Capitalist Investor

Economic Effects of the California Wildfires and Zuckerberg's New Look, Ep. 305

• Strategic Wealth Partners

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1. The Potential TikTok Ban and Its Political Fallout

The episode delved into the potential banning of TikTok in the U.S. and the political ripples it could create, particularly for Republicans if such a move is executed shortly after inauguration. The hosts speculated on notable buyers like Kevin O'Leary and Elon Musk and even shared a humorous anecdote about a fake Elon Musk account jesting about buying TikTok and renaming it. The discussion invoked a sense of nostalgia for Vine and posed the idea that Elon Musk could revive it as a strong competitor to TikTok.

2. Wildfires in California: Insurance and Economic Impact

The hosts painted a grim picture of the wildfires in California, predicting them to be the costliest disaster in U.S. history, with insurance costs estimated between $250 and $270 billion. They critiqued California's environmental laws and insurance regulations, arguing that restrictions on insurance premium adjustments have prompted companies to withdraw fire insurance, negatively impacting residents. They also called out the government’s poor allocation of resources as a contributing factor to the disaster, pointing fingers at infrastructure issues like old power lines and the lack of maintenance.

3. Capitalism vs. Increasing Regulations

A significant portion of the episode focused on the alleged decline of capitalism due to increasing regulatory interventions. The hosts contended that true capitalism hasn't existed since the Federal Reserve was established. They drew historical parallels, such as the Utah War, to make their case about governmental overreach infringing on personal freedoms and private property. The discussion touched on how modern governance, particularly in states like California, has altered traditional property ownership through mechanisms like property taxes.

4. California Taxes and Political Allocation of Funds

Diamond Hands D issued a strong critique of California’s high taxes, alleging misallocation of funds to various unions instead of essential public services like fire and police stations. The conversation included a discussion on the Democrat-union relationship, where Democrats are purported to promise high wages to unions, creating a cycle of support and financial mismanagement. The hosts went further, suggesting that hot-button social issues like abortion rights are used to distract the public from financial improprieties.

5. Rebranding and Cultural Shifts of Mark Zuckerberg

The episode covered the noticeable shift in Mark Zuckerberg’s public image towards more conservative and traditionally masculine traits. The hosts discussed how cultural and political pressures, such as perceived governmental influence, potentially pushed Zuckerberg towards censorship practices in the past. They observed his recent rebranding efforts, which include personal choices like fitness and martial arts training, signaling an alignment with more conservative values and an attempt to reshape his image.

By highlighting these multifaceted discussions, the "Capitalist Investor" podcast effectively engaged its audience with timely and provocative content, analyzing current events through the lens of economic and political ideologies. Whether examining policy impacts, corporate actions, or cultural shifts, this episode offered a comprehensive look at issues shaping today's political and economic landscapes.

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Capitalist Investor. As always, you have me, Diamondhands D. We got Tony on assignment this week. So we have Luke. Cool Hand boy. How you doing? Good man. On assignment. Yeah. Yep. I don't even know where he went. I know where he went, but I don't know what state he's in. He was in Kansas, right? That's what we're talking about. Yeah. I thought you were here for the discussion beforehand about Kansas. You know, Kansas is one of those states and city, you know, Topeka specifically, which I believe is where he's at. It's like you show up and you're like, interesting. That's like your exact, your exact thought. It's like, it's a very unique city. It's very small. But when I heard about Topeka, Kansas, when I, before I ever got there, I'm like, I thought it'd be a little bit bigger. It's just a tiny little town and like basically two people like own the whole entire city. It's very interesting, but it's cool. I, I enjoyed my time there. A lot of good food there. Yeah, Yeah, I was, I was there once as well and enjoyed it. Yeah, had some good food. Yeah. Yep. So we got some interesting crazy things going on in the world. I mean it just like, you know, this past two weeks are signal for how 2025 is going to go. Boy, I tell you, my gosh, let's go back to 2024. I mean, you had terror attacks the first couple days in the new year. You had wildfires spreading in la, and that's going to be one of the topics today about it being one of the costly disasters, if not the costliest disaster in the history of the United States when it comes to insurance costs and the cost of the damage. We're gonna talk about Zuckerberg going non woke now. He's now apparently a conservative, masculine jiu jitsu, mma, hardcore man. We'll talk about Facebook, tick tock. Apparently going away here in a couple days. I don't think that's true, but we'll talk about that in a little bit. We'll talk about Trump and his Diet Cokes. Yeah, we'll get started with the fires because that's kind of top of mind and you know, it's a terrible thing with what's going on over there. And I, you know, maybe we can get into conspiracy theories. Maybe we don't have to. But you know, after the events, the first couple of days of the new year with Terrorism attacks. I mean I, I'm still, I know they're kind of blaming. I think it was Edison, I think electric is one the one to blame or that's why the stock's down a lot. Like that's what they're kind of coming out and saying. But I still think we should really get investigate if this was some, you know, pyromaniacs, terrorists. Like I think we need to take a look at with what's happening. But you know, hopefully anyone listening, you know, is not over there in California hasn't been, hopefully no one listening has been affected. But it's terrible if you know somebody or the people that have been affected over there, what's happening. But the cost of the insurance. What they're kind of estimating is this is going to be about $200 billion disaster. I think the previous biggest disaster before was like 20 billion when it comes to fires. Right. So it's like 10x the second biggest from a fire standpoint in history. I think hurricanes have been a little bit higher like Katrina I think in cost possibly. But this is the biggest cost dollar amount disaster in history. And how's that going to impact things? D well, I mean you look at any number of interviews coming out of. I happen to see one with Jay Leno basically just describing the complete and utter destruction. You know, it's there, there's whole towns that are just literally wiped out, burnt to the ground. It's going to take, you know, probably a decade to recover. Yeah. And the, the numbers, when I was looking this morning I saw, I don't know how they know but Accuweather today updated it to like between 250 and 270. That much? Yep. My gosh. And I assume this because they can see the aerial stuff. So you know, that's just what, what I saw this morning. But yeah, you know it's, it also, it's kind of the, the really depressing part because obviously the, the depressing part is the, the, the devastation, the loss of life, all of that. But it is not more of a cut and dry case like what happened. You know, it's, it's, it shows when the government wastes money on stuff that, you know, isn't actually essential and they take away money to do that stuff with, with money that's dedicated to things that are essential. You know, this is what happens. You know, it's, it's not you know, right wing talking points or right wing conspiracy when Donald Trump goes on Joe Rogan and perfectly lays out exactly what's wrong and why it's kind of a ticking time bomb there in Southern California. I saw an old Joe Rogan clip of basically a firefighter telling him like the, the reason that, that the town hasn't burned to the ocean is. Is strictly luck. You know, it's just going to take the right wins. And the, the, the, the reason that Edison is involved is because the infrastructure has been an issue for 20 years with, you know, old, you know, falling down power lines that, you know, that the, the people are paying for. You know, like they, they, they. It is a, a public work. Right. And the public, the public was let down in a, in a major, major, major way. They've been let down for years. Yeah. So. But they vote for that themselves. Exactly. They shoot themselves in the foot. You know, the. I forgot the other candidate's name for mayor of Los Angeles, but he, that guy basically saved his own town and property because he knew that they had no. They had no way of protecting against this. And hired and had in place private firefighters. Do you know, do you know that guy's. I forgot his name. But. But yeah, you know, the, the, the. The Palisades Malibu. You know, they, they voted overwhelmingly for Karen Bass who was apparently in Africa visiting. Yeah. When. When these fires broke out. So it just, it just illustrates like why is the mayor of California flying tax taxpayer dollars to Africa? Like there's no reason for that. Like I understand, you know, diplomacy and things like that. But you know, the answer is because she's in, she's in the club. You know, that's like Ren. When Randy. The Whit Garden. I can pronounce her last name. The head of the teachers union. You know, when she shows up in Ukraine, like I lost my mind. It's all imagery. It's all virtue signaling imagery. And that goes along with what you're talking about, how government policies aren't actually best for the people. It's only best for the politicians to show a certain side of them, whatever it be. So we could talk about what you were talking about. You know, how California's environmental laws has restricted the flow of water and resources that could have helped mitigate this disaster. We could talk about that. What I want to talk about on top of that is the laws of them not allowing premiums to rise from an insurance standpoint, which then kicks out the insurance companies to then not. Not provide fire insurance. I mean literally the premiums went up because of inflation. We've talked about inflation for four freaking years and how it's all around us everywhere. The insurance companies have to adjust. When housing prices go up, there's higher cost to insure that house. Your premiums are gonna go up. So when the California restricted, I think it was just like a year ago, whatever, we restricted the premiums to go up 10% or capped them at 10%. Then those insurance companies had to, you know, mitigate risk because that's their job is to literally mitigate risk. It's not. The politicians, they don't know about mitigating risk. Politicians, the insurance companies know the risk of fire. So they're like, okay, well if you're capping us at a certain rate, we have to mitigate our risk by taking away the fire insurance or other things involved. And that's what screwed over thousands and thousands and thousands of these residents is the fact that California is infringing on the free markets, infringing on private enterprise. And then you know what the issue is? On top of that, they then call on private enterprise to come back in to rebuild the houses. They then call on private enterprise like Elon Musk to provide emergency WI fi. They rely on private enterprise, but restrict private enterprise from the first place. They only call on them when they need them, which is after disaster happens, not trying to mitigate that by allowing private enterprise to actually exist. So California is a pure example of the path that America was headed on the past four years. And if Joe Biden would have gotten elected, California would have been everywhere throughout the United States. Yep. And that would be concerning just complete. Complete dereliction of duty. And you know, I've, you know, there politics since 2015, quite honestly have, you know, heated up. It's divided a lot of people. You know, if I have family members or friends who, you know, are clearly on a different side than I am, I try, you know, to, you know, make light of the situation, joke around about it a little bit. But how can, like, how could you see what's going on in California and still stick up for the far left? How could, like Gavin Newsom, like, how can you not think that guy is just lying through his teeth every time he talks? I, I don't understand it. Well, look, and we'll go on the next topic after this, but I'm tired of playing the. It's not. This isn't funny anymore. I'm with you. This isn't. This isn't funny. Like, this is. The world is getting crazy because of ignorant bad policies, bad mindsets, bad attitudes, and just not understanding how the world works. Yeah, and this is why you saw a red wave you saw a red wave, not only because people agree with everything that the red wave and right says, but because they're fed up with the ridiculous left wing agenda. Yeah. I mean, that's, there's a reason why Congress, Senate, presidential executive branch is all red. And this is a turning point. And I'm tired of playing games. And you know, ever since Trump almost got assassinated, I felt a new, a new kind of feeling that I haven't felt before of, like patriotic, you know, let's, let's get America back on track. But yeah, I am, I am 110% completely with you. Like, if you're, if you are at this point going to stick up for Californian Democrats, like, what is wrong with you? Like, seriously. And, and you see, you see a line of celebrities now that it's affecting them, changing their tune pretty quickly. But, but seriously, capping. Capping the, the rates that insurance companies can charge. Like, the audacity of that. Like, they basically are saying, hey, like, we don't care if you go out of business. Right. You have to do this because we're not going to listen to reason and common sense throughout any of this budgeting process. But all of this is all economics, private enterprise, business. Exactly. Like, if this is not a political. Discussion, this is just a firefighters in water. Like, what is wrong with people? It's all business, though. You need it. Just, you know, people get frustrated because they think we're always, you know, far right or whatever be, or Republicans only care about, you know, Paul, you know, whatever, abortion or whatever. No, what I'm, what we're preaching all the time on this podcast is always economics. And economics impacts your life so bad economic policies literally determine whether or not your house burns down or not. Yeah. Or you. Or if you're covered from an insurance standpoint with your house or not. So, like, this is why we. I care so much about economics. This is why I care so much about the markets. Business, because business is our everyday life. Yep. And capitalism, like, this is a prime example of how capitalism is being ruined by these outside forces. Like, if people want to knock capitalism, I don't think we even have it anymore. Quite honestly. We haven't had it for years. So, you know, I could argue we. Haven'T had pure capitalism since the Federal Reserve was created in 1914. That controlled demand in the economy. I mean, truly. You know what I mean? Like, when inflation gets hot, well, guess what? You're going to raise interest rates. When inflation cools, you're going to lower interest rates. I mean, that's controlling demand in the economy. That's socialism. I'm just saying, like this the original. And we can get. Then go to the next topic. The original Founding Fathers would be extremely disappointed. I was. I'll give you a new show to watch. Watch. Did you know about the Utah War in 1850 or 1860 around there, apparently, like, there was this whole like, rebellion. Like, I didn't know anything about this, but this shows really good. It's new on Netflix. I forget exactly what's called, but you pop up top 10 TV shows on Netflix right now. But it's apparently the Mormons, like in 1850 or 1860, like, were controlling the land. The governor, I think his name was, I can't remember Search of the End, but the governor was taking control of Utah and apparently, like the US army came into Utah and like, there's a huge war between the Mormons and Indians against like the US Army. I didn't even know this piece of history existed. Right. But it's very interesting. Like, there's all these lost pieces of history. Then you start putting it all together. You start seeing like, I'm not using that as an example of like the economic side. I'm saying I'm using as an example. There's lost pieces of history the past 250 years that allows the US to get progressively more controlling in our life every single day. And if you start taking a look at the progression in the past 250 years, you start to understand why the Federal Reserve was created. Why, why we're not truly free anymore. Like, you look at that show. People own their own land. Like, there was a guy that said the US army came in and he's like, I'm not selling you this. Get off my land. This is my land. Well, we don't even know in our land anymore. I pay property. We pay property taxes. You know, back then you didn't have property tax. Like, the world we think we live in now was completely different 150 years ago. When it comes to your control of your own property and your freedoms. Yep. So we are bkk. We are being infringed upon with our freedoms unknowingly because we were born into it. Yep. And again, it's a, it's a classic example. You live in California. You pay exorbitantly high taxes. You pay exorbitantly high property taxes. And they take that money and they don't allocate it to the basic, you know, the basic needs that that money is supposed to go to. That's the bottom line. And you know where it does go to? You know where do you know where all those, the firefighter, the, the, the police station budget cuts that, that are been so famously talked about. All that money went to various unions in California because that's what the Democrats promised. And then the Democrats get the, everyone who works for a union, ridiculous wages, unreasonable wages, and then they vote for the Democrats and it's a giant cycle. All of the other stuff I'm getting really high up on my. But all of the other stuff about, you know, abortion and, and rights and all that other stuff that is just designed to keep you people, not you people, to keep the, keep the people fighting amongst themselves while they rob you. And that's exactly what happened. That is maddening. It really, really is. Well, if you, if you want to ever debate with us. Yeah. If you ever want to talk, you. Know, about this with us, let. Because obviously we are fired up and we're very passionate about this and you know, we obviously get very deep into, you know, this because this is what we do from every day. So, you know, more than happy to talk more in depth if anyone wants to. Yep. And conspiracy theories we haven't talked about in a while. We'll move on from California, but season two of Ancient Apocalypse on Netflix did come out. Really? Keanu Reeves is on this season, so. But it talks a lot about the Americas. You know, Reeves was very. Just let me end on this point. He was very different. I like Keanu Reeves a lot and people have said in the past when I got skinny, I looked like him because I used to have long hair. But he was kind of like odd in that. Did you find him a little odd? He was just very different. Like he's just like asking like not odd questions. But he was very not personable and it was, it was kind of odd. Anyway, it was a little awkward exchange. Yeah. Mark Tepper here from SWP Investment Management. It's time to elevate your portfolio with the SWP Growth and Income etf, a diversified basket of high quality growth companies that pay dividends. SWP stands out from the pack because total returns matter. Don't just Invest. Thrive with SWP. Visit investswp.com for more information. Disclosures apply. So we'll go on to Zuck. So apparently Zuckerberg is leaning more right and conservative and masculine now compared to the wokeness he used to preach. It seemed like the past 10 years I tweeted out, you know, everyone's saying that Zuck's a fraud. Zuck's like, just adapting because of Trump in office and trying to make sure his company makes money and is not, you know, broken up, whatever it be from anti regulation or anti monopolies practices, whatever. Whatever it be. Right. I actually, I'm not on that camp, Derek. You might be on that camp. Some people might be on the camp here, but I. I'm in the camp. I tweeted this out or X'd it out. I said, you know, there's a saying. There's a saying out there that everyone knows. You know, at 25, if you're not a liberal, you have no heart. At 35, if you're not a conservative, you have no brain. And I think this is truly just Zuckerberg literally just waking up and being like, you know what? You're right. The world doesn't work without masculinity. You know what? The world doesn't work necessarily if you don't have free speech, if you don't have, you know, the power of the people. If you don't, the whole system doesn't work anymore. So maybe he's just, like, literally waking up to the fact and changing his views because people do change, because people grow up and people, you know, actually understand things. I think he's. This is part of his growing up almost. I mean, he's only, what, 37 years old? I mean, he's only 10 years or so older than I am. I think. I think he's like late 30s. You know, it's just time to grow up. So, you know, I think my stance on that is I don't think we'll ever know, you know, the truth. Only. Only Zuck knows the truth. I doubt I'll have the chance to sit down and talk to him about it, but I definitely lean more towards your thinking, especially with him specifically. So, you know, he's. He's clearly kind of an awkward guy, right? He's, you know, he's basically a coder, right? Is how. How this all he's always been kind. Of perception is a nerd and. Right. You know, there's alphas and betas. I think he's always felt like he was the beta. He's trying to change his whole image, who he is. So. So when someone like that starts a company, you know, if you've watched the movie or, you know, whatever, you know, it's might not have been his idea originally, but, you know, this is America. But, you know, regardless, right, he starts this company, it blows up. It's a phenomenon. He becomes famous. He doesn't really know anything different. Right in. And he's just kind of thrust into this limelight. Right. It's kind of like, you see, you know, some professional athletes, they're, they're ready for the moment, but until you get there, you have no idea what it's like. All he really cared about was that company too, you know, and if people are coming in the government saying, here's what you need to do, or we are going to make things very difficult for you, you know, you have two options. You can comply with them and continue on with your life, or you can, you know, pulling Elon Musk. And not everyone is equipped to do that. And, you know, and I've been saying it for a while, you know, it's like, I doubt John Deere just completely on their own, just randomly decided, hey, maybe we should, you know, create a DEI department. You know, I highly doubt that that's what's going on. You know, I highly doubt that the U.S. the automakers randomly decided right after the election, hey, we're going to shift our focus towards electric cars. You know, I highly doubt that it just randomly worked out that way, right? There had to be intense pressure. We all could kind of feel it. When Zuckerberg was saying, hey, you know, we're, you know, we're taking down misinformation, like, I didn't believe them, right. And it turned out to be, you know, it turned out to be true censorship. Yeah, complete censorship. Straight up censorship. You know, you have to take this down. You can't post that. And yeah, it was, it was probably a bad spot for him. You know, I think it goes along with him trying to look, look, look at what he's wearing. He's wearing chains now. He's wearing a black shirt. He's actually got jacked. He works out and he's doing the jiu jitsu. Like, you know, I think he's trying to re, like rebrand himself as the cool kid now. Yeah. And being the cool kid comes with the masculinity traits and more actually conservative values. And I'm not, again, I, I don't want to say there's no stereotypes or anything like that, but, you know, I think that the more, you know, right wing kind of ideals usually profess themselves as more masculine. So I think that's just really, he's just trying to go through that reprogramming and, you know, change his image. And this is part of the reprogram is like, let's get back on board with truth and back on board with, you know, good values and, and masculinity. So. But yeah, he's 40 years old, so started the Biden administration. He was 36. Right. So, you know, put yourself in that situation when you're 36. Right, exactly. You know, it's not the easiest. Now, did he just roll over and lie to us about it? Yeah, he did. Do I think he's, you know, all virtuous because he's telling us now? No, but no one else has really done it. You know, I doubt you'll get the, the, the CEO from, you know, General Motors talking candidly about their, their electric car department. So let's go into Tick Tock then, because that kind of goes right along with it. Like, Tick Tock's looking to get banned, I think the day after the inhauguration, essentially, like January 20th. Because inauguration is 19th, right? The 20th is the 20th. So the Lily day of inauguration, it's like looking to get banned. What do you think's gonna happen with that? Like, they've been talking about banning TikTok for a while, but look, I don't think, I think this is all like, just like fluff because TikTok is so prominent in our society with younger generations. The last thing Republicans want after just crushing the elections, getting a red wave is to piss off every young kid that's addicted to TikTok. So, like, that's, that creates a whole generational issue that all Republicans ban TikTok. They're horrible people. I'm never going to vote for them. You have a whole generation that just voted Democrat probably because of that simple thing, which is crazy to think about that that would influence that. But I don't think TikTok is going to get banned. Maybe it will for a week and then someone comes in and buys it. They reach a deal that like Kevin O'Leary or Elon Musk comes in. I think Kevin O'Leary has a group of people that might be interested in buying the US version of Tik Tok. So I, I think something, a deal is going to get made. I don't. There's people without worried out there. If you're addicted to Tick Tock, you, you might be at a loss for a couple weeks. Might not be able to access on the App Store for a couple of weeks or whatever it be. But I think you'll be fine in the end. Because last thing Republicans want is, you know, restrictions and bad, bad ill will towards them. Yeah, and I think Trump, Trump figured that out too during the campaign. So I was looking to see if there was any movement on it today. And the fake Elon Musk parody account, the first one I saw, 10,000 likes and I'll buy TikTok and rename it X Videos. Well, what I think should happen. You remember Vine? Yeah. So that was my age group, like, when vine came out, like, that was the stuff back in the day. And then Twitter acquired Vine, so I always thought maybe, like, Elon Musk, after buying X, could come in and rerelease vine as, like, a competitor to TikTok. Like, that'd be kind of cool. Yeah, like the Vines. Yeah, the good old days. So, last. Last thing. To sum it up, this has been a pretty interesting and fun one. Diet Cokes and Trump. So apparently, like, Trump's now having, what, Diet Cokes back in the Oval Office. Is that what it is? What exactly is it? Yeah, I saw. I saw. Yesterday, the CEO of Coke presented him with, like a. There's going to be, like, a limited edition inaugural Diet Coke, like, in the. In the glass bottle. So there was a picture of Trump and the. The CEO yesterday. But I. I just thought it was pretty. Pretty funny. But also, you know, it's. It's definitely funny. Right. He's a famous Diet Coke drinker. Oh. He doesn't drink alcohol, so he. He drinks pot, you know. But it's going to be interesting to see how this, this term plays out, because, you know, there's. There are people lining up at the door to. To talk to Trump, and it sounds like day one, they're going to hit the ground running. What we should talk about next week, I completely forgot about this is Vivek Ramaswamy. Did I say that right? Yep. Completely disappeared. Yeah. Gone. What happened there? What did happen? Well, he was like. He was the one that started the H1B visa conversation and said some kind of dumb stuff. Yeah. But he hasn't tweeted. I haven't heard from him since, so. Seems like, because Trump was. Was kind of on record already being kind of against what. What Vivek was saying. So I understand what he was trying to say, but he's just gone. You don't hear from him. He was tweeting 10 times a day before. I guess we can talk more about that next week. But what I think Diet Coke, real quick on the Diet Coke conversation. I think that if I was Coke, I would want, like, you know how you have, like, taps, like, you know, bars. I'd want, like, a tap of Diet Coke, like, in the Oval Office for Trump and, like, that'd be a great branding opportunity or something like that. Like, you know, they should go even deeper into that conversation because Trump is known to be the Diet Coke drinker. So. Anyway, I saw a video of that on Instagram. You can install your own. Yeah, yeah. It's complicated and expensive, but to have a sweet. Not for the U.S. not for the U.S. government. Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, good stuff today. Lots of, lots of stuff to talk about. Obviously, if you guys have any questions, comments, show ideas. If you want to stick up for Gavin Newsom, you know, we're, we're here to debate, so maybe you can. Come on. Yeah, absolutely. So hit us up@infoswpconnect.com and we'll talk to you next time. It 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.