Capitalist Investor

Argentina=Doge?, Tesla, and UFOs?, Ep. 303

• Strategic Wealth Partners

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Welcome back to the Capitalist Investor Podcast! In this episode hosted by Diamond Hands D and co-host Tony the Tiger, we delved into a variety of pressing economic and political topics, discussing everything from international fiscal policies to cutting-edge technology. Here's a summary of the five hottest topics explored in this episode:

  1. Javier Milei's Economic Revolution in Argentina Newly elected Argentine President Javier Milei has implemented radical economic policies that ended Argentina’s long-standing budget deficit for the first time in over a century. Inflation, which had soared to 200%, plummeted to under 3%. These cost-cutting measures included reducing infrastructure and social program spending, wage and pension freezes, subsidy cuts, mass layoffs, and allowing the peso to depreciate. While these policies brought down inflation sharply, they also triggered economic downturns and soaring unemployment rates. The episode discusses the potential for such measures in the U.S., highlighting the political and social challenges that come with slashing social programs like Social Security and Medicare.
  2. Tesla's Market Dominance and Future Innovations Tony shared his admiration for Tesla's exemplary growth in 2023 with a 38% income increase, projecting further growth next year. They discussed Tesla's plans to introduce a more affordable Model Q at around $30,000 and speculated on the launch of consumer robots priced between $20,000 and $25,000, drawing parallels with science fiction films like "iRobot." Tesla's advancements in autonomous technology were praised, comparing Tesla’s industry-disrupting work to the introduction of the iPhone. There were also discussions on Elon Musk’s political shift and its potential impact on Tesla’s consumer base.
  3. UFO Sightings and Drone Conspiracies The hosts entertained discussions around recent UFO sightings, particularly glowing orb-like drones seen over New Jersey’s Trump Bedminster and other locations like Dallas and Seattle. They noted concerns from commercial airline pilots encountering these drones. Theories ranged from potential foreign surveillance to advanced U.S. technology, with some sightings suspected to be fakes. This discussion branched into broader concerns, including speculations about an earthquake in California potentially caused by a Russian bomb and worries over missing bioweapons from an Australian lab.
  4. Challenges Faced by U.S. Automakers and Elon Musk's EV Strategy Tony touched upon the difficulties U.S. automakers are experiencing in transitioning to electric vehicles (EVs). In contrast, Elon Musk's Tesla, solely focused on EVs, continues to lead in innovation and market growth. Despite uncertainties around long-term adoption rates, a survey highlighted that only 1% of EV owners reverted to gas-powered cars. This conversation provided insights into the shifting dynamics of the automotive industry and Musk’s strategic focus on future technologies, including possible consumer robots.
  5. U.S. Postal Service and Government Inefficiencies Issues surrounding the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) were highlighted, including significant mail delivery delays and inefficiencies experienced in 2024. The hosts pointed to Elon Musk’s recent efficiency improvements at Twitter as potential strategies for reducing government inefficiencies. Criticisms were directed at the Biden administration’s policies, perceived as extending unnecessary government functions, thus impacting economic management. They concluded with a call for systematic budget cuts to address the U.S. budget deficit, suggesting reevaluating the scope of government departments like education and the FDA without broadly slashing essential services. Concerns over the economic implications of such cuts on market stability and personal investments were also discussed.

That's it for this week's hot topics! Stay tuned for more!

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Capitalist Investor. As always, you have me, diamondhands D. And we have Tony the Tiger with us. What's up, Tony? What's up, baby? Diamond Hands D. We are missing Cool Hand Luke. Yep. He's on assignment, AKA Zazana's honeymoon. Right. But we got the funny question today from our engineer. He goes, exactly. Does assignment mean? And I'm like, that's a good question. It means like, he's out there getting the scoop from somewhere else. Yep. Right. Digging up a new story. And then that led to, hey, remember Geraldo when we were growing up and he was like, searching basements for. Was it Al Capone? El Capone's tomb. Yeah. Or his safe or something. Or his vault. Yeah, his vault. And he busted down a wall, I think. He was such a big deal back then. Oh, yeah. And there was nothing. He got nothing. It's a good commentary on how much things have changed. You follow. You follow that guy on Twitter? I used to, but he went off the map. Right. It's crazy. Did you know he's a Cleveland native? I do. Yeah. That blew my mind when I found that out several years ago. I'm like, really? Actually walked in. That's the only reason I do, is because he walked in our office to use one of our other studios. Oh, really? Yeah. And I'm like, dude, is that Geraldo? He's like, yeah. And I'm like, what's he doing in town? He's like, oh, he lives here. And I'm like, get out of here. Yeah, I remember. Yeah. Like, like the last Trump. Before the last Trump administration. He was on like, Fox News a lot. And then he just kind of. Kind of lost it there. But yeah, while all that was going on, he was living in somewhere on the east side, I think. Yeah, he's living since, like, Shaker. Yeah, I thought it was pretty close to me. All right, man. So like, today's topics. I like this topic. So I'm. I'm terrible at phonics. So the new president of Argentina, right? I can't. Javier. Millie. Millie. Yeah. That's where I'm. That's right. That's where I get stumped. I can't spell. I'm really good at math. I got an engineering degree, but I cannot spell, dude. All right, but anyway, but he's the new president of Argentina and he came in and he was Doge before. Doge was cool. Right. Basically. Right. So he. For the first time in hundred plus years, they are not Running a deficit. Because crazy enough. And then before I even get into that, the other thing we're going to talk about later is Tesla. Right? I'm not the biggest Tesla fanboy, but I find it interesting that Elon is doing everything. Launching rockets, making EVs when no one else can, and going to clean up our deficit spending in two years. Yeah, yeah, they're giving themselves a deadline. It's bananas. So. But let's get to this Argentina thing. So he, the president came in and ended the nation's budget deficit for the first time in 123 years. And inflation was so bad that supermarkets were adjusting food prices on a day to day basis. That's insane. And they went from like a 200% inflation rate to a 25 the year that he was elected to just under 3% where we are right now, you know, and pretty miraculous, right? So I'm sitting there and I'm like, okay, and this caught the attention of Elon, right? And that's where I'm like, okay, now what? Like, good job, dude. Like, what did you do? And what are, what's behind the curtain? Like, what, what's next? How does this, how does this change the economy? Right? So what he did is he came in with sharp spending cuts, so significantly reducing government spending across various sectors like infrastructure, public works and social programs. Like AKA here. So like I'm gonna try and compare this, what my goal with this commentary is to. This is what this guy did. This is what this president Argentina did. What is, what is the Doge going to do? Because this is like, if you want to follow the playbook, this is what they would have to do. So what does that mean in, what does that mean in the United States? So like infrastructure, public works, like basically just cutting down like social programs. You're talking Social Security, you're talking Medicare, Medicaid, all those social programs. And then he came in and also did wage and pension freezes across every public sector. I think he fired his one guy because right after he got elected he gave everyone a raise or something. He's like, you're gone, you're fired. Right. Subsidy reductions, mass layoffs. So I saw something the other day where the United States Postal Service is running a $10 billion a year deficit. They're $100 billion in debt. Or like they've created that much debt of taxpayer money being burnt in the last 10 years. That's crazy. It really is. Yeah. That blows my mind. That's a lot of money, man. And that you and I get to you know, watch. Go up and smoke. Right? So mass layoffs, that's what caught my attention. And I'll come back to that. Devaluing the peso, allowing the Argentina peso to deprecate significantly against other currencies. And now what are the considerations for this? So what is the economic impact? While all of this led to lower inflation, it caused sharp economic downturn, you know, and that's the problem. That's where you gotta pick a lane, man. You got to rip the bandaid off or you don't. And what the United States has done for years and years and years is never rip that band aid off. Right. It's just like, actually we'll just print some more money and make sure, make sure no one's in pain. Right? Right. This dude literally came in and just ripped every band aid off, the whole thing. And because the concern was now you have just increased unemployment and poverty. So obviously all of this, all of this cuts and you know, all this, all this cutting and getting the nation back on track. Absolutely comes with a lot of pain. And that's what the United States would realize they have, that you would have to. I mean, I know there's needless spending that we just don't even know where that money goes. Like the Pentagon. Right. They don't. They're missing out. Oh, I know where it goes. Well, if you talk about the UFO, talk about UFOs later, we can. Well, that'll be the bonus part of today. But what I mean, so you have. You'll make me lose my track. I forget there's holes in the Pentagon, there's holes in money going to Ukraine. Like we gave. It's insane, man. So there's that political challenges. Drastic austerity measures generated significant public backlash and political tension, obviously. Yeah, right. You're freezing people's, you know, you're taking money away from like no more raises and actually you lost your job. Like. Yeah. People are gonna be pissed off. And then long term sustainability, when everyone's not working and people are pissed off, that not going to last very long. So that's why on what I got, I think the Doge. I think Elon and Vivek, they got a lot of, I don't know, you tell me. What do you think? I got an opinion on it. Yeah. So. So it's not just in as you, you know, very did a great job of outlining there. It's not just simply just slashing, you know, just blindly slashing everything that the government pays for. Right. Because that's Going to be a big problem. It has to be done systematically. You can't just, you know, cut off a huge part of the, of the US economy. You know, we've been saying forever, you know, 78, 80% of our economy is consumer spending. So if consumers don't have as much, the economy is going to be suffering. If consumers don't have a job, they are not spending. Let's just, let's dial down into that one, too. So, you know, the post office is a classic example. Right. It's been broken my whole entire life. Right. It's gotten ten times worse recently. You know, I can't ever remember getting stuff lost in the mail, really, until this year, 2024. There's been so much stuff lost. Yeah, we got a, we got, we got a ladybug. That's got to be good luck, right? It's either good or bad. So I guess we'll find out later. You're right, man. Like, I were sending out, like, letters, and they're just not. They're like, three weeks late, four weeks late. Like, they are, like, way behind schedule. It's nuts. I. Yeah. You know, we got a, got an annuity place for a client. The policy never came. So we called, called the insurance company, had them send another one. Like, literally, like 60 days later, the original one showed up. Oh, the original one? Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's, it's, it's wild. But, yeah, I think the real true job, which is why I think Elon is perfect for this, because he's already done it at Twitter. Twitter is running just as well as it ever has at basically. I think he said the real number is something like 12% of the original employees that he had when he started working there. It's not just about slashing. It's also about getting more efficient. So that is the part that seems impossible to everyone just because the sheer size and scale of the US Government and the jobs that is in there. But at the same point in time, we have been saying for a long time as well, about how propped up this economy is. And so you have to be careful when you start, you know, backing those things out of the economy, like those cushy government jobs that no one actually shows up for. I think Elon also said that basically, if you take out, like, custodial and janitorial staff, basically 0% of government employees come into the office. Yeah, yeah. And then, and then you had the Biden administration, like, as they're exiting, start just like, jamming everything up, saying, hey, we're going to extend that for the next ten years or something. Ridiculous. Yep. So, you know, I think like Elon said, he goes, I feel like I want to say that we bring in. And these are rough. I don't, I didn't look this one up. Usually I come a little more prepared. But I just thought of this. So like, I believe we bring in like $6 trillion in, in tax revenue, but we spend like 7 or 8 trillion. We're on the deficit, obviously. Right. And he, I think Elon said, he goes, there is easily a trillion dollars we can slash off of this thing. Yep. And, and I do believe that without creating too much, you know, austerity, like, like too much pressure on everything else going on. You know, if you go and cut the US Postal Service in half, like. Yeah. It's going to get really bad, I'd imagine. Right. Like you can't do that, but maybe you can cut it by 10% or 20%. I don't know. I don't, didn't do research on those numbers, but that I'm sure he's like finding these like, I think he said he's going to get rid of a lot of different, like just public like department education is going to get cut and you know, and fda like you got FDR coming in there doing, already making moves and shifts. But yeah, the, it's not just having the jobs. Right. It's, it's miserable. J.F. i'm sorry, the Kennedy Jr. I'm sorry, I think I said FDR or something. Yeah, you did. Yeah. I was going to say something. Yeah. So, yeah, it's the, again, the post office is a great example. I don't work there obviously, but I hear it's basically a horrible place to work. You know, it's mismanaged from top to bottom. But I think across the board, there's no real incentive really at any of the government agencies to be good at your job. That, that's, that's really what is created. Yeah. The, you know, the, the fact that there's no real managers and no one can be fired and you can, you know, work from home and do whatever you want like that, that is the real cause of, of the waste. We, we don't just necessarily need to come, come in and just start slashing everything. It needs to be, become more efficient. Yeah. And, and I, I, my conspiracy theory behind some of this is like, to be honest, man, like they're gonna get stonewalled. Yeah. Elon and Vivek, even with, they're like, you can't look behind that door. And I'm like, I'm gonna go get daddy. You know Trump, you know Donald J. Trump. Right. And he's. And there's, there are just national secrets that black others. That's my. They exist. They have to. Yeah. There's, you know, there's reasons how we have invisible planes and stuff. Like, it's just, there's, there's reasons behind that. And, and the budget for that is so extensive, you probably don't want to know, but you never will know. Yeah. Right. So I like, I like where it's going, you know, I, you know, it's being done elsewhere. Obviously this dude went, you know, balls to the wall and like, really crush this thing. Yep. But he's gonna crush his economy. And the United States isn't prepared for that because you said, like, hey, we just can't go in there because a lot of the market that, you know, that makes US money is propped up on government spending. And the last thing I know, people don't want their 401ks turning into 301ks or even 201ks. Right, right. So it's a, it's a dance that they need to, they have to dance, but they can't, you know, shake up the whole system on day one. So we'll see how it plays out. But that's what they had to do to make this thing work. Yep. So Tesla, I'm not the biggest. I just, I don't know. Tesla bothers me. I just can't. But I'm starting to kind of like, I'm starting. I always like Tesla. Who wants to drive another car? Here's the thing. Electric cars will be coming down the road. I don't know when, I don't know if it's three years or 30 years. Right. But I gotta give it to them because the United States automakers are canceling their products. They, you know, getting out of the game, losing money on electric cars. And Elon's out here making it work. Yep. Because he's just, that's all he does is focus on that. He doesn't focus on gas powered cars. He focuses on electric cars. He keep, he has a lane and he's staying in it. I understand that he needs competition and you know, like, everyone else needs to catch up. But again, it's going to be expensive. But look how much money Tesla burned early. You know, car, you know, just R D. Like there's jackets. How much? 10 or 15 years of research and development in all those cars and we're trying to get them off United States automakers trying to get it off the ground in two years. Yep. Good luck. Right. But the company is. Saw a 38% increase in income in 2023. They're looking at a quote unquote slight increase this year, but they are looking for 20 to 30% growth next year, which is phenomenal. Right. So what are they doing? They are, you know, they're gonna make more cars, which they, which is great, you know, if you have the platform. Yeah. Just they haven't done a, like a redesign of a car. Like, I'm sorry, your cybertruck is ugly. Like make that thing look nicer and you'd probably sell more. But there's a waitlist for that thing anyway. Yep. But they're looking to make a cheaper car. A 30. A model Q at the entry level.$30,000 EV. Yep. You know, I just, they're the best and it's going to be very, very hard to catch them at this point. It's. It. The guy is, you can't really. Obviously everyone has their opinions on him and now he's very political, so half the people out there aren't going to like him anyway. But he just, he just fine figures out a way to get it done. And if anyone saw the, you know, the videos or you know, whatever he did on with the Tesla robots and the scary. I don't like those Tesla robots. They're going to, you can buy one of those really Next year, probably at the end of next year. How much, how much you think they're going to be? He said they're going to be around, you know, a small car. He said like 20, 25,000. Like it's. And to think about it, like, you know, it's, it's really w. It just opens up the possibilities that are just so imagine like, you know, needing to run to the corner store and you know, you got kids, you know, five and seven or whatever and you're like, tell your robot to watch the kids for 15 minutes. And you know, at any time you can just talk to your phone and say, hey, show me my kids and talk to your robot. It's on a giant. Then your kids are going to be drop kicking that robot break that thing. Right. It looked pretty solid. Yeah. It's climbing up hills these days. I saw that. But, but I mean, we saw the movie. I saw the movie Irobot with Will Smith. Yeah. Like again, man, I'm not going to go Terminator. Like that's just Super Armageddon kind of stuff, but iRobot was pretty close. Like they just, somebody gets in the matrix, changes a couple things and now you got enemies of robots trying to take over. Yeah, I don't know. But besides cell phones though, we like. And obviously things are getting better technologically. But this is a clear leap, right? Autonomous taxis, that's wild stuff. You know, just getting in and getting driven somewhere. Don't even talk to anybody. Yeah, exactly. Maybe get in. I saw a video on that too. There's a giant screen in the front. Yeah, giant. You know, there's no, the, with the electric cars there's not as much, you know, with the motor and things like that. So there's a giant truck trunk. So. Yeah, it's, it's. Yeah, I, as soon as I saw that video I was like, there's no reason to ever sell Tesla stock in the next 20 years. Yeah, there's going to be ups and downs. Yeah. But no one is doing what they're doing. No, that's the thing. That's where I'm like, I'm starting to gravitate back towards Tesla like just as a company and a product and I'm like, they're just doing things that other people. It's kind of like Apple back in the day. Like they're just doing things that people never have done before. Yeah, I saw a clip. It was a Tesla driving down the road and there was pedestrians on the right side of it and a car came across the lane and it somehow swerved. It automatically swerved to miss that and also like guard the pedestrian. Oh, wow. It's. Yeah, it's. I know everyone wants to have all these rules and regulations, but the fact of the matter is going to be within five years the computer driven cars are going to be more safe than a human driving. I mean, when, I mean, I know it's, it's, you know, SpaceX, not, not Tesla, but I look at them as all the same kind of thing. In my opinion. Right. When they plucked that rocket out of the sky, like my mind, my mind was so blown. Like I'm like, wow. Like that is the most impressive thing I've ever seen in my entire life. Like, I mean, yeah, like the invention of like the airplane is, you know, probably the biggest thing that's, you know, the Internet self, like the iPhone, like the computer in your pocket. Kind of like those are like things. Right. Like that's the next thing. Yep. That is insane. It's like human evolution is true. IPhone is one thing, but that, that is, that is next. Level. Yeah. So just really quick, you know, side note, like, so when, when Elon flipped and when I say flip, he went from like left of center to like right of center. And he might even be more right than center right at this point in the game. Like how. And, and this is kind of my head trash, but like I always kind of looked at a lot of like left sided, you know, political minded people bought EVs. Right, right, you know, right wing kind of people by, you know, gas powered cars. Like that's my head trust. I know it's. I know, you know, Republicans that buy, you know, but I would say the majority, there's a higher majority. More than 50% are on the left side. How many do you think they sold their Tesla when he started jumping on the Trump bandwagon? Do you? Or they're like, no, I just love my Tesla so much. I'm gonna bear with that one. I'm gonna suck that one up. Yeah, I think a minority, I really got rid like. Yeah, so I read it yesterday. Basically 1% of people buy a gas powered car after owning an electric car. So once you go electric, you never go back. Okay. So maybe the 1% were left wingers that were, that were so angry. I do remember who is the celebrity. I can't come up with her name. Was she on who's the Boss? Alyssa Milano. Oh, yeah. Okay. She basically Elon started talking and she's like, well, I just sold my Tesla and got a Volkswagen and someone said Volkswagen was literally started by Hitler. So I don't know if they think it all the way through all time. Right, right. All right, man, let's touch base. Couple minutes. Like you brought up UFOs. What do you got for me, man? Oh yeah, is this around this. Like we can't identify these drones that are flying across the east coast or something like that. Yep. Okay. You know, it's. And it's definitely hit the mainstream. But you know, if you go on Twitter, it's impossible to miss all the different drone sightings. So it was specific. It seemed to be specific to New Jersey there for the last couple weeks. Right over Trump Bedminster is kind of where they were all centered, but yeah, just glowing orbs and then like giants. Like unidentified drones is what they're calling them. The size of cars. Size of cars. Yeah, they're that big. Yeah. Oh, cow. Whenever I think I'm like, like the size of like a, you know, a textbook or something is what the drones I'm familiar with. Now we got like life size car Sized drones. Nice. There. There's been multiple reports of, you know, commercial airline pilots, like running into them or seeing them. Seeing them like in their path and like radio communication. Like, we don't see anything, but obviously try to avoid anything that gets in your way. Holy. That's actually scary. I didn't even think about that. Happened in Dallas too, so Seattle, Dallas. Those are the two clips I'm thinking of. And when you go online and you see some of the UFO footage, it's clearly fake, right? It's moving so fast I can't tell where it's going. I can't describe how fast it's going, but it's going fast. But there's, there's a lot of sightings recently. So I mean, they're, they're asking, you know, the President, the. Yeah, a lot of people. I mean, they're saying, like, is like. So we had like Chinese balloons floating across the United States. Is this their next version of, you know, spying and espionage and all that stuff? Is it our own technology? I believe, you know. Correct. Correct. It could be, you know, just, you know, it could be, it could be signaling to other countries. Like, hey, if you're thinking about trying something, you know, this is, this is what, what we're working with over here. Yeah. You know, I was watching something. It was something, you know, during World War II. We could send a. You that. What they're called U2s anyway, the high altitude surveillance. And we could get like ridiculous pictures. And that was back in 1945 or 1942. Correct. I don't think we as a public understand the technology that our government probably has. You know, the stealth bombers still fly over football games. Right. What are we really using? You know, that's 20, 30 year old technology now. Right. So, yeah, there could be some of that as well. But it seems very strange that all of a sudden it's coming out, you know, in droves right after the election. Yeah, I saw something shifting gears just slightly, but like, again, you know, countries sending messages, quote, unquote, messages to the United States, like, stay out of our business, like, like Ukraine and Russia and stuff. And they said like, there was an earthquake in California. Did you see this? I'm like, there's an earthquake in the ocean. Right. And it didn't create a tsunami. Right. So like now they're like, had that not happen? And they were saying like, Russia, you know, set off a bomb. Yeah. To let them know, like, hey, this is, this is you. If you get in, get in the way. Right. Like, we're gonna use this guy on you. Yep. You saw that one? I saw that. Oh, yeah. And then I saw like, you know, the samples along the beach, there was high radioactive content, and so I don't know if that's true. Yeah. But yes, I did see. And the most recent thing, there's, there's a lot of, like, bioweapons missing from Australia's like one of their, like, you know, high and, you know, high intensity bio labs. Like, there's like 35 or 300 vials of bio weapon grade stuff missing. Like. Cool. Like, how'd that happen? Yeah, so I don't know, man. I just don't know what to believe anymore. Yeah, that's true. But if that's true, that's scary. If it's just clickbait, then, you know you're keeping me up for no reason. Yeah, exactly. All right, man, let's take this home. All right, well, good stuff, you know, stay safe out there. If you, if you see any UFOs, any drones, let us know that too. I like that. So. And if you have financial content you'd like us to talk about, then that's our way too. You know, I've always been into, you know, that, that, that kind of stuff, and I've never seen anything. So if anyone has. Has an experience, I would love to hear it or show ideas, you know, anything at all. Hit us up@infowpconnect.com and we'll talk to you. 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.