Diesel prices are at an all-time high. Ag prices are now moving higher.

00:27 · S&P 500 vs wages since 1964 — the Cantillon effect

• The chart of S&P 500 growth against production and nonsupervisory wages is "another demonstration" of his claim that "money printing typically goes first to asset holders… and over time trickles down to average regular people and ends up being higher prices."
• Cantillon's 18th-century point: new money "changes relative prices rather than inflating everything uniformly" — first recipients (banks, government contractors) spend before prices adjust; "by the time everyday wage earners receive any of the new money, inflation has already eroded their purchasing power."
• Dave Iben's (Kopernik) Mississippi analogy: snow melt up north doesn't hit New Orleans at once, and you can't project which dike overflows — "it's the same thing with monetary injections."

05:23 · "You must be at the table"

• "If you're not an asset owner, you are out of business… if your only income is wages, you are going to be shining people's shoes" — and a 2–3% annual raise leaves you "on that brown line at the bottom."
• Policy will be "monetary injections ever increasingly going forward" to paper over fiscal decisions; "you are certainly naive if you think we're all of a sudden going to wake up and fix this."

07:12 · The AIA Permanent Portfolio — and why not "international man"

• Three books now: the AIA Portfolio (capital appreciation), the Dividend Portfolio (income with a capital-gains spin), and the Permanent Portfolio — "real assets, income-producing assets" to preserve wealth through "this fourth turning." The September issue "actually added the first company."
• Doug Casey / Harry Schultz's live-in-one-country, bank-in-a-second, invest-in-a-third is "very James Bondish, but it doesn't really work for the average person" — below high net worth "what you're going to attract is a lot of shysters and scammers."
• The odds of a full monetary crisis are "not zero, but it's not very high in the next week or year" — "there's a lot of ruin in a country." So: Harry Browne's idea, a portfolio "positioned for just about any outcome" — deflation, inflation, recession, boom.

12:22 · Hyperscaler debt issuance — the telecom-bubble rerun

• Bloomberg/JP Morgan chart: hyperscaler and Nvidia debt issuance as a percent of Treasury issuance is accelerating as they've "consumed all their cash flow."
• "I don't play around in areas I don't know… it's in the too hard pile for me. But… I've seen this movie before in the telecom bubble… this is far and beyond what that was."

13:48 · Is China's crude buyer strike over?

• What has held oil down is China drawing inventories instead of importing; there are signs it is re-entering. The Shanghai-versus-Brent premium "went positive… the first time since May."
• "If China's coming back into the market, then we're probably going to be looking at crude above $100 a barrel" — with oil already ~$90 and under 60 days to the election.

15:11 · Still bullish oil — upstream plus downstream; base oils in orbit

• "I still remain bullish on oil. I have oil investments. They're doing fine. I like companies that both have upstream and downstream."
• Base oils for lubricants "went completely into geosynchronous orbit" — Calumet a named beneficiary, "not a recommendation… buyer beware."

16:01 · Record diesel — a refining shortage by poor decisions

• $5.85/gal national record; $6 at a Love's in Pecos, West Texas; NY Harbor ULSD futures up 13% in four trading days.
• Cause: Gulf refining capacity taken out, Western refineries closed "because of climate change and overregulation," and Ukraine hitting Russian refineries — with demand unchanged, "the price goes up to ration that diesel supply."
• Diesel feeds food trucks, harvest, shipping, trains, jet fuel, Amazon parcels — "I think diesel prices are going to go higher" until the Gulf refineries are repaired and the Russia-Ukraine tit for tat stops. "The current administration promised lower energy prices. We have record high prices."

19:35 · Lumber in a bear market — the housing lock-in

• Housing is weak because Cantillon-inflated prices are too high and the 10-year pushed mortgages up; owners with 2.8–2.9% 30-year loans won't trade them for 8%.
• Energy, food, insurance and tuition inflation push the 10-year up, and business, housing and auto loans key off it — "you see how this all ties together." Lyn Alden: "nothing stops this train"; no reform until an Argentina-style collapse (which took 70 years).

24:10 · Why forestry belongs in the permanent portfolio

• "Trees in the forest don't care what Bessent's doing" — volume keeps growing, and maturing trees move into more valuable classes.
• The trade-off, conceded: listed forestry companies "are still stocks" and fall in bear markets, but a thousand acres bought directly is "very illiquid"; the listed route buys liquidity and professional management.
• Land optionality (credit to Murray Stahl; the TPL / LandBridge model): harvest near a freeway then develop, lease to solar or wind, hunting leases, mineral rights. Prices are depressed "because everybody just focuses on the housing market and how many 2x4s… they're making."

28:18 · The Donroe doctrine — a multipolar world in three blocs

• The US collapses into its own hemisphere "from the Arctic to Patagonia" because it lacks the money, industrial capacity or will to be global hegemon — hence the friction with Canada and the Venezuela intervention. "Did I agree with what they did? No. But… things are what they are."
• Venezuela: "300 billion barrels of oil," a neocolonial setup "at least for the rest of the Trump administration… for right now, this is investable."

30:39 · The Pentagon takes 35% of NABEP

• On Sept 4 the US took a 35% stake in North American Blue Energy Partners (100-year rights to 17 fields, ~65bn barrels), with a right of first offer and the ability to buy 20% of output at cost — "direct economic ownership," built to survive future financing rounds and political changes and to shut out China, Russia and Iran.
• Another deal was just signed "with a publicly traded company" — left for the newsletter and Discord. Energy Secretary Wright's visit included ~5 GW of gas-turbine deals to restore the grid. "Use AI, use tracking… by the time everybody else figures out what's going on, we're already positioned."

34:42 · Deere's breakout — the ag sector "has woken up"

• "Not that I'm suggesting you buy it, but this is a classic breakout… extremely overvalued, but this is an indication of what's happening in the ag sector… It's in a bull market."
• Latin America call "several years old… we've made some decent money. We have a long way to go" if reforms hold; "getting more and more bullish on Argentina."

36:33 · Corn rockets — inputs unresolved

• Corn "just basically rocketed… we're going to have food issues" from record fertilizer and fuel costs. "30% of your ammonia fertilizer comes out of" the Gulf — "not been resolved."
• Farmers skipped planting, under-applied fertilizer or went out of business; demand doesn't change, and a record El Niño sits on top. "This isn't just corn."

37:55 · Brazil via the exchange operator

• Tavi Costa's Brazil breakout chart — Brazil "will maybe be a laggard but will participate just because of its agricultural and energy prowess."
• No bandwidth to research individual Brazilian stocks: "I just buy the Brazilian stock exchange… I think the symbol's B3… that's how I'm playing it." Interactive Brokers now lets you trade Brazilian listings directly.
• If he were 22: go where competence is scarce and friction low — "arbitrage your competency, your work ethic, your youth."

40:42 · "Patagonian Qatar" — Vaca Muerta LNG

• Global banks lining up $17bn+ for Vaca Muerta's LNG export build-out; Argentina, once an importer under Peronist/Kirchner policy, "is about to switch sides of the gas trade."
• Agriculture deregulating too; the reversed growing season lets Argentina buy fertilizer in the northern off-season, and a big ammonia plant fed by Vaca Muerta gas is being contemplated.

42:56 · Copper approvals lag demand — a general commodity bull market

• Copper and zinc at new highs: "we're just in a general commodity bull market." A global recession could pause it but "doesn't alleviate the long-term structural issue" of underinvestment.
• Watch greenfield approvals, not extensions. Lassonde: "the best place to find another mine is right next to a discovered mine" — the Franco-Nevada royalty-with-area-rights model; "at some point you just get lucky."
• Approvals have trended down since the 2008–09 peak while mines deplete — "less supply, demand going up, price goes up."

46:09 · Incentives drive migration — high earners leave high-tax states

• Munger: "Show me the incentives and I will show you the outcomes." National Taxpayers Union Foundation data on $200k+ earners leaving high-tax states; taxes are one piece of a quality-of-life decision ("death by a thousand cuts").
• New York City estimated to have lost "over $5 billion" of potential tax revenue; a Washington state tracker of departing companies. His long-run fear: the whole country "ends up being like this."

53:30 · Wealth disparity is monetary — and the ACA was a gift to insurers

• Inequality "has nothing to do with entrepreneurialism and capitalism… It has to do with the monetary system." Under hard money you couldn't fund a welfare state or wars without visible taxes — "taxing people at 5 trillion a year and spending 7 trillion."
• The ACA was "continued sop to the insurance companies… the thing to do when they passed the Affordable Care Act was buy United Healthcare stock." Family premiums of $26,000 with a $10,000 deductible push toward Medicare for All; "start investigating how you can get medical care in other countries."