00;05;12;24 - 00;05;40;23
Unknown
Nice line. What was the big announcement yesterday? Well, the it went from tolls are illegal under international law to we're going to charge 20%. Is that what you're asking? Exactly. And my thought on that is it's almost like the homeowner association president went and bought a radar gun and started starting to, write people tickets for speeding.

00;05;40;23 - 00;06;25;11
Unknown
That's kind of what it felt like for those of you scoring at home with Vlcc carriers, 2 million barrels. Let's just say crude is 80 bucks. The value of that cargo is, what, 2 million times 8160 million? I mean, 160 million. And what's 20% of that? 32. Why are you making me do math? The arithmetic. 32 mil. Math is hard, but $16 a barrel on top of, you know, I've seen the word tariff sneak in there and, you know, reaching back to our inflation discussion, around diesel last week.

00;06;25;13 - 00;06;48;06
Unknown
Where does that show up? I don't think there's a snowball's chance in hell the maritime or the, maritime insurance industry or are ever going to let that happen. I think it creates a even more instability. But where does that show up and who pays for it? I mean, it shows up in my gas every time I fill up.

00;06;48;06 - 00;07;20;14
Unknown
My gas tank is where it shows up right? The ultimate consumer. And if you just want to do some comparison. So 32 million for one of these tankers that I mean Trump has lost his mind. But in the Suez Canal it's about 700,000 for the tall. The Panama Canal is around 400,000. We're now going from sort of 704 hundred to 700,000 to 32 million for one tanker.

00;07;20;17 - 00;07;48;08
Unknown
Talk about a president that's going totally against what he's promised everybody at the polls, right? And so I was thinking about the last, you know, year and a half of the much ballyhooed tariffs and how many hundreds of billions we were getting in our quote unquote, coffers. As anybody looked at the debt clock lately as as that rate of change slowed, have we crossed 40 trillion yet?

00;07;48;09 - 00;08;13;18
Unknown
We're getting close. Yeah. Good question. I'm sure, Clyde can tell us. I don't know how much grocery shopping you guys have been doing lately, but there's stickiness across the board. Oh, shit. I'm. You're. I'm sitting in Nantucket, dude. I see the grift on a daily basis. Larry's Mexican restaurant has raised the price of the chili burrito dinner on Friday night.

00;08;13;18 - 00;08;42;15
Unknown
So it's real mayhem, dude. But no. No. I mean, the only difference I hear is, like, who knew that we'd actually be saying that the IRGC is, in some ways, at least more honest here. The only difference? I mean, it's a the IRGC is a cartel. And the only difference between a government and a cartel is that a cartel doesn't pretend to be acting in your interest.

00;08;42;17 - 00;09;08;02
Unknown
A government tells you that the toll is for your protection while it picks your pocket. So at least the IRGC has the decency to call it what it is. I am. I mean, and I went back. We're talking about this. I'm like, let's let's talk about the Panama and the Suez Canal for a second, because right now what we're seeing this is in international waters.

00;09;08;02 - 00;09;40;00
Unknown
You're not allowed to charge a fee, by the way, under international law, which that's bullshit also. But but where do you want to go if you look at it? The Suez Canal took ten years and 1.5 million laborers to build the Panama Canal took a decade. Cost 500,000,019 $14, and killed 25,000 workers. So. And both of those are pretty many are manmade engineering marvels.

00;09;40;03 - 00;10;06;22
Unknown
The United States did not. They didn't dig anything in the in this canal. It's manmade. It's natural. Between Iran and Oman. And we're now charging a toll. I'm just like, what are we doing? I'm putting a mark on that one. So I, you know, I get the I get running out of off ramps is what we're doing. Yeah.

00;10;06;22 - 00;10;29;01
Unknown
I mean, it's the asymmetric, nature of the war of war these days that we were talking about on Friday, literally for less than the price of, F-250, somebody with a soldering iron can build something that can go take down a tanker in the, in the Gulf. And, I just don't know how you fight against that.

00;10;29;02 - 00;10;56;04
Unknown
I mean, Ukraine has come up with a drone. Yeah. Drones. I mean, they're basically flying drones over and and, and and messing with, tankers and, you know, what do you do about that? It's tough. Ukraine's May had developed some in the way of methodologies for dealing with the the Russian drone. So maybe we can go get them to teach us some stuff.

00;10;56;04 - 00;11;31;18
Unknown
But that's, you know, that's literally three guys on a remote control can go mess with these big tankers, and it's almost impossible to do anything about. I think this is a little a little bit different than the initial kind of love taps. The drone strikes in the street. You know, have, you know, a situation where you had an Indian sailor killed, as a result of one of the strikes and the Iranian ambassador was called in to explain himself?

00;11;31;20 - 00;12;10;19
Unknown
You've got a Qatar LNG tanker that was struck, and now you have. And moving on to the spillover or the spreading you've got for the first time in four years, strike exchanges between the Houthis and the Saudis. And so the government and and, Sana is. Apparently controlled by the, the Saudis. Well, there was a plane load of Houthis coming back from the ayatollahs funeral.

00;12;10;21 - 00;12;32;29
Unknown
And so they struck the airport to prevent them from landing. Well, the Houthi said, we're going to we're going to return fire and lob, you know, lob some drones and missiles toward a an airport in southwestern Saudi. And since then, they've come out with a little more aggressive rhetoric about, not only are we going to continue this.

00;12;33;02 - 00;13;18;08
Unknown
Campaign, they also renewed the threats to close the element up strait, which also, has implications for Suez. And the workarounds now to the workarounds like the East-West pipeline, if those closures happen, you know, just create another. Paralysis in the Middle East and, in Persian Gulf and Middle Eastern oil gets further trapped. And so we have, you know, we have, absorbed the disruption up to this point by rapidly draining inventories, strategic inventories and commercial inventories.

00;13;18;10 - 00;13;47;11
Unknown
Oh, and by the way, the Chinese decided we're going to take a bit of a breather to the tune of 5 million barrels a day of of imports. So how much shock absorber remains? And, you know, is this now moving north very on WTI and closer to 90 for Brant than it is to 80. How much of this is crude catching up with the logistics particularly embedded in products, which is really what ultimately the consumer and politicians care about.

00;13;47;13 - 00;14;13;04
Unknown
We're escalating not de-escalating is the issue. Right. And so you get into this spiral of escalation. You don't know who you're dealing with in terms of who's the ultimate decision maker for the country in Iran, defined as the IRGC, because they have all the guns and missiles and drones. And there are, as we said repeatedly, there are 31 cells among the IRGC.

00;14;13;07 - 00;14;45;13
Unknown
And coming off the, you know, the ayatollahs funeral, there's been a whole explosion of rhetoric and revenge. And, I mean, I'm trying to unpack that, and it's not necessarily relevant to I mean, it is very relevant, but it's it's it's own rabbit hole. Is this there a the four year truce you mention? And the Saudis broke it because they bombed the runway to stop an Iranian plane from bringing Hooty delegates home from a funeral.

00;14;45;15 - 00;15;08;24
Unknown
Now I'm just trying to sit with that. A funeral trip, the logistics of mourning. The supreme leader we killed triggered a train, a chain reaction that threatens the entire Red sea shipping. I mean, how many movies are we going to see after this? This is a Tom Clancy dream come true. There's so many plots going on. I can't even catch up.

00;15;08;27 - 00;15;41;04
Unknown
There's so many things going on. I can't figure it out because, I mean, it's like a nesting doll. A Russian nesting doll of energy risk. And behind every dollar, it's a drone. It's unbelievable. Yeah. The, you know, the unfortunate thing is all this is going to do is generate a lot in the way of criticism, and no real solutions will be offered for any of this except, it's all Trump's fault or whatever.

00;15;41;07 - 00;16;08;18
Unknown
I still go back to what I said on Friday. I think we ultimately did have to dismantle the conventional weaponry of Iran. Just that was a shield. They were going to be able to build their nuclear bomb behind. And, and, so we had to get rid of that. Unfortunately, it's just war is hard. War as hell. And, it's not going to be a quick fix.

00;16;08;18 - 00;16;49;11
Unknown
It's not going to be a, fast outlet. And it does have real repercussions because of where it is in the world. I think what it does, Chuck, and as I'm thinking, I'm playing checkers still, but let's just go for to a chess moment for a second, for the energy, for the traders out there. I mean, this is the moment when you're plan B develop its own plan B problem, and there's no plan C, and the only plan C that I can think about is building a pipeline across Saudi Arabia to the Mediterranean, which which would I mean, that would probably take at least ten years and cost $50 billion.

00;16;49;11 - 00;17;14;03
Unknown
But maybe that's sort of what is being driven here. You have to be thinking that way now. You have to be thinking about how do you basically just take this, this whole waterway out of the pit, out of the global picture? Is there a way to do that? I rarely find it appropriate to, quote Keanu Reeves, but Keanu Reeves in the movie speed take the hostage out of the equation.

00;17;14;06 - 00;17;37;15
Unknown
I mean, you're right. I mean, are we we're thinking long term. And if someone comes up with this after us, we're going to slam it here. I'm telling you, that is kind of how you have to look at this. The other thing you've seen is that meme where it's basically kind, a kind of canal through the peninsula that kind of comes into the into the strait, you know, cut it right across Oman, I think.

00;17;37;15 - 00;18;01;28
Unknown
Yeah. I think the Emirates have been talking about that. Yeah. So what does that cost? I mean, it doesn't matter really. It would be worth it. Wouldn't that help me with, a little history here? How many wars have we ended? And certainly one without the introduction of ground troops. All I know is never get involved in a land war in Asia.

00;18;01;28 - 00;18;39;24
Unknown
But that's that's, you know, there were ground troops and Desert Storm, and then Saddam decided to cut and run. And George H.W. Bush said, we're not going into Iraq. But we did have ground troops involved. And, you know, if this thing spills out to the. The key Arab states, you know, similar to who the Saudi or, you know, we see an opportunistic move by Israel and Lebanon, then I think we see, at least for the short to intermediate term, nothing but escalation.

00;18;39;24 - 00;19;26;15
Unknown
So the off ramps are getting closed day by day. And so when you set that off against the fact that November 5th or sixth or whatever the midterm election day is, you know, gasoline prices are now up, over $0.10 week over a week after coming off pretty hard here in the last few weeks and inventories being where they are, how is there, you know, how is there another reset on the shock absorber to then mitigate the political risk of these price spikes having certainly a negative effect on the administration and congressional Republicans seeking reelection?

00;19;26;17 - 00;19;57;23
Unknown
Yeah, the Republicans are toast in November. I think they've been toast for a while. I think you're right. I think you're right on one side. But on the other side. Not to get off topic from energy, but what's happening on the progressive side is the socialists have taken over the Democratic Party, and they're struggling with their own issues because let's just be I mean, socialism is growing and and socialism is sort of dictating the policies of the Democrats.

00;19;57;23 - 00;20;32;20
Unknown
So while we're doing everything we can on the Republican side to screw it up, we and I'm not putting myself in there, actually, because I'm not one of those I'm not over here either. I'm way over here. But the thing is, is that it might not have as big of an impact as we think, but we'll see. I think the the history lesson here, when you look at the democratic socialist movement within the the Democratic Party, the history lesson might be the Tea Party Republicans, they took over.

00;20;32;22 - 00;21;03;09
Unknown
And what made the difference was when they started winning races that weren't just super safe red seats, you know, they actually went into some general elections that were toss up, some won, because right now the Democratic Socialists are in a hardcore deep, deep, deep blue seats and positions where you're kind of like, well, those nutjobs, of course they want Bernie Sanders, or they want AOC.

00;21;03;11 - 00;21;26;11
Unknown
It's going to be really interesting to see if some of those Democratic socialists that knocked off sitting Congressman can actually win, toss up seats. And if that happens, then wow, that gets scary. It's comforting that they draw the line at Grand Plattner. So we know where the red line is.

00;21;26;14 - 00;22;07;02
Unknown
Not Nazi tattoos. At what point is, you know, is the president's base at risk of turning on him because of gas prices and the overall increase and because of the loss when you lose the house and if you lose the Senate, does Trump lose the, Republican Party? That's, that's an interesting question. I mean, it it, the last thing I saw, I think the Republicans still have a 55% chance of of keeping the Senate, but, but definitely, are decided underdogs on hold in the House.

00;22;07;02 - 00;22;35;13
Unknown
So probably be an expectations game if, if the Republicans do better than that, then probably all's well in MAGA world. But you're right, lose the House and the Senate. Given the fact that Congress hadn't done anything except the big beautiful bill over the last two years, there may be all all sorts of revolts going on internally. Yeah, this resumption of hostilities, he's got another 60 day window.

00;22;35;13 - 00;23;05;27
Unknown
I think a letter went to Congress yesterday over the weekend that said we're resuming strikes, which then evidently resets the I don't need congressional authorization to continue. So it resets the clock there. I don't understand the context around all that. And I think it's. It's all a bunch of, printing on both sides of the aisle, which has become more than a little off putting.

00;23;05;29 - 00;23;31;12
Unknown
All right. Well, maybe we'll have to do it. Maybe we'll have to do another one this week to. All right. Hit it. Hit us real quick on. Since we've been talking inflation on power prices and what's going on in the Midwest, I thought this was a really interesting story. And it's, you know, something that is mostly off the the radar of the general public.

00;23;31;12 - 00;24;02;23
Unknown
What does it mean for the industrial economy to see these, inflating power prices? And the story featured a 141 year old brick maker in Sugarcreek, Ohio, called Belden Brick. They have bricks in the Alamo. Or how that's possible. I guess it was a rebuild after the, the battle of the Alamo and Notre Dame, the one in South Bend, not the one across the pond.

00;24;02;26 - 00;24;40;29
Unknown
So, what they've seen and obviously in in Ohio, they're right there in the Rust Belt, what they've seen in their monthly power bills, jumping from an average to about 1600 to almost $12,000 a month overnight. So what what's you know, what are the what are the forces? The unseen forces, the external forces driving that? Well, you had PJM goes through these capacity auctions right?

00;24;41;01 - 00;25;13;24
Unknown
And basically what a capacity charges is a payment on your bill for having extra generation ready and available during peak demand periods. Even though PJM sent out response notices last week, voluntary response notices last week because it was so dang hot, in the eastern half of the country. But if you look at what has gone on with their capacity charges, those go through, periodic auction.

00;25;13;26 - 00;26;02;05
Unknown
That used to be every three years. Now, I think it's every six months. Their capacity charge and, 2024 was $28.92. It's currently $329.17, which is a mere thousand and 38% increase. And the problem for industrial, electricity consumers is that they paid three times in capacity charge relative to the residential consumers. And there are about 150 of, you know, typical typically, comparable industrial operation uses about 1/50 of the power that, comparably sized data center operation uses.

00;26;02;07 - 00;26;36;01
Unknown
So Belden has raised its prices by 4% in response. And that hasn't been enough because their profit margin has actually shrunk. I mean, this is a real interesting and policy always lags innovation anyway. But capacity charges exist to ensure the grid has enough generation to meet peak demand. And the biggest bottleneck is getting the local utility to approve, like new builds.

00;26;36;03 - 00;27;09;24
Unknown
But what's happening is, is this start from these data centers from I, generating so much electricity is that it's it's not a market failure to policy failure. And it's understandable why it is. But the grid was not designed for a use case where a single building consumes as much electricity as a small city. That's what's happening with these data centers, and that's what's happening to this poor brick manufacturer.

00;27;09;27 - 00;27;36;00
Unknown
As they're sitting next door, or these or these data centers are coming online and their capacity and, and the local utilities, like we have to we have to have enough electricity for this new customer, but they're generating as much electricity as the small city. And so the grid as well as the policies were never designed for this use case.

00;27;36;03 - 00;28;04;16
Unknown
So I don't know what you do, but what they should have done is maybe say no to the data center. But that's but but consumers are demanding I so we all use it. We all want it. So what do you do on the one end? You're forcing, a lot more from a policy standpoint. The new data center developers to be op bring your own power.

00;28;04;19 - 00;28;54;09
Unknown
You know the problem, the problem in these states that have limited I'm not saying Ohio does, because they have, a ton of natural gas problem in the States where they're manufacturing heavy and reliant on grid power. With this. Really, resurgence or renaissance as, as touted by Trump about all this manufacturing returning back to the US. This is just another pressure point that, you know, you got somebody here who's been in the manufacturing business, which is, you know, making bricks is fairly energy intensive, but thermally and from a electricity standpoint, you look across, you know, just look across heavy industry.

00;28;54;11 - 00;29;28;28
Unknown
How many building bricks are there out there? There's got to be more than one in this type of knife fight over. You know, the electron is something where you're attacking a core part of the cost structure, which is which is power and energy for heavy industry or manufacturing. And so it, it, it's propagating throughout the industrial base. I just thought this was, you know, a fairly, unique nuance people want, you know, okay, build and brick hundred and 41 years, maybe they go out of business.

00;29;29;01 - 00;29;57;03
Unknown
But there have got to be a lot of of generational industrial players throughout the Rust Belt belt, particularly, that are going to be getting up on this kind of knife's edge of viability and competitiveness. Yeah, I definitely think there I think this is one of those things where it's an all of the above approach approach is going to have to, to happen.

00;29;57;05 - 00;30;22;15
Unknown
Clearly, we need to be building stuff behind the meter and working through those type of issues. We've talked on here about how that sounds really simple, but you're in effect building your own private utility and synchronizing and all the, you know, stuff you've got to do to have, have a, have electricity flowing through your, your factory.

00;30;22;17 - 00;30;56;04
Unknown
But there are also things that these various grid operators can be doing because the nature of power has changed. And, you know, data, data AI centers can have, applications that don't need constant power and can be shut off based on, the demands of the day. There's probably a lot that can be done on hooking up more stuff, going to more the Texas Ercot type model.

00;30;56;06 - 00;31;33;26
Unknown
Maybe you don't need a comprehensive study done. You can hooked, you can hook up, but we can kick you off, the grid if need be. So, there's a lot to be done there. The the problem is, is just with the decentralized nature of all of this, I don't know how it gets done. And it kills me to say that because I'm a libertarian against a backdrop of a power and utilities sector or industry that has fundamentally not ever had, to build, kind of revolutionary pace.

00;31;33;28 - 00;32;08;08
Unknown
Everything that you're talking about, Chuck, particularly where the grid adaptation or overhaul is, is, is involved is more evolutionary. But when you're hit with these types of sudden shocks that are make or break for, you know, lower margin industrial businesses for sure, then, you know, can you, can you make it through long enough to see those adaptations to cost pressure off your business?

00;32;08;11 - 00;32;37;08
Unknown
I don't know, right? This takes me back to my freshman club, economics 101 class. Shelby Carter, a adjunct professor at University of Texas, talked about, we cannot move to a services economy. We have to keep manufacturing. And he forced us to think through the impacts of what happens when an economy becomes service based. And I think we're there.

00;32;37;15 - 00;32;59;22
Unknown
I don't know what the right answer is because I'm with you, Chuck, as a libertarian, like, let innovation come. I think what's interesting is this is kind of the Walmart effect, where people were welcoming Walmart's and all these small towns and all that revenue generated from that. Walmart goes back to Bentonville, doesn't stay in the local economy. Really.

00;32;59;25 - 00;33;27;00
Unknown
That's what how many of these data centers you don't employ as many people? Huge energy customer, few people and workers. All that money. You go back to Silicon Valley and so it doesn't stay in the economy. So as the local bank can't multiply that money, they can't take your deposit, turn around and loan it to somebody else, because all that money is going right back to to Palo Alto.

00;33;27;00 - 00;33;51;14
Unknown
So I, I think it's going to completely rewire how this country is going to look good or bad. But this is this brick company is going to be is one really interesting example of the impact. But that's what's that's what we're seeing is it's going to rewire and think about how all the small towns died when Walmart's came in.

00;33;51;17 - 00;34;18;15
Unknown
It's sucked all the money and sent it centered outward. So all this cool little, you know, when you drive these quaint little small towns and all the town squares are dead, but there's a Walmart there. That's what we're going to see. You're going to see these sort of human less, towns where data centers, where energy was cheap, driving up energy prices, killing a lot of businesses.

00;34;18;17 - 00;35;01;15
Unknown
Right or wrong, it's something we at least need to contemplate. And compounding and compounding all this is you're typically seeing municipalities and county leadership granting huge tax holidays. You know, one example, is right next door to Houston in Grimes County, where Tara fab is proposed to be built on a 6000 acre reclaimed coal site. Well, Grimes County just kind of said, here you go and left, you know, several hundred million dollars on the table in terms of, tax abatements.

00;35;01;17 - 00;35;33;06
Unknown
Yeah. The construction jobs are going to show up because it's a massive facility. But once once that's done, most of your, most of your, ter fab employees are going to be living in Brazos County, right next door in College Station. And so, you know, Grimes has put up a fight. I've got a friend who has a weekend farm there, and he's been quite involved in at least monitoring that situation, but that, that really just kind of compounds thing.

00;35;33;06 - 00;35;57;28
Unknown
It's a little bit of a far afield analogy, but that that is a compounding effect where you can't you can't pull the, the kind of tax base rug out from under your, your citizens or your residents and then hit them with things like these, spiking inflationary power prices. Think those I think those two things collide pretty, pretty violently.

00;35;58;05 - 00;36;23;14
Unknown
And I hate to go back to hyperbole, but I truly do believe the eye race is kind of a mortal combat against China. We we have to win this. And so to do that, we need power here in the United States. And maybe the Monahan taxes of this world need to be full of data centers, and we just need to go figure it out.

00;36;23;14 - 00;36;44;09
Unknown
I, I hate to even do this as the libertarian, but is it kind of time for a marshall plan, if you will, for U.S grid infrastructure, centralized commission? God, I hate to even think of where that would go, but some real scientists coming up.

00;36;44;12 - 00;37;15;07
Unknown
Here, I know I've, I've, I feel like I feel like I, I've lost my way. You're a central committee member hiding, behind a gold necklace. But I guess, I think, I mean, what's PJM? What's the problem with PJM? Number one, it's the corridor where most of the people United States are living. They're pretty anti oil and gas.

00;37;15;10 - 00;37;43;26
Unknown
And so I think there are some I think in some ways let the Bric company move to a cheaper place in the country. But we have the I mean, what China is doing is they're building a coal plant because they have a ton of coal. And what is is one coming still coming online a week. So China is saying we're keeping whoever has the cheapest power is going to be the winner.

00;37;43;28 - 00;38;13;28
Unknown
They still are the you know, they still have the most manufacturing around the world in China. And they not only do they manufacture cheap ash, but they also electronics. And they're also trying to beat us on AI. So it's a it's kind of a everything strategy. We have the, the energy supply to, to keep and create low energy prices, barring what Trump's trying to do in the Persian Gulf.

00;38;14;00 - 00;38;39;27
Unknown
But I think in some ways this is a wake up call for PJM, not for the United States and for Texas. It is a wake up call to let's keep the energy flowing. Let's freakin figure out how to keep Ercot building capacity for more providers and more people to come. That, to me, is what's happening. I don't see it as it is as a necessarily a bad thing.

00;38;39;27 - 00;39;08;23
Unknown
I do think the Bric companies are going to have to relocate. All I can hear in the back is God bless America. You like that? All right, let's, let's get to our favorite topic. Well, second favorite topic? Because we all seem to have our individual favorites, but, you want to take us down the, Bash Brothers, wrote Mark, because I feel it coming next week.

00;39;08;23 - 00;39;34;15
Unknown
I did a, the double take on that. The home Run Derby was last night, and the pregame panel on the field was Albert Pujols. Barry Bonds. And then they had Anthony Rizzo sitting there for some reason. Anyway, the Bash Brothers go all the way back to the late 80s, early 90s with the Oakland Athletics, Canseco and Mark McGwire.

00;39;34;17 - 00;40;08;24
Unknown
Yeah. I mean, the all of this escalating tension and hostilities is coinciding perfectly with and rising fuel prices is coinciding perfectly with the kickoff next week of at least the first out of the gate for Q2 earnings. Among the oil and gas players, not the least of which are the super majors and War put out a, just kind of a notification tweet, who's who's reporting when, what their estimated revenues and EPS.

00;40;08;24 - 00;40;35;04
Unknown
And I just glanced down the page, an icon, I think they report on Friday and they have a 100 billion slightly north of $100 billion quarterly revenue estimate. They haven't done that since 2022, and they've done it fairly infrequently. I think that is the perfect storm for the demagogues and a lightning rod we're going to see we're going to see an avalanche.

00;40;35;06 - 00;41;03;23
Unknown
Both from Washington and the mainstream media talking about big price gouging, money grubbing, big oil. And does it does Congress finally pull out the old playbook and start a series of of what I call rapid fire kangaroo hearings with big oil, big ones, of course, Trump Trump's going to pile on on, so on, truth Social as well.

00;41;03;25 - 00;41;40;26
Unknown
It's going to be all of the above. I mean, again, I go back to like Thomas Jefferson was right. And why we have a republic over democracy. But the the general. Citizen of this country probably doesn't care and doesn't really know the difference between revenue and profit. So not a single one of these politicians are going to mention that Exxon's net margin will be 10 to 12%, which is lower than what Apple's making, lower than what Google's making, lower than Microsoft.

00;41;40;29 - 00;42;03;12
Unknown
But it doesn't matter. They're going to see the top line number and say this is fraud. Of course that's the playbook. It works, by the way. Yeah. No, it's the one thing in in our economy that's priced every single day. And, is dynamic pricing. So I mean, you only buy a new iPhone once every year or every other year.

00;42;03;12 - 00;42;34;06
Unknown
So this thing doesn't hit as much as filling your car, beach. Each week there's fucking, oil and gas traders are laughing their asses off. They when when a politician, Trump or anyone else says that the big oil and gas companies are fixing prices, it's, a pretty significant event in the Senate over the weekend. Should we close it out with thoughts on Lindsey Graham?

00;42;34;06 - 00;42;58;28
Unknown
I think this is very untimely. And, you know, it brought out the worst in social media. Well, he's corrupt as they come, by the way, Mark. So the fact that he passed away and was he in the Ukraine of heart failure, where was he was nobody knows. Who knows what he has. He already been dead. But did that guy was grifting with the best.

00;42;59;00 - 00;43;22;21
Unknown
So the fact that he's finally dead is, I guess, tragic if you knew him and cared about him. But as a citizen that has no stake in who he was as a person, as a politician, he was as corrupt as they come. He was getting kickbacks. Of course, I don't know. His net worth is net worth. He died with was $2 million.

00;43;22;21 - 00;43;50;27
Unknown
So, I mean, that's not who we know that. Yeah, we know that those are those are his financial disclosure forms. I mean, maybe he's lying on those, but, yeah. Is his net worth $2 million? He'd been in public office for 35 years, making 200,000 a year, plus being a, a reservist. And so saving $2 million doesn't feel grift like, given, you know, what?

00;43;50;27 - 00;44;19;01
Unknown
Pelosi's worth and others. But plus, he wasn't never married and had no kids. Yeah. No. No ex-wives. So if you see the the front of his D.C. residence is a pretty small brownstone townhouse. It's nothing opulent. But. Yeah, I will say this about Lindsey Graham. I'm not sure. I think he was too much of a war hawk for me on, on things.

00;44;19;01 - 00;44;49;29
Unknown
But, the one thing I do like about the remembrances is a lot of his colleagues, whether Democrats or Republicans, talk pretty fondly about him. How funny he was, and how genuine he was there. And I do think, given what happened to, justice, oh. Why am I blanking on his name? Kavanaugh? The accusations made against him that were, oh, 30 some odd years ago.

00;44;49;29 - 00;45;15;06
Unknown
He me, you know, where was that? Oh, I don't even know. I didn't tell it. You know, the ridiculous. Are those charges made against Justice Kavanaugh and Lindsey Graham coming out and just shut that down? I, I thought was a, a cool moment in, in politics, although a disgusting moment that that had to be done, but I, I appreciate it.

00;45;15;08 - 00;45;39;22
Unknown
Lindsey, I say, Lindsey, Senator Graham stepping up and doing that. I mean, what you'll find is when you're sitting in for me, unfortunately for me and family court, and you've got two discussing attorneys, one on your side and one on the other, and they act like they hate each other. But then you see them in these moments where they laugh like, hey, I'll see you at the bar tonight.

00;45;39;25 - 00;46;05;12
Unknown
And you realize like, that's those are inside. People talk about how great he was, and I'm sure he was great in the I mean, politicians are politicians and they they work with their peers and they get along. But as a citizen I'm like, man, anybody that's grifting that hard for Ukraine doesn't make sense. Ukraine. No one has been able to make an argument for the American people.

00;46;05;12 - 00;46;29;27
Unknown
Why Ukraine and all the money we gave them was in our best interest. So a guy that's sort of the hey, I'm sure offline I'd, I wouldn't yeah, I wouldn't be a mean to him. But I'm talking about a guy that says, hey, I'm representing you. He didn't represent me, but he represented. I'm like, it just makes me.

00;46;30;00 - 00;46;50;19
Unknown
I just in questioning, like, why are you fighting so hard for something that makes no sense for the American people? And you could never articulate it either? Doesn't make sense. Graham just never met a war he didn't like. I mean, and they're just folks that, think we need to be running around being the, moral police of the world.

00;46;50;19 - 00;47;17;04
Unknown
And I don't agree with that approach. I well, I want to be a lot less measured on it. But I will say in terms of what he's got in the bank account, it does pale in comparison to other folks we've seen and in public office. The big, comparison this week was between Graham and Rock on a who's worth several hundred million dollars.

00;47;17;06 - 00;47;40;04
Unknown
Yeah, seemingly seemingly overnight. Now he married well but the the multiplier on his wealth in a very short period of time does. Raise some eyebrows. I'll love the crow on on net worth, but it'll be interesting to see if if that is, if he's only worth 2 million and he never took a dime, then good for him. That's the way it should be.

00;47;40;07 - 00;48;10;01
Unknown
The other, Lindsey Graham's story is, his parents died within basically 15 months of each other when he was young. So think kind of early 20s, late teens and, he, in effect, raised his younger sister. He kept the family restaurant bar going for money. To, do, to do that. He adopted her so that she could be on, the health care plan.

00;48;10;01 - 00;48;45;17
Unknown
He was in, in the military and basically had, had other family members take care of her and stuff, and so stepped up and with, by all accounts, stepped up with some responsibility that maybe not a lot of other younger men would have done for a, a family member. I'm not sure I really like the sister being appointed to serve out the rest of the Senate term, because that kind of hearkens to royalty and and and stuff.

00;48;45;17 - 00;49;10;22
Unknown
But as a I do think appointing a caretaker to that position and letting the voters make a decision in November is the right way to go. It's happened before. I mean, we had I think it was the deceased senator's wife from Missouri. Yeah. I can't remember. Yeah. I can't remember the name. I do like the notion of I'm going to get in there.

00;49;10;22 - 00;49;33;06
Unknown
I'm going to vote like the person that was elected, and I am not going to run again so that the voters can decide who they want. I think that is the right approach. But didn't she run again? Running? She ran. Yeah, she wound up running again. And so I, I kind of I hate when you use the appointment as the launching pad.

00;49;33;08 - 00;49;53;03
Unknown
Well, they should all have term limits anyway, Chuck. It's all a little greasy. I've. I think I'm right there with you. I used to be of the camp that voters can make that decision, but just the power of the incumbent to come and see fundraising, etc. is, is so tough that I'm, I'm kind of with you on term limits.

00;49;53;03 - 00;50;24;23
Unknown
You could talk me into that. The, the one last thing I'll say about, Lindsey Graham, they said no matter your politics, the customer service to the citizens in South Carolina was supposedly unmatched by any other senator. Phone calls were returned, issues were resolved, Social Security checks found, etc. supposedly unmatched as a retail organization. In the Senate.

00;50;24;25 - 00;50;52;06
Unknown
Dude, if I if I was elected for the great state of Texas to represent, I'd be as the biggest pork barrel advocate there was for my constituents. That's what I'm there to fight for. Like, I'm going to do everything to get my citizens everything I can. And what I was referring to is just problems people had with the the government, because you always wind up calling your local official or whatever.

00;50;52;06 - 00;51;23;07
Unknown
And his his staff was supposedly the best at going through and and resolving citizens complaints. And even Democrats said that. So kind of the opposite opposite of Mark Andrews in responding to your DMs and birthday wishes. Yeah, exactly. Well, play well. Play exactly. One day he'll read Old Man Coffee and send a nice, by the way. So if you haven't read the old Man coffee that Chuck posted, I think he posted it this morning.

00;51;23;09 - 00;51;46;05
Unknown
Yeah. Posted it last night. Tweeted it out this, morning. But yeah, the the quick backdrop on that story is I'd written a, an old man coffee about oldest daughter Charlie, and she didn't let me publish it. So I expounded on some, some pertinent stuff that had come up in writing that. So this this has nothing to do with my AI journey.

00;51;46;05 - 00;52;08;17
Unknown
It has to do with being a divorced dad. Good stuff. I'm reading a chart. Thank you for writing it. I'm going to retweet it. Appreciate that. You're a good man, Chuck. All right, boys, good to, good to see y'all. I'm off to Telluride, Colorado, so I will, I will send pics back from the most beautiful place in America.

00;52;08;20 - 00;52;11;02
Unknown
It is beautiful. Enjoy.