Capitalist Investor

Pre 2024 Election Analysis, Ep. 297

• Strategic Wealth Partners

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In the latest episode of Capitalist Investor, our hosts Diamond Hands D and Luke delve into some riveting topics that are heavily influencing the current economic and political landscapes. From election outcomes to Elon Musk's potential government role, and even the state of cryptocurrency, there's a lot to unpack. Here are the five hot topics discussed in the episode.

1. Election Outcomes and Betting Odds

The imminent election was top of mind for both hosts, as they speculated on the potential outcomes and the implications for the market. Betting odds favor Trump, with odds sitting at an all-time high of 65 to 67%. However, they also acknowledged that the actual state polls may tell a different story, especially in key swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Arizona. Diamond Hands D noted, "The odds are favoring Trump... but the polls, however, tell a different story."

2. Election Night Uncertainty

One of the pressing questions was whether or not we will have a decisive winner immediately after the election. The hosts discussed the possibility of delays, considering that multiple states have said they might not have results for two or three days post-election. Luke expressed his frustration, saying, “We should know. We should be able to count the votes up on that night and let the American people know who won.”

3. Potential Role of Elon Musk in Government

The conversation veered into speculative territory concerning Elon Musk's possible role in Trump's administration, should he win. Musk has been a frequent name on the campaign trail, and the idea of him leading a Department of Efficiency was floated. Luke joked about Musk's energy, “I just don't know how the guy can sleep... he's bringing something else to the campaign trail.”

4. Government Spending and the Economy

Government spending remains a significant focus for the hosts, especially regarding its role in driving inflation. Diamond Hands D asserted, "If you had a pinpoint one problem that you can fix... Government spending is definitely number one on the list." They both agreed that reducing government spending is crucial for long-term economic sustainability and controlling inflation.

5. Cryptocurrency: A Safe Haven?

Finally, the episode covered the current boom in cryptocurrency, particularly Bitcoin, claiming its role as a hedge against traditional market volatility. The hosts debated whether Bitcoin is diversifying away from the U.S. Dollar and other currencies or if it serves more as a digital gold for inflation hedging. 

The episode was a deep dive into the interplay between these topics and how they might shape not just the coming weeks but also the broader future of the U.S. economy. With a mix of informed speculation and analysis, Capitalist Investor continues to offer listeners a valuable look into the economic and political trends that matter most. Don't miss out on next week's episode! 

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Capitalist Investor. As always, you have me, Diamond Hands. D, we got Tony on assignment this week, so we have Cool Hand Loop. What's going on, man? I'm sorry. You're stuck with me. Well, I'm happy Tony is out of the office. That's always a good thing. I mean, now we get to party. Yeah, right. I'm just kidding. Well, he's visiting some family, so that's fantastic for him. But this will be our last episode before the election. So next Wednesday, maybe we will have a winner, maybe we won't. We just don't know. Hopefully. Hopefully the world's still around. That's. That's what I care about. That's what I hope for. We got some interesting. Obviously, I mean, D. Just hit on it. One of the most important, biggest topics we're talking about today is kind of election outcomes. What. What could happen, what might not happen, things like that. What's. What are the outcomes going to be? What do you guys need to know? That's gonna be one of the topics we're gonna talk about. Maybe the Elon Musk and his department of efficiency within government if Trump does get elected, which is kind of interesting, something me, Dee, and Tony have talked about for a long time. And then D, what's the third topic? Crypto. Crypto. Crypto's ripping. We got crypto. My gosh, this is just having me on for crypto, aren't you? No, I. Well, there's a lot of interesting things going on right now, and there's a lot of different takes. And, you know, I kind of had a hot take on that yesterday on one of my Fox Business appearances. They called me in, like, last minute, like, hey, we need you to talk crypto. I'm like, okay, are you coming to me because I'm the young guy that needs to talk crypto, or you just call me because you need emergency head? Something like that. Right. So let's talk about first. Let's talk about maybe the outcomes of the election. I think that's top of mind for everybody and what people want to listen to and hear. So what. What could be. What is the most likely outcome when you take a look at the betting odds in the polls? Well, I made the mistake of following someone who just talks election and election polls. His name is Eric Dogherty Dardy, and he posts something like every four seconds. It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. I might. I might have to unfollow him. It is a lot of election coverage and polls. But you know, the odds, the betting odds have basically they're at all time highs for Trump, you know, somewhere around 65 to 67%. That's the betting odds. You know, I think the polls however, you know, tell, tell a different story because obviously this is going to come down to a couple swing states. Yep. So, you know, you got Pennsylvania, you got North Carolina, you got Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin. I might have missed a big one there. Is Ohio, like just for sure going to go ready think like is that kind of the mentality? It seems to be that way. You know, Ohio has always been a swing state too. It's, you know, for the most part. And Florida too. Ohio and Florida used to be like, you know, it there in the map. I'm looking at it. Those states are both fully red. Good. So. So yeah, you know, it's really going to come down to, you know, I think pa, Michigan and Arizona, I think, I think those. If Trump wins those just in Detroit. Last weekend and let me just say Kamala Harris's face was plastered everywhere. But I know that's Detroit, any big city. Yeah. You get outside of Detroit, everywhere's red. It's the same thing in Ohio. Get outside of Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus, everything's red. Yep, for sure. So, so yeah, the betting odds are favoring Trump, you know, and that's based on a lot of early data. So, you know, and we're already seeing shenanigans out there with, especially in Pennsylvania, it seems, you know, problems with the polling locations. You can vote early in Pennsylvania, I believe. So there was like mile long lines and Democrats dressed up as election officials. Like it's getting bad already out there. Um, so we have obviously all of that to contend with. I think we kind of knew that was going to be the case, but it's probably going to be a pretty wild ride. If you like dress up as a government official or election official and you're not one and you're trying to sway people, like that's treason. Like you should be like, what's like back in the day how they used. To treat treasoners like, like in the stockades in public. That's ridiculous. So when in regards to the outcomes. This is probably the most watched election integrity election in history. What the heck? Someone's drilling something. This building is always getting worked on. Yep. Apparently there's a lot of maintenance always needed done. But there's a lot of eyes on this election. I think more than usual. Right. So what's going to be out. Are we going to have a decision right after like, like that, that morning, the next morning, Jan, or November 6th? Like, are we going to have a decision made? Because you would think that people would want to verify, like, what's going on and we got to make sure that we don't one party doesn't celebrate too quickly. Like, what are your thoughts on that? Well, you know, I think it's going to have to be a pretty decisive win for either way for us to know next Wednesday when we record this podcast. I think, I think multiple states have already come out and said, hey, you know, we're, we're not going to know the results for, you know, two or three days, which is, which is wild and, and frankly unacceptable. Honestly. We're just looking for an honest and fair election here. We, it's 2024. We should know. We should be able to count the votes up on that night and let the American people know who won. Do you think it's going to be transition whether each way you think it's be a transition to power pretty calmly? I do not. Yeah, it's, you know, it's, it's obviously one of the most, it's probably the most contentious election that we've ever had, even after 2020, which was a pretty wild ride as well. But yeah, it's, it's, it's already starting. You know, the last night Joe Biden, I don't know if you saw this Joe Biden essentially. Well, not essentially. I think he literally said it basically called any, anyone who supports Trump garbage. It was in, I believe, reference to that joke that Tony, it's from Kill Tony the comedian. Which, you know, honestly, it was like one joke in there. I didn't even, I don't even know what the joke was. So. He's trying to be relevant is what you're saying. He's trying to be relevant to the young crowd. Kill Tony podcast joke. And then no one really got it. Everyone just took offense to it. Yeah. Yep. So, so, yeah, you know, there's a lot up in the air. It's going to come down to those, those swing states. You know, you need 270 electoral college votes to, to win. I see a lot of like 3, 312 votes, electoral college votes for Trump. That seems to be him winning most swing state states except Michigan. That's kind of where the betting odds have been. It's a pretty good, it's a pretty good, he has really good odds in Pennsylvania and Arizona. It's just the, you know, the voter Integrity that I think a lot of people are worried about. So it's going to be interesting. Like I said, hopefully we are able to come into the office on Wednesday morning and just relax and not have to be too stressed out. But like you said, there's a lot of craziness going on right now. And I think this is probably at least in my lifetime with the most eyes on it. And also it feels like just the most divisive. It's almost expected because of kind of what's happened the past four years with precedents being set between riots. And I meet myself seeing riots in Downtown Cleveland during 2020 and 2021. I mean, it just feels like it's almost expected that people can behave in this way without any kind of consequence almost. So I, hopefully nothing crazy happens, but I don't put it past anything at this point. Yep. Then let's go into then the second thing about maybe if Trump does get elected, you know, what, what does that look like? You know, Elon Musk has been hitting the campaign trail with him pretty often. You, it's, you know, he's, he's pumped up. He's, he's being Elon Musk trying to dance around and putting his fists up and then he's trying to, you know, be Elon Musk style. And he's, he's, he's bringing some energy and bringing something else to the campaign trail. And one of the biggest things he talks about always is this, the Department of Efficiency. Right. And how essentially I think it was what the Venezuela. I talked about him, I think last week, how he stripped out like 70, 80% of the government in like two weeks. Like, Elon Musk might try to do the same thing if he got in there. I just don't know how the guy can sleep. He says he sleeps six hours. But like I don't know how he's handling everything else between now, now possibly having a government position of Trump wins. So what are your overall thoughts on that? Like, is it just all talk and no game or is are they going to try to go in there? Because a lot of this stuff is going to be probably some of it could be executive orders, but I assume you need Congress's buy in for a lot of this stuff too. Yep. Well, you know, it's really since, since I was a kid, honestly. And I think the only time that it wasn't true was towards the end of the Clinton administration. But, you know, spending more than we're taking in for the US Government has always been a problem and it's the problem, you know, if you had a pinpoint one, you know, one problem that you can fix and you can only pick one. Government spending is definitely number one on the list. Yeah. Despite what you might have heard out there, government spending is what is driving this inflation. It's what continues to drive it. And it's simply because the federal government spends too much money. We've been talking about it for months and months and years now. The bigger the deficit that we run, the faster inflation is going to go. We talk about the jobs number pretty much every single month. Right. It's always. Yeah, well it was a decent jobs number but you know, it's mostly part time jobs and government jobs. So how many times have we said that? How many government jobs have we added that we just don't need? Right. That is not helping the overall economy that is hurting us inflation wise. It's the number one thing that has to get done to reduce inflation. And I think I'm not actively dialed in, but I'm definitely paying attention. That seems to be the biggest issue out there. I would say illegal immigration and inflation seem to be the top two issues on people's minds. So here's a interesting thought. This goes back to again, Founding father era federalism, stuff like that, the whole thought process. What should be more powerful? The federal government of the states. And instead of the federal government being so big, what if we took some of the power away from them, the federal government and gave it to the states. Like basically took the money, repro, like pro, procreate, whatever, proportionate the money to the states, depending on population, gdp, things like that. And then we actually made the governments of the states a little bit bigger. I mean people would say maybe that's closer to home and that's maybe not even a, it's a worse off situation because they're more in your pocketbook, maybe in your. Directly in your state, more locally. But you know, I'd rather have, I think it'd be more efficient in that way. Right. If you're, if all else equal, if you're not taking, if you have the same kind of monetary system within the government, but you have each state understand what the needs are of that state, you probably have a more efficient government system to where they actually are taking care of your roads, building the infrastructure, taking care of the system, the social systems within the state because every state's got different needs. So like all that stuff I think is, I think that could be an interesting idea to some extent. If they, if they Knew how if they figured out a way to do that, you hit the nail on the head. I have nothing more to add essentially with that. I just hope that it actually happens. And because it's. It's not nes. It's not something that we talk about because we want it to happen just for, you know, just the sake of just talking about it and hoping that the government gets smaller. It's something that we need to do for the sake of the long term of America. Like we. If we don't do something like this, America might not be around. Like the inefficiency in government throughout history. Every cycle it blows up because of. Everyone gets fat, happy and lazy in the ro. Everyone brings up the Roman Empire, then you have the Dutch Empire, the British empire before the U.S. i mean, there's a reason why. I mean, a lot of it comes back to economics. Like the reason why the America essentially won the Revolutionary War in a lot of ways was this guy. The British government was fat and happy in a lot of ways. And they just weren't on top of stuff from an efficiency standpoint. So I mean, it just went even in defense system from a defense standpoint. Like all this is important because if we don't like America that we know in today's world, 40, 50 years ago might not be around, it just, it's. It's exhausting. We talk about it so much, but you only preach so much. And people don't listen anymore. They're so gung ho in their ways that they don't think things can change. They think the system they're born into can never change or never get worse. Yep. And that's the sad truth of it because we in America have been used to just precedence being said that only things only get better and better and better. And what people don't understand is that's only because of the debt and the cycle that we're in because the government's able to do that because we are number one. Yep, absolutely. So. So that leads into actually cryptocurrency, at least in a perfect. It really does transition. Yeah. And people are buying. You know, I think, I think it's, you know, it's very interesting. I don't know. Yeah. Traditionally, you know, flight to safety. Right. When things are turbulent and people want to get their money out of the market. Obviously there's, you know, fixed income and bonds. Traditionally there was also gold. Right. That. That seemed to be where everyone would go. Gold had a big run up back in 2008, 2007, 2008. What? You know, obviously when, when the market crashed, gold has obviously been crushing as well. But I think people are kind of making that crypto trade as a. I don't know, even. Maybe this is what we can talk about. Is crypto just diversification away from like the US Dollar and other currencies, or is it more like gold? Is it more like an inflation hedge, flight to safety type thing? The beauty is it's both. That's the beauty of really crypto. Well, I don't want to talk about crypto, so I like to just really focus on bitcoin because most people group bitcoin and crypto into together and they're actually, it's. It's a little different. You can't just group all crypto, bitcoin into crypto and stuff like that. So yeah, I mean, it's a diversifying new asset class. I mean, that's. There's no doubt about that. And it's more of a risk. It's like a risk on and risk off asset class both in one. And there's different perceptions of that because. And this leads into my whole philosophy. I talk about. Bitcoin was created to be decentralized. Bitcoin was created to have no intermediary like the government, banks or people involved. And the problem is it's becoming intermediary, it's becoming centralized. It's become. Someone tweeted at me because I talked about this yesterday, someone tweeted at me. So I brought up the whole theory. Like, if our founding fathers were still alive today, they would love bitcoin and cryptocurrency because it was decentralized as power to the people. People own their own money. It wasn't a government controlled. It was literally the reason we fought a revolutionary war to get away from the British to be taxed into people, to be free and to own their stuff like crypto was, would be amazing in their eyes. Oh yeah. The problem is now someone tweeted me like, like yesterday, like I said, and said, hey, like, if I go pay at Publix with bitcoin, like am I gonna be charged a fee? And the problem is all these processors, like, you know, the cash apps of the world and things like that. Like, yeah, you're basically charged a fee now by transacting bitcoin at all these places or to each other, because people are transacting through a centralized system, right. When it was all supposed to be decentralized and verified on the blockchain, not through these institutions like Coinbase. Right. So it's becoming exactly. Its biggest strength of being a decentralized asset is its biggest weakness, because it can never be a decentralized asset if the government got involved. So there's only two ways this ends, in my opinion, and this is when it comes down to, like, you know, the diversifying asset or, you know, the whole bet against the system. You know, that kind of set aside. The only way this succeeds is if the government does get involved with their own money. That means the federal. That means Trump getting in there. Which is the reason why I think it's getting a bump is because Trump is heading the polls like we talked about, or the abandoned odds. And Trump's been kind of outspoken about being, you know, pro bitcoin, pro crypto, which I don't even know what that means, because I don't think he knows what it means. But it buys votes because 20% of people own crypto. But the only way for the government to truly get involved with their. Put their money where their mouth is, is to add it to the Federal Reserve balance sheet. So if bitcoin ever got added to the Federal Reserve balance sheet, that would make. I mean, that's where bitcoin goes to a couple million bucks a coin, because then the government's partaking in that and basically saying that bitcoin is the future of our currency. Like, US Dollar will be gone one day and we're going to add it to our balance sheet and buy so much of it that we basically are the number one owners of Bitcoin. So that way we can basically say it's United States currency and our country's currency. Yeah, that's when you get a crazy run in it. The other side of it is if you truly regulate it and become centralized without them adding to the balance sheet, basically it all goes to zero, in my opinion. In my opinion. Yep. So final thoughts? Election. Who do you think is going to win and will we know? I mean, you have to go with the odds. I. I've said this to many, even clients that listen to this. I have a gut feel. I actually have a gut feeling that Harris is going to win because I just feel like people are viewing the world in a wrong light, different light, care about the wrong things. When the government, when the government's supposed to be there not to be your big brother, it's. It's supposed to be there to kind of regulate things and make sure that people are playing by the rules, playing the right ways. I just have a feeling people are virtue signaling the wrong things. And Care about the wrong things. The nuclear family is gone. In today's world, younger people aren't getting married, aren't having kids. They're selfish in many, many ways. I just, I have a gut feeling Harris is going to win, but by the odds. You had to go by the odds. So I'm going to pick Trump, but I have an eerie bad feeling in my gut. Yeah, everything you just said is exactly what I think. So I'm not even going to say it again. And last thing we should mention, I think, you know, like crypto. Crypto has definitely gotten that surge from people pricing in a Trump victory. I think the markets have gotten that as well. So if we're, you know, next week there's a Harris victory, do you think we see a pretty big pullback in the market? No. I mean, what's interesting, I think that we, everyone knows the government or the markets are. We live in a socialistic, capitalistic society where the government, deficit spending actually helps it out. So the perception is government's going to bail things out and print more money. Someone I was talking to a couple days ago said the markets have become so efficient compared to just a couple decades ago that stocks do really, truly only not. I know they don't only go up. There's a lot of risks that eventually they won't. But like, truly, the. There's not many downturns anymore. It's like the bots, the systems, the algorithms are all bots just to buy any kind of dip. And that's because of the efficiency in the market, because we know that the government's going to be there to backstop everything. And the Fed puts always there. So that's one thought. And then I really quickly want to go into. I was in Canada last weekend, so I was in Detroit. We went over to Canada. There's this one guy, I was talking to a small business shop, and he said, you know, hopefully America goes the right way with their elections. I'm like, oh, tell me more. What do you mean by that? I'm like, you know, I wore like a nice fur coat and I like, you know, put my chest. I'm a pretty confident kind of guy. I'm like, I think you can tell which way I am. He's like, well, hopefully they don't vote that asshole Donald Trump in there. I'm like, what? Why? Just tell me a little bit. What, why? And his first thing he went to was, you know, the abortion thing and how women don't have their own rights. And he was talking about it he's got a couple daughters. So, you know, we went through. Down that whole path. But he, you know, that's. Abortion is really a tough one for a lot of people just because they have personal connections to it. I don't know his full story, things like that. But I also talked to a couple other people in restaurants, and everyone just was so anti Trump, even just right across the river from Detroit, in Windsor. Right. And across the. I shouldn't have said this. I thought I was gonna get stuck in Canada, crossing back into the border into the U.S. you know how the border patrol agents are. Try, try hard. So they try to, like, you know, ask you all these stupid questions, like, quickly and try to catch you off guard. And like, I'm not the person they should be targeting. It's probably the other people they should be, you know, targeting. One woman says, what are we doing over Canada? I said, just, you know, hanging out with, showing her around because, you know, she's never been. My fiance's never been to Canada. I said, it's a bunch of commies over there. She looked at me and I'm like, I should not have said that. So she then answered me or gave me like 10 more questions to answer because she's like, oh, a bunch of commies over there. Yeah, thankfully, I think she, you know, especially a woman that's a border patrol agent, not to get too. Any crazy. I guarantee she was not for Harris. I think she was okay with me probably saying that, but I learned my lesson. Probably just shut up and not say anything about that stuff over there. All right, well, good stuff there. We shall see how the election unfolds. If you guys have any questions or show ideas, hit us up@infowpconnect.com and we'll talk to you next week. The opinions expressed in the podcast are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any investment, legal, financial or tax strategy. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. Please consult a qualified professional about your individual needs.