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The Paul Truesdell Podcast
Welcome to the Paul Truesdell Podcast. Two Pauls in a pod. Featuring Paul the Elder and Paul the Younger. So, what's the gig? Individually or collectively, Paul and Paul sit down and chat predominately at the Truesdell Professional Building and record frequently. They explain a few things about how life works before time gets away. They connect the dots and plot the knots, spots, and ops with a heavy dose of knocks, mocks, pots, rocks, socks, and mops. Confused? Then welcome aboard! You see, Paul the Elder and Paul the Younger enjoy telling complex stories that are always based on business, economics, and forecasting while having fun, laughing, and being among like-minded men, women, and children from Earth, Pluto, Jupiter, and Neptune. Individually and jointly, Paul the Elder and Paul the Younger, coupled with Team Truesdell, have been there and done it. If you enjoy front porch philosophers who take deep dives and connect the dots, while drinking coffee during the day and a whiskey after five, welcome.
It is a true pleasure to have you onboard.
This is, The Paul Truesdell Podcast.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 0:00
It is of Monday, the 27th day of February 2027. One more day to go in February or to this February have 37 days I was confused. 3737 Or was it 34? States? What was it? 57 states or 50?
Paul Truesdell, II 0:15
LD 57? Yeah. Yeah,
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 0:18
that was a prior administration that had something like that.
Paul Truesdell, II 0:20
Yeah. But I think the I think that was one of those things that was overblown, significantly, because the don't we have 57 states and territories?
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 0:29
Yes, we do. But I just kind of wanted to bring that up, because
Paul Truesdell, II 0:34
57 states of Islam or some crazy conspiracy, yeah.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 0:39
We're gonna dig deep today in a couple of topics. And so I would suggest, for the average person, you might want to get a whiskey, get a wine, get a beer, get a keg, I think a cake might work or a lot of vodka or something. Yeah, putting these a lot of vodka. So let's start off with our discussion with in hold on the the other one that we're going to just kind of scratch a little bit on, let's talk a little bit about what's going on in Russia. And there is a lot of talk about a civil war disintegration of the state. There are opposition leaders in Russia saying things like the criminal regime is going to fall and the only way it's going to fall is by by force. So a couple of quick opinions on that start off with
Paul Truesdell, II 1:32
Yeah, it's a it's a volatile situation. It's kind of a in my mind, it's, it's where you talk about things before things are done, obviously, you know, it is what it is. This is a situation where, I don't know, it's kind of been expected on my part, that something this large scale and filled with so many personalities that have everything to lose. This is this is one of the only real logical conclusions, if this was a more sane state than the obvious conclusion is total capitulation. And, obviously, regime change, but on your own terms, and that doesn't seem to be happening, at least not yet. Maybe maybe that option will will be given to people.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 2:18
It will not be an organic citizen uprising, because that's not going to happen.
Paul Truesdell, II 2:24
I don't think so. I wouldn't bet on it.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 2:27
It'll be a couple of different players who have their own private armies, and a lot of vested interests in preserving their stronghold on various components of what is no disintegrating the former USSR, Russia state and etc. Yeah,
Paul Truesdell, II 2:48
it's just it's further disintegration of the remaining components of the USSR. And that's the reality of it. And, you know, I think it's funny to you gotta address this, that seems a little far fetched, seems a little crazy, blah, blah, blah. But the problem is that it's not it's not because they faked their transition out of the Soviet times. They've they've made some strides they've made you know, I guess, you know, it is kind of like a quasi you know, communist capitalist hybrid that they have going on there, except they kind of got rid of the communism and just kept the, the, the oligarchy which the Soviet Union had. That's that's one thing people forget. Yeah, it's just they never really completely got out of the and it's a very strange situation because the people are still easily not even suppressed. They just voluntarily go along with what the government says out of this old kind of Soviet mentality this patriotism this I don't even know how else you describe it. It's just it just it's just a national unity of some sort that honestly at this point is so undeserved. It's wild, but it is what it is.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 4:03
Yeah. And just so everybody knows my opinion. There's always been an American used the word oligarchy. I'm gonna use the word corporatocracy. I think that when you come right down to it, whether it's an oligarchy, with his or her military forces, whether it's a corporate ah cracy that provides military procurement items, etc. Every every nation, whether it's a principality, whether it's a dictatorship, there's always going to be you've got to have your people. You got to have your your knights and shining armor around you. You've got to have your noble men and women who rule with an iron fist in some cases. Some of them are Neverland dictators in their own little regime, but it's all it's all a hierarchy and keeping those people under control. And I think it's going to be fair to say Putin is losing control of that.
Paul Truesdell, II 4:56
It is it's an obvious eventual eventuality of the of the problem they're dealing with, they invaded without a realistic perspective on the capability of their forces and the response from the rest of the world. The only real serious perspective that seems to make any sense to me anyway, is that they invaded with the same assumptions that they did was in 2014, it was just larger scale, and that their forces were more modernized than they were then. The problem is they completely miscalculated the reaction of the Ukrainian people. For some reason, they assumed that their battlespace preparation was effective, and they would not have the resistance that they're having. And they also miscalculated the response from the west. And it's funny because the most important part of that response from the west is that people need to remember that the plan of the Biden administration and most European leaders was that this was going to be over in a couple of days, just like the Russians had, and that there was no plan to do anything. The plan was to evacuate high profile, valuable people and set up a, a government and in absentia or, or whatever they call that. So the reality is, is that the reaction from the Ukrainian people, is what has caused this entire chain reaction to be where we're at today. This is not something that is being orchestrated from the west. And there's, you know, there's all these grand conspiracy theories about what's going on. But the reality is, is people in the West, particularly United States support people to stand up for themselves. And the Ukrainians did not mainly because of the government transition, and the complications of what was going on 10 years ago, almost did not have the same kind of support that they have now. And we were much more willing to support them. Because, look, Russia's actually weak, we can take advantage of those, not only for our own reasons, but also to prop up somebody that actually deserves to live. It's just it's I think it's important to remember that because our our donations and our gifting of weapons and money, and all this stuff is not purely altruistic. Like we have motivations behind this. We absolutely we have strategic goals behind this. And none of this would be possible, though, without the people themselves saying, no, we want to be free, and we will fight to the death if that's what's necessary. In that kind of situation. The West has, you know, at least from an optics perspective, in my view, you have no other choice other than to support them, because they're preaching what we want to hear.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 7:35
I think one of the things is important to never forget is that there is a true survive or die mentality among the Ukrainians. And they did they deserve to have that that opinion. And one of the things I watched, I watched, oh, maybe a quarter vote didn't have a chance to finish the whole thing. A gentleman who I refer to as an entertainment economist, he has some things that are interesting, but he's lost a lot of credibility with you. And I know that the other fellow that he was with is a, we'll call him a venture capitalist. He's an investment advisor. He has gone over there, he is actually fighting on the front lines. And he was very passionate about what he saw and the fact that and just paraphrase, he said, we're not fighting to win, we're fighting to survive. He said, the Russians literally kill us. Yes. And he went through a couple of examples of villages, cities, where every single person is murdered. And we're talking to civilians, we're talking children. And he made a very clear distinction, which you did a long time ago. And I try to do this as often as I can. People use words very loosely, like the word discrimination versus bias, and everything is lumped together. And two words that are lumped together are the words annihilation, and disseminate and decimation. And he said, you know, this is not in a lot of wars, you know, there is decimation you lose 10% of your population of your manufacturing of your land, you know, everything because we're talking not 10% Were talking to annihilation, they were talking, they have a long history. And he went through a couple of examples, which you are incredibly familiar with. They just wiped everything out. So
Paul Truesdell, II 9:24
well. Yeah, that's I was gonna say is, remind me about that. Because there's there was a huge turning point, my mentality and observing this very early, well, before it even started. That really changed my perspective on what was going on. Well, I'll
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 9:38
give you a quick setup on that. And I'll finish one item, something that you can see now on the interwebs the u u b to B's. The Russians just recently did a parade and I mean that by that is they paraded all of these Ukrainian children out. Oh yeah, that's disgusting. And and if you I'm dead, sir. As you look in the eyes of these children, it says everything I, I gotta tell you, I'm too old to go to war. Although there are men over there who are more than 10 years older than me and 20 years old or me fighting, maybe 20 is pushing it buttons pushing
Paul Truesdell, II 10:14
it, but but definitely there are plenty, plenty older, that even if they're not on the front lines, although I know of one that is definitely older,
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 10:21
you got a guy was he 7475 literally on the front lines. Yep.
Paul Truesdell, II 10:25
But you know, most people that are your age or older are definitely doing things and support capacities do leveraging their wisdom and their perspective and their knowledge of managing people or supplies or doing other things that, that they're very capable of doing.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 10:42
And I'll let you work into this. We, we so you look in the eyes, these children, and I got to finish this up. If I was a young man in my 20s single, I mean, I can see myself, you know, when I was working in law enforcement saying, You know what, I'm done. Maybe I would go over, maybe if I had, you know, military training, I would say, you know, this is just humanely wrong. It's not a white, a black, a yellow No, it's it's
Paul Truesdell, II 11:09
inhumane, inhumane. And the other thing is really simple. I mean, that's what it is. It's is a lack of respect for other human beings. And it's the whole situation is grotesque. And the reason the reason it angers me the most more than anything else, is people like to make excuses for things and whatever most most of these these, the rationale for the conflict is just made up paranoia, schizophrenic crap from the Kremlin, and other other Kremlin associated mouthpieces. Like I'm not even joking. Like, they're many, most of these things have zero shred of credibility, and the shred of and, okay, let's say they have a little bit of credibility, some of them do. But the bit of credibility comes from a place of such ignorance and lack of understanding of how the world works. It's hard to even understand how you can come to these conclusions and actually take them serious. I mean, one of the things going back to the very beginning was this was this complaint about oh, the Bio Labs are these people. I thought back then this is just ridiculous. How can anybody believe this, and I'm honestly now at the, at a place where I very much have a part of me thinks that these people are so civilization ly retarded, in the truest sense of the word like they are, they're backward. And I'm not making fun of them. I'm not, you know, using as a pejorative amusing in the truest sense of the word, their civilization really backward to the point that a large portion of their population believes really stupid stuff like this. Yep. And, you know, it's, there's lots of proxy evidence to talk to, to come to these conclusions. I mean, the the ultimate example that we've talked about before, is just a huge portion of the population that still goes to the bathroom and outhouses. Now, that's not to say that there's anything really technically wrong with that. I mean, there's probably some plenty of circumstances of people doing that in the US where it makes sense because you're living rurally or whatever. But we still managed to solve that problem.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 13:11
We don't have outhouses in within the, let's say, 2030 mile radius of oak of the city of Tampa. And you can't say that about any place in Russia. No, not what not Moscow and St. Petersburg not anywhere?
Paul Truesdell, II 13:25
No, no. And it's also just, you know, the language and the manipulation of the population. There's a lot of aspects of this I mean, a good example I saw one today that the leader the of Chechnya, who is like a little surf to Putin. He, let's see, his name is Ramzan Kadyrov, he awarded himself the hero of Chechnya medal. That's like, that would be like Biden getting up and giving him like, was the Freedom Award. It'd be giving it to himself, though. Right. Everybody thought it was a little silly that Obama gave it to Biden, when he was before he left office? Yep. Well, thought was a little silly. But also, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, I think most people thought Biden was done with politics after that. So it kind of made sense, right? Sure. I mean, you know, in the grand scheme of things like Homer Tatum, you know, he's an old man. Most people thought he was retired from politics. And, you know, he's been in the government for a million years. And, you know, in the grand scheme of things, I guess he's done some things that you know, some people agree with, and whatever he definitely an iconic US senator, no question. They're just given the length of so Okay, sure. This guy is Catterall. He's given it to himself. Like, it's just it's comical. And the worst part is, is you know, the history of Chechnya is so gross with how the Russians have treated them. And you have this leader who just sucks up to to Putin and the the Russian regime, despite the conflicts that they had with Russia in my lifetime. Not just, you know, one generation ago 234 No, no. Like most living people in Chechnya, other than, like babies. Remember this? I mean, this conflict like this is this conflict is going on when we invaded Iraq in 2004.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 15:17
Oh, yeah, most people don't realize the methodical re acquisition of some of the old Eastern Bloc. Oh, yeah. territories. Yeah, I
Paul Truesdell, II 15:27
mean, most people have no idea that there's you know, country by the name of Moldova. Moldova is not part of the EU. And it is not part of NATO. It is a the best I saw somebody who described the Moldova and situation in the history of Eastern Europe. And I won't go into it because it's a whole long story, but basically, he described them as a breakaway state of a breakaway state. Because Moldova is like a breakaway state of Romania, gotten used to all kind of be part of the same big blob. And going back to the Soviet kind of a Bolshevik era, when the Soviet Union was in expansionist mode. This was a piece that was there was a lot of conflict over. And so Moldova has this like chunk that's kind of broke off anyway. But but there's a section but Moldova is interesting, because it's not part of the EU. It's not part of NATO, even though they have a, you know, a fairly small, susceptible country, not a lot of population density, mostly rural farmers, kind of like you get in that general area. But they're not they'd have no protection agreements from anybody. Nobody knows why. Because most people don't know they don't even know recent history. It's because they have a section of their territory that is under dispute. And that that area is called Transnistria. And that piece of trans vein, you know, not Transylvania, that's north.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 16:48
That is actually a place by the way. So, Dracula does live there. But Dracula besides Putin in Moscow, this place is really cool. Go ahead.
Paul Truesdell, II 16:58
Yeah, it's just a little strip. So Transnistria is this little strip of land. So it's a breakaway of a breakaway state basically, is the point. And it sits between its northern border, I believe, if it doesn't touch, it gets really close to Romania. Its western border is Moldova. And its eastern border is Ukraine. And this breakaway territory, you can't see because this is audio only. But I'm, I'm doing finger quotes right here. This breakaway territory is occupied by Russia. And this happened in the
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 17:29
90s. Oh, another one of those little incursions? Yep, exactly. In the middle of night, we're here to help stabilize things.
Paul Truesdell, II 17:37
And as we speak, there's a lot of interesting stuff going on politically with this because Moldova, there's talks of reintegration of Moldova, back into Romania, and then kind of merging together. There needs to be resolution on this Transnistrian issue, because Russia still has about 2000 troops there. And they also have what is believed to be the largest stockpile of Soviet ammunition in artillery, artillery and regular ammunition in all of Europe. Really? Yeah. The problem with Russia is it can't get it out. It's not useful for them. So what's interesting is Russia
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 18:15
can 2000 guys are pretty easy to overwhelm, especially when we've seen how are they behave
Paul Truesdell, II 18:22
in but since the beginning of the war, Russia has not been able to fly a plane, do anything. So it's very, it's a very interesting problem for them. Because it is completely landlocked due to their let's just call ineptitude. But that aside, I mean, the Transnistria situation is a thing we could talk about for an hour by itself. But so to just kind of remind people as you have that, in this in, what by up by the Baltics, you've got Kaliningrad, which is a piece of territory
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 18:55
I have. I've never understood how that damn thing exists.
Paul Truesdell, II 18:59
political compromise. Yeah. It's no different than how Berlin you have Berlin was an island in the middle. And we basically did it to them. Right. Same thing, go and
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 19:09
finish it up. Because I know we're Finnish. People don't know what you're talking about. I guarantee it. Yeah. So
Paul Truesdell, II 19:13
you've got you've got Kaliningrad, which is, which is a breakaway territory that the Soviets were able to retain. And then you go, but so that's an old one. But let's look just things that have happened in the recent recent history. Basically, since I've been alive, you have trends in Israel. That's a that's a problem that was acquired land after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Okay. Next you have this situation in Ukraine. They acquired or attempted to what the the Hans can Donetsk they only got part of those. And then Crimea. Okay. So we have what to separate additional territories because most people view those as two separate things. So now we have three separate territorial disputes. But there's another one that nobody talks about. There's actually two. It's with Georgia, not the state, but the country.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 20:06
Because that is not the peaches Peach State.
Paul Truesdell, II 20:09
No, and I'm pretty sure that last, you know, 50% of Americans just right off the top. They're
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 20:13
not our listeners, our listeners tend to be a little a little higher caliber. I would I would hope. So. Magnitude of 1000.
Paul Truesdell, II 20:20
I would hope so. But I just mean, I'm just generally speaking, because most people just don't know that there. There is a country called Georgia. Yeah, so that one's particularly particularly interesting. But there are two land grabs there. And I won't go into the details of it. But you know, those happened in one and 2008. And one prior to that, where they went in, and they fought over these disputed territories. And it actually origins go back even further. But, you know, Georgia suffered the same fate that Ukraine did in in that they lost to the Russian military. But in both cases, of Ukraine and Georgia, the the future was foretold on how this a true world with with Russia would would play out if people took it seriously. Because they were so incompetent and so inept at fighting people that almost couldn't fight back. You know,
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 21:14
and let's be blunt about it. That has been the Russian mo for Yeah, many 100 years. Russia can't Russia can't fight. They can't they never have
Paul Truesdell, II 21:22
and this is this is they can kill a lot of people. When I say they can't fight doesn't mean they literally can't fight but Russia can't fight
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 21:32
in an organized, methodical manner. Yes, command and control and logistics and supply. They can't
Paul Truesdell, II 21:38
do it. They can't fight an organized and effective combined arms. Military. In the end, they just don't have the capability of doing right. And
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 21:47
one of the things people always talk about is they'll say things like, well, you know, the Russians beat Adolf Hitler and Stalin grad and yada yada yadi, the weather and other issues beat Hitler there. And a Fado, lack of resources and then go on and on
Paul Truesdell, II 22:04
the Soviets one in the 40s against the Germans for one reason, the Germans had to fight a two front war. Well, it ended up being more than that in the end. But anyway, and then they also the Soviets got infinite supplies from the west. Correct. In modern day numbers, trillions and trillions of dollars of supplies went from the west to the east. And if it wasn't for that the Russia would have would have collapsed, you know, but I honestly think probably just based on my reading of, you know, the timelines and how desperate the Soviets were, and all this stuff, probably by 43, like it would have been done. Yeah, they would have totally collapsed. Maybe there would have been this like, weird state in, you know, I guess what, what east of the Urals, but it's that wouldn't have been a territory that anybody cared about. And the Soviet state as it existed would have would have been done, would have been created and, and done within 50 years. Yeah. But I think it's important for people to remember like, our support for Ukraine doesn't even amount to you know, that doesn't amount to hardly anything by comparison to that conflict. I mean, in the US, whatever the guy's name is an Italian guy, a Chef Boyardee. He got a Hero of the Soviet Union, order of Stalin or something award. Nobody knows that, by the way, and several other people did. Several other American industrialists who became and the reason for that was because we supplied so much canned ravioli, that the Soviet soldiers needed to literally survive. They gave that award to him. And it wasn't just ravioli. It was other products that they were able to make and in ship, but, you know, by the time that the the Soviet Union wasn't was marching on, on Berlin, they were driving American vehicles shooting American ammunition is ridiculous. And that and it goes back to World War One radios. You know, just everything there. They were using. By that, by the point that point, you know, America was the workshop of the world for that war. And it's just baffling for me that most people don't even know that.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 24:18
So I'm a I'm a little guy and my uncle, great uncle Walt was in World War One. And Walt got shot in the forehead, and he was carried off to a barn and left for dead. And instead of being dead, he was knocked out and when you will get a bad concussion yet a bad concussion. He woke up, looked around, saw all these dead people around him in different body parts and ran out yelling great Caesars ghost. And this was during the white and red revolution, right after World War One.
Paul Truesdell, II 24:57
It's just a continuation of the bowl. Civic revolution. And people don't realize that the the Soviet government did not actually win instantaneously. And they had to deal with revolts against their seizing of power. And this this, this this period lasted what, two, three years after the closure of World War One. Yes, it's in the same time period, the teens
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 25:22
so it Walt's still in the US Army and he is up there supplying with all the other Americans, the Russians and make a long story short. I remember the big family reunions back in the in the 60s. And he would say he never swore never swore. This is a man who lived to be over 100 and never had indoor plumbing. He would go outside to take a dump and lived up in in the middle part of Michigan. So he was his hardcore. Absolutely. Did he have the money? Yeah. Did he ever have a driver's license? No. The cops do anything with them? No, he was he was just an outstanding upstanding outstanding citizen but he's tell a story. And my dad used to say to me, I'll never swears he's a sales damn Russians was a damn fools because they would get the vehicles off the boats. And they would just drive like maniacs didn't check the for oil there could have been. He said the number I remember him telling his great stories and this damn fool. He said this almost verbatim. Damn fool drove this brand new truck brand new Ford truck, mash to gas shifted the gears got about 400 yards down the road engine blew up. Because the thing it leaked. Things leak on the way over from from their side of the pond. Now, that's just what they did. And he's the waste was unbelievable. And he never understood why we didn't go in and mop up phase two, just like my dad never understood why we didn't do that. After World War Two. Yeah. And they would they would sit back, you know, one fought in World War One, one and World War Two. And then they would sit back in the 60s in talking about this kind of stuff like, and before my birth.
Paul Truesdell, II 27:09
I think it's important to make it clear, because I don't think it was that was in the US military after World War One. I think the year this happened was 1916 or 17. And well, that would be the middle of the war anyway, whatever it was 16 or 17. I think it was actually technically after World War One and completed. And this is the uprisings against the Soviet coup that happened against the Tsar regime. Yep, exactly. And people don't realize that the Western powers created a little coalition I think was the US Britain, couple other people. And we actually sent people and supplies up to some of these northern ports to assist the the what's called the whites because it was the the white. I think Cossacks versus the reds, Russian communists, right. And we basically helped him for a short time, but for one reason or another. The history on that's extremely controversial. But anyway, politics didn't last long. And we backed out. But what's interesting is where did those people go? After the they lost the fight? Generally speaking, do you know?
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 28:30
No, I really don't. You probably doesn't. Oh, that's right. I knew that. I'm sorry. Didn't even
Paul Truesdell, II 28:34
do there's tons and tons and tons of stuff that happened. Ukraine has fought Russians forever. Russia, people like to talk about, you know, the history. It's just a continuation
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 28:44
of an ongoing struggle that's been going on for 100 years. Oh, it's over 100 years? Well, 19 Yes, conflict
Paul Truesdell, II 28:51
has been going on since since Muscovy was founded. Correct? Because people don't realize the Keven rousse are from Ukraine. Russia spawned from Ukraine. Russia is like this bastard child demon spawn of the people that founded Ukraine, at least in as far as modern history is concerned. And that's funny. There was I do like that demon spawn. It's what they are, man. It's it's because you literally cannot negotiate with crazy. You cannot have a rational argument with crazy. And that's what's going on in Russia. And everybody says, Oh, you're
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 29:28
making a big, you know, it really is.
Paul Truesdell, II 29:31
The thing you have to remember is it's is it a broad generalization? Yes. But it is. Is it an accurate representation of the people who have run the Russian state for the past 120 years? I would say yes. The people that have run that state that people who have been able to climb the ladders of success in that country, since the Bolshevik Revolution have been nothing but you know, in the West, we just call them evil. There are some of the most backward, awful people, especially to their own people. And in particular, they use an abused their own people for personal gain, and their own narcissistic insane desires of conquest. And it just happens over and over. And there's obviously nothing that's going to change their mind. They'll lose, they'll rebuild, and they'll come back with with another group of people. I mean, it's just, it's just what they do. But the point is, is that, you know, there's a funny meme in the beginning of the war, that or before the war started where Ukraine was taunting Russian, Ukrainian politicians were taunting Russian politicians with a picture of Moscow, you know, circa the year like 1400. And it was just a picture of a swamp. And then it showed a picture of Kyiv in the same year, and there's a painting or something like that of what it looked like, because Keith has been there for a long, long, long, long time. I mean, Kiva is old enough that it got invaded by Mongols.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 30:59
Yes. Like, that's those were the days of that boy called Jingis. That's a long time him
Paul Truesdell, II 31:05
or his son. I don't recall, like the timeline. But yeah, exactly. And it's, it's not that there's anything wrong, or that one's better than the other as far as Oh, they were founded first or last, or whatever. But it just shows you that there's this relationship there. And for some reason, there's a hatred behind a lot of these, let's just call them psychotic leaders of Russia. And they disliked the fact that Ukrainians have a distinct and separate identity, that throughout most of their history, they have attempted to get away separate. And they don't want to be part of this, you know, this, this, this Russian Empire concept. And, and honestly, I mean, a lot of this stuff also goes back to, you know, to Czarist Russia, as well. There's, there's conflicts and fights that happen there, too.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 31:53
And we I bring that up, and I wanted you to chat a little bit about that is my point for everyone is that there is no history, there is no history of any substance of a peaceful transfer of power in Russia. This is true. And we can go back to Gorbachev, we can go back to, you know, Brezhnev dies, and all of a sudden, everything goes go sideways, you had a Yeltsin having to get back into power and the famous picture of him standing on a tank, sure. You know, just like we had Bush standing on the rubble next to the old firefighter on 911. You know, that was one of those Kodak moments. But, you know, we have too many people today who have lived such a soft life for so long that, you know, cracks are viewed as potholes and potholes are viewed as roadblocks, and roadblocks are viewed as the end of the world. And if none of that is true, we will have some very serious armed conflict, whether it can be kept within the borders of Russia. Not a high probability of that. But you know, maybe, but there's so many things that you can, you can, if you just think about it, one of the things is that if you connect the dots, you can see here in the United States that we have, especially among Trump supporters to hard core Trumpers, who are you know, saying things like we should support Russia and Ukraine is being run by Biden in his son's laptop computer and all that. But I call back to the days of Baghdad Bob, where your Baghdad Bob, the public relations guy for Iraq, was, oh, no, the Russians or the Americans or not, we will defend it. The tanks are right there, Bob. And bow No, no, we will take those out. We will Are you Are you nuts. They're their soldiers. Like, we gotta give the guy credit. He
Paul Truesdell, II 33:52
he does his job. He knows. Yeah, he lied. Spectacular, spectacularly? Well, I think
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 33:57
he wound up living in France and working for a public relations firm Sirsa I don't I've never looked him up. Yeah. But here's the thing. I say this, because one of the things that the Russians have been saying that they will use nuclear weapons against Ukraine and anybody else, if they go ahead and take Russian land, which is now Crimea, and people don't understand. That was part of Ukraine. And what Russia has, I mean, you gotta give these guys they got Huzzah. I got Coneys. We invaded. We took it, we wrote a piece of paper that we annex it now. It's ours. So if you want it back, you're now invading us. And we get to use the ultimate weapons against you. This is the kind of logic parading little girls out who are being held captive in Russia for breeding purposes. You look at these kids, it's like,
Paul Truesdell, II 34:49
well, not only that, but there's a what is it? There's a PR ceremony of some sort where Putin gave a metal or something to some woman who were As a Ukrainian adoption agency, Ukrainian child adoption agency really Yeah, like the stuff goes all the way to the top and it's in, it's rotten. I mean, I was gonna mention earlier, you know that one of the things that really changed my view on this in a much more in hindsight realistic perspective kind of washed away a lot of the PR and the the, it's called the media brainwashing the they've they've done a pretty, pretty good job at convincing us that they were very different that they had changed their ways. And they were just like us was looking, I think of some Ukrainians who are sharing it, but they shared from the Georgian war. Okay, in 2008, they shared pictures of satellite pictures of villages, where a lot of the conflicts had happened, where the Russians had done exactly what we now are completely desensitized to, which is the Russians will just raise an entire village with artillery, they'll just destroy every last bit of it, they literally bomb them to the stone age level, every structure in the village. And then you know, these are picture satellite pictures from 2008 You know, the war only lasted a couple of weeks. And then you compare that to satellite pictures from like, last year or the year before whatever it was, nothing has changed. Absolutely nothing has changed other than the fact that the Earth has basically taken the village back all you can see is the well worn vehicle marks or roads that are disappearing. Or you know, in another five or 10 years it's gone. They say that all we're here to protect civilization and people from being oppressed. Where is the village because I can tell you every time we didn't shit like this overseas, we bomb a village we do things whatever. What's the what's the one thing that everybody complains about? That we do and we have worse we do either big or less money because Marshall plans USA go there and we rebuild roads and all this stuff. Because at the end of the day, we feel bad we blew your stuff up. Yup, some some some assholes came in and you know, took a village hostage and you gotta do you gotta do you gotta beat him. But then okay, we feel bad. We're gonna come back and rebuild it. Okay, cool. Make sense? These guys now they just move you to another village and keep on moving. They don't care. There's no There's no desire to fix anything or
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 37:23
any you don't want to move they dig dig a hole they do they kill you and buried. Yeah, and and there's a lot of that.
Paul Truesdell, II 37:30
No question. But I just to me, it was just one of those things. It was like, like people were born there. People live there, like families are created and destroyed in these places. And these people just don't they just they have no regard for the people that occupied these occupied these territories that used to live there. So that's when I mean, I think I saw that before the war, but it made a big impact on me. And now that now we can see it. We've seen it for a year. You can see it happen every day. And it just shows you that all of their their lip service that they give to oh, we're here to Weaver which protecting people from you know, the evil fascist, Jewish Nazi Bio Lab, super NATO soldiers, the you know, the Western Zelinsky, the drug addict Zelinsky and his Western cocaine distributors, you know, are imposing upon the mind brain controlled people of Ukraine. All of those things are like little propaganda pieces from Russian TV or media. It's it's actually funny not not to get into now but but they make these ridiculous accusations that they're there to help the people. How I don't I don't understand what what part of what part of this is help. And and obviously the same thing takes place not just in Georgia, but every other place. They go, they just bring death and destruction with them. And it's terrible.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 38:46
Well, if you take the word help, and you flip the P and make a little modification that does not help as hell they bring with them.
Paul Truesdell, II 38:54
For some people out there is no question. So as
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 38:56
as this war drags on this quote, conflict as some people like to talk about or dispute over land, which is always amazing to me. The state owned industries in Russia are suffering. Always remember, never forget, if it wasn't for the US. China would be on its back and just be a big, dumb, nation. Same thing with Russia, we supply technology. And of course, depending upon the circumstances, high end technology and manufacturing comes from us low incomes from over everywhere else. And the Russians are running out of stuff and they don't have big brother to bail him out. No coming up. So now they're going to be relying on China. Now China better be concerned because you know, they get involved. And they're going to have a problem because the private militias and militaries like I said with Gazprom and the Wagner group and etc. You could easily see some real serious issues there. There's a lot of things We can tie together and one of the things I'll take a quick, quick item here, as a registered investment advisor, our firm Truesdell wealth now is the name of the firm. To choose a wealth. What we have is a military war military procurement, but a war portfolio. If you're interested in that, give us a call, leave a message at 212-433-2525. If you're interested in our war portfolio, give us a call at 212-433-2525 Leave a message and we'll get back with you we tend to we're very busy. But that is something that I think a lot of people no matter what your age you should be prepared for. And it makes a lot of sense to me. But with China, they can make some very quick, bad miscalculations, because a lot of you may not realize, but I call it suburbia, but it's actually Siberia. In Siberia, they supposedly had a poll referendum, and they want out, they want to be their own state. Yeah,
Paul Truesdell, II 41:01
it was a section of Siberia wasn't the whole thing, obviously. But But yeah, there's, there's rumblings of different areas in the country that are not satisfied with the central government leadership. And, obviously, you know, one's one thing and you start seeing more
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 41:18
exactly, you know, one is one to, you know, that whole concept, but it's, it's, it's a, it's a data point that that we have to pay a lot of attention to. And I think the other thing that you brought my attention to, which I knew, but until you mapped it out, a lot of those far will call Eastern settlements in Siberia, or the Russian version of suburbia. And is suburbia, because there's nothing that goes on over there. You know, as I said, burp the, the a lot of those places are run by Chinese.
Paul Truesdell, II 41:53
Yes, the Chinese have a huge influence, in particular, in the economies of the villages and areas in, in, let's just call it eastern Russia, which makes sense. I mean, they're they're the large dominant power in Asia, and obviously, this area's just north Asia effectively. But yeah, there's, there's a huge amount of influence on primarily the economy, you know, you go to a random, you know, corner store, in some mildly populated village and Siberia, and you're gonna see mostly Chinese goods.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 42:28
So what we look at, in our firm is, yes, Ukraine. In the war, there is one thing, but NATO has actually grown a set of NADs and they're helping them and, and it's changing now. I got to tell you, the Russians make one bad move. If they start talking about taking over polling again, those people are gonna, they're gonna, they're gonna go after it. Okay. So you got that going on. But what I think people are not talking about, nobody's talking about this, in my opinion, is what we will do, if and when it's not a question of if it's when Russia falls, and the Chinese begin to annex Siberia, that puts them really close to Alaska. And that happens to be one of our states, I granted, we got the 48 and we got Hawaii and Alaska. But that's going to be a total game changer. And and we've got a pop, a pop economist and entertainment economist is making a lot of rounds out there. And some of this stuff is pretty good. But some of it is completely off. One of the things he says that the US is pulling back on this navy, we're not doing these things, we're not gonna protect shipping and etc, etc, etc. I got news for you, there is a repositioning of assets in the event that something happens. We've got a big buffer between us with the with the Europe, Western Europe, but we don't have the kind of buffer be a big ocean of the Pacific. But we need a muscle up over there. And I think you got to say yet a real careful attention to our carrier groups and where they're going to what's going on.
Paul Truesdell, II 44:13
Yeah, there. There's a lot of possibilities on what could shake out there. I don't know I don't I don't have a firm grasp on what anybody's willing to do, largely because I think everybody's very hesitant to project anything because nobody really knows what they're doing.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 44:27
But it's fair, I think men and women in the country, you need to be playing board games in your own head and getting used to the potential of who, you know, you're not gonna get an iPhone for the next three years because we're at war with China.
Paul Truesdell, II 44:40
I don't think there's ever going to be a full on war with China. No, I agree with you to what a lot of people think. I think the thing that the issue of China's is going to be you know, I've said this before, they are a very, very, very powerful regional actor and They don't have the capability in long term, they don't have the ability to to sustain it, for sure. They don't have the capability of creating or maintaining that in any significant for any significant amount of time.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 45:14
And they do have a baby boomer problem, they do have an aging population, they do have a regressive population in terms and you know, people are even talking that will India be the next China in terms of manufacturing. They're already doing a lot. But there's a mindset as far as work ethic and other things.
Paul Truesdell, II 45:35
There's also just the fact that they're a country that's not larger on paper anyway, then China, by population, and they have to do a lot, they have to make a lot of stuff just to sustain themselves. And they're a very, they've, they're an interesting country where they, they have a lot of domestic manufacturing pride. And they want they want to be in control of their own destiny, which makes all the sense in the world to me, they've they're learning. They're learning a lot of lessons that other people haven't. But yeah, there's there's a lot of interesting potential for how things play out. When let's just call it the transition period happens with Russia? Because so something interesting that happened is that
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 46:16
the world is not ending, folks. Just so you know, that no, no far, far from it.
Paul Truesdell, II 46:21
But there is something interesting that has happened in the past week is that the Chinese proposed Chinese foreign minister went to Russia went to Moscow met with Putin and all this. And he he laid out this grand strategy, his grand presentation about how Oh, it's there, the great Chinese plan to solve the Ukraine, Russia war, and most people saw it and just kind of laughed, because it's silly. It's a very dumb plan. It you know, there's several points in there that it's it's known, no explicit names, but it's basically complaining about the our sanctions and these sorts of things. And their solution is basically, Ukraine just needs to capitulate. Because, you know, we just, we, it's this is causing too many problems. It's like, well, it is. But the thing that's to me, that's very interesting is a lot of people viewed this as dumb, or childish. And it is both of those things, no question. But it to me, it makes me wonder what the real purpose of it is. Are the Chinese this short side of this? Do they have this this high opinion of themselves to think that this would go over? Well, because it's kind of embarrassing. You mean,
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 47:36
like the video of will show your passport and everything is going to be fine? Absolutely. We'll talk about that another time that that's just way too deep that we can get into. But so
Paul Truesdell, II 47:47
my, my, my thinking on this is, initially it was like, Okay, this is just standard Chinese hubris and childish kind of thinking. But another part of me also wonders is if this is China, pacifying Russia, of saying, Hey, we're doing something, but also complaining about the obvious problems that they will have if they start very clearly supplying Russia with especially lethal aid. And it makes me wonder if this is just one step, and kind of, like I said, pacifying them in the short term, knowing that there's nothing they can really do. That doesn't hurt their own position severely. And they also don't get along with the Russians like it's it's a it's a well, yeah, I mean, people partnership made in hell, for the most part because they they both I mean, they Russia in the United States have, we've we have rivalries, we have proxy wars against each other. We've never fought directly,
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 48:44
as opposed to the Chinese and the Russians in the sino Russian war. And people had more than one by the way.
Paul Truesdell, II 48:50
Yeah, they had, but they, but they've directly fought and they've had this kind of not so easy relationship for a long time,
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 48:59
which was the fundamental flaw among those in the CIA and other type organizations back in the 40s 50s. And 60s and into the 70s, where they thought there was an unholy alliance between these guys and there isn't.
Paul Truesdell, II 49:15
Yeah, when the reality was they hated each other just as much as you know, the Soviets hated the United States and vice versa.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 49:21
We Yeah. Last. In last episode, we talked about I think we talked about last episode about the Chinese invading Vietnam. Yes. Nobody, nobody knows. And they had their ass handed to him. So yeah.
Paul Truesdell, II 49:33
You know, so I part of me wonders if this is just pacifying the Russians like, Hey, we're all nuclear powers. Yep, you're great. I'm just kind of giving them lip service to try and get through this. Because the Chinese are desperately dependent on Russian coal and oil exports and natural gas, because China has very few of any of those.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 49:55
Yeah, and the reason why China is building nuclear power plants is they have to they, yes, they they dam up. They dam up insane rivers and sizes, and there's only
Paul Truesdell, II 50:07
so much hydroelectric power you can get even if you have the kind of rivers that China does. Yeah. So I guess in in my thinking is that there's, it makes me wonder how pragmatic the transition will be, you know, people inside the Russian government, it would behoove them to deal with Putin in a way that is, let's say, forceful, but in a peaceful, very sane transition, if that makes sense. Yep. Like Putin has ruined his reputation. And that is what it is. And that's something he's gonna have to live with. And whether he lives with it for three or four seconds, or for 10 or 20 years, into his Twilight, that's going to be up to him. And I don't know, I mean, I it to me, it seems like he's not willing to give up. Because his fate is now totally intertwined with this conflict, he went from potentially having a Stalin like, reputation, into, you know, historical reputation, as someone who, you know, may have not been the best person but you know, shepherded the state and blah, blah, blah, very long lasting leader. And now he's somebody who is going to likely either be pushed out or die in the middle of a massive cataclysm, cataclysmic conflict. That is not as bad as World War Two. And, you know, nobody's marching on Moscow. But it is hugely embarrassing for the Russian state. And, you know, for him and for his legacy, you know, it's either going to be he voluntarily gives up and admits defeat, or it's going to be you know, he, I think people talk about, oh, people are gonna kill them XY or z, I think, you know, in reality, you'll have a Stalin situation where he'll die from unknown circumstances. And then there'll be a power struggle afterwards to figure out who's in charge. Now, will there be a power struggle? Or will it be a peaceful transition, and this person manages the let's call to defeat in Ukraine, I don't know. This is the problem with a lot of Putin's, let's call it some people management skills, where he's been able to perfectly intertwine most of the obvious players that you would want that have, you know, some amount of influence or cachet among the people. And he's been able to perfectly intertwine everybody into this responsibility for the war. And that's a dangerous thing. Because you know, you could have this you could have an unknown Dark Horse appear, that is of unknown quantity that isn't not unknown quantity. You start power. Is that likely? I don't think so. I think it's gonna be one of the one of the idiots that we all know a little too well, and this next leader may be worse than Putin himself. Yeah. And
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 53:02
if you think about the movie, The Hunt for Red October, that was the fear in that movie.
Paul Truesdell, II 53:07
And, you know, the question for that ultimately ends up being, does that just lead to the next conflict? Or does the intolerance the unwillingness to tolerate I guess, this new person who has potentially worse lead to the civil conflict that we're talking about? I don't know. But all I know is that the United States doesn't want an unstable Russia despite the conflict. China definitely doesn't. And most in Europe, don't
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 53:34
you want to have some type of continuity of government? You don't want everybody to go into Mad Max mode?
Paul Truesdell, II 53:42
No. Now Matt, here's the thing Mad Max mode with with with a country like, I don't know, Uzbekistan, or even like Turkey, somebody of that stature would be a problem, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. Russia, on the other hand, would be a serious problem. Regardless of whether there are trees growing out of their silos, or they have random let's call to missile silos filled with water. And some other funny stuff that I've read. I can actually pull that up for you guys.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 54:16
Yeah, what'd you do that I want to tie in something here in China, you see these massive, massive numbers of soldiers who are in Parade rest and there's one going around right now among the the Trump Republicans the mega, the mega tardes if you want to call them that they well they are you know, it's just it's gotten to the point where it's so embarrassing. And I saw this article and this guy well, I saw the video and it's impressive, you know, you know, Moe, Moe and Moe are all standing there in their in their mohair cuts in remote little mo jackets and holding their rifles. And this guy just goes off on saying there's no way that we could defeat an army of that size. Look at them 1000s and 1000s and hundreds of 1000s of these soldiers, you know, they'll, we have to we have to, we have to get along with them. But the problem is long guys such it's
Paul Truesdell, II 55:14
just the optics corrupt but the thing is amazing as one people who are impressed by that stuff are usually simpletons. Oh, yeah. But the other thing is, is they get, they get airtime, they'll pass media, but that mentality, though I just don't understand it. It's just Oh, well, the other person looks stronger. So I'll just just capitulate to me. That is the I just don't understand mentality at all. Because, you know, in my mind, I, you know, we might be so far removed from it. It's crazy, but I still have this like, kind of cowboy mentality like, Oh, you want to fight? Well, then let's go. Yeah, well, you like, Oh, you're threatening nuclear weapons, and everything. It's like, Well, I hope yours are in tip top shape as ours are, because I know we spend $100 billion dollars a year of our defense budget on keeping our nuclear arsenal up to date. I know you spend about 10% of that, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe that's a little optimistic, you know, good examples. Like, I was listening to another podcast the other day and this guy, fantastic interview, but part of what he was talking about as Eric Weinstein on Joe Rogan. And in general, it's a fantastic interview. But part of it he starts in he in a he injected a couple of places, like basically crying about, you know, the potential nuclear annihilation, and he's obviously somebody who's very deathly afraid of nuclear weapons. And it's like, okay, it's a it's an understandable fear, considering he's roughly your age and, and he's a Fiza. I don't think he's a physicist, but he's like physicists to Jason, and his work and everything. And, you know, I understand he has a legitimate, there's a legitimate fear from that, whatever. But that fear is not enough to convince me to back down from a fight either. And that's the thing I just don't get, well, here's
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 56:56
the thing, we got to pull something in there before I go back to my airsoft gun. thing. You know, you graduated a bunch of young men and women from the police academy, but sorry, girls, you graduate, a bunch of young men who are, boy, their picture perfect, you know, they're all like six foot six foot two, they're all 190 to 210 20 pounds, they got their uniforms, it's all press, they got their shiny badges, they're standing there, they're ready to go out and kick ass and take names. Guess what, at least half of them weren't worth the powder. They weren't, they weren't worth the effort to pin a badge on because once they get into a real fight, they fold like a cheap umbrella. Sure, I did the job I know. And you know, after they get their ass beat one or two times, like Oh, or the first shooting is nothing every time there's a shooting in an agency that people leave. It's always that way. So, you know, we've got a long history of fighting. But going back to my Chinese all standing like little 10 soldiers. Great example, you could see it. Some of the guns are carrying. They weren't real guns.
Paul Truesdell, II 57:58
No, that's a very, very funny phenomenon. When you have a military, that is, you know, the entire purpose of it based on how you describe it is, oh, we got to show big strength and all this stuff. You know, you got to do your big military parades and drive your missile trucks to the street and all that BS. But then those same people are not trusted enough to have real guns. Like, I'm sorry, but but if you don't trust your parade, troops have guns. I'm not afraid of the real ones.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 58:28
Yeah. And that's these are legitimate things, just like people said, oh, that's, that's just photoshopped. And they wouldn't use a Garmin GPS in one of their high tech helicopters or jets. Yeah, we're
Paul Truesdell, II 58:41
talking about the Russians in the circumstance. And yes, yes, they would. Yeah. Because and so well, so I was gonna mention real quick, the regarding the nuclear weapon thing. I found two will actually I think I saved these a long time ago. But anyway, ones from May, it's from a BBC journalist, and he talks about how he visited the Soviet Union, sometime after 1991 in 1991. And he filmed something at a Russian nuclear weapons site. This is when they were doing like radical openness, trying to convince everybody not to invade them that oh, we're going to be sane. And you know, because the Soviets were legitimately concerned that okay, this the government's collapsing, and we're just gonna get chopped up piece by piece by the rest of the world timing would have been good. And so they were doing this radical openness thing where they, you know, we let some of them come on our ships and vice versa. And, you know, that was around this time that Pepsi became the second largest Navy in the world, because the Russians needed the they needed cash and Pepsi was willing to give them a giant loan and in turn, they signed over the ownership of certain section of the Russian Navy to them. It's a very funny story. We got to talk about that one day. Yeah, there's all kinds of that transition period is wild like talk about wildlife Just like cowboy stuff. Anyway, so this guy said that he was a BBC journalist, and he was in Soviet Union and 91. And he said that a film that a nuclear weapons site and he said the missile launchers were too rusted to move. A quote from the CEO on site said that, quote, we haven't been able to fire missiles at you and at you or America in years. And this guy said, that never underestimate Russia's lethargy and chaos,
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 1:00:32
which that's a perfect segue to what I was going to say the number of weapons the that Russia has, is meaningless. We know for a fact, you and I, that they have they have artillery shells that are literally worthless.
Paul Truesdell, II 1:00:48
Yeah. Yeah, they're, they're crawling through, in my mind what the very last of what the Soviet stockpiles that what is usable from the Soviet stockpiles, based on pictures that I've seen, and you
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 1:01:00
have some artillery battery positions north of Ukraine, in Russia, where they were trying to do the original assault, they're down to two, they're down to two artillery shells, per installation, and it's just
Paul Truesdell, II 1:01:15
they're out know, the metric is that they're down to two artillery shells per day. I mean, there's a lot of these places, they're still still shooting off artillery and harassing. But but the quantity that they have available to do, so I miss
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 1:01:27
little very, very limited, but they used to shoot off 100 to 200. The same theory just yeah, not stuck. Now they're down to boom, boom.
Paul Truesdell, II 1:01:35
Yeah, I mean, I think, around the end of last year, Fall time period, there were a lot of estimates on how many artillery shells had been fired, and all of these things, and Ukraine situations even more complex, because, you know, the majority of their equipment is Russian, but they're only had so many stockpiles, and they're getting old Soviet stockpiles that are still in, that are in NATO. And then they also have all these American new American equipment, their shells are different, and all this stuff. So, you know, their supply situation is much more complex. But, you know, the estimates were that Russia had fired off, you know, three, four or 5 million artillery shells, and the Ukrainians have done a fraction of that. And despite all that, they had had some fairly phenomenal successes. And, and there was all kinds of analysis about how many artillery shells do they think the Russians have? How many can they produce, same analysis was done for us, you know, there's this, there's been this huge, you know, Berlin airlift style, global kind of reorganization on convincing everybody to manufacture things and, and how to do different things to pacified different people's non intervention policies and different things. But, you know, we've been able to figure it out. Because at the end of the day, a lot of these plans were to fight the Soviets, and we've been able to solve the problems. The Soviets on the other hand, the Russians don't have the Soviet manufacturing capability, because people forget so much of that manufacturing capability is in NATO countries. Obviously, a lot of its destroyed because it's worthless. But, you know, it wasn't NATO countries, it was in places like Ukraine, it was in places like Poland, Czech Republic, the Baltic states, and those places aren't there. They're not, they're not part of the Russian sphere of influence or control anymore. They're part of NATO. And it's a weird problem they find themselves in because they did not plan properly for the world that they now live in. They did not take seriously you know, this and, you know, part of it makes sense that they have this wacky let's call it re conquest of lost territories mindset. Because yeah, I mean, if you are born with that mentality, and you want this grand empire to exist, I don't see how you do it without these other territories because they never were able to before.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 1:03:55
Well, it's going to be interesting to see what what's going to happen here. What else do you have before I'm gonna wrap up on a couple of things because of the amount of time we put onto this because we're never gonna get to the other two topics I want to talk about.
Paul Truesdell, II 1:04:07
Yeah, so the only other item I just, it was from May as a reply to that tweet, and it was a guy who was a member of parliament in the UK, so obviously, they probably know each other. Brits on on Twitter, he said that in 2006, when he was with the what is it the foreign affairs committee in the British Parliament? He visited a civil nuclear reactor at Moscow University. And he said that the trees and bushes were growing through the fence. The security alarm wasn't working. And the Geiger counters they had with them. Were going crazy because of radiation levels leaking radiation leaking around fuel storage rooms. He said they left very quickly. That's 2006
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 1:04:54
Yeah, in this is not it will not have gotten better.
Paul Truesdell, II 1:04:58
Not dramatically. I can imagine it'd be dramatically better. I mean things in that early 2000s were rough for Russia and the transition. And there's a lot of stuff going on. But I mean, the thing is like, people who have that kind of disregard for important things like that don't change their, their habits very quickly. So
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 1:05:18
now, for those of you who are not familiar with us, I'm Paul Truesdell. And I'm Paul the elder. The other gentleman is Paul, the younger we share a name my, his father, he's my son. And we do this periodically, on an ad hoc basis, we'll be doing a little bit more of this. But what we're doing is we're not painting an overly rosy or an overly dark picture, we look at things as forecasters, and we just call it the way we see it. You have the quantitative analysis, you do the numbers, then you have the qualitative, which is really hard. And there are gems that come across every once in a while that are amazing. And there are also people like a fellow who I'm not going to name him, but he's the current entertainment economist and know it all. That's out there spewing some interesting things, but he's off base on others, in our opinion. I was going to talk a little bit today, but we're gonna maybe save it for the next episode is gonna talk a little bit about real estate, real estate investment trusts, I was gonna talk a little bit about the transformation of shopping centers. It's a thing that I talked about about 20 years ago. And it's now becoming a really hardcore thing. And we'll talk a little bit about just in time delivery, Amazon and those sorts of things. And one of the other things we want to talk about, and I'm gonna let you take literally two minutes, just kind of what their whistle about time travel, quantitative mechanics, quantitative science, so just, it's, it's to me, it's just an amazing discussion. But you know, what, don't do that, you know, I want you to do I want you to tell everybody about the perfectly made pot out of a stone.
Paul Truesdell, II 1:07:06
Just, I can't do it in two minutes. That's it's just takes too much time. Okay, so
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 1:07:12
let's do this. Yes, sir. Yes or no? Ready?
Paul Truesdell, II 1:07:15
I know, I'll leave with one thing. Do One Thing, Thing. There is a really, really good interview. On Joe Rogan. If you have Spotify, it's worth listening to a lot of people a lot of what he says will go over people's heads. But if you're interested in it, there's a fantastic interview with this his name Eric, I think, Weinstein. He is a mathematician. And he talks he's, he's, he's apparently at the point in his life, where he's done trying to appease academia. And he's done. He's done being afraid of them. And he has a very interesting theory that he's proposing for a what's called a post einsteinium physics. And it's definitely worth listening to. He's very interesting guy. He obviously don't agree with everything he says. But he has a very interesting perspective on things. And I mean, it's to the point that I mean, he part of what he lays out is a conspiracy. And if it wasn't somebody of his stature, people would say that, Oh, he's nuts. But he lays out perfectly a grand conspiracy. And what's funny is, it's provable because he he outlines how a very faint, a very interesting story about how he as a as a young scientist, of course, he wasn't actually young, but you know, younger person. And anyways, he was a, I think he was a doctoral student or something like that, or postdoc postdoctoral student in Harvard. And it's very interesting, because he talks about how he started to get the idea for this, this theory, that is his life's work, basically. And he proposed part of it. And he was told by whoever was in charge at the time, in his department at Harvard, too, that in order to remain at the institution, that he he basically had to be an away professor or something like this. And he he had to leave the state of Massachusetts. And they basically they effectively and as many words, they booted him out of Harvard, because the idea that he came up with was so crazy. So they're like you're a deranged lunatic, you threaten our position. So by by, and he explains a lot of the characters involved in his field. He's not a he's not a he's not in the physics field, per se is more and more of a mathematician. But it's interesting because he talks about how a lot of his work is adjacent to physics. Right? And absolutely, and it's interesting because he lays out a lot of the characters particularly in quantum gravity, which is a subspecialty of physics, and st So the bleeding edge of, of research, primarily because of its at least very theoretical, very theoretical, entirely theoretical, and it's important because it's, it's, it's the area of research. That's what will replace the Einsteinian world that we've lived in for the past 8090 years.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 1:10:21
And that's the word is used for those who are the, oh, I would say the disciples of Albert Einstein, and everything has been solved theories. Yeah, is everything that he has come up with that's, that's, that's, that's in stone and done deal. It's not the way
Paul Truesdell, II 1:10:35
well, it works. It just stops working at a certain point, or convolutions, and there's, there's obvious issues that it doesn't completely solve. And there's an entire episode. But so the point is, is that he outlines a lot of the characters involved, and the interesting origins of these people. And a lot of it doesn't become clear why he's talking about this until the notes for this was very good. But the point is, is that he lays out how he comes up with this theory. And it's not totally accurate, but it's close. And it's very different. And it's definitely something that somebody who's an organ, an institution that's open book and is actually interested in research would be ecstatic to have people like this to come up with these things, even if they are wrong, because it gets people thinking about things, right. And so instead, they basically kick them out of the institution.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 1:11:25
You mean, he didn't subscribe lock stock and barrel to the string theory?
Paul Truesdell, II 1:11:29
No. And he moves on. Anyway, years later, he is at a I think he said it was at Harvard, but I'm not sure. Anyway, he's in a lecture hall. This is after he's at another university, I believe. And he's there listening to a lecture from a guy who is a God, let's say in this in this area of physics, and he says, the guy's name is EDWARD WITTEN. He, he calls him Voldemort at the beginning of the podcast, it's a there's a lot of reasons for it. Anyway, but this guy literally just gets up and gives out his talks about his theory. And the entire staff of the school is like, Oh, wow, this is amazing. Blah, blah, blah. And nobody understands what he's talking about. Well, no, they they do understand that's the scary part. They knew exactly what he was talking about. Just nobody was willing to say that this we had a student here who previously proposed this idea. There was one guy apparently, I think, some very some old, very tenured person brought this up, apparently, and, and, and the whoever was in charge, basically talked around and acted as if he had no idea who, who Eric Weinstein was or what his theory was. So it's just it's a case of the special people can propose new and interesting ideas. But if you're low on the totem pole, you don't have the, you don't have the institutional power to be able to propose anything new.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 1:12:50
And that's really important. You if you don't have the institutional power, you're considered a Freakazoid. Your risk. And just like during COVID, those of us who said stop, yeah, follow the epidemiology follow. The actual numbers follow the progression of viruses that have existed since the day and dawn of man. Oh, no, no, not this time. This time is totally different. Yeah, well, for all of you who you know, cost me time money lost friends. I wouldn't say they were ever friends but acquaintances. You can you can write a letter of apology to me and say you're sorry. Yeah. And then I'll I'll walk out in the in the backyard and I'll I'll unzip and piss on it. Because the hell with you. You're stupid down. You're stupid now and you're not worth my time. Okay, with that kind of firm,
Paul Truesdell, II 1:13:46
but I think it's a fantastic interview. And if you're interested in kind of it, we're gonna break it down. We've been talking about this for a long, long time. He just did an amazing job and credit. Credit goes where credit goes. Oh, he Thorogood Rogan did nice show. Oh, yeah. Fantastic. And that's what he does. I think it's a great interview, because he you have a guy who has been in it, and he throws the system under the bus. Because of their their stagnation, their their waste of people's lives on stuff that is a dead end. And it's very obvious that it's a dead end, but people's careers and tenure and, and grants and research, retire life, or life. And this is a general problem in science that, you know, keeps people like us to steer clear of research institutions with a 10 foot pole. Which is a shame because there's a lot of people doing that there's
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 1:14:36
not and research institutions are not necessarily places where everything's happening. There's, of course not you're so okay, here's what I want you to do. I want you to take a look at the book Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss. One of the most nicest things you ever said to me is that when we were talking about this, you made a comment that he basically articulated your philosophy of Horton Hears a Who but in His way, not in mind, I like to break things down in insanely simple. So people understand. I also want you to watch the movie contact, look up, either on them, go to Wikipedia or wherever you want to go to and read about what the movie contact was about Horton Hears a Who. And always remember, you got to break things down into the incredibly simple because this stuff gets really, really crazy. Now before we get out of here last week, and all we had some fun or whenever it was, we have fun with a couple of candidates that are running for office. And just want to share with you a couple of idiotic segments of a commercial that we had. And just remember, for those of you we're going to be voting in the special election for House District 24. Put a doctor in the house and now some of these morons,
Unknown Speaker 1:15:45
Marion County Republicans. Do you still support President Trump? The radical left and Rhyno Republicans want conservatives like you wouldn't need to abandon President Trump and his America first agenda. We will not comply the only candidate in the upcoming special election who has the courage to openly support Donald Trump. Despite all the witch hunts and attacks from the fake news media in the Washington DC swamp. On March 7, we have the opportunity to elect a representative who is pro life, pro jobs, pro gun, pro America and pro Trump. Let's face it, Donald Trump was right. He was right about the crisis at our southern border. He was right about the economy. And he was right about foreign policy. But in only two short years, Joe Biden has completely failed the American people, drugs and illegal immigrants are pouring across our border. The economy is collapsing and we can't even protect our own airspace against Chinese spy balloon. As your state representative I back against the Biden Harris regime and support Donald Trump and his America first policies. He's the only candidate who has pledged to do so. So join me in supporting her Florida State House District 24 In the upcoming Republican primary on March 7, pro Trump news pro America pro Trump means thanks for listening, paid for and approved for Florida State House District 24 call back number 352 Have a great rest of your day and God bless the United States of America.
Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF 1:17:30
So I wanted to finish up with that because we have some absolute retards running for the State House we have a guy who pledged to not run again term limits who decided to violate his pledge you guessed got people that are complete loons we got one guy actually knows what he's doing. So go to the polls and please do something may be different for a change. Don't get all emotional vote for facts. And remember, keep it real. ultrascale podcast is produced by the Truesdell media. Monkey job producer All rights reserved. People got no respect for the brain dead.
Unknown Speaker 1:18:09
Like to start with a list of people I can do without a proctologist with poor depth perception. Any woman whose hobby is breastfeeding zoo animals, a cross eyed nun with a bullwhip and a bottle of gin, a waitress with a visible infection on her serving hand. And any man whose arm hair completely covers his wristwatch. Okay, that's enough.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:04
And now it's time for Who do you trust hubba hubba hubba Money money money. Who do you trust me? On given away free Money
Unknown Speaker 1:19:59
Hello
Unknown Speaker 1:20:18
Mr. Madison, what you just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I've ever heard. At no point in your rambling incoherent response Were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul okay as simple wrong would have done just fine but you remain what?
Paul Truesdell, II 1:21:35
Day then, if you've ever wondered, wondered what ever became I'm living on the air in Cincinnati. Cincinnati W Jr. got kind of tired of packing