Trump Challenges EU Policies

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Postal Service’s plan to electrify mail trucks falling far short of its goal

The United States Postal Service unveiled a plan to buy a fleet of all-electric mail trucks for its mail carriers back in 2022, of which 3,000 were supposed to be delivered by now. Unfortunately, those […]

Biden’s DoD Doubles Down On Climate Action As Trump Promises Military Reset

The DoD’s focus on climate change over national security reflects Biden’s top policies. Trump pledges to refocus on defense priorities. ​ Given the state of affairs in Ukraine and the Middle East and the rise […]

North Korean troops join Russian assaults ‘in significant numbers’ – Oil for Troops Trade

ENB Pub Note: In an interesting twist, the North Korea/Russian Troop trade may be the first Oil for Troops agreement. Russia has begun using North Korean troops in significant numbers for the first time to […]

Trump is a nightmare for the EU in more ways than one

ENB Pub Note: This article from RT has some interesting points. While I do not agree with everything, it is worth noting that President Trump is looking at the U.S. / EU relationship on an […]

Gov. Newsom’s EV Mandate Set To Fail As Sales Lag, Power Shortages Persist

California’s EV mandate faces failure as sales lag, power shortages persist, and budget deficits undermine its unrealistic green goals. California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s electric vehicle (EV) mandate is set to fail, as sales of EVs […]

Highlights of the Podcast

00:00 – Intro

01:50 – Postal Service’s plan to electrify mail trucks falling far short of its goal

03:34 – Biden’s DoD Doubles Down On Climate Action As Trump Promises Military Reset

06:03 – North Korean troops join Russian assaults ‘in significant numbers’ – Oil for Troops Trade

07:24 – Trump is a nightmare for the EU in more ways than one

10:41 – Gov. Newsom’s EV Mandate Set To Fail As Sales Lag, Power Shortages Persist

13:5 – Markets Update

18:21 – Texas Oil Company Asks Federal Court to Stop Insurance Companies’ $250 Million Demand for Additional Collateral

23:15 – Outro


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Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.


Michael Tanner: [00:00:09] What’s going on, everybody? Welcome into the Monday, December 16th, 2024, edition of the Daily Energy News. Beat Stand up. Here are today’s top headlines. Postal Service plan to electrify mail trucks falling short of its goal. Who would have thunk that? Next up, Biden’s DoD doubles down on climate action as Trump promises military resettlement. We’ve got it’s it’s very interesting what’s going on between the transition team and the current administration right now. Next up, North Korean troops join Russian assaults in, quote, significant numbers in an oil for troops trade. Very interesting there. And then next up, Trump is a nightmare for EU in more ways than one. Will end with Governor Newsom’s mandate set to fail as sales lags and power shortages persist. Nothing like ending with good old oil slick himself. Good friend of the show stool then tossed over me. I will quickly cover what happened in the oil and gas markets on Friday and talk a little bit about some insurance in some interesting moves in the insurance business that’s going on specifically for offshore companies. There’s a nice little article from RBC Richardson. We will then let you get out of here and start your week, as always. I’m Michael Tanner, back from vacation. You know, I tell people are asking where I was last week and I said, well, I’m in Miami for business. If that’s not the biggest oxymoron you’ve ever heard. I don’t know what else is. There was some good business going on to do. I appreciate you holding down the fort last week. Hopefully everyone wasn’t we didn’t drive off too many of our listeners. [00:01:43][94.1]

Stuart Turley: [00:01:44] Yeah, we only got a few drills. [00:01:45][1.0]

Michael Tanner: [00:01:46] Only a few. Try use. Good. I’m going to kick it over to you. Where do you want to begin? [00:01:50][3.6]

Stuart Turley: [00:01:50] Hey, let’s start with my buddy Biden. Holy smokes, Batman. Postal Service plan to electrify mail trucks falling short of its goal. Michael, how short do you think it’s. I saw this on Jesse water primetime. And I put this in here. 3 billion on 32 mail trucks, $32 million per mail truck. What is going on? This is not the United States Postal Service unveiled a plan to buy a fleet of all electric trucks for its mail carriers back in 2022, 3000 were supposed to be delivered and they only delivered 32. [00:02:30][39.6]

Michael Tanner: [00:02:31] I mean, it’s insane. We were talking about this right before we jumped on the show. I actually think these look, you know, visually a little bit better than the little stumpy ones. It looks like they’re not going to die if they all so much is skid off the road. But, I mean, it’s pretty unbelievable. You’re talking about 93 vehicles delivered. That almost sounds like the federal funding for a plug in abandoned wells, $10 billion and they’ve plugged nine wells. I mean, it’s a twin. It’s trust. When the government gets involved with stuff, this type of stuff happens. [00:02:58][27.7]

Stuart Turley: [00:02:59] Absolutely. This is the last part in the article here. The failure of these plans doesn’t affect just the Postal Service ability to modernize its fleet of aging mail trucks. It could also throw a wrench into President Biden’s plan to combat climate change. We got another story on that one. [00:03:15][16.2]

Michael Tanner: [00:03:16] Yeah, pretty unbelievable. 3 billion on 32 mail trucks. Man, I’d like that contract. Can we get that contract right before Doge comes in? [00:03:24][8.2]

Stuart Turley: [00:03:24] Well, there’s a little bit of a problem. Michael. We do have something called ethics. [00:03:28][3.8]

Michael Tanner: [00:03:29] That’s a good point. That’s a good point. Speaking of ethics, let’s talk about the dog. [00:03:32][3.4]

Stuart Turley: [00:03:33] Holy smokes, Batman Biden D.O.D. Doubles Down on Climate Action as Trump Promises Military Reset. Michael you can’t buy this kind of stupid climate change does not constitute a current threat to U.S. national security. But the DOD leaders think otherwise. Quote, In fact, the DOD believes the climate crisis is a national security priority. On December 11th, the DOD announced its concern with climate change in Africa. What climate stressed areas are recruiting areas for terrorist groups? What is got to do that is just unbelievable. Here’s another horrible quote. The Department of Defense has identified climate change as a national security issue and threat multiplier and top management challenge and must take bold steps to accelerate adaption to reduce adverse impacts of climate change. This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Do you remember, Michael, when we talked about them putting solar panels on Tang? [00:04:36][62.9]

Michael Tanner: [00:04:36] Yeah. I mean though that that’s not going to work. Again, this is not the Department of Defense‘s job to worry about climate change. Let’s say. Let’s just play this out. Even even if I was full board climate change, you know, again, remember climate change, They’ve done a sleight of hand here. When I was, you know, when I was growing up, it was global warming. And they’ve done a little sleight of hand to say, climate change to account for the fact that if it happened to get colder, they’d be covered as well. So good sleight of hand, but let’s just say climate change, as sold by the corporate media was correct. Let’s assume that alternate universe. Let’s assume climate change is the corporate media says it is is true. It’s still not the Department of Defense’s job to worry about climate change. It should be the Department of Energy. It should be. Any one of the other depart the Department of Interior or any other of these departments that actually deal with the environment, the Bureau of Ocean Management or whatever, not the D.O.D.. And hopefully this is stuff that Doe is able to come in and clean up. Yes. Do we need to just gut the Department of Defense? No. Are they spending a lot more money than they should? Yeah, they probably should. They probably should take a little bit of a budget hit and we’d probably be just fine from a defense standpoint. So, again, this is classic government, just idiotic, you know, idiocy thinking that the DOD should be the ones worried about climate change. [00:05:56][79.9]

Stuart Turley: [00:05:56] Absolutely. Well said, Michael. Outstanding. You should take me. [00:06:01][4.6]

Michael Tanner: [00:06:01] I’ve got a week off. I’ve got a lot of pent up stuff. [00:06:03][1.9]

Stuart Turley: [00:06:03] Well, speaking of pent off, let’s go to North Korea. North Korean troops join Russian assaults in significant numbers. Oil for troops in trade. Michael, I did not have that on my bingo card when I saw that we were going to. How are they paying for this? Kim Jong un calls up Putin and goes, Hey, I got bodies. You want bodies in? And Putin goes, I got oil. You want an oil? This is hilarious. Today we begin the preliminary data that Russians are being in to use North Korean soldiers in their assaults. This will. You and I are laughing about this right now, but it does not underpin the importance of low cost energy from Russia. As Chancellor Schroeder has had several calls asking for more natural gas, and I guarantee you he is prompting the end the war in Ukraine so he can buy Russian natural gas. I thought that was very important. [00:07:02][58.6]

Michael Tanner: [00:07:02] Yeah, I mean, it’s a little crazy. I’m all about getting people oil. But if you got to trade literally just bodies that are revenge, I mean, because these these these North Korean ships are going straight to the front line. They’re basically just going they’re going to end up just being killed because of the way things are going on. It’s pretty unbelievable. [00:07:18][15.9]

Stuart Turley: [00:07:20] It is brutal. And it breaks my heart that the let’s just end all wars. All right. Let’s go to the next one. Speaking of Trump, Trump is a nightmare for the EU and more of the ways. And one, this actually came in and I thought it was from it’s from R.T., which is the Russian your. [00:07:36][16.8]

Michael Tanner: [00:07:36] Favorite news source? Russia Times. [00:07:38][1.2]

Stuart Turley: [00:07:39] Yeah, Russia Times, maybe. But it was interesting. I don’t agree with everything in it, but it has some great points. Well, first, there’s Russia. Regarding Moscow, Trump seems ready to talk in a substantial manner, which we’ve not seen since since the Cold War. Trump is realizing he would rather do business with Russia, then rather try to have a Cold War. I applaud Trump’s methodology there, but he’s also put out that challenge to Russia and saying, Wait a minute, BRICs hold off on trying to have another thing. So I actually like what President Trump is doing. [00:08:15][36.2]

Michael Tanner: [00:08:15] Shocker. You like what Trump’s doing. I do think it’s it is. It is. I would have never guessed he might. Trump is a nightmare for the EU in the standpoint of I think what he does is he does what Elon Musk does and he’s got Elon Musk in his ear. They think from first principles. He was back in 2017 when he was talking about, hey, you guys, you are to it. You’re addicted to Russian gas. That may cause a conflict at some point. What he was he was thinking from first principles. Hey, if you do see Russia as this threat, if you do see Russia as somebody who’s going to be aggressive, maybe think about getting your gas from alternative sources, snaking from first principles. That’s why I think he’s going to do here. I think that’s what he’s doing specifically with going to be reversing a lot of the the green energy policies here. Specifically, I think there’s, you know, the LNG export ban, that alone is going to be a huge boon for the EU and it would play them and it would do them well to understand that, that if we at home can get LNG export facilities approved, all that gas is going overseas. Why? Because there’s a huge arbitrage of pricing. We’ve got enough natural gas here. We’ve got so much natural gas here. There are companies in the specifically the Delaware Basin, so we’re talking about the Permian Basin. But on the New Mexico side, who can’t produce their wells because there’s not enough capacity in the pipelines to put the natural gas and you can’t flare because it’s on federal land. So what do you have to do, shut the well in we’ve got so much natural gas that it would behoove them to do it. Yet what I fear is going to happen is exactly what this article talks about, is there’s going to end up being a budding of hedge because, yes, Europe’s got to show that they’re, you know, smart, they’re wiser. It’s like, guys understand what we’re trying to do here. [00:09:55][99.7]

Stuart Turley: [00:09:55] And it’s the Germany green energy policies. As Germany’s economy goes, so does the EU. Well, they’ve killed the great Germany manufacturing machine through their green. Policies and now Chancellor Schultz is begging for Russian oil again. I mean. [00:10:13][17.8]

Michael Tanner: [00:10:13] I got to say it. He sees nothing. [00:10:15][1.5]

Stuart Turley: [00:10:16] Nothing. I see nothing. We’ve got to do that on a mean man. That would be a great meme. I see no Russian gas, in fact. [00:10:24][7.6]

Michael Tanner: [00:10:24] We got to put that in a mug. All right, let’s let’s talk about friend of the show, Gavin Newsom. [00:10:27][2.9]

Stuart Turley: [00:10:28] My gosh. A just in. This is the Bay Patrol. Bay Patrol is calling. Wait a minute. Oil slick. He’s taking a bath in the bay. Holy crap. The only man that could have a bigger oil slick than the Exxon Valdez. Governor Newsom, Governor Newsom, taking every mandate said to fail as sales lag, power shortages persist. We ran a story last week, Michael. The number one reason people don’t want to buy an EV is because of the lack of grid infrastructure to charge it. The cost to do it. And here it is right here. Governor Newsom’s electric vehicle mandate is set to fail as sales of EVs in his bleak blue state lag far behind the level necessary to reach 100% of the vehicle marketplace. Unbelievable. This guy is a knucklehead. Headwinds are fueling fresh doubts as Governor Newsom’s mandate for all new cars by California 2020 2030 5B0 emission. This is unbelievable. This came out of Breitbart. [00:11:26][58.2]

Michael Tanner: [00:11:26] Yeah, I mean, again, we’re telling you this. If you were listening to the show four, four years ago when we were back at the old regime under a new I mean, we were talking about this then and it’s just and now people are just waking up. You know, you call us Nostradamus. I’m serious. But if there’s no way this is going to happen now, your friend Elon Musk’s do, he actually would disagree with our argument. He thinks that everything is going to be electric much sooner. I don’t know if you saw some of his tweets going on this week, so it’ll be very interesting. You know, again, and I put. [00:11:56][29.6]

Stuart Turley: [00:11:56] That out there, Michael, that Elon will be the surviving TV by right because of you. Your comments are dead on, Michael and you have said his technology and it people are buying Teslas for a reason don’t mandate them make them but. [00:12:13][16.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:12:13] Government always chooses incorrectly. Always. [00:12:16][3.2]

Stuart Turley: [00:12:17] There’s a coffee mug. We got coffee mugs galore today. [00:12:20][2.7]

Michael Tanner: [00:12:20] I know. If only we had a merch site. We don’t. Maybe we need to create one. [00:12:23][3.3]

Stuart Turley: [00:12:24] I think we ought to. [00:12:24][0.7]

Michael Tanner: [00:12:25] We ought to create one. So. All right. Well, let’s go ahead and jump over to finance, guys. But before we do that, we’ve got to pay the bills. Thank you, as always, for checking us out on the world’s greatest website energy newsbeat.com. All the news and quote unquote analysis you’ve just heard is brought to you by said website. Stu and the team do a tremendous job making sure that website stays up to speed. Everything you need to know to be the tip of the spear when it comes to the energy and the oil and gas business. Go ahead and hit that description below for all the links to the timestamps, links to the articles, and also subscribe to our substack the Energy news beat.substack.com. We appreciate all of our premium subscribers over there. That’s a great, great way to support the show. If you like the content we are putting out, go ahead and subscribe to our Substack. You can also check out, I guess, add timestamps links to the articles. We’re coming up towards the end of the year, guys. 15 days. Laughter As you’re listening to this, 14 days left, if you guys have a tax problem, I promise you we have a way to help solve your tax problem. It’s a direct investment in oil and gas. Become Billy Bob Thornton from Land Man. You can tell everybody at the holiday how cool would it be to be your holiday Christmas party? And you could just start going off like Billy Bob thought. You know, it gives you, you know, and really what you could be going off about is how you’ve paid very little in taxes because you were able to reduce your taxable income because you invested directly in oil and gas. Go to invest in oil dot energy news beat.com. If you want to learn more, we will get you all the information and connected with the right people that’s invest in oil.energy news beat.com. [00:13:53][88.5]

Michael Tanner: [00:13:54] Let’s give you just the markets the markets had a great last week we ended up really ripping we are a S&P 500 and Nasdaq both touched all time highs on Friday. They were basically flat for the S&P 500. Nasdaq was actually up 7/10 of a percentage point to a ten year yield spike. Tremendously ten year yield outperform at 1.69. Two year yield was 1.24 percentage points. Bitcoin up, up 100 up above 100,000 per point. Holy smokes, 100,000. Over this weekend, crude oil was up 1.8 percentage points on Friday. That’s 7129. Brant oil’s only up of a half a percentage point, 7452. Nasdaq was actually up five percentage or excuse me, natural gas was down five percentage points, $3.28 after spiking above $3.55 earlier on December 12th. And then we did see our XLP contract shed about 8/10 of a percentage point one 3596, which is pretty interesting to consider. You’ve got oil prices up, oil companies down. I don’t know what that shows it. Again, not to harp on. It shows you investing directly in oil and gas is better than buying stocks because you are stocks aren’t necessarily correlated to the price of oil if you want oil price X. Invest truck. I’m off my soapbox. Let’s move back to oil, guys. Like I said, about 2%. Really? A three week high. Well, looking like is going to happen is we’re going to have some massive, massive sanctions on Iran. This is an analyst at Root of Bergin Associates. The strength is being driven by expectations of tighter sanctions against Russia and Iran, more supportive Chinese economic guidance, Mideast political havoc and prospects for a Fed rate cut. Next week, we are listening and watching out to that. I do think it is critical to talk about what’s going on in Syria right now. Stu. I didn’t I only listen to your Tuesday show and you mentioned Syria a little bit, but give us an update from your on what’s going on there and what’s the impact specifically you’re going to see on energy. You think. [00:15:49][114.6]

Stuart Turley: [00:15:49] Well, add a nice great to our conversation with George Macmillan yesterday about Syria. And it is unbelievable. The deep state is alive and well and the amount of cash that a US dollar bills has been found shrink wrap from the New York Fed. And it just is criminal that there’s that much cash from the U.S. The U.S. does not need to be destroying government, and the Syrian government is a pathway for pipelines. And that’s what this is all about. Believe it or not, if Assad had actually allowed the pipelines to go through, he’d still be in power. Unbelievable. It’s about pipelines. [00:16:31][41.6]

Michael Tanner: [00:16:32] Maybe it is about pipelines. An interesting note here at the IEA, our friends over there, the International Energy Administration, they actually increased on Thursday. Their 2025 global oil demand growth to 1.1 million barrels per day, up from 990,000 barrels per day last month. And they specifically cited some stuff they’re seeing in China, specifically the stimulus stuff. New bank lending in China actually rose by far less than expected, which is actually, you know, prompted some of these more stimulus measures. Now, what they are saying is that there is a they are at the on the same token, forecasting an oil surplus for next year, specifically citing the fact that Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Guyana and the U.S. are expected to boost supply somewhere around 1.5 million barrels per day. And again, these are a lot of non OPEC plus nations, The UAE, which is the second largest or I would say the third largest OPEC plus member. If you if we’re talking about OPEC plus plans to reduce oil shipments early next year as they are attempting to see, quote unquote, tighter discipline, it’s going to be very interesting to see what comes around here, specifically with rate cuts next week. We know Trump would love that. You know, it’ll be very interesting to see where prices go relative to to what’s going to happen. I think these next six months, as I say, this often are going to be fairly frothy. I think the fact that we’re we’ve held steady above 71 tells you that or $70 tells you there is some strength there. You know, I have heard the other side of the coin, Tricia Curtis, She’s a great, great analyst over at Petronas, CEO over there. I was reading some of her stuff and she was actually taking the opposite. She was saying that considering the political chaos going on in the Middle East, considering the craziness that’s going on with Iran, Syria, the craziness that’s going on in Europe, the Ukraine war, she says that oil should be $10 higher under normal circumstances. But the fact that we have so much supply on the market, that’s why we’re seeing $70 oil. So interesting case. It’s it’s whatever you want to believe on one side or the other. Last article I have Texas Oil Company Asks federal court to Stop insurance companies $250 million demand for additional collateral. This is really interesting, guys. Okay. So Houston based offshore is asking a federal judge to declare insurers have, quote, colluded to damage the company by jointly demanding additional collateral and premiums. Okay. So at the heart of this dispute, what’s going on is, as we mentioned, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, known as the b o e m, requires energy producers specifically in the Gulf of Mexico, but specifically on the Outer Continental Shelf to provide a bond, which is basically a hey, here’s an upfront money that just is going to sit in a escrow account to pay for well platform pipeline of facilities, clean up if the operating company fails through. It’s very similar to an onshore bond. If you’re an oil and gas operator, you’re very familiar with that. The state of Texas, specifically, if you have X number of wells, require you put up a certain amount of money in an event that you are unable to actually remediate your well site, a.k.a., plug them, make the land look good. But on offshore, the rules are a lot different. It’s a lot more costly to do that. And basically what they’re saying in their legal firing says that it’s insurers, also known as the surety providers, which include Endurance Assurance Corp, which is owned by a Japanese insurance holding company, and others begin demanding additional collateral and indemnity agreements that WTI already utilizes, for which it has already paid premium. You know, to give you some background here, I’m now running straight from the article. In July, one of these companies demanded W and T fully and immediately collateralize their bond by paying an additional 99 million as collateral, then filed suit in November, demanding 93.5 million despite never having missed a previous payment. Other surety companies fail to do any full and immediate collateralization of their bonds. Here’s a quote from CEO. Tracy a w crone. These insurance companies and their unreasonable demands for increased collateral pose an existential threat to independent operators like w t. We cannot afford to keep paying for insurance we’ve already paid for in the course of our operations. This is no different than your auto insurance carrier, and I love when people put it in non oil and gas terms because everybody can understand it. This is no different than your auto insurance carrier all of a sudden demanding you put 100% of your car’s cash value. In addition to doubling or triple your existing premium, it’s not just it’s it is not just possible or practical. How these unfair begs one question. If insurance companies require full cash collateralization of these bonds the issue, then what is the purpose of paying millions of dollars to issues these bonds? It’s a great, great question. Now, I do think what’s happening is that there’s a push to in taxes. One of the big things I was at a conference last year, two months ago, talking about specifically orphan and abandoned wells. It’s a big issue. It’s you know, obviously we don’t want abandoned wells onshore. We really don’t want them offshore. They pose a significant of threat. So I think there’s you know, I do think specifically having robust bonding for offshore oil companies demand. But this seems like a little bit of a stretch. And especially when you’re dealing with these type of government regulations, these insurer companies feel like the government’s going to back them up. And if they can bully these companies into paying a little bit more insurance, maybe they can’t sue. Talk to me a little bit about you. You you’ve been in kind of the orphan well, business. What are you hearing about some of this? Is this, if true, this is scary. [00:21:36][304.0]

Stuart Turley: [00:21:36] It is. There’s and like when you take a look at serious anger out there trying to do the the orphan wells thing out there, she is absolutely on fire because orphan wells are a problem now. They are getting better. As we know, our T from Pecos operating is charged for every operating well for that he is in and any of the new folks with the older leases you know if they’re 100 years old you got some orphan well problems I. [00:22:04][27.6]

Michael Tanner: [00:22:04] Could talk about this for a while. I was having a conversation about it. But point is, you’re right. In my opinion, we have to figure out a way for the free market to solve this. But if the free market is going to use, the government is going to basically be bullies and feel like the government is going to back them up in being a bully, then you’ve got a misalignment of the sentence. Very interesting. Guys. Watch out for your insurance companies. That’s all I’ve got to do. What should people be worried about this week? [00:22:26][22.5]

Stuart Turley: [00:22:27] Well, I’ve got more stuff coming out on the Syria and geopolitical stuff going on around the world, because the more money that is invested in renewable energy, the more fossil fuels will be pumped and sold. So Turley’s law and where we’ve got some more things coming around the corner, I still think there it is going to be around that 80 to 85 instead of the 70. And I agree with Tricia is that it is being held down for some reason. [00:22:56][29.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:22:56] Yeah, she would say it’s due to the fact that we are in oversupply. I don’t know where I fall on that, but we will let you. [00:23:02][5.2]

Stuart Turley: [00:23:02] All the charts are saying that we are down at the five year low. I disagree. [00:23:06][4.0]

Michael Tanner: [00:23:06] Gasoline stocks. No gasoline, Not crude oil. [00:23:09][2.9]

Stuart Turley: [00:23:10] I’m talking all of our other charts I’ve been looking at and following the charts. [00:23:14][4.0]

Michael Tanner: [00:23:15] All right, guys. Well, with that, we will let you get out of here, get back to work, start your week. We appreciate appreciating you starting your week with energy news beat. For Stuart Turley I’m Michael Tanner. We’ll see you tomorrow. [00:23:15][0.0][1363.2]


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Getting nuclear for maritime over the hump

Energy News Beat

Mikal Boe writes for Splash today on nuclear’s regulatory approval process.

It’s 114 years since the first diesel powered ships set out to sea.

That big diesel engine changed the world because diesel is more energy dense than what came before. It brought us immense improvements in energy effectiveness, the globalisation of trade, and it spurred a great eradication of human poverty. All because it was a massive step forward in how effectively we use energy.

Energy effectiveness directly impacts human development. Increasing energy effectiveness by just 1% increases human development by 6% in the long run. The opposite is also true. If we lower our effective use of energy, human development takes a hit.

But all progress comes at a price. Since that first diesel powered ship, the global fleet has spilled an estimated 3.6 trillion tons of debilitating green-house exhaust gases into the earth’s atmosphere, using it as our very own open sewer.

So, we have two challenges to solve. Not just reducing emissions to clean up our mess, but also increasing our energy effectiveness to further human prosperity. It’s a simple equation, and we must solve for both sides.

Nuclear energy is the best solution because it both improves energy effectiveness by orders of magnitude and emits nothing. And we know it works. Pressurised Water Reactors (a common type of nuclear reactor) have operated safely at sea on warships since the 1950s, but a PWR on commercial ships cannot be insured when moving in ports and waterways. That’s the reason we don’t have civilian nuclear-powered ships trading internationally today. Not safety, not economics, not public opinion; but insurance.

Commercial insurance of nuclear-powered ships needs both a new nuclear technology solution and a liability convention. The two international nuclear liability conventions which are hosted by the IAEA and the OECD, both exclude nuclear propelled ships. The convention for insurance liability of nuclear-powered ships was shaped in the 1960s as the ‘Brussels Convention’ but has not been ratified.

The reasons for this are both technological and historic. The technological challenge is being solved and commercially insurable marine reactors will be available in the 2030s. The historic reasons date back to the cold war and disagreement between the Soviets and the Americans on the inclusion of nuclear-powered warships in the convention.

The work of recently formed Nuclear Energy Maritime Organization (NEMO) is to help revise the terms of the Convention to allow for Maritime Civil Nuclear Propulsion to be commercially insured. Combining new nuclear technology solutions with an entirely commercially focus convention, gets us over the hump.

Commercially insurance and fit for purpose technology however is still not enough for nuclear to adopted widely. We must fit the purpose of the technology with applications, form the remaining regulatory standards framework so we can organise deployment, build up the supply chain, create the nuclear grade home yards, develop and train the workforce and then combine all these together into an integrated Maritime Civil Nuclear Power Program to unlock the finance required for scale.

Building that program unlocks a $3trn market opportunity in the OECD between now and 2060. CORE POWER is building that program backed by substantial investments from major shipping, energy, industrial, financial and venture investors.

The program offers many long-term benefits. It can deliver on the promise of dramatic energy effectiveness gains in the value chains of global trade, without emissions and it can provide resilient and energy secure transport and logistic for commerce and OECD nation states.

That will be good for the future of both the environment and the economy.

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North Korean troops join Russian assaults ‘in significant numbers’ – Oil for Troops Trade

Energy News Beat

[[{“value”:”

Russia has begun using North Korean troops in significant numbers for the first time to conduct assaults on Ukrainian forces battling to hold an enclave in Russia’s Kursk region, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday (14 December).

The Ukrainian leader said the more active use of the troops was a new escalation in the war and called for a global response, as Donald Trump’s return to the White House next month fuels speculation of a coming push for peace talks.

“Today, we already have preliminary data that the Russians have begun to use North Korean soldiers in their assaults. A significant number of them,” Zelenskyy told Ukrainians in his daily wartime address.

The North Koreans were being used in combined Russian units and only on the Kursk front for now, he said, adding: “We have information suggesting their use could extend to other parts of the front line.”

Kyiv first said North Korean forces turned up in Russia’s Kursk region in October and later reported unspecified clashes and casualties. It estimates there are 11,000 North Koreans in total, adding to a force of tens of thousands of Russians.

Russia has neither confirmed nor denied the presence of North Koreans on its side.

Ukraine, nearly a fifth of which is occupied by Moscow’s troops, launched an incursion into Russia’s western Kursk region in August, carving out an enclave that it said could be used as a bargaining chip in any talks to end the war.

Ukraine has battled to hold the area, although some Western military analysts have questioned the incursion’s rationale, arguing it has extended an already-sprawling front line, exposing Ukraine’s manpower weakness as it battles a larger foe.

Kyiv said the operation sought to divert Russian forces, but it has not stopped Moscow notching up its fastest gains in the east since 2022, although Russian forces have taken heavy casualties, according to Kyiv and the West.

Ukraine’s General Staff reported a significant increase in the number of Russian assaults on the Kursk front, along with airstrikes, glide bomb raids and more than 200 artillery attacks.

Andrii Kovalenko, an official at Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, said the North Koreans had taken losses, but provided no numbers.

“The Russians are counting on numbers and are trying to carry out assault operations with the help of the Koreans, when the task of the Koreans is to run under the blows of our forces and occupy certain areas,” Kovalenko wrote on Telegram.

As Trump’s return has put the focus on a potential endgame in the war, Kyiv has urged the West to put it into a stronger position and bridled at fears of escalation, a line echoed by Zelenskyy as he denounced North Korea’s role in the fighting.

“In essence, Moscow has dragged another state into this war, and to the fullest extent possible. And if this is not escalation, then what is the escalation that so many have been talking about?” Zelenskyy said.

He used his address to issue a fresh appeal to his allies to strengthen their support for Kyiv, something he said he would discuss with European powers next week.

Zelenskiy plans to attend the December European Council meeting with the leaders of the EU in Brussels on Wednesday.

“}]] 

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Russia not leaving its two bases in Syria, sources say

Energy News Beat

[[{“value”:”

Russia is pulling back its military from the front lines in northern Syria and from posts in the Alawite Mountains but is not leaving its two main bases in the country after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, four Syrian officials told Reuters.

The ousting of Assad, who along with his late father, former President Hafez al-Assad, had forged a close alliance with Moscow, has thrown the future of Russia’s bases – the Hmeimim airbase in Latakia and the Tartous naval facility – into question.

Satellite footage from Friday shows what appeared to be at least two Antonov AN-124s, among the world’s largest cargo planes, at the Hmeimim base with their nose cones open, apparently preparing to load up.

At least one cargo plane flew out on Saturday for Libya, a Syrian security official stationed outside the facility said.

Syrian military and security sources in contact with the Russians told Reuters that Moscow was pulling back its forces from the front lines and withdrawing some heavy equipment and senior Syrian officers.

But the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation, said Russia was not pulling out of its two main bases and currently had no intention of doing so.

Some equipment is being shipped back to Moscow as are very senior officers from Assad’s military but the aim at this stage is to regroup and redeploy as dictated by developments on the ground, a senior Syrian army officer in touch with the Russian military told Reuters.

A senior rebel official close to the new interim administration told Reuters the issue of the Russian military presence in Syria and past agreements between the Assad government and Moscow were not under discussion.

“It is a matter for future talks and the Syrian people will have the final say,” said the official, adding that Moscow had set up communication channels.

“Our forces are also now in close vicinity of the Russian bases in Latakia,” he added without elaborating.

The Kremlin has said Russia is in discussions with the new rulers of Syria over the bases. Russia’s defence ministry did not respond to a request for comment on Reuters reporting.

A Russian source who spoke on condition of anonymity said discussions with the new rulers of Syria were ongoing and Russia was not withdrawing from its bases.

Reuters was unable to immediately ascertain how Syrian rebel leader Ahmad al-Sharaa – better known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani – saw the long-term future of the Russian bases.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose 2015 intervention in the Syrian civil war helped prop up Assad when the West was calling for him to be toppled, granted Assad asylum in Russia after Moscow helped him to flee on Sunday.

Moscow has backed Syria since early in the Cold War, and had recognised its independence in 1944 as Damascus sought to throw off French colonial rule. The West long regarded Syria as a Soviet satellite.

The bases in Syria are an integral part of Russia’s global military presence: the Tartous naval base is Russia’s only Mediterranean repair and resupply hub, with Hmeimim a major staging post for military and mercenary activity in Africa.

Russia also has eavesdropping posts in Syria which were run alongside Syrian signals stations, according to Syrian military and Western intelligence sources.

The Tartous facility dates from 1971, and after Russia intervened in the civil war to help Assad, Moscow was in 2017 granted a free of charge 49-year lease.

Yoruk Isik, a geopolitical analyst based in Istanbul who runs the Bosphorus Observer, said that Russia was probably sending cargo planes out of Syrian via the Caucasus, and then on to the Al Khadim airbase in Libya.

On the highway linking the Hmeimim air base to the base in Tartous, a Russian convoy of infantry fighting vehicles and logistics vehicles could be seen driving toward the air base, a Reuters journalist said.

The convoy had stopped due to a malfunction on one of its vehicles, with soldiers standing by the vehicles and working to repair the issue.

“Whether it’s Russian, Iranian or the previous government who was oppressing us and denying us our rights … we don’t want any intervention from Russia, Iran or any other foreign intervention,” Ali Halloum, who is from Latakia and lives in Jablah, told Reuters.

At Hmeimim, Reuters saw Russian soldiers walking around the base as normal and jets in the hangars.

Satellite imagery taken on 9 December by Planet Labs showed at least three vessels in Russia’s Mediterranean fleet – two guided missile frigates and an oiler – moored around 13 km (8 miles) northwest of Tartous.

“}]] 

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Trump is a nightmare for the EU in more ways than one

Energy News Beat

ENB Pub Note: This article from RT has some interesting points. While I do not agree with everything, it is worth noting that President Trump is looking at the U.S. / EU relationship on an American First priority. Something the EU has not had in decades. This trend of countries looking out for their own interest first will help end wars and is a good thing. Watching Germany trying to survive the Green Energy policies of the EU, and negotiate new energy deals with Russia, is a telling sign that the EU


With its submissiveness to the US and contempt for its president-elect, the bloc’s set itself up for a perfect storm of punishment

For a man his age, incoming US president Donald Trump has a knack for cultivating a bad-boy image. Refreshingly direct to the point of rude honesty, or dishonesty, as the case may be, he has no time for polite circumlocution. His threats are harsh, his demands unvarnished, including toward Washington’s so-called allies in Europe, which really are, at best, clients, and, more realistically, just vassals. In that spirit of candid, no-frills domination, Trump already has a long record of threatening NATO, which he sees – plausibly – as a scam in which European members fleece the US to free-ride on its insane (but that’s a different story…) military spending.

Or, in the genteel English still cultivated at The Economist, through NATO, America is the guarantor of the continent’s security. Yeah, right, by firing missiles at Russia… The problem with Trump is that he is uncouth enough to know the real relationship is much more like Don Corleone “protecting” your funeral parlor. And he behaves accordingly: Even during his first term in the White House between 2017 and 2021, he started scaring other NATO members into higher military spending, while never allowing them to feel safe about his commitment. Art of the tough deal: Keep ‘em guessing, keep ‘em on their toes. And it worked, too: the European spongers began to pay more. So, there will be more of that, rest assured. If, that is, there will be a NATO to speak of.

Even less noticed is the fact that the new old US president – and thus capo dei capi of the West – is not much kindlier disposed toward the EU. And yet there it is: Trump’s frank, open, and long-standing dislike for that strange bureaucratic behemoth that is about as democratic as the former Soviet Union, less efficient than the Habsburg Empire, and so full of its global “norm-setting” mission that even American “indispensability” looks oddly old-fashioned by comparison.

As early as the beginning of 2017, when the great American bruiser gate-crashed the White House for the first time, The Economist warned its European readers to “be afraid” of Trump, a man harboring “indifference” and “contempt” for the EU. Really? How unheard of! The raunchy-tycoon-turned-peremptory-president, the British establishment Pravda of neoliberalism and Russophobia explained, would seek to shatter the EU by playing “bilateralism.” That, of course, is Euro-babble for respecting individual countries’ governments by taking their sovereignty more seriously than power-grabbing delusions of grandeur in Brussels. And – oh, horror! – he might even try to talk Russia. (Spoiler: back then he did not – big mistake.)

That, however, was 2017. Now, things have moved on. Even before Trump won his second presidential election by crushing his Democratic opponents, The Economist admitted that “’Trump-proving’ Europe” is a notion doomed to fail, which means EU leaders may well become geopolitical roadkill.” How so, you may wonder?

Well, first of all there is Russia. Regarding Moscow, Trump seems ready to talk, and in a substantial manner we have not seen since the end of the Cold War: He has publicly signaled that he does not believe in trying to coerce Moscow by further escalation; his freshly appointed advisers Mike Waltz and Keith Kellogg, though known for ambiguous signals in the past, will fall into line, as they should as public servants. And if not, they’ll be fired, Trump-style, fast and without remorse.

To say the least, Trump no longer feels as restrained by Washington’s deep-state, deep-freeze Cold War re-enactors as during his first term. Sure, it’s the US: there is always the possibility someone might try to murder him, again. But if he stays among the living, which is likely, then it’s payback time: Talking to Russia now is one delicious way in which he will dish out well-deserved retribution for both the media-lawfare circus of Russia Rage (aka ‘Russiagate’) in which his opponents weaponized slander and disinformation against him. And, more importantly, Russia has been winning the war in Ukraine, not only against Kiev but also, in effect, against the West. In sum, Trump has less reason to be afraid of his own backstabbers at home, and Washington has more reason to be much more careful about Russia.

Moscow, meanwhile, has made it clear repeatedly that any new agreements would have to be mutually beneficial. The time of Gorbachevian naivete will never return. Yet, at the same time, Russia does seem open to – serious – talks: The Russian leadership does not merely carefully watch Trump, as you would expect. It also sends back calibrated pings that signal cautious appreciation of his overtures, as recently over his criticism of firing Western missiles at Russia.

Hence, nightmare number one for the EU: Trump is serious about ending US support for the failed project of inflicting a geopolitical demotion on Russia via a proxy war in Ukraine. That will leave not only the regime of Ukraine’s past-use-by-date leader Vladimir Zelensky high and dry but remaining fanatics in the EU as well. In the best-case scenario, the US will leave the European vassals with the cost of the postwar, whatever shape that may take. Trump has already said as much. In the worst-case scenario, EU elites could try going it alone. That is, worst-case for them, in every (un)imaginable way: economically, politically, and yes, militarily, too.

And behind Trump’s willingness to make good on his election promise to end the American cluster-fiasco in and over Ukraine, lurks the possibility of a much larger turn toward – wait for it! – diplomacy in the US-Russia relationship. Perhaps it is early days to mention that other long-forgotten D-word – and it would also take two to tango, of course – but a phase of détente cannot be excluded. If it were to take place, America’s European vassals would come to regret burning their bridges with Moscow to please Washington.

Then, nightmare number two, there is the economy. The US-EU relationship is the single largest trade connection in the world, worth about $11 trillion per year. That, you may think, constitutes a lot of common interest and thus reasons for treating each other if not gently then, at least, cautiously. Nope, that’s not how this works, because the relationship is lopsided, and Trump is furious about it. For him, the EU’s trade surplus with the US is yet another way in which shifty Europeans have been milking America. His weapon of choice to retaliate and rectify the situation are, of course, tariffs, the higher the better. Even before his re-election, Goldman Sachs warned that his rule could cost the EU as a whole a full percent of GDP. And yes, that’s a lot, especially for a continent already largely economically depressed, demographically declining, and with badly squeezed public finances.

What can EU leaders, those sadly submissive vassals about to be abused even worse than usual by their hegemon, do now? Frankly, not much. It’s already too late: They have made themselves dependent as never before on whoever happens to win the strange event Americans call “elections” and gets to mess with the world from the White House. And that is not at all Trump’s fault, by the way. (No, and not “the Russians!” either…).

Take, for instance, the EU’s wannabe despot Ursula von der Leyen. Building her own power grab – like Stalin, as it happens – on a mix of executive apparat overreach, crony networking, and ideological bigotry, she has made one serious mistake that may cost her dearly: She has cozied up so shamelessly to the outgoing Biden administration that, serious rumor has it, Trump cannot stand her. So, alternatives are in demand: Maybe he likes Italy’s Giorgia Meloni better? Or originally the Netherlands, now NATO’s Mark Rutte, who is constantly praised for his alleged “Trump-handling” skills?

But here is the problem with that, frankly, silly approach: Trump is not an idiot. Attempts to “handle” him are insultingly obvious and, if he tolerates them temporarily, then it’s only to handle his would-be handlers back. And then the irony is, of course, that the only EU leaders Trump respects, such as Viktor Orban of Hungary, are outcasts among their own: Good luck recruiting them now to make up for how much he disrespects all the others. Maybe they’ll even help, a little, Ursula, Olaf, and Emmanuel. But it’ll cost you, because they will – rightly – set their own conditions and gain great leverage.

What about Danegeld perhaps? Danegeld, you must know, was what the hapless inhabitants of the British Isles paid the seaborne Viking marauders in the Dark Ages. The system was simple: pay up or be plundered and slaughtered. You think that sounds a little primitive for today’s sophisticated Europeans? Never underestimate how low they will stoop. Ursula von der Leyen has already suggested that one way to mollify Trump might be to just buy even more perversely expensive LNG from the US. Christine Lagarde, head of the European Central Bank, has gone even further, pleading for a whole ‘Buy American’ program, including – surprise, surprise! – arms to assuage Trump’s ire.

Desperate? You bet. Humiliating? Obviously. Yet what’s worse, it’s not going to work. Here’s why: Even if Trump condescends to accepting such tributes from his European subjects, he will never lose sight of the one thing that really interests him (apart from his own money, power, and fame): American advantage. Whatever the Europeans will offer and however low they will kowtow, in the end, any deal will be good only for one side, the US. That’s ironic, because Russia, for one, and possibly China as well can expect the minimum of respect that makes mutual benefit at least possible. That’s because they have stood up to American bullying. For the Europeans, though, it’s a Catch 22 now. One way or the other, they will pay even more dearly than before for their historic failure after the Cold War: When they should obviously have emancipated themselves from the US, they sold out worse than ever. And without need. To paraphrase a past master of politics: It’s worse than a crime, it’s self-abuse.

Source: RT.

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Venture Global’s Plaquemines LNG terminal achieves first production

Energy News Beat

Venture Global announced on Friday it had reached first LNG production at the company’s second facility, Plaquemines LNG, in Port Sulphur.

“Achieving this milestone for a 20 mtpa nameplate capacity project 30 months from its final investment decision (FID) makes Plaquemines LNG one of the two fastest greenfield projects to reach first production, along with Venture Global’s first facility Calcasieu Pass,” the company claims.

Once fully operational, Plaquemines LNG will be among the largest facilities in the world.

Venture Global took a final investment decision in May 2022 on the first phase of the Plaquemines project with a capacity of 13.3 mtpa and the related pipeline. It also secured $13.2 billion in project financing.

In March last year, the company sanctioned the second phase of the Plaquemines LNG export plant in Louisiana and also secured $7.8 billion in project financing.

The full project, including the second stage, will have a capacity of 20 mtpa coming from 36 modular units, configured in 18 blocks.

Each train has a capacity of 0.626 mtpa.

“Reaching first LNG at Plaquemines at this pace will enable the United States to remain the top exporter of LNG in the world. Between current and planned facilities, Venture Global is prepared to invest $50 billion in energy projects based in the United States which will create jobs, support local economies, strengthen the balance of trade and unleash much needed US LNG supply to our allies,” Venture Global CEO & co-founder Mike Sabel said.

Because of Venture Global’s unique configuration and construction approach, Plaquemines will produce and export LNG while construction and commissioning continues for the remainder of the project’s 36 trains and associated facilities, the company said.

Venture Global previously said it expects to start LNG production by the end of this year, while commissioning of the facility is expected to last about two years.

The company recently received approval from the US FERC to introduce hazardous fluids to the first liquefaction block at its Plaquemines LNG export plant.

Venture Global’s newbuild carrier, Venture Bayou, also recently arrived at the Plaquemines LNG export plant as the facility nears the launch of its first LNG production.

The 174,000-cbm LNG carrier was on Saturday still located at the LNG plant along the Mississippi River, according to its AIS data provided by VesselsValue.

Prior to this vessel, the Plaquemines LNG facility received a cool-down cargo in August onboard the 2020-built 174,000-cbm, Qogir.

In August, Venture Global secured approval to commission the liquefaction train system block 1 with nitrogen.

To date, the FERC has granted the commissioning of six liquefaction train system blocks.

The company0s first LNG plant, Calcasieu Pass, produced its first LNG on January 19, 2022, moving from FID to LNG production in 29 months, and the first commissioning cargo left the facility on March 1, 2022.

However, the facility is still in commissioning mode, and Venture Global expects to launch commercial operations in 2025.

Energy giants Shell and BP and other firms are in a dispute with Venture Global over the launch of commercial operations at the facility, and they previously launched arbitration proceedings against Venture Global.

 

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US to sanction Serbia’s main oil company – Vucic

Energy News Beat

Decision to impose sanctions on NIS is due to its Russian ownership, the Serbian president has stated

US to sanction Serbia’s main oil company – VucicUS to sanction Serbia’s main oil company – Vucic

US is set to slap sanctions on Serbia’s oil and gas company NIS due to its Russian ownership, the country’s president Aleksandar Vucic has said.

“We got confirmation that in the next few days, the US will introduce sanctions against NIS because of Russian ownership,” Vucic said in an interview with Serbian broadcaster Informer TV. However, Belgrade still hadn’t received an “official paper with details” from Washington, he added.

NIS, the Serbian energy company, is predominantly owned by the Russian corporation Gazprom. In 2022, the Gazprom Neft company, which participated in the privatization of the largest oil company in the Western Balkans in 2008, reduced its stake in NIS to 50%, while Gazprom received 6.15%.

President Vucic also expects the UK to join the sanctions, “which means everyone,” he added during the interview. “I think this is part of broader geopolitical pressure on Russia,” he concluded.

After Gazprom Neft reduced its stake in NIS in 2022, Vucic said that the republic’s authorities could be forced to buy out or insist on selling Gazprom Neft’s stake in the company to a third party in the future, to protect themselves from the impact of anti-Russia sanctions.

Both Vucic and his cabinet have repeatedly highlighted the hypocrisy and double standards of the West. They insist on upholding Ukraine’s borders while simultaneously demanding that Serbia recognize the breakaway region of Kosovo as an independent state governed by NATO-backed ethnic Albanians.

Serbia is officially committed to joining the EU but the bloc has made its membership conditional on sanctioning Russia and on recognizing Kosovo, among other requirements, which Vucic has declared he will never accept.

 

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Treasury Yield Curve Un-Inverts Further on Surging Longer-Term Yields: 10-Year Yield Now Higher than All Shorter Yields. Mortgage Rates Resurge

Energy News BeatPrice

Fed cut by 75 basis points since September while 10-year Treasury yield rose by 75 basis points to 4.40%, as Bond Market frets about Inflation & Supply.

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

The 10-year Treasury yield jumped by 7 basis points on Friday, to 4.40%, having risen five trading days in a row. It’s now just 4 basis points below the post-rate-cut closing high on November 13 (4.44%). These yields are the highest since June.

Since the eve of the Fed’s September 18 rate cut, the 10-year yield has risen by 75 basis points, while the Fed has cut by 75 basis points. The difference is 150 basis points! The 10-year yield is now higher than all shorter-term yields.

The 30-year Treasury yield jumped by 6 basis points on Friday to 4.61%, now once again above the federal funds rate (4.58%), which the Fed actively brackets with its policy rates. It rose for six trading days in a row and is now just a hair from the November 13 rate-cut high (4.63%). Both of them are the highest since May 2024.

Since the eve of the rate cut on September 18, the 30-year yield has risen by 65 basis points, while the Fed has cut by 75 basis points. Rising bond yields means dropping bond prices.

Among the drivers of higher long-term yields are renewed inflation fears and prospects of a continued tsunami of supply of new debt to finance the massive flow of deficits that the market envisions, even as the Fed is unloading securities through QT and has already shed $2.1 trillion.

The 2-year Treasury yield jumped by 7 basis points on Friday to 4.25%. Since the eve of the rate cut, it has jumped by 66 basis points.

The “yield curve” in the process of un-inverting.

Since the rate cuts started, short-term yields have fallen sharply, and – shock to the real-estate industry – longer-term yields have risen, which pushed mortgage rates higher.

In a normal yield curve, longer-term Treasury yields are higher than short-term yields, with the 1-month and 3-month yields the lowest and with bond yields the highest.

Since July 2022, the yield curve has been “inverted” – with longer-term yields below short-term yields – as the Fed hiked its policy rates, thereby pushing up short-term Treasury yields, while longer-term yields also rose but more slowly, and thereby fell behind.

The yield curve is now in the process of normalizing, but it still hasn’t normalized. In a normal yield curve, the longer-term yields are substantially higher than short-term yields, and they’re now just a little higher. The yield curve will steepen and become more normal with more rate cuts and higher longer-term yields.

The chart below shows the “yield curve” with Treasury yields across the maturity spectrum, from 1 month to 30 years, on three key dates:

  • Gold: July 25, 2024, before the labor market data spiraled down (turns out, it was a false alarm).
  • Blue: September 17, 2024, the day before the Fed’s rate cuts started.
  • Red: Friday, December 13, 2024.

The 10-year and 30-year yields are now higher than the shorter-term yields, and that portion of the yield curve has un-inverted completely.

The 7-year yield (4.32%) is now equal to the 3-month and 6-months yields. And that portion of the yield curve from the 7-year on forward is essentially flat.

Note by how far the longer-term yields have risen since the eve of the rate cuts (blue line), while yields of less than one year have fallen below the blue line.

Mortgage rates have re-risen.

The 30-year fixed mortgage rate roughly parallels the 10-year yield, but is higher, and that spread between them is fairly wide these days due to some factors that we discussed here. A wider spread means relatively higher mortgage rates.

On Friday, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose by 8 basis points to 6.95%, according to the daily measure from Mortgage News Daily.

This U-turn in mortgage rates, after the rate cuts began, was an unpleasant surprise for the housing industry, mortgage bankers, and potential home sellers that are sitting on their vacant homes that they’d moved out of a while ago, but didn’t put on the market because they’d wanted to ride the price spike up all the way.

But with these mortgage rates, and the ridiculously high prices after the 50% surge during the pandemic, demand for existing homes has plunged to the lowest level since 1995, amid surging supply, while homebuilders are now sitting on the largest number of unsold completed homes since 2009 that they need to move pronto — and they’re making deals to do so.

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Postal Service’s plan to electrify mail trucks falling far short of its goal

Energy News Beat

The United States Postal Service unveiled a plan to buy a fleet of all-electric mail trucks for its mail carriers back in 2022, of which 3,000 were supposed to be delivered by now. Unfortunately, those plans aren’t even close to fruition. The Washington Post reported that defense contractor Oshkosh has only delivered 93 vehicles so far.

In 2022, The Postal Service announced its plan to buy at least 60,000 “Next Generation Delivery Vehicles” (NGDV) for its mail carriers by 2028 and start replacing its aging fleet of trucks. The Postal Service’s initial order called for 5,000 all-electric vehicles along with new, gas-powered vehicles, but calls from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Biden Administration pushed them to increase the share of NGDVs that would run on electricity.

The Washington Post obtained nearly 21,000 government and internal company records and spoke with 20 people familiar with the trucks’ manufacturing and design process. Its reporting shows that Oshkosh ran into significant manufacturing delays of the electric NGDVs that caused lower than expected delivery numbers. Some of the anonymous sources said that engineers struggled to calibrate the mail trucks’ airbags, and the vehicles’ body and internal components are unable to contain water leaks to an alarming degree.

The turnaround time for building these new mail trucks is also very slow. The Post reports that the South Carolina factory can only build one truck per day even though Oshkosh hoped it could build at least 80 vehicles a day by now.

Oshkosh also failed to inform the Postal Service about these delays. Four of the background sources say a senior company executive tried to update the Postal Service about these manufacturing issues only to have those efforts blocked by their corporate superiors.

An Oshkosh spokesperson said in a statement that the defense contractor is still “fully committed to being a strong and reliable partner” with the Postal Services and insists “we remain on track to meet all delivery deadlines,” according to The Post.

The failure of these plans doesn’t just affect the Postal Service’s ability to modernize and update its fleet of aging mail trucks. It could also throw a wrench into President Biden’s plans to combat climate change. Reuters reported on Friday that President Donald Trump’s transition team is considering cancelling the electric mail truck program altogether.

 

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Stopping Russian Natural Gas and Deindustrializing

Energy News Beat

In the Energy News Beat – Conversation in Energy with Stuart Turley, talks with George McMillan dives into the geopolitical strategies influencing energy markets, highlighting how natural gas pipelines, trade routes, and economic policies are used to control global power dynamics. George McMillan explains the integration of geopolitical modeling with economic development theories, emphasizing the deindustrialization of Germany due to the loss of Russian natural gas and its broader implications for the EU and global economies. The discussion also critiques the inefficiency of siloed university systems and government agencies compared to the private sector’s streamlined analytical models. Recommendations include adopting integrated strategies for better policy-making and competitive positioning in global markets.

Connect and follow George on his LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-mcmillan-5665b015/

Honestly, the new Trump administration does not have all of the information about the geopolitical landscape to make accurate decisions. George is a one-of-a-kind analyst who has the missing theories and boots-on-the-ground experience. If I were an energy executive looking to put in pipelines, import, or export facilities, I would contract with George to do an assessment for the project.

If I was in the Trump administration looking at the potential World War III issues, I would hire him to find out why other administrations made some decisions. And if I was in charge of the Military colleges, I would hire him to teach the next generation of military leaders.

The left has removed much of the material George has assembled, and it is nowhere to be found in the next generation of leaders.

Thank you for your time, George!

Highlights of the Podcast

00:00 – Introduction

01:29 – Geostrategic Analysis: Land vs. Sea Power

03:24 – Wesley Clark on Post-9/11 Foreign Policy

10:48 – Historical Geostrategy

13:13 – Historical Context of U.S. Naval and Economic Strategy

15:10 – Pipeline Power and Geopolitical Implications

18:01 – Russian Energy and Global Strategy

26:18 – Germany’s Industrial Decline

34:02 – Geopolitical Modeling

42:55 – Academic vs. Private Sector Approaches

49:32 – De-industrialization of Germany

57:39 – Conclusion

 

 

Automated Transcription:

 

 

Video Clip [00:00:07] The United States has a bunch of problems. Russian oil and gas. The cheapest form of energy. So whichever industrial power centers that they connect to by pipeline, we’ll have industries that prosper and basically put everybody else out of business. Russia being in the heartland of Central Asia, Chinese energy integration is so much more cost competitive globally that the other industrial power centers are probably going to have to also integrate. Japan’s been having energy production in the Sakhalin Island. Germany had the Nord Stream pipeline, but they also had the South Stream pipeline going through the Black Sea. And wherever there is a Russian or Chinese infrastructural project, there happens to be war, tension, color, revolutions all the way around Eurasia. That is causing a big problem for the United States and losing its allies. And also whoever integrates then pays in rubles. And then there’s nobody to support our $34 trillion in debt and everything just collapses.

 

Stuart Turley [00:01:07] Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Energy News Beat podcast. My name’s Stu Turley President and CEO of the Sandstone Group. This is a continuation of a series that I’ve got with George Macmillan. I’ll tell you, we are having a blast talking about things going on around the world and when you have green energy policies. Welcome, George. Thank you for stopping by.

 

George McMillan [00:01:29] Yeah. Thanks. We want to continue what we’re doing because people really need an objective predictive analysis for sea power versus land power strategies. And they also need to know how how really Wall Street and finance has always interacted with the intelligence community and the Pentagon back when it was the War Department and the always influencing the institutional levels of power, institutional levels of power being the executive branch bureaucracy in Washington, DC, or the military institutional branches, you know, the the Air Force, Marines, Army, etc.. Coast Guard. And then you have the intelligence agencies also. So you have the financier is on top. And why are the financiers running everything? Well, the multinational corporations hire more MBA and Ph.D. economics and finance analysts than the intelligence community. So it’s the biggest collection and hierarchy of analysts around bigger than the government. Wow. So the governments, their analysts interact with the financial analysts at the multinational corporations. And then that’s what influences government policy, because Wesley Clark was talking about there a foreign policy coup. All right. It makes it seem like a conspiracy theory or something, rather, then. Well, we have a free market system of government. Democracy is what is what political theorist call egoistic ideology. You vote in your own self-interest and you spend your money and invest in your own self-interest.

 

Stuart Turley [00:03:04] And General Wesley Clark, while you’re on that process, do you want to show the one Jimmy Dore video? Let’s take this one now and listen to this to my podcast listeners. Jimmy Dore is another podcast listener. And this video, we recommend that you do follow him. Take a listen to this.

 

Video Clip [00:03:24] How they’re doing. It. And so here’s here’s a general. General Wesley Clark is going to tell you this right now. About ten days after 911, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs, just say hello to some of the people on the joint staff who used to work for me. And one of the generals called me and he said, Sir, you got to come in. You’ve got to come in and talk to me a second. I said, Well, you’re too busy. He said, No, no. He says, We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq. This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, We’re going to war with Iraq. Why? He said, I don’t know. He said, I guess they don’t know what else to do. So I said, well, did they find some information collected connecting Saddam to al Qaeda? He said, No, no, there’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq. He said, I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we got a good military and we can take down governments. And he said, I guess if the only thing you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail. So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, Are we still going to war with Iraq? And he said, it’s worse than that. He said he reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. He said, I just he said, I just got this down from upstairs meeting the secretary defense office today. And he said, this is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq and in Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and finishing off Iran. So they’ve had this plan for a long time and they make it up.

 

Stuart Turley [00:04:52] Wow.

 

George McMillan [00:04:53] Okay. Yeah, I’m showing that on on on the Jimmy Dore Show because he’s been covering this. Wow. That was we did the video where we did the clip where Wesley Clark was discussing. Seen this in San Francisco venue and this venue. He’s with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! All right. There’s other videos that talk about how this plan has been going on for a while, and it’s a plan looking for a triggering event. Is the way you state that when you’re looking for targeting packages and geostrategic objectives, you’re looking for a triggering event. Okay. So what was the 911 was was the triggering event. And then there’s a lot of my hop and hop conjecture is about that, about whether that happened, whether they let it happen so they would have a triggering event. But yeah, if you just look at maps of oilfields and the logistical supply routes to get it there, so logistical supply route, you’re talking about maritime choke points, riverine choke points and terrestrial choke points and by terrestrial choke points. You’re talking about mountain ranges and the area, the land, the flatland between that and a river or the flatland between that and the sea. Right. All right. So they’re looking they want to the oil companies are always looking for oil fields, obviously, and associated gas fields. Then you have to deliver it. So you need pipelines that are protected or railways that are protected or at least at least highways. So you have to have the logistical supply route planning. So you’re into future operations planning, and then you have to get it to to a market. So if you flowchart getting energy out of the ground and delivering it to a market, you just have this, you have strategic planning is just flow charting every single step in the project. And then where are you in the project? So when you do global strategic analysis and counter strategic analysis, where is are you in this process and how can your enemies, you know, thwart this process? Or where are your rivals in this process and how can you thwart them in the process? Right. So when I build my hypothetical strategic models, yeah, it’s a lot of flow charting comes into play and the flow charting in this place is derived from oil field and natural gas maps and how you would build pipelines or railroads to get it to a market which everybody in your audience is already familiar with. So we’re just we’re just adding how to do hypothetical geo strategic future operations planning models to a topic that they’re already familiar with, Right? So in this case, it’s the multinational corporations have already looked at the maps. They’ve already gone through this flow charting. So now they go they pay the research institutions to convey this information to the political leaders through the think tanks, NGOs, lobbying groups in Washington who are also interacting with the government officials in executive branch agencies like Geological Survey and Department of Interior or Department of Agriculture. Department of Energy. Department of Energy, right. Energy News. Be Yeah. Iraq. Now, all these people are in the embassies overseas, so they’re interacting with their counterparts in, you know, in the overseas countries, right? Okay. So when you get into the EU, like we talked about last time, how do you overcome all of the different existing long term rivalries in each region? We’re going to talk about Europe after World War two, how you do that? Well, the United States had that same problem during the Articles of Confederation. And what did we do? We switched to the Constitution, which has a federal system in Washington. So after World War two, what did the multinational corporations interacting with the government during FDR and Truman do was? They took the European Coal and Steel Union and they turned it into the EU to mirror the federal system in Europe, because you have to create, create you have to pay to have to have a way of organizing the European states. Right. Your mirror image of the United States federal system. So then you can start controlling the European political system and then erect a trading bloc between the EU and the Warsaw Pact. Then and then after the Warsaw Pact disappeared, they didn’t build an Intermarium project or a three Seas initiative of creating a big, huge neutral zone between Naito and and Russia. They moved the EU East to build a trading bloc to stop Russian well, Russian natural gas. But Russians selling anything east they want to block basically block off all Russian trade. So this strategy stuff, clip and strategy stuff is a YouTube channel is great video. The title is The Naval Strategy of Alfred there. My hand is what the video is called. Right? We’re going to play this clip because in in a one minute clip or whatever it is it’s going to play. Explain the complete. Reason why the United States has this is continuing this strategy of containment against Russian natural gas. We did the videos on on Russian natural gas and geopolitical alignment. We got to go back and redo the redo them again. But if you listen to this clip, it explains why they want to stop Russian trade in general. And then why? Why I boil it down to Russian natural gas specifically and then go into the d W videos where they have all of these videos on Russian natural gas. Right. Saying that it’s not Russian natural gas. Well, if it’s not Russian natural gas, that’s the main problem. Why do they run producing videos on this topic?

 

Stuart Turley [00:10:48] All right. Yeah. All right. So go ahead And let’s see. This video would.

 

Video Clip [00:10:52] Require a titanic effort from any non hemispheric state, an effort which could not be made thanks to old world rivalries and the balance of power. All the U.S. needed to do was set up a cheap coastal defense, freeing up the rest of its resources for internal development. But times were changing. By the 1880s, the imminent closing of the frontier seemed to indicate that the world was both getting smaller and getting filled in by formal empires with formal borders. Foreman This impacted American grand strategy in three ways. One, technological progress was lowering the barriers of distance that once made invasion unthinkable. Two, the construction of the Panama Canal begun in 1881, would inevitably draw European empires closer to American shores. And three, American development could no longer rely on an informal frontier to fuel and absorb economic production. Instead, future growth would mean regulated trade with states and empires. What this all meant could be summed up with the following formula. Production converted by trade equals wealth for modern production and wealth are not the same thing. Wealth is what a state can use to directly achieve its goals. Militaries, arms, and, most importantly, money and credit through wealth. A state damages enemies, subsidizes allies and convinces neutrals to side with it in diplomacy. In other words, wealth is power. Production, by contrast, is just what a territory makes and harvests. Regardless of whether the state can make use of it, a state can produce a lot of wheat. But if it all just rots in a silo, that’s not wealth. Instead, it’s the ability of the wheat to be made into rations or else sold or mortgaged for money that makes it contribute to state power. And it is this need to turn production into wealth that makes trade important, whether by bringing production to market or else supplying the inputs that refine existing production into something useful. Trade comes in many forms, but for modern, it’s sea based trade that provides the most efficient conversion process. Not only is shipping over water the most efficient form of transport trading over the oceans also grants access to the global market, allowing states to choose buyers and sellers for maximum profit.

 

Stuart Turley [00:13:14] All right. I cut it there. Yeah, he does. He does a great general framework, which is why we just played that clip in its entirety. Right. All of geostrategic operations or policies are based on that concept. But Russian natural gas being the preeminent aspect of that, right? My hand started in this sailing ship days. But then you had the coal ship days right after that. And then you had diesel ship days after that. That’s for sea power strategies. And then the military, of course, uses nuclear powered vessels to cross oceans because you can do it much faster and you don’t stop at polling stations are refueling stations. But the rest of commercial trade is diesel powered ships, right? Right. For for land powers. Then it goes. Then rail is the cheapest way to ship stuff, right? What is not listed in strategy stuff’s matrix or list here is pipelines, pipelines, ship energy, oil and natural gas. This method. See, this is a critical part that’s not mentioned in this thing. But the concept is technology changes the way you you you turn production into wealth. So it’s this production function up here. That is why is why I’m playing this now. Okay. Then if you we played I didn’t cue up the GW video of Ambassador Mark Goodman. I think it’s Mark Goodman was his name, right? It was in one of those videos. But he talks about there is a school of thought in international relations that talks about the more economically integrated a country is with another, the more diplomatic and militarily and integrated they become. All right. Yeah, that’s permission time. That’s national instruments of power measurements. Right. Bismarck always said you’re. Your diplomatic effort is only as strong as your military. Well, your military is only as strong as your economy.

 

Stuart Turley [00:15:11] Exactly.

 

Stuart Turley [00:15:12] If you have a stone age economy, you can’t produce modern weapons. Right. So if you have an advanced technological economy that produces a lot of machine tools to make consumer goods, you could also produce you can also use those machine to produce armaments. Yeah. If you have a highly advanced electronic engineering technology movement, you can use those for satellites or to build communications devices or how to intercept arrival’s electronic communications. So these are all dual use technologies. But it starts from stopping its country from turning its production into wealth. Right at the get go, because then they can’t get these other they can’t make these other advancements. Right. You could play the clip from from D.W..

 

Stuart Turley [00:16:00] Okay.

 

Stuart Turley [00:16:00] Here we go. The first one.

 

Speaker 3 [00:16:02] Since the Cold War. That’s because the gas Europe’s so desperately needed came from Russia, a partnership that creates major political dependency. So this was all seen as part of an overall Soviet strategy to weaken the West and to break up NATO’s fears that were by no means unfounded on gas. Using oil and gas dependencies as a political weapon was common practice in the Warsaw Pact. Above all, meanwhile, a young Putin began his extraordinary career.

 

Stuart Turley [00:16:32] Is it all right? Well, they talk about how they’re using it as a weapon. All right. Now read the and just objective modeling. I know people out there that that that think that Putin just attacked for no reason. There is no logic. No.

 

Stuart Turley [00:16:46] The every one of the Fox News folks all the see CNN, everybody says Putin attack for no reason. Almost like Project Mockingbird.

 

Stuart Turley [00:16:57] It absolutely is. So we don’t have a video of it. But let me go to. Yeah. You know, cousin Teen Wolf Carter, he was died of mysteriously died of a heart attack in 2017 after he produced the books titled Let me get the titles up here. Prostitutes embedded in the Pay of the CIA and Journalists for Hire. How the CIA Creates the News.

 

Stuart Turley [00:17:23] No way. And he’s a great dad.

 

Stuart Turley [00:17:25] Yeah, he all he just. He published those books. Right. And then he died of a heart attack. Well, what’s a heart attack? Your heart stops beating.

 

Stuart Turley [00:17:33] Right. It could be with lead poisoning, too. So your heart poisoning?

 

Stuart Turley [00:17:39] Right. Like the motorcycle guy died of Covid, and, yeah, the construction worker falls off a building.

 

Stuart Turley [00:17:45] And still dies of Covid.

 

Stuart Turley [00:17:47] All right. So the guy. The guy died of a heart attack because when he died, his heart stopped beating. Right. Had Jack Klugman done the autopsy, it probably would have revealed a little of additional factors.

 

Stuart Turley [00:18:00] Right. Kind of like the oil oligarchs in Russia falling off of buildings all the time. You know, it’s the ground that hurts them.

 

Stuart Turley [00:18:10] Right, Right, right, right. Yeah. The the ground killed. Yeah, that’s right. Exactly. Yeah. It’s not because they’re embedded with the West, right? And they’re actually Western spies. It’s because they impacted the ground. Exactly. Right. For no reason. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, once people learn to see power versus land power strategies is objectively okay. We can’t do anything about the foreign policy. Like General, you know, General Wesley Clark was talking about the foreign policy issue since 2007 and talked and has produced books on it. Right. And he has he’s a four star. He can’t do anything about it. We can’t do anything about it. But once you know what’s going on and you’re a financial firm, you can use this for predictive analysis so you can at least understand why events are occurring and what the next move is probably going to be. Right. Because, you know, the the big finance and the big multinational corporations that are influencing the government institutional agencies that we’re going to go over in our in the slides that, you know, they’re they’re using this to rig the market for trillions. Right. Okay. So I think your audience. Well, for one thing, they should hire me. Yes, true. They should use these models to form a counter strategy also, because this is predictive modeling. If one side makes a move, you should immediately be countering that move in their trading strategies.

 

Stuart Turley [00:19:37] And.

 

Stuart Turley [00:19:38] Investment strategies.

 

Stuart Turley [00:19:39] The strategies you just described, George, I want to go ahead and just also say that this has been stripped out of the war colleges. We’ve talked about that in the previous podcast. It is also been stripped out of our universities. And so either having you come in and work with the colleges or the war colleges because of your material, and I’m just going to bring this. You have all these slides on all of these things as we go through here. You have all the material put together in a very organized fashion. And I just want to say that again because it needs to be said. President Trump does not have all of the information he needs, very much like Fox News is saying this. They don’t have all of the things that you just mentioned. So they want to make that point very hard.

 

Stuart Turley [00:20:41] We were talking I was listening to Mark Levin and then Dan Bongino and then Sean Hannity. You know, love those guys on domestic policy. Yes. Okay. Mark Levin, great constitutional lawyer. I used my go to guy on domestic constitutional issues. Right. Just, you know, foreign policy. They don’t know anything about it. They really do. They really do believe that Putin attacked for no reason, that he’s psychotic. And then when you start to actually look at where the oil and gas fields are and look at where the color revolutions and and Cuban activities are, you know, the proxy wars, then all of a sudden it’s like, no, they’re trying to they’re trying to stop the reduction from turning into wealth, either from Russia or, okay, since Russia is their natural gas is feeding the the Chinese industrial manufacturing base, then they want to choke off China from exporting this goods and turning its production from well, which is based on Russian energy. Or they want to cut off have the potential to cut off China and the Straits of Malacca. So then what does China do? They start to build railroads, ports and pipelines through Myanmar so they can offload well, so they can offload Middle Eastern oil and send it on the pipelines to Kong, Maine. And then once it hits, once it hits the Chinese oil and gas pipeline network, well, then they can ship it to the refineries and do do whatever they want with it. But they’re avoiding the Straits of Malacca. So the colonial powers, US, UK, the Dutch have always controlled the Malaysian Peninsula and the Indonesia archipelago for, you know, since the 17th century. Right. Earlier, I guess if you go back to the Portuguese. So they’ve always controlled the Strait of Malacca, always. So China needs to get formulate its policy to combat that. So what are that what’s your counter strategy is to extend this is to develop the Silk Road program to get the oil and gas out of the Central Asian stand and then power Siberia into Russia. And then the second part of that is they transform the Silk Road strategy to the Belt and Road Initiative to extend it, to extend the highways, railroads and pipeline systems to the Persian Gulf or to the Indian Ocean. So no matter where they’re getting energy from, they can get it, whether it be the Middle East or Africa. They can go to this closest port in Asia and then offload their goods by railway or pipeline and get everything to China without going through the Straits of Malacca. I was listening to I was watching I was reading Epic Times with Antonio Grasso. Both his articles. Yeah, he’s I trade messages with him time to time. He’s got an article, but he’s got it back. He was talking about how China was getting its was putting the ports in Myanmar and in Pakistan to interfere with international ship. No, they’re building those pipelines in ports on the Indian Ocean. So the Western maritime powers don’t interfere with their ship. So we had the causality exactly backwards because he doesn’t understand the the the geopolitical sea power versus land power strategies. When you understand those strategies. Yeah. Then it’s clear as day what the motives are, right? So if there is a war, the United States wants to be able to choke off Russia and China, China from from turning production into wealth through export. So then in my different slides that because I got the geopolitical slide said in one but I have a specific Russian natural gas counter strategy strategic plan slide set for that and the same thing with the China strategic slide set. So once you know what the strategies are, you can start building hypothetical models and they’re all designed based on flow charting. How do you turn production into wealth through economic development theories? Yeah, Antonio Garcia has a Ph.D. in economics, right? So he knows that part, but he doesn’t know the geopolitical side. So I bring up him. I mean, he’s a friend. I we trade messages back and forth. I just have to use a concrete example of, you know, one part of it. If you know, economic development theory, you can start build your economic development models, right? And from there you can build the. Strategic models of how do you block one or more steps? And then those are your levels of warfare, whether it be maritime riverine or terrestrial chokepoints or financial warfare or disrupting their communications or trying to dragging that ship over the over the over the over the cable. And yeah, so things like that. And it all adds up.

 

Stuart Turley [00:25:28] The mainstream media has not alerted the rest of the world that there is now two other cables cut. And this is a big deal. It’s not me. I’m over here going.

 

Stuart Turley [00:25:40] Yeah, the all the countries have been doing that kind of signals intelligence interference next to forever. And actually, you know, some people say the Russians started doing that the second there was a first telegraphs laid, you know.

 

Stuart Turley [00:25:54] Long.

 

Stuart Turley [00:25:55] All over Europe way back when. So it goes back it goes back from the day that basically the day after the Telegraph were invented. Yeah. Either either espionage by tapping into the cable systems or just or just cutting the cables, you know, whether it be copper wire back then or fiber optic cable now. I mean it’s been going on next to forever.

 

Stuart Turley [00:26:18] Yeah. You always love it when you saw Roy Rogers jump off the trigger and jump up and then get up onto the telegraph and then hammer out using his Colt peacemaker, you know, as the other end do Morse code, I.

 

Stuart Turley [00:26:32] Think he was in. Yes. It was really a signals intelligence guy. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There you go.

 

Stuart Turley [00:26:38] Either that or he got his horse to do it, and he just, you know, watched him. But never mind.

 

Stuart Turley [00:26:43] Right, right. Yeah. If you can play the next video.

 

Stuart Turley [00:26:46] You bet. Looks like it’s going. Here we go. George.

 

[00:26:49] Russia, home to the world’s biggest natural gas reserves. The gas is needed, especially in Europe. And the end of the Cold War ushered in an era of conflicting energy dependencies and concern in the West.

 

Video Clip [00:27:01] You’re giving the Soviet Union hard currency, and they’re using that to build up their military, and this is going to come back to haunt us. Meanwhile, the 1980s marks the beginning of one man’s extraordinary career as a case officer. You have to be able to manipulate people because there is no such thing as a former KGB guy. Gas is one of his two main. Tools for. Coercion, for leverage. For influence. Soviet traditions continue on gas.

 

Stuart Turley [00:27:27] Okay. There’s a couple of key bullets in that video, George. Yeah, he there’s. It’s like a marine, George. If you don’t, all the Marines that you’ve met once a marine, always a marine. And that hit me very hard in that video. Once you see KGB, you’re KGB the rest of your life. Then the other piece of that puzzle, your hands.

 

George McMillan [00:27:52] Yeah. So that goes that goes both ways for all countries. Yes. All right. So which which they conveniently leave out. I mean, that’s because in that in the geopolitical video, I go over the strategy bridge, you know, grand intelligence, strategic intelligence and operational and tactical levels of warfare. The grand the grand strategies are mostly in the private sector where they have, from what I gather, because it’s you’re talking about people you’re talking about the top analysts that work for the top 1%. Actually, at that level, you’re talking about the zero zero 1% ops. At that level. They’re clearly taking their best economists that are in predictive analysis, and they’re sending them to the Yale Grand Strategies classes, and then they’re integrating them with their models. So I’m doing my my strategic models are trying to replicate that by using my fully integrated models out of my unified behavioral theory frameworks. And then doing that integration with the geopolitical slides that I have. So you’re doing it’s geopolitical models with the PMC dime integration, you know, dime integration that is that is the infrastructural and informational integration, transportation and communication, logistical supply routes, right? That build up economic integration, increase diplomatic integration, ultimately military integration, because if you have billion dollar investments, you used armed guards to protect them. And a country, a country’s armed guards is call us military and police. So that’s you know, that’s the logic there. And energy is the the the multiplier coefficient is energy production. You do not have a multiplier coefficient without energy because you can only make so much with hand tools, right? If you’re a logistic logistical supply route is a mule and a donkey or going over mountains, right? You’re not going to be able to take resources out of the ground very efficiently, get it to a production facility where they’re using hand tools. Right. And then distribute it on horseback to your consumer market. That’s only. If you’re in the homespun air.

 

Stuart Turley [00:30:08] Would you say a pipeline is a multiplier then? Because if you can multiply and export, that goes into that formula even at a higher rate than shipping energy around like the Keystone pipeline? If it was built, we would be buying a million barrels per day from Canada and that would be magnifying Canada’s income coming in, right?

 

George McMillan [00:30:32] Yeah. You stop there. You stop the Keystone pipeline. You’re preventing Cana Canada from turning its production into wealth. Okay. In our case, in the North American case, it’s not a geopolitical strategy. That’s a left wing political strategy. Domestic political strategy. Right. So there is a difference. But the effect. The effect is the same. They’re preventing turning production into wealth. And then that has a negative effect on on your on the multiplier coefficient in economic development theory. And the more that you cannot increase those logistical supply route efficiencies, the more you’re increasing B or increasing or decreasing, whether whether you’re a facilitated or debilitating net. Right. Your sectoral growth in bomb all sectoral development theory and then it has a negative effect on labor productivity efficiencies.

 

Stuart Turley [00:31:25] Well, let me throw this is.

 

George McMillan [00:31:27] Different in my models. I’m correlating different parts of economic theory into geopolitical theory because it’s all impacts the multiplier coefficient.

 

Stuart Turley [00:31:37] Nice. I like that. So when I talk about like that and the way that I don’t know if this is a variable format that you would want in there, but who is accelerating the wealth is when the Keystone pipeline was was cut because it’s not geopolitical. You still have the wealth transfer being picked up by Warren Buffet and that team who was doing the rail train. And so that was coming through. And so you are impacting who’s getting rich.

 

George McMillan [00:32:11] Okay. Right. Because remember, I said you got the big they got the analysts for the big firms. Right. Then they’re using then they’re using their money to push this forward in the think tanks and lobbying groups.

 

Stuart Turley [00:32:23] Exactly.

 

George McMillan [00:32:24] And then it comes out into policy. So they’re using the grand strategies at the political funding level because they’re also funding political campaigns. Right. And what General Wesley Clark is there is this foreign policy coup. Well, there’s also a domestic domestic policy go works the same way that the analysts, the people that can afford the analysts or can also afford the lobbyists. And they’re using the power structure in Washington, the think tanks, the NGOs, the Rockefeller Foundation and and MacArthur Foundation to make these policy changes. Then they’re rigging the markets to make trillions, billions and trillions.

 

Stuart Turley [00:33:00] And the consumer’s screwed and the.

 

George McMillan [00:33:02] Consumers get screwed. We can’t do very much about that.

 

Stuart Turley [00:33:06] You can do it.

 

George McMillan [00:33:07] But we in regarding we’re not we we were never in the Bush administration. We were never in the Obama administration. We’re not in the Trump administration. You can’t affect policy like that. Yes. And and yeah, I don’t think Trump’s people understand geopolitical strategy. It seems like he’s getting people that know which deep state people to get rid of, but not how to replace them.

 

Stuart Turley [00:33:29] And they don’t have that knowledge base to make the decision making policies on long term, just like Warren Buffet had somebody that had your knowledge like on that. But they didn’t have that in the administration, is that right?

 

George McMillan [00:33:47] Yeah. So with with these integrated methodologies, I have I think somebody, you know, could do better with them without.

 

Stuart Turley [00:33:55] Exactly.

 

George McMillan [00:33:56] Whether it be the Trump administration or the private sector. Yeah. Whoever we’re we would like to call them, it would be good.

 

Stuart Turley [00:34:02] But, you know, even in the education center and I keep bringing back to that because it’s been stripped down. You and I have talked about that. All right. So you have the three, three fold mechanism for your information.

 

George McMillan [00:34:14] Yeah. So you have the the big deal there is the more that the well to be in Kashmir is an adapted mine, a burden. Smith told me to read that years ago. It was probably a couple of years after you shared a Nobel with Kahneman. But in that discussion, his office was near where I used to live. It’s. It’s. It’s now the old Dhaka building next to George Mason Law School. And. Yeah, so what? He told me to read that book and to bankers me to talk about the social sciences. Well they went to the Frankfurt school. They didn’t include that. I include that because I’m a political philosophy, political theory major. Also the they just talk about why the social sciences stop the abandoning the scientific project. And each individual social sciences works in its own silo and does not have the fusion. So. Well, I talked about the philosophical and the social sciences. Go glass. We deal with abstract causation and the social sciences dealing with with proximate cause. Because Aristotle invented the university system for the philosophy departments to look for overarching causes and get the social sciences out of their silos to integrate it into a fusion cell. So if this were an intelligence organization, the field of philosophy is supposed to be the fusion cell. So the social the philosophy departments have not learned the MBA and NPA methodologies, you know, learning how to build Cartesian models and flow charting and multivariate analysis and all that kind of stuff to be able to do their function. So the entire range of philosophy professors in the Western University system needed to be replaced decades ago because they haven’t they’re not able to fulfill their job function, not the way Aristotle first outlined it in politics in his other writings. They all need to be fired and replaced, and it actually needs to be set up like every other analytical department is in the private sector. Right. Okay. So the university system needs to be totally revamped. That’s in my unified behavioral theory. I’m taking those same methodologies and the same fusion cell concept that’s that that the governments use in their intelligence communities, their hierarchy, and the same which is patterned after the same way that the multinational corporations, you know, train their analysts. Right. You know, like everything needs to be patterned after the private had the private sector analytical departments, both the government and the university system. I mean, I’m an Austrian school guy, so, yes, I cannot help but to notice how efficient the private sector is and what a debacle the university system and the public sector is. So, yeah, if you’re if if you’re Elon Musk out there in doge.

 

Stuart Turley [00:37:08] Okay. I do.

 

George McMillan [00:37:09] Hand.

 

Stuart Turley [00:37:10] Yes we can I just checked broke on X and in 2021 the Federal government provided $174.9 billion to universities for post-secondary education programs. How much of that was wasted when considering research and development specifically, universities reported 49 billion. So, Elon, if you’re listening to this podcast, I think George and I can help save you some billions of dollars, right?

 

George McMillan [00:37:41] We can massively rate both the university system more efficient, right? And the different data collection agencies and the government will state it that way because it’s not just one. It’s all three happen after private sector. But those models are proprietary. But I got it. I got my slides that I don’t release them in mass either. I just we just throw up sections, right? And then we go. We don’t go over them page by page. We allude to them. Okay. Because I painstakingly flow charted and redeveloped these things. Because once you flowchart how you get raw materials out of the ground, whether it be agricultural or mineral or energy.

 

Stuart Turley [00:38:22] That’s right.

 

George McMillan [00:38:22] And you make consumer products out of it, how you distribute it, those are all feedback loop cycles that can be flow charted. So you feel you flow chart that which is already done by the Nobel Prize works in great detail, right? And then you say, well, okay, how do you block that then? That’s geo geostrategic theory. I’ve already integrated those frameworks in great detail on the slide sets. So you can take the private sector stuff out and replicate it. And the university system, I’ve already got that mapped out or stigmatized.

 

Stuart Turley [00:38:52] Right. And President Trump did say on a post, I believe the other day that he was looking at creating a federal university for free college to tuition, to students to think about funding it through these universities. If you stripped this funding out, Columbia University receiving 1.2 billion. Yale received 776.9 million. Harvard received 676 million. You know, those are only a couple of examples. You could strip out the money and then use it.

 

George McMillan [00:39:29] If you throw out my slide sets real quick, just to show people an example.

 

Stuart Turley [00:39:34] What slide would you like?

 

George McMillan [00:39:35] I would just just go through them just one second at a time. Yeah, I got I got the scene analysis on the left side and the different books or source citations on the right side. So you have the whole you have the theory and the citations and the curriculum on each side that. So I got thousands of pages of slides as on the unified behavioral theory that I developed over time. And yeah, and I got the geopolitical slide that’s done with the curriculum over there. So if you just went. Through that, you would have your integrated theories. It would overcome the. The. Okay. The point is the university system is highly siloed and not integrated. And then those people go into the government in the secret compartmented information. And it’s even more compartmented. So there’s no fusion cell. But I’ve already, since I did the Unified behavioral theory, where, okay, I turned everything into a jock joint operation center. I do stuff because I do. I just do it right. Once you flowchart it, everything and you schemata. I used everything I already got already got three quarters of the work done. Right. You get professors that are siloed that no one area really well. Well guess what? They can flesh out each section. I do a little bit better, but the integration is already done right.

 

Stuart Turley [00:40:50] And that’s it. That’s the biggest portion of it. When you sit back and take take a look, just like we mentioned, the.

 

George McMillan [00:40:58] Go ahead now.

 

Stuart Turley [00:40:59] Go ahead.

 

George McMillan [00:40:59] Well, Brian Berlet does a good YouTube channel on the Eurasian wars. He doesn’t tie it specifically to the Eurasian wars and natural gas the way I do. He, like Mike Barnes, talks about the different color revolutions and ethnic tensions going on. So he’s got a useful channel he’s talking about. There is nobody does an overarching method of analysis, right? Well, the Ph.D. theorists that do that are MBA, PhD theories that do this for multinational corporations, use it to rig the market to make their billions and trillions. Right. Like in that show. Billions on on what was that deal that’s on HBO. Okay so there are there they’re working for people like like that rigging rigging the market. They’re not going to tell you what it is. No, I use it for my geostrategic theory. I’m not going to blast my slides ass out there either. No, we’ll go over different parts of them, but not in not in detail. Right. So, no, don’t stop are proprietary no matter who does it. Then in YouTube, you get a big problem that, okay, intelligent people talk about ideas. So in this case, analysts talk about frameworks of analysis. And then smart people talk about events which are kind of done in Kruger Smart, right? Okay. They’re not the top level. There are all the are okay. And then you have, you know, stupid people just talk about other people. So social media really goes towards the bottom half of stupid people talking about other people. So you can’t really do an overarching grand strategic modeling because you have to teach people theoretical modeling first. Right? Okay. People watch social media for entertainment. I mean, you’re never going to get a lot. You’re Ted Koppel way back with, right? Nightline was always talking about. Yeah, he does his show at 11:00 or 1130 at night or whatever, because there’s no way he could do his type of show during the daytime because there’s not enough consumer demand for it.

 

Stuart Turley [00:42:54] I’m going to I’m going to disagree with you for just the hair here. Now that things have changed in the mainstream media, the mainstream media is dying a very miserable death, which is very gleeful because I think that’s why my podcast has done so well, just as the same as that. President Trump when Barron Trump, I had President Trump go on the No Name podcasts or other podcasts around that were mainstream. And then you have the Democrats now, George, sitting back and saying, Wait a minute, we need us a Joe Rogan. You’re not going to. You had Joe Rogan because he was a Democrat.

 

George McMillan [00:43:33] Yeah. Well, yeah, you sure did. So, yeah. So just to kind of back up and clarify this point, the the the university system is a siloed, massive, logically incoherent disciplines without a consistent theory of micro to macro theory of behavior. So I do evolutionary theory from A to B and Cosmin is that that Bernard Smith told me to read. Right? And then I got the psychological model based on Fromm’s productive versus sadomasochistic character orientation. Right. Why is that important? Because economic theory is about being productive and being cooperative. Guy If you go back to the the geostrategic, we’re not going to physically go back to it, but. Right. He talks about turning production into wealth. So my hand was reading Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Right, right. Those were that was the theories of his time. So he was talking about how to how to stop a productive, cooperative Ricardo type and Smith type of economic development theory with sea power strategies. You know, when you start to take geopolitical theory into economic theoretic terms, right. So those are those aren’t taught. Okay. So I can take those geopolitical theories and I can put it in terms of Aristotle’s I mean, I’m sorry, Erik Fromm’s dichotomy to put a psychological dimension to the macro theories. All right. So my first one is I take Aristotle’s productive versus sadomasochistic character orientation dichotomy. And I linked directly to Aristotle’s proper and perverted forms of government dichotomy and then to the per capita GNP function signifying economic growth over population growth proportions, which then lead to the outcome measure of first and second, more developed countries where you have higher economic growth and lower population growth and a higher wage labor equity rate versus third and fourth world countries that tend to have lower economic production, higher population and a catastrophic you lose wage labor rate ratio proportions. So I can if you have an integrated schematic like that, a dual independent variable system, then it becomes highly, highly predictive as far as technology and population growth trends. Which is what? Which is what? Which is what Robert Fogel’s Nobel Prize was about. And some and the, and the solo Swan economic theory models. You can then relate those to the geopolitical theory because you’re trying to block and thwart rivals, right? You’re also, if you look at Anthony Blinken’s Allies versus Allies book about Russian natural gas pipelines, which was his doctoral dissertation or his or is it was his graduate school thesis, I think, or his doctoral presentation. If he’s got a doctorate in the Middle East, he did it in graduate school. And if you look at it that you’re trying to maintain vassal states. So if you go back to the GW videos, the guy talks about using Russia is going to use natural gas to turn everything into a vassal state. Right. Work that they leave out is General Ismail’s idea of what the purpose of Naito was to keep the Russia, the Soviet Union, out of Europe, in Germany, down in Europe, and keep the United States in the Anglosphere in Europe, while keeping the United States, in Europe and Germany down In Europe, you’re turning Germany, Germany, industrial economy into a vassal state. Right. So the D.W. video doesn’t state that the United States has already done that to Germany. So now Germany, they don’t want to lose the German industrial power through the Russian Federation because while Mackinder Mackinder theory was you’re supposed to always separate Germany industrial power from Russian resources and this is before the pipeline. So it’s only more exacerbated by the creation of pipelines because it’s a much more efficient way to ship energy than shipper rail. And, you know, that part was left out in strategy. Stuff’s less. Right. So if the United States is going to lose Germany and this is geostrategic theory, then they are going to destroy its productive capacity if that player is going to switch to a different team. Wow. So you get all these different geostrategic modeling. So now play the clip on the Duran.

 

Stuart Turley [00:47:54] Now, this is very telling when.

 

Video Clip [00:47:56] You see this way, because, of course, Ukraine is at the source of the whole problem. The reason the coalition is in crisis is because Germany is in crisis. The reason Germany is in crisis is because without cheap Russian gas, without the Russian market, without good relations with China, without any of those things, the German industrial economy is falling apart. We’ve had further declines in production across Germany. I was reading this morning that three years ago Germany was producing 7 billion cars a year. Now it’s down to four. In other words, there’s been a massive collapse in production. Volkswagen is talking about closing down its plants. The Daimler Daimler has stopped effectively production of the Mercedes E-Class, which is the heart of the Mercedes range. The now lumping it together with the C-class. I’m not going to get into people who are interested in know about cars, which I’m talking about. But anyway, all of these things are happening in Germany. The mechanical engineer, the engineering factories are in crisis. The chemical industry, which particularly depended on cheap gas from Russia, is in crisis. So everything is falling apart. The coalition is falling apart. They know there’s going to be elections soon. Lindner basically wanted to bail out, so he staged this whole thing in order to give himself an alibi as to why he’s bailing out. Wow.

 

George McMillan [00:49:33] Okay, I’m starting. Yeah. What we’re doing on our on my telegram channel back in 2022 is since everything is is is predictive. If you take cheap Russian natural gas away, you’re debilitating the multiplier coefficient in Germany. So their whole economy is going to just unwind. So then if you’re a big corporation and you can’t stay competitive at current levels of LNG and prices, energy prices, right, well then you’re either going to go out of business. In that case, what do you. You with your plant and equipment. Okay? You can’t move the plant because it’s on real estate. That does not move. You’ve got the equipment.

 

Stuart Turley [00:50:11] But it’s like a BASF, which was the fertilizer plant went out because it didn’t have natural gas. Right. Now, so close their steel plants there. Volkswagen has already closed several. They’ve just announced they’re laying off more. The industrial de-industrialization of Germany affects the entire EU.

 

George McMillan [00:50:34] Right. So, yeah, the bars S.F. closed. It’s it’s it’s Well, okay. It’s River Valley. Rhine. River Valley. Right. Production center, which is what the European Economic Coal and Steel Consortium was, was based on, you know, the alliance between Germany, France and Belgium and the Netherlands was based on that rally production. Because if you’re going to ship stuff out on rail, you can ship in any direction. But the ride obviously leads out into into the sea or the other rivers on the other side because yeah, you’re after aspirin. Hearst All the big huge weapons manufacturer is in Liege on the river there and you can ship stuff that direction. But the coal and steel going back and forth across those borders fuels, you know, those big metallurgical production manufacturing facilities for a wide variety of military and consumer products, right? So if they can no longer stay in business because coal is not as efficient plus as dirty, nothing is clean as as as natural gas. I mean, Pickens has been, you know, talked about that for a long time. He was talking about everybody. You know, he’s been saying that for, you know, I know since the late 90s, whatever. So here they’re taking Russian natural gas away. So now they’re going to have to move their production facilities. And the fake Rand report, you know, written in the German book was was whoever wrote the fake Rand Report article was was written by a subject matter expert. And he’s right in theory because if they’re going to lose Germany, they want to give away a weak, debilitated player over to the other team if they can’t keep a strong player. All right. So if you’re a German factory and and the United States needs to rebuild its economy because we’ve offshored our jobs during the 1980s, then they want the Germans to move their equipment through the United States. That was what that article was talking about, right? Maybe. But the other of we were wargaming that in my theory is like, okay, some businesses may transfer over. They could take those machine tools and they could move them and increase the manufacturing base in Thailand and Malaysia. Right. Thailand and Malaysia can then get can then get the Gulf of Thailand oil and gas fields that the United States and the seven sister companies developed right after World War two. Right. Okay. And then, yeah, I want to do a whole it’s going to take a month or two for us to get to it. What I want to do, I have a slide set on that. Okay, we don’t have that. And that’s a fascinating slide set because then you realize the degree that the Dulles brothers and Sullivan Cromwell is the best example, how you take their analysts and the multinational corporations develop into these Wall Street firms, how they go into a place like like Thailand right after the Japanese are departing. Right. And they already have their economic development plan set up with the executive branch agencies of the U.S. government. And then they also have the the military strategic plan set up for the Pentagon ready to go and the and the role of the intelligence communities in facilitating the other ones all set up and ready to go. I mean, the Bretton Woods agreement with Harry Dexter White and Keynes already had these plans when they set up Bretton Woods in 40. In 44. So they have these things set up. And when you go over and you learn how these things work, the more you learn how this works, the more you understand how the policy coup started. Okay, Since you can’t change our dual egoistic system of where you vote and invest and spend money in your own self-interest, you can’t change that. What you can do is take these theoretical models of how this thing does work so you can play, so you become a better player, right? So if you make a sports analogy, the pros are the pros and the better teams are, the better teams because they can spot talent and develop it better than the other teams. Right? Well, if you don’t know what the training regiment should be, you can’t train your players better. No. So I have that. I have the unified behavioral theory and the geo political models designed to do that. And again, yeah, we go over them, we skim over them here because yeah, they are proprietary.

 

Stuart Turley [00:54:50] And and I’ll tell you the feedback, George, I just want to give you, I’ve gotten some fantastic feedback from our listeners and I do appreciate your expertise and your time and it is fun to hear some of what people are saying about. Your knowledge on our previous podcasts? It’s great. It is absolutely wonderful. So we’re running out of time for today. We’ve got about 900 more hours we have to do. And I still only touch only a fraction of what you got. But with that being said, people can reach out to you on LinkedIn and that’ll be in the show notes. So is there another way for folks to get Ahold of you?

 

George McMillan [00:55:30] Yes. I’m starting my patriotic account and it’s. Wait, what is that? I should have fired it up before I got on there. It is. Okay. You’re not going to. You’ll never guess what what the title is. It’s the George Macmillan 300 account Backslash GWM three geopolitical modeling. Okay. So. Okay, wait, it’s. Wait. I’m sorry. Let me just. Let me just copy and paste it. Yeah, sorry about that. Now you’re going to have to. Okay, So it’s. Yeah, that’s the link to it there. Now, I just created more work for you because now you’ve got to.

 

George McMillan [00:56:06] Put it in. Yeah. All right. Well, George, again, as always, thank you so much. And I do appreciate all the extra work that you go through in all these sessions. And and again, just as a summary on this, what do we have coming up on our next topic? Because we’ve got a very different one in how it was modeled out. But what is what do you think we’re going to be talking about next?

 

George McMillan [00:56:30] Let’s go. We did the first half of that first section or maybe the first third. I had to go back and look to see how that was Right. We’re going over the 15 major points of the whole entire slide deck. So this opening section is like a highlight reel of the key points from the other sections. And then, yeah, then each section really goes into detail about how geopolitical modeling works. And the key works in that. Because yeah, I mean I need a quick for me work reference guide ultimately. But yeah, it is a thousand page quick reference guide because people do need to get over how compartmented and fragmented the university system is and then the government does that on purpose, right? And then it’s obvious that the private sector, financial companies are taking their MBAs and Ph.D. economists. They’re saying, who’s best? Then they’re sending them to the Yale Grand Strategies classes. They’re very picking who they want to know this information. And then they’re not telling the rest of their analysts to look at this information. That’s obvious. It’s obvious the government knows that. And it’s obvious that the private sector does that.

 

George McMillan [00:57:38] And it’s obvious that the Trump administration would be absolutely handicapped if they didn’t.

 

George McMillan [00:57:43] If they don’t know it. That’s absolutely yeah, that’s absolutely correct. The Deep State and the powers that be are absolutely counting on nobody in the government knowing that. And we can even go. You can see that on the Sean Ryan show and some other quick. That’s all.

 

Stuart Turley [00:57:59] And I want to give Sean Ryan a shout out. I really appreciate everything he’s got going on and we’ve got some other things. So with that, that’ll be it for today. This was Stu Turley president and CEO of the Sandstone Group. And we will see you guys next time.

 

 

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