1 00:00:05,240 --> 00:00:07,960 Welcome back, everyone. I am Cass PNC. 2 00:00:07,960 --> 00:00:10,880 I'm joined as usual, by my partner in crime, Mr. Bennett 3 00:00:10,880 --> 00:00:12,080 Tomlin. How are you today? 4 00:00:12,200 --> 00:00:13,800 I'm doing pretty well. How are you, Cass? 5 00:00:14,230 --> 00:00:16,590 I'm doing good. It's an early morning here, but 6 00:00:16,590 --> 00:00:19,270 today we're joined by a really special guest, somebody who's 7 00:00:19,270 --> 00:00:23,310 going to be chatting us through some really fun kind of concepts 8 00:00:23,310 --> 00:00:27,030 of fraud, individuals involved that we, I'm surprised we 9 00:00:27,030 --> 00:00:29,870 haven't discussed before. Eric Roche, how are you? 10 00:00:29,870 --> 00:00:32,470 Today, Sir, I'm all right. How are you guys hanging in 11 00:00:32,470 --> 00:00:34,710 there? As you said when we first jumped 12 00:00:34,710 --> 00:00:38,790 on, there's a lot of fraud in the world and it is hard to have 13 00:00:38,790 --> 00:00:42,350 the find the time to to constantly look into it, which 14 00:00:42,350 --> 00:00:44,710 is your job. I reached out to you because 15 00:00:44,790 --> 00:00:47,750 I've been reading some of your Elon Musk work, which has been 16 00:00:47,790 --> 00:00:50,150 incredibly informative. I'm honestly shocked that 17 00:00:50,150 --> 00:00:51,510 Bennett and I have never discussed. 18 00:00:51,510 --> 00:00:55,270 I guess we've never discussed in an episode Elon Musk and our 19 00:00:55,270 --> 00:00:57,150 issues with him. I mean I've made a bunch of 20 00:00:57,150 --> 00:00:58,430 videos. Yes. 21 00:00:58,630 --> 00:01:02,590 Yes, on your personal you and I, who I think we almost equally 22 00:01:02,590 --> 00:01:06,480 don't like this guy have how avoided this topic. 23 00:01:06,480 --> 00:01:10,960 But Eric your work on SpaceX and some of the permitting the 24 00:01:10,960 --> 00:01:14,880 issues around the chemicals and the sheer like I don't give a 25 00:01:14,880 --> 00:01:16,760 shit about these regulations. Right. 26 00:01:16,800 --> 00:01:20,440 Been on the front lines of this. Can you talk about why you're so 27 00:01:20,640 --> 00:01:22,480 into this why you're so fascinated by it. 28 00:01:22,480 --> 00:01:23,480 I. Actually want to start with the 29 00:01:23,480 --> 00:01:26,200 story from 1959. This is actually a piece I'm 30 00:01:26,200 --> 00:01:27,880 working on. We're going to go to the 31 00:01:27,880 --> 00:01:31,600 corporate headquarters of the Chiso Corporation in Myan Mata 32 00:01:31,640 --> 00:01:37,760 province in in Japan in. December of 1959, the CEO of the 33 00:01:37,760 --> 00:01:41,040 Chiso Corporation, which was a chemical company, had a big PR 34 00:01:41,040 --> 00:01:43,480 presentation. The company had just installed a 35 00:01:43,520 --> 00:01:47,400 new water purification system for their wastewater system, and 36 00:01:47,400 --> 00:01:49,560 he famously took a glass of water. 37 00:01:49,950 --> 00:01:53,310 Out of the bottom of this purification vessel and he drank 38 00:01:53,310 --> 00:01:56,750 it as a PR stunt. Just that moment in time is 39 00:01:56,750 --> 00:01:59,710 really interesting for me because it was preceded by 40 00:01:59,750 --> 00:02:03,310 multiple decades of the Chisel Corporation dumping organic 41 00:02:03,310 --> 00:02:05,590 methyl mercury into the Bay of Me and Mata. 42 00:02:05,590 --> 00:02:07,430 It's an organic liquid. It goes to the bottom. 43 00:02:07,430 --> 00:02:10,350 It bio accumulates. As it kind of goes up through 44 00:02:10,350 --> 00:02:12,830 the ecosystems, the bacteria will kind of incorporate the 45 00:02:12,830 --> 00:02:14,790 methyl mercury. It stays in the in the cells and 46 00:02:14,790 --> 00:02:16,590 it will go up to the muscles and then the fish. 47 00:02:16,630 --> 00:02:19,550 Cats started eating it and they started showing weird symptoms 48 00:02:19,550 --> 00:02:20,590 children. I'm sorry, getting sick. 49 00:02:20,590 --> 00:02:23,270 The effects of this disease have gone on there and it's still 50 00:02:23,270 --> 00:02:25,710 actually going on today. The reason that in that moment 51 00:02:25,710 --> 00:02:28,670 in time is so interesting is that is that people knew in 52 00:02:28,670 --> 00:02:31,310 advance that there were problems. 53 00:02:31,310 --> 00:02:34,510 It was very clear this is this was the one kind of chemical 54 00:02:34,510 --> 00:02:38,390 dirty company in the area. And so it was easy for people to 55 00:02:38,390 --> 00:02:40,790 point at it. And what's really interesting 56 00:02:40,790 --> 00:02:44,280 about that? PR event is that that was forced 57 00:02:44,280 --> 00:02:47,120 to be installed because finally government took action, and this 58 00:02:47,120 --> 00:02:50,400 is in 1959, but they actually didn't stop discharging that 59 00:02:50,400 --> 00:02:52,360 chemical for about a decade afterwards. 60 00:02:52,760 --> 00:02:55,160 And what's fascinating about it is that treatment technique that 61 00:02:55,160 --> 00:02:58,120 was basically to get out particulates. 62 00:02:58,550 --> 00:03:00,710 Didn't actually treat the the methyl mercury. 63 00:03:00,750 --> 00:03:04,030 The other reason I bring it up is that for the PR stunt and the 64 00:03:04,030 --> 00:03:08,270 fact it was ineffective and then also the costs over this huge 65 00:03:08,270 --> 00:03:11,950 period of time were were something that shareholders in 66 00:03:11,950 --> 00:03:13,070 the company would have wanted to know. 67 00:03:13,070 --> 00:03:15,790 That's something that we would have wanted to discuss. 68 00:03:16,070 --> 00:03:19,390 And so that's why my, my kind of my my blog is kind of focused on 69 00:03:19,390 --> 00:03:22,230 these kind of ESG topics which has become this really kind of 70 00:03:22,230 --> 00:03:24,990 crudely discussed topic. But really, it's about. 71 00:03:25,270 --> 00:03:28,390 Disclosure and how fraudulent things. 72 00:03:28,390 --> 00:03:32,230 Fraudulent risks can kind of manifest in ways that people 73 00:03:32,230 --> 00:03:34,670 don't understand until after the fact. 74 00:03:34,670 --> 00:03:36,470 That's where I want to start off that discussion. 75 00:03:36,470 --> 00:03:41,030 That's an interesting story you told because I'm imagining this 76 00:03:41,030 --> 00:03:44,350 executive drinking this cup of water to prove it's clean. 77 00:03:44,830 --> 00:03:48,590 And I'm reminded of a more recent political event that kind 78 00:03:48,590 --> 00:03:52,190 of aped that same imagery. And I'm of course thinking of 79 00:03:52,270 --> 00:03:56,070 Barack Obama visiting Flint, MI, after they had completed the 80 00:03:56,150 --> 00:03:59,790 first wave of fixing some of the water issues and they were 81 00:03:59,790 --> 00:04:01,350 holding this big press conference. 82 00:04:01,350 --> 00:04:03,830 And he makes a big deal of getting this glass of water he 83 00:04:03,830 --> 00:04:06,670 says is straight from the tap, and he drinks it up to prove 84 00:04:06,670 --> 00:04:08,750 it's safe. Do you have any thoughts on that 85 00:04:08,910 --> 00:04:11,990 imagery, that parallel imagery between those two? 86 00:04:12,070 --> 00:04:14,550 Well, the reason I brought it up is but is specifically because 87 00:04:14,550 --> 00:04:16,110 of that. Well, there's also an example 88 00:04:16,110 --> 00:04:19,790 where Halliburton executive and I believe Dick Cheney was at 89 00:04:19,790 --> 00:04:22,750 this event as well. They drank basically a diluted 90 00:04:22,750 --> 00:04:25,030 version of the fracking fluid out of out of, you know, 91 00:04:25,030 --> 00:04:27,110 champagne glasses. And I will see it safe. 92 00:04:27,670 --> 00:04:29,590 And it's really fascinating because it's like, can you not 93 00:04:29,590 --> 00:04:32,310 look at, like basically that was the first example of that. 94 00:04:32,310 --> 00:04:35,070 And we keep doing that. And Obama, I think he's kind of 95 00:04:35,070 --> 00:04:38,030 at the inflection point of why we are where we are. 96 00:04:38,030 --> 00:04:41,230 And he's a really great segue into like Musk and and how he's 97 00:04:41,230 --> 00:04:44,430 become kind of untouchable. How are you drinking the glass 98 00:04:44,430 --> 00:04:46,710 of water still, right. Because even if it even if it 99 00:04:46,710 --> 00:04:49,910 had a toxic amount right, methyl mercury is dangerous because it 100 00:04:49,910 --> 00:04:52,230 accumulates slowly over time and then works its way up to the 101 00:04:52,230 --> 00:04:54,670 food chain. So you could drink glass that 102 00:04:54,670 --> 00:04:57,230 has a decent amount of methyl mercury in it and like, that 103 00:04:57,230 --> 00:04:58,950 water isn't going to do anything. 104 00:04:58,950 --> 00:05:01,270 You have to drink that same glass of water. 105 00:05:01,270 --> 00:05:03,830 You have to eat those shellfish or those oysters, you know, 106 00:05:03,870 --> 00:05:06,270 every day for years. And then it builds up kind of 107 00:05:06,270 --> 00:05:09,830 manifests in this debilitating disease that the Obama example 108 00:05:09,830 --> 00:05:12,630 is exactly why I still bring that case up, because it's like, 109 00:05:12,670 --> 00:05:14,190 have we actually learned nothing? 110 00:05:14,190 --> 00:05:17,230 I actually haven't even more recent example of exactly this 111 00:05:17,230 --> 00:05:19,790 same thing, which is crazy, but I don't know if you guys are 112 00:05:19,790 --> 00:05:21,790 familiar. There's a YouTuber named Kyle 113 00:05:21,790 --> 00:05:25,900 Hill who does science, science, YouTube stuff, and he was 114 00:05:25,900 --> 00:05:28,820 invited to Fukushima because as you guys know, they're going to 115 00:05:28,820 --> 00:05:31,300 be releasing this, this radioactive water that they've 116 00:05:31,300 --> 00:05:33,660 accumulated because they've, if anyone is unfamiliar, they've 117 00:05:33,660 --> 00:05:38,260 had to kind of take seawater, pump it into this completely 118 00:05:38,500 --> 00:05:42,140 effed up, clear reactor core, and basically make sure that it 119 00:05:42,140 --> 00:05:45,160 doesn't explode again. And they're storing this water 120 00:05:45,160 --> 00:05:47,160 because they don't want to just pump it straight out into the 121 00:05:47,160 --> 00:05:48,440 ocean. Well, now they're going to be 122 00:05:48,440 --> 00:05:51,840 pumping it straight out into the ocean after they've tried to 123 00:05:51,920 --> 00:05:55,800 kind of dilute it down and ensure that it's not super full 124 00:05:55,800 --> 00:05:58,280 of radiation. But they're getting pushed back 125 00:05:58,660 --> 00:06:01,340 from places like China and South Korea who were saying, hey, 126 00:06:01,340 --> 00:06:03,340 we're not going to eat your fish anymore, we're not going to eat 127 00:06:03,340 --> 00:06:05,860 your food anymore. Like this is unacceptable, what 128 00:06:05,860 --> 00:06:08,220 you're doing. To be fair, I don't think this 129 00:06:08,220 --> 00:06:10,940 is on par with any of the things we've discussed so far. 130 00:06:10,940 --> 00:06:13,980 I'm bringing it up because Kyle Hill went to a Fukushima tour 131 00:06:14,220 --> 00:06:16,060 and they did exactly what you're talking about. 132 00:06:16,180 --> 00:06:19,460 They pulled out bottles of water and said here everyone, look at 133 00:06:19,460 --> 00:06:21,740 this radioactive water. It's not even radioactive. 134 00:06:21,740 --> 00:06:23,220 You guys are fine. Nothing's happening. 135 00:06:23,220 --> 00:06:25,920 You're you're not getting hit. Your Geiger counters aren't 136 00:06:25,920 --> 00:06:28,280 going crazy. Well, it turns out that they're 137 00:06:28,280 --> 00:06:30,600 using plastic bottles. So this is, I think, Theta 138 00:06:30,600 --> 00:06:32,320 radiation. It doesn't go through thick 139 00:06:32,320 --> 00:06:35,440 plastic bottle anyway. Like nobody is drinking it. 140 00:06:35,440 --> 00:06:38,840 Nobody is doing like any of the proof isn't actually proof. 141 00:06:38,880 --> 00:06:41,120 This is actually part of what we're talking about in that this 142 00:06:41,120 --> 00:06:45,000 is just PR shit, whether it's Obama doing it, the Fukushima 143 00:06:45,000 --> 00:06:47,440 plant doing it, or in the 50s. Just so. 144 00:06:47,600 --> 00:06:49,120 So that's the other thing. All right. 145 00:06:49,120 --> 00:06:51,680 So the Fukushima water rights, you look at the data they've 146 00:06:51,680 --> 00:06:53,890 presented, I actually. I think it's probably not a 147 00:06:53,890 --> 00:06:55,810 problem because it's above background that brings with the 148 00:06:55,810 --> 00:06:57,770 question, why do we distrust it? Right. 149 00:06:57,770 --> 00:06:59,690 And the Chisel Corporation is a perfect example. 150 00:06:59,690 --> 00:07:01,570 Like, well, you know, the government's lied about this 151 00:07:01,570 --> 00:07:03,370 before. It's the same thing that leads a 152 00:07:03,370 --> 00:07:07,650 lot of vaccine skepticism. We see about these things don't 153 00:07:07,650 --> 00:07:10,650 just come from nowhere, right. So you see, you know, these 154 00:07:10,770 --> 00:07:14,450 these kinds of paranoias, they they exist as kind of this 155 00:07:14,450 --> 00:07:17,170 legacy of pastimes. People have lied. 156 00:07:17,170 --> 00:07:20,090 And so I think in the, in the specific example of Fukushima, 157 00:07:20,090 --> 00:07:22,490 right, like it's I think it's a foolish PR stunt for the 158 00:07:22,490 --> 00:07:24,490 reasons. That you know I I bring up but 159 00:07:24,770 --> 00:07:27,570 but but if you actually look at the data like as long as the 160 00:07:27,570 --> 00:07:30,370 data is what they're presenting like the radiation is below 161 00:07:30,370 --> 00:07:35,690 background but that skepticism exists because we've been lied 162 00:07:35,690 --> 00:07:37,650 to before. Good to be skeptical, but also 163 00:07:37,650 --> 00:07:40,770 create some of the more dangerous conspiracy type 164 00:07:40,770 --> 00:07:43,930 thinking that that still kind of is pervasive today. 165 00:07:43,930 --> 00:07:47,410 So kind of speaking more to some of those political and societal 166 00:07:47,410 --> 00:07:50,370 features that have gotten us to this point where there's kind of 167 00:07:50,370 --> 00:07:53,010 this disregard for regulations and. 168 00:07:53,090 --> 00:07:56,330 This emphasis on appearance of compliance over compliance 169 00:07:56,330 --> 00:07:59,290 itself, Do you have thoughts and like what specifically have 170 00:07:59,290 --> 00:08:02,010 like, led us to this point? I know you guys had Jim Chanos 171 00:08:02,010 --> 00:08:04,490 on and I remember listening to that episode and it's, I know 172 00:08:04,490 --> 00:08:06,050 he's kind of talked about it before. 173 00:08:06,130 --> 00:08:09,010 I worked for a basically a legacy company that had a lot of 174 00:08:09,010 --> 00:08:12,370 Enron assets, just the physical asset and you talk to people 175 00:08:12,370 --> 00:08:15,370 that were, you know, X Enron employees at the time. 176 00:08:15,370 --> 00:08:19,250 And and I think some of this is, you know, we go back to that, 177 00:08:19,250 --> 00:08:22,010 that 2000s era right from the.com blow up. 178 00:08:22,170 --> 00:08:25,370 I'm kind of through Enron. On there was a real a real 179 00:08:25,370 --> 00:08:30,770 concerted public push to you know finally do something 180 00:08:30,770 --> 00:08:34,370 against wrongdoers and you know say what you will about the you 181 00:08:34,370 --> 00:08:37,650 know George W Bush justice administration they they went 182 00:08:37,650 --> 00:08:41,409 after, you know the head honchos of these companies hard. 183 00:08:41,690 --> 00:08:46,410 And I for myself, you know, kind of fast forwarding to you know 184 00:08:46,410 --> 00:08:49,130 someone I graduated university in 2006. 185 00:08:49,130 --> 00:08:50,050 Right. So I'm I'm. 186 00:08:50,500 --> 00:08:53,020 I was graduated right into the teeth when people really 187 00:08:53,020 --> 00:08:57,340 starting to get laid off going into the, you know, the GFC, you 188 00:08:57,340 --> 00:09:00,140 know, when I was a big Obama supporter at the time, partially 189 00:09:00,140 --> 00:09:02,780 because of like what we need to, you know, we need to do 190 00:09:02,780 --> 00:09:06,500 something about all of this obvious criminality that led to 191 00:09:06,500 --> 00:09:09,530 our entire. Global economic system blowing 192 00:09:09,530 --> 00:09:11,410 up and then nothing happened for me. 193 00:09:11,410 --> 00:09:13,370 That's like the big inflection point that one. 194 00:09:13,370 --> 00:09:16,970 And then kind of a more specific example is that no big executive 195 00:09:16,970 --> 00:09:20,850 right when went to prison for their role in blowing up the US 196 00:09:20,850 --> 00:09:23,650 economy and all the job losses and you know, death that 197 00:09:23,650 --> 00:09:25,810 resulted. I think a more specific example 198 00:09:25,810 --> 00:09:28,290 is like, if you look at like for example, Solyndra as a perfect 199 00:09:28,290 --> 00:09:31,490 example that was a juicy kind of, you know, Republican talking 200 00:09:31,490 --> 00:09:34,450 point against Obama, but really wasn't a good thing for to 201 00:09:34,450 --> 00:09:36,970 happen is that we gave a company. 202 00:09:37,500 --> 00:09:40,380 That had a, a technique for making solar cells. 203 00:09:40,380 --> 00:09:43,420 It wasn't very good, wasn't proven, and they were kind of 204 00:09:43,420 --> 00:09:46,620 just lighting money on fire. And that the US government under 205 00:09:46,620 --> 00:09:49,780 the Department of Energy just handed them $200 million and 206 00:09:49,780 --> 00:09:52,100 they blew up kind of like within a year, right. 207 00:09:52,100 --> 00:09:54,300 And there's all sorts of fraud there that was not really ever 208 00:09:54,300 --> 00:09:57,260 kind of sussed out. And so I point to those things 209 00:09:57,260 --> 00:09:59,420 because I think that was kind of the turning point. 210 00:09:59,730 --> 00:10:02,610 Where we said, you know, fraud will kind of deal with the 211 00:10:02,610 --> 00:10:05,010 consequences when it blows up. We're not going to prosecute, 212 00:10:05,290 --> 00:10:07,770 you know, really the the kind of the big people in charge. 213 00:10:07,770 --> 00:10:10,890 And I think that's been policy through the entire Obama 214 00:10:10,890 --> 00:10:13,310 administration. And then through the Trump 215 00:10:13,310 --> 00:10:15,950 administration, I think it's been kind of continuous. 216 00:10:15,950 --> 00:10:19,070 And I think that's where you see people like your Sam Bakeman 217 00:10:19,070 --> 00:10:21,910 Freeds, you know, your Elon Musk, your Elizabeth Holmes. 218 00:10:21,910 --> 00:10:24,070 A lot of these things kind of stems from that. 219 00:10:24,070 --> 00:10:25,990 I don't want to say like original sin. 220 00:10:25,990 --> 00:10:28,830 I think the inflection point is kind of the beginning of Obama 221 00:10:28,830 --> 00:10:32,110 administration where we said we need to keep. 222 00:10:32,490 --> 00:10:35,490 You know, the economy going forward and we're not going to, 223 00:10:35,690 --> 00:10:38,610 you know, destroy our big companies, our special boys 224 00:10:38,610 --> 00:10:40,930 because it's too difficult to deal with the fallout. 225 00:10:40,930 --> 00:10:43,530 And we're just going to kind of let things just go along. 226 00:10:43,530 --> 00:10:47,050 And I think that's kind of a great explanation of why we are 227 00:10:47,050 --> 00:10:49,570 where we are. Do you think that people like 228 00:10:49,650 --> 00:10:52,850 your Elon Musk's or, you know, your Elizabeth Holmes? 229 00:10:52,850 --> 00:10:54,690 Whatever. Do you think these these people 230 00:10:54,690 --> 00:10:58,330 actually saw that? And we're like, oh, this is an 231 00:10:58,330 --> 00:11:01,170 opportunity have free reign. Like, who cares if I make a 232 00:11:01,170 --> 00:11:03,490 completely false statement about when a product is going to 233 00:11:03,490 --> 00:11:07,130 launch or if it's effective, or if, if I've gotten all the right 234 00:11:07,130 --> 00:11:09,930 permits and stuff, I can just do whatever I want and nothing is 235 00:11:09,930 --> 00:11:11,610 going to happen to me. And great. 236 00:11:11,810 --> 00:11:14,330 I mean, obviously something did happen with Elizabeth Holmes, 237 00:11:14,330 --> 00:11:17,700 but I'm just do you think that there was actually like a click 238 00:11:17,700 --> 00:11:20,900 in their brains to be like, oh fuck, I can commit fraud now. 239 00:11:20,900 --> 00:11:23,500 I think it was an iteration process, if that makes sense, 240 00:11:23,500 --> 00:11:24,780 right. You ratchet up, right. 241 00:11:24,780 --> 00:11:27,300 If you say why I'm gonna take this risk, I'm gonna take this 242 00:11:27,300 --> 00:11:28,500 risk. I'm gonna take this risk. 243 00:11:28,500 --> 00:11:30,980 And then if you never there are any consequences for it. 244 00:11:31,020 --> 00:11:34,300 So I think you know people like, you know, Musk drives me wild. 245 00:11:34,300 --> 00:11:37,220 I can't I can't stand kind of a lot of the things he does. 246 00:11:37,220 --> 00:11:39,780 But like, he's a creation of of that ratcheting. 247 00:11:39,820 --> 00:11:41,860 I point to him because I think he's kind of like the endpoint 248 00:11:41,860 --> 00:11:44,100 or almost like, you know, it's like, well, how can it get more 249 00:11:44,100 --> 00:11:45,300 absurd than this? But it's not like. 250 00:11:45,420 --> 00:11:48,820 He's alone out there, right? Even among people who have not 251 00:11:48,820 --> 00:11:51,260 really been punished, like we talked about, like Travis 252 00:11:51,260 --> 00:11:53,540 Kalaknik's great example at Uber, right? 253 00:11:53,540 --> 00:11:56,620 You know, there were all these regulations and sometimes they 254 00:11:56,620 --> 00:11:59,180 were, you know, really just protection rackets towards, you 255 00:11:59,180 --> 00:12:02,500 know, taxis and bigger cities. But they said we are, we are 256 00:12:02,500 --> 00:12:05,180 literally going to come in and not comply with the rules. 257 00:12:05,180 --> 00:12:06,860 And I dare you to stop us. And they. 258 00:12:07,280 --> 00:12:09,480 Kind of didn't stop them. I think it's just toddler 259 00:12:09,480 --> 00:12:11,560 pushing boundaries or whatever you want to call it. 260 00:12:11,560 --> 00:12:14,560 You know, maybe the Velociraptor and the original Jurassic Park 261 00:12:14,560 --> 00:12:16,480 testing the fence over and over again, right? 262 00:12:16,480 --> 00:12:17,800 And you look for those boundaries. 263 00:12:18,210 --> 00:12:20,690 If there's no punishment for it, then you just keep pushing it 264 00:12:20,690 --> 00:12:23,090 and pushing it and pushing it. And I think that's a great 265 00:12:23,090 --> 00:12:25,570 explanation of why we are where we are. 266 00:12:25,570 --> 00:12:27,770 And that's like a huge part of the crypto story. 267 00:12:27,850 --> 00:12:31,130 You don't have guardrails regulatory or otherwise 268 00:12:31,130 --> 00:12:34,170 institutional and people just keep pushing and and we end up 269 00:12:34,330 --> 00:12:36,890 with Sam Bankman Freed's it's something I haven't thought 270 00:12:36,890 --> 00:12:39,450 about before but I'm actually now curious like as you're 271 00:12:39,450 --> 00:12:42,530 describing this right like we have this kind of golden age of 272 00:12:42,530 --> 00:12:44,410 fraud. We see it play out it takes a 273 00:12:44,410 --> 00:12:48,650 long time as you ratchet, it's ratcheting up right weseethe.com 274 00:12:48,650 --> 00:12:51,290 bubble. We see the 08 financial crisis 275 00:12:51,370 --> 00:12:54,930 and I'm wondering if it was contained, if the massive frauds 276 00:12:55,050 --> 00:12:59,010 were more or less contained to the giant capital capitalistic 277 00:12:59,010 --> 00:13:03,370 country that has always striven for making the most money and 278 00:13:03,490 --> 00:13:06,700 being the most productive. And then crypto kind of has 279 00:13:06,700 --> 00:13:10,500 globalized this fraud in that like it seems like it's 280 00:13:10,540 --> 00:13:12,140 everywhere now. Like this is not. 281 00:13:12,380 --> 00:13:15,140 We've got one coin. We've got like numerous, 282 00:13:15,140 --> 00:13:18,060 numerous frauds that are transpiring in big ways. 283 00:13:18,300 --> 00:13:21,420 Hindenburg Research does really good, really good work on 284 00:13:21,860 --> 00:13:25,340 international fraud, whether it's in India or Europe or 285 00:13:25,340 --> 00:13:27,540 America, right. And and I'm just wondering if 286 00:13:27,540 --> 00:13:30,610 that was that's the inflection point right there is crypto is 287 00:13:30,610 --> 00:13:34,370 like oh now fraud can be global as opposed to or if or if it 288 00:13:34,570 --> 00:13:38,090 again ratchet up iterations of it slowly was going to happen no 289 00:13:38,090 --> 00:13:39,770 matter what? Maybe a little bit of both, but 290 00:13:39,770 --> 00:13:41,250 I mean like let's not forget, right? 291 00:13:41,250 --> 00:13:44,370 I mean if you look at Carson Block, he make his bones, you 292 00:13:44,370 --> 00:13:48,090 know going through like these just hilariously obvious frauds 293 00:13:48,450 --> 00:13:53,130 post GFC in in China because they were just making up just 294 00:13:53,410 --> 00:13:56,730 entire production companies and industrial sectors that didn't 295 00:13:56,730 --> 00:13:58,530 exist, right. I don't know if I would blame. 296 00:13:58,610 --> 00:14:00,210 Name it on crypto. I think crypto is kind of 297 00:14:00,210 --> 00:14:02,570 normalized it. I've seen people that I grew up 298 00:14:02,570 --> 00:14:05,610 with being like, you know, on other social media sites aren't 299 00:14:05,610 --> 00:14:07,810 like on Facebook or Instagram like it's almost like it's been 300 00:14:07,810 --> 00:14:09,930 you've been able to like bootstrap your own like mini 301 00:14:09,930 --> 00:14:11,730 frauds. I think that's, if anything, 302 00:14:11,730 --> 00:14:13,970 that's been probably the innovation of crypto in that. 303 00:14:13,970 --> 00:14:16,650 Sector, One thing that's kind of interesting to me, and we talked 304 00:14:16,650 --> 00:14:20,210 about this when Chenos was on, is that most frauds do kind of 305 00:14:20,210 --> 00:14:23,090 start with small infractions that eventually put you in a 306 00:14:23,090 --> 00:14:26,810 position where you end up making bigger and bigger infractions to 307 00:14:27,090 --> 00:14:29,290 deal with the previous things. That happened. 308 00:14:29,730 --> 00:14:33,490 And sometimes when I'm silly enough to read the replies to 309 00:14:33,490 --> 00:14:36,410 some of your articles and tweets, there's a tendency among 310 00:14:36,410 --> 00:14:41,730 certain sycophants to describe the violations as petty is not 311 00:14:41,730 --> 00:14:45,890 important as insignificant compared to the mission of 312 00:14:45,890 --> 00:14:49,250 SpaceX or Elon or whatever not deserving of consideration. 313 00:14:49,810 --> 00:14:54,010 And I wonder if you think that that kind of cultural belief, 314 00:14:54,010 --> 00:14:57,130 that idea around that type of petty rule breaking. 315 00:14:57,540 --> 00:15:00,420 Creates the kind of culture that eventually leads to, like the 316 00:15:00,420 --> 00:15:03,500 larger macro, really big frauds. I think it does. 317 00:15:03,500 --> 00:15:05,740 So we talk about minor infractions, right? 318 00:15:05,740 --> 00:15:08,820 Think in the United States, one of the cultural touchstones of, 319 00:15:08,820 --> 00:15:11,300 you know, why we have, for example, environmental rules is 320 00:15:11,300 --> 00:15:13,820 that the Cuyahoga River, which runs through Cleveland, was 321 00:15:13,820 --> 00:15:16,140 catching on fire on a regular basis, right. 322 00:15:16,140 --> 00:15:20,220 And that wasn't one incident of someone or one bad person, 323 00:15:20,220 --> 00:15:22,260 right? That's that's decades of 324 00:15:22,340 --> 00:15:24,780 probably small on the margin, right? 325 00:15:25,050 --> 00:15:26,730 Discharges. And they add up over time, 326 00:15:26,770 --> 00:15:28,530 right? And so we have these rules and 327 00:15:28,530 --> 00:15:31,210 you fix stuff and you kind of or you fix stuff or you prove it, 328 00:15:31,410 --> 00:15:33,170 you know greatly. And then it's like, well why 329 00:15:33,170 --> 00:15:36,250 can't we, why can't we ratchet back up and it's like, well the 330 00:15:36,250 --> 00:15:41,130 rules are say no discharges without XYZ and if you say well. 331 00:15:41,540 --> 00:15:43,660 Except for in the case where it's like my my favorite 332 00:15:43,660 --> 00:15:46,580 billionaire wants to do it or whatever, then, then, like if 333 00:15:46,580 --> 00:15:48,740 you're selectively enforcing rules, then they don't 334 00:15:48,940 --> 00:15:51,020 effectively exist. I think there's certainly some 335 00:15:51,020 --> 00:15:52,940 of that. But when it comes to like, what? 336 00:15:53,060 --> 00:15:57,340 What Musk is saying, what people that you know go go out and and 337 00:15:57,420 --> 00:15:58,900 and advocate for them. Social media is like 338 00:15:58,900 --> 00:16:01,260 democratized it right Where it's like used to have like people go 339 00:16:01,260 --> 00:16:03,980 on TV and yell it right or whatever on behalf of the 340 00:16:03,980 --> 00:16:06,220 Heartland Institute or ever, whoever it is. 341 00:16:06,560 --> 00:16:08,480 But now it's just kind of been like spread around. 342 00:16:08,520 --> 00:16:11,600 We talk about Musk like I'm like screaming about like ESG or like 343 00:16:11,600 --> 00:16:14,280 the regulators or whatever. It's like it's like literally 344 00:16:14,280 --> 00:16:17,400 talking points that Koch brothers would use in the 1980s. 345 00:16:17,400 --> 00:16:19,600 You know, they're kind of the, the stereotypical like liberal 346 00:16:19,600 --> 00:16:21,240 bogeyman, although I think they're a little more 347 00:16:21,240 --> 00:16:23,400 complicated than people like to make him out to be. 348 00:16:23,400 --> 00:16:26,920 They had a refinery in Minnesota that basically a big nitrate or 349 00:16:26,920 --> 00:16:31,680 ammonia ongoing discharge for years plumes and the cost to 350 00:16:31,680 --> 00:16:34,200 install I think was like a distillation unit or some some 351 00:16:34,240 --> 00:16:36,400 sort of separator unit to be able to you know. 352 00:16:36,560 --> 00:16:39,520 Prevent this kind of underground plume of discharge would would 353 00:16:39,520 --> 00:16:42,880 cost like say $200 million federal fines were like would 354 00:16:42,880 --> 00:16:45,520 Max out at like $10 million a year and they would say, well, 355 00:16:45,600 --> 00:16:48,880 you know, I could spend this money on this equipment or I 356 00:16:48,880 --> 00:16:50,200 could just pay the fine. Right. 357 00:16:50,240 --> 00:16:52,320 And they made a rational argument, well, I'm just going 358 00:16:52,320 --> 00:16:54,800 to pay the fine because there's no other consequence, right. 359 00:16:54,800 --> 00:16:57,960 There's no like escalation that doesn't get into like criminal 360 00:16:57,960 --> 00:17:01,920 stuff because there's too many layers of separation and Co 361 00:17:01,920 --> 00:17:03,560 companies too. I mean, I don't want to say to 362 00:17:03,560 --> 00:17:05,359 their credit at some point they're like, well, this is 363 00:17:05,359 --> 00:17:07,640 actually there's. There's externalities we haven't 364 00:17:07,640 --> 00:17:10,400 thought about. You know, reputational risks 365 00:17:10,400 --> 00:17:12,960 like this can start to create other types of fraud. 366 00:17:13,280 --> 00:17:16,880 Turns out companies that say, you know, screw off to the 367 00:17:16,880 --> 00:17:19,760 rules, they tend to actually perform worse economically. 368 00:17:19,760 --> 00:17:21,880 There's some studies on there, that company and even the Koch 369 00:17:21,920 --> 00:17:24,640 brothers themselves kind of walk back that aggressive stance, but 370 00:17:24,640 --> 00:17:26,690 it's kind of. Coming back and just really 371 00:17:26,690 --> 00:17:29,690 interesting to see it from like kind of the original, like 372 00:17:29,810 --> 00:17:34,170 greenwashing, yes, soaking up ESG dollars type of guy in Musk. 373 00:17:34,170 --> 00:17:36,250 So I I find it really fascinating. 374 00:17:36,250 --> 00:17:38,770 But it's cyclical. These types of issues kind of 375 00:17:38,770 --> 00:17:42,170 express themselves in different ways as we go forward in time. 376 00:17:42,250 --> 00:17:46,890 We had this last launch of the Starship or whatever they're 377 00:17:46,890 --> 00:17:51,130 calling it and it exploded and kind of sent debris across a 378 00:17:51,170 --> 00:17:57,210 widespread area in Texas. And as as Bennett was suggesting 379 00:17:57,210 --> 00:18:00,490 here we had sink a fans and and and other people who were just 380 00:18:00,490 --> 00:18:02,010 kind of like what's the big deal? 381 00:18:02,010 --> 00:18:05,450 Like chill out man. It's just an explosion just some 382 00:18:05,570 --> 00:18:07,850 normal like plastics in the air whatever. 383 00:18:07,850 --> 00:18:09,810 Like they're just like metal and like who cares. 384 00:18:09,810 --> 00:18:12,730 Whereas you were pointing to some serious issues that could 385 00:18:12,730 --> 00:18:15,410 be going on. Plus you pointed to serious 386 00:18:15,410 --> 00:18:19,050 issues with the launch site itself that need to be like, 387 00:18:19,050 --> 00:18:21,930 definitely need to be fixed and should have been fixed long 388 00:18:21,930 --> 00:18:23,610 before this launch took place. Right. 389 00:18:24,050 --> 00:18:26,930 But I don't know if you got to see this, but there was a piece 390 00:18:27,010 --> 00:18:30,370 of footage floating around featuring Elon Musk at the All 391 00:18:30,370 --> 00:18:33,050 In Summit, And one of the things they were asking about was like, 392 00:18:33,170 --> 00:18:36,770 OK, so you guys have put this star, this Starship back up and 393 00:18:36,770 --> 00:18:39,330 you're ready to launch again. Why haven't you launched it yet? 394 00:18:39,330 --> 00:18:40,650 When are you going to launch this thing? 395 00:18:40,810 --> 00:18:43,050 And he's like, well, we're just waiting for the FAA to approve 396 00:18:43,050 --> 00:18:44,610 it. There's no pushback after that, 397 00:18:44,610 --> 00:18:46,090 right? The excuses. 398 00:18:46,370 --> 00:18:48,370 Oh, well, they're, they haven't approved it yet. 399 00:18:48,370 --> 00:18:50,810 Like, this is on the government. It's not on me. 400 00:18:51,230 --> 00:18:53,950 But nobody's asking why aren't they letting you launch it yet? 401 00:18:53,990 --> 00:18:56,310 It's just fascinating to me that, like, the questioning 402 00:18:56,310 --> 00:18:59,430 stops with like, I blame the government and everyone's like, 403 00:18:59,430 --> 00:19:00,790 Oh yeah, me too. Right, Right. 404 00:19:00,830 --> 00:19:02,670 Do you want to go into why they're not letting him? 405 00:19:02,670 --> 00:19:03,750 Oh, yeah. You want to like? 406 00:19:04,110 --> 00:19:05,510 Yeah, sure. The whole thing was just 407 00:19:05,510 --> 00:19:08,870 incredible to hear for me. Well, first of all, that site 408 00:19:08,870 --> 00:19:11,590 should have not been approved in the manner it was in the 1st 409 00:19:11,590 --> 00:19:13,390 place. And there's some real issues 410 00:19:13,390 --> 00:19:15,790 that the the basics were is that you know when they're first 411 00:19:15,790 --> 00:19:18,590 getting approval to kind of upgrade the site to be able to 412 00:19:18,590 --> 00:19:21,510 launch the biggest rocket in history, they went through and 413 00:19:21,510 --> 00:19:24,750 they they did a a process under a law called NEPA which. 414 00:19:25,190 --> 00:19:27,110 Napa has its problems, but it is what it is. 415 00:19:27,110 --> 00:19:31,270 Asks you if your if your project is going to have a significant 416 00:19:31,270 --> 00:19:33,790 impact to the environment, you have to go through this very 417 00:19:33,790 --> 00:19:35,470 long process. If it's going to only have a 418 00:19:36,070 --> 00:19:39,390 less than significant impact, you can do a bridge process. 419 00:19:39,860 --> 00:19:42,700 And so this rocket, right, which we've already seen some of the 420 00:19:42,700 --> 00:19:46,620 fallouts for the law requires you just disclose the impacts. 421 00:19:46,620 --> 00:19:49,980 And So what they did is, is they effectively greenwashed or kind 422 00:19:49,980 --> 00:19:52,900 of minimize the actual impact. So they could claim that this 423 00:19:52,900 --> 00:19:55,140 would be an insignificant impact, which is. 424 00:19:55,620 --> 00:19:58,060 Kind of laughable on its face when you look at it and the 425 00:19:58,060 --> 00:20:01,180 reason is their launch site is on like it's under 20 acres 426 00:20:01,180 --> 00:20:05,300 surrounded by land that is, you know, protected wildlife 427 00:20:05,300 --> 00:20:08,260 habitat, it's beaches that is used for the public. 428 00:20:08,260 --> 00:20:10,980 It's owned by the state of Texas and the federal government, They 429 00:20:10,980 --> 00:20:13,220 don't own the land that they're kind of impacting. 430 00:20:13,220 --> 00:20:15,980 If you if you compare it to like one of the big rocket launch 431 00:20:15,980 --> 00:20:19,060 sites at Kennedy Space Center, like the actual launch site is 432 00:20:19,060 --> 00:20:22,900 like something like, you know, 5 to 10 times bigger by area, 433 00:20:22,900 --> 00:20:24,420 right. And that's area that's totally 434 00:20:24,420 --> 00:20:26,830 controlled. And then those externalities on 435 00:20:26,830 --> 00:20:30,350 top of the rocket spill out over into more area that's owned by 436 00:20:30,350 --> 00:20:32,390 NASA. And what So what what SpaceX is 437 00:20:32,390 --> 00:20:34,870 doing is they've got this little postage stamp kind of that's 438 00:20:34,870 --> 00:20:37,510 surrounded by land that they don't own or control and they're 439 00:20:37,510 --> 00:20:39,270 kind of spilling their externalities on it and they're 440 00:20:39,270 --> 00:20:41,070 not doing a great job of disclosing it. 441 00:20:41,070 --> 00:20:44,390 I knew the reason when they did this first launch the the kind 442 00:20:44,390 --> 00:20:47,520 of one of the big issues was that they didn't have kind of 443 00:20:47,520 --> 00:20:51,200 the flowing water deluge or systems to manage and channel 444 00:20:51,200 --> 00:20:54,000 that the the flames, they were just launching off what you call 445 00:20:54,000 --> 00:20:56,840 like a milk stool stool. All these people on the Internet 446 00:20:56,840 --> 00:20:59,280 were like, well, of course they don't need this deluge system or 447 00:20:59,280 --> 00:21:02,680 this, you know, flame diverter system because, you know, SpaceX 448 00:21:02,680 --> 00:21:04,320 has the smartest engineers in the world. 449 00:21:04,320 --> 00:21:06,800 And so why would they. And I looked at, well, they 450 00:21:06,800 --> 00:21:08,480 would have these extra permitting requirements. 451 00:21:08,480 --> 00:21:11,000 Then they said they wouldn't do this and and this would take 452 00:21:11,000 --> 00:21:13,320 them years to get approval. And the reason they're doing it 453 00:21:13,320 --> 00:21:15,480 is for expediency. It's not because they've 454 00:21:15,480 --> 00:21:17,040 actually sat through and modeled it. 455 00:21:17,360 --> 00:21:19,760 And I had people screaming at me, you know, before the launch. 456 00:21:19,760 --> 00:21:21,160 And then sure enough, the launch happened. 457 00:21:21,160 --> 00:21:23,800 And they to be clear, you know, you know, Cass, you brought up, 458 00:21:23,840 --> 00:21:25,560 you know, the the rocket exploding. 459 00:21:25,600 --> 00:21:28,520 The issue was with with the rocket exploding was that the 460 00:21:28,640 --> 00:21:31,440 the system to automatically terminate the rocket didn't fire 461 00:21:31,440 --> 00:21:33,440 off. But but exploding in the air was 462 00:21:33,440 --> 00:21:35,920 actually kind of a known and expected outcome. 463 00:21:35,920 --> 00:21:38,200 So I'm not actually shocked by that part, but the actual 464 00:21:38,200 --> 00:21:41,400 impacts on the ground for them, like blasting this launchpad 465 00:21:41,400 --> 00:21:44,240 right into smithereens. They sent just like tons of 466 00:21:44,240 --> 00:21:47,120 debris out into the wetlands, into this protected area, kind 467 00:21:47,120 --> 00:21:50,720 of a big cloud of dust, made it into, you know, a city that's 468 00:21:50,720 --> 00:21:55,880 like 5 miles away, is that those impacts were as a result of not 469 00:21:56,000 --> 00:21:58,400 building the infrastructure they should have had, which is, you 470 00:21:58,400 --> 00:22:01,200 know, kind of this water deluge system and this flame diverter 471 00:22:01,200 --> 00:22:03,240 system. And they didn't disclose that as 472 00:22:03,240 --> 00:22:05,520 a possible outcome. So in this, in this document, 473 00:22:05,520 --> 00:22:07,680 when they were getting authorization, they didn't ever 474 00:22:07,680 --> 00:22:11,280 describe, you know, these area impacts to this very sensitive 475 00:22:11,280 --> 00:22:12,120 wetland. Right. 476 00:22:12,120 --> 00:22:14,600 A lot of the area kind of for context, people like, oh, it's 477 00:22:14,600 --> 00:22:17,840 just rocks or dirt, is that it's a, you know, an algal wetland. 478 00:22:17,840 --> 00:22:20,600 And so you've got this thin algae crust that can take 479 00:22:20,600 --> 00:22:22,760 decades to form. So what they did, what is their 480 00:22:22,760 --> 00:22:25,360 impacts were not properly modeled, they weren't properly 481 00:22:25,360 --> 00:22:27,480 disclosed. And then when they, you know, 482 00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:29,880 kind of mess up, they're like, well, we're just going to rush 483 00:22:29,880 --> 00:22:31,840 back to launch. And and part of the problem is 484 00:22:31,840 --> 00:22:34,680 that one of the solutions that they did implement for this 485 00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:37,320 upcoming launches, you know this, this water dilute system 486 00:22:37,320 --> 00:22:40,240 which they should have had. But it turns out that the water 487 00:22:40,240 --> 00:22:42,480 that's coming off this, which is what we would call, you know, 488 00:22:42,480 --> 00:22:44,800 industrial treatment water, is now just being allowed to just 489 00:22:44,800 --> 00:22:48,830 run directly into a wetland that's protected under the Clean 490 00:22:48,830 --> 00:22:50,910 Water Act. And they've not gotten a permit 491 00:22:50,910 --> 00:22:52,430 for it. They need to have one, but they 492 00:22:52,430 --> 00:22:54,190 haven't. So it's just this kind of 493 00:22:54,270 --> 00:22:57,750 ongoing, you know, whack A mole. If they picked a site that was 494 00:22:57,750 --> 00:23:01,190 inappropriately sized and set up for what they wanted to do, and 495 00:23:01,190 --> 00:23:05,510 instead of addressing it years ago, how do we develop this site 496 00:23:05,510 --> 00:23:07,350 in a way that is consistent with our peers? 497 00:23:07,350 --> 00:23:08,710 And it's legal. They're just like, well, let's 498 00:23:08,710 --> 00:23:09,910 try this. Let's try this, right. 499 00:23:09,910 --> 00:23:12,350 Let's try this. And when someone holds them up 500 00:23:12,350 --> 00:23:15,390 and says no, the law clearly says you must do XYZ. 501 00:23:15,780 --> 00:23:17,540 And that's when Musk takes a Twitter and just starts 502 00:23:17,540 --> 00:23:20,460 screaming at people. And I don't ultimately know if 503 00:23:20,460 --> 00:23:24,180 there will be a hold up from it. There should be, but that's, I 504 00:23:24,180 --> 00:23:26,860 mean, I guess that's kind of the that's kind of the short and 505 00:23:26,860 --> 00:23:30,180 dirty explanation of of kind of what's going on and why it's a 506 00:23:30,180 --> 00:23:32,460 problem. Much as Bennett and I don't like 507 00:23:32,460 --> 00:23:35,820 Elon Musk, it seems like you're even admitting here that, like, 508 00:23:35,820 --> 00:23:38,660 this isn't a Musk issue. This is like a regulatory issue. 509 00:23:38,860 --> 00:23:40,940 This is this has very little to do with like. 510 00:23:41,260 --> 00:23:43,700 While Musk might be the one breaking the rules, if they're 511 00:23:43,700 --> 00:23:46,100 not going to do anything about it, it doesn't really matter if 512 00:23:46,100 --> 00:23:48,740 he's breaking the rules, right? That's actually a great way to 513 00:23:48,740 --> 00:23:50,580 put it. He doesn't in such an outrageous 514 00:23:50,580 --> 00:23:53,220 manner that it's almost like I'm glad that he's there. 515 00:23:53,220 --> 00:23:56,100 Because you know if and when there's a big consequence from 516 00:23:56,100 --> 00:23:58,220 something that he does, then we can point to that. 517 00:23:58,220 --> 00:24:00,780 There are plenty of executives, including at companies that are 518 00:24:00,780 --> 00:24:02,180 well run, that I would invest it. 519 00:24:02,180 --> 00:24:04,820 They don't have the public's best interest at heart, right? 520 00:24:04,820 --> 00:24:07,740 But they they know well enough. But at least pretend to play the 521 00:24:07,740 --> 00:24:11,540 game on the surface and kind of Musk is unique because he he's 522 00:24:11,700 --> 00:24:14,740 he really is like I'm not even going to play the game and so 523 00:24:15,180 --> 00:24:18,060 it's kind of helped him be able to like kind of bully people 524 00:24:18,340 --> 00:24:21,660 into into giving way to him. I think when there is blowback, 525 00:24:21,660 --> 00:24:23,620 I think it'll be bad for him because the reason that 526 00:24:23,620 --> 00:24:26,820 companies right do fraud and kind of a grandeur level, like 527 00:24:26,820 --> 00:24:30,250 the CEO isn't going out and saying hey you need to do this 528 00:24:30,250 --> 00:24:33,050 fraud right. The CEO says I need you to make 529 00:24:33,050 --> 00:24:36,010 numbers this this quarter and I don't care how it happens and it 530 00:24:36,010 --> 00:24:39,250 gets down to the you know the director level and the VP level 531 00:24:39,250 --> 00:24:42,370 and then the operating manager is like, well I I have to make 532 00:24:42,370 --> 00:24:43,490 the numbers or I'm going to get fired. 533 00:24:43,490 --> 00:24:45,970 I'm not going to get my bonus and they'll do ply chain fraud 534 00:24:45,970 --> 00:24:47,410 or they'll they'll break the law. 535 00:24:47,450 --> 00:24:49,970 You know they'll they they won't get a regulatory clearance to do 536 00:24:49,970 --> 00:24:52,850 something. The the CEO is kind of buffered 537 00:24:52,850 --> 00:24:55,770 himself from that and that's kind of the way that they're set 538 00:24:55,770 --> 00:24:58,110 up. But Musk does not believe in 539 00:24:58,110 --> 00:25:00,310 doing that. I kind of weirdly respect him 540 00:25:00,310 --> 00:25:02,270 for it, but that's kind of his whole thing, right? 541 00:25:02,310 --> 00:25:05,750 So he's he's short circuited, that whole process, which is 542 00:25:05,990 --> 00:25:08,630 probably good for him in the short term, but may not be so 543 00:25:08,630 --> 00:25:11,030 great when there's kind of consequences down the road. 544 00:25:11,110 --> 00:25:13,790 It was funny listening to you talk about that and executives 545 00:25:13,790 --> 00:25:17,710 insulating themselves because in coverage of some of the like 546 00:25:17,710 --> 00:25:21,510 organized crime families in America after like Rudy started 547 00:25:21,510 --> 00:25:24,350 going after them with Rico and stuff, you saw many of the 548 00:25:24,350 --> 00:25:26,950 leaders take more deliberate steps to try to distance. 549 00:25:27,110 --> 00:25:29,550 Themselves from like, the orders that were being given and stuff 550 00:25:29,550 --> 00:25:32,830 like that, so that it would be harder to pin any particular 551 00:25:32,830 --> 00:25:35,390 crimes on them. And so that was just a funny 552 00:25:35,390 --> 00:25:37,910 analog that popped into my head when you were telling that story 553 00:25:37,910 --> 00:25:41,870 that Musk instead insists on getting down there and dirty in 554 00:25:41,870 --> 00:25:44,550 the trenches. Not a direct analog, obviously. 555 00:25:44,550 --> 00:25:46,910 Musk isn't running an organized crime family. 556 00:25:46,910 --> 00:25:48,710 Presumably juries would be out on that. 557 00:25:48,710 --> 00:25:50,630 No, no that's that. That is not a presumption I 558 00:25:50,630 --> 00:25:53,390 would make, although I have described as going on a multi 559 00:25:53,390 --> 00:25:56,550 decade crime spree which I think is supported by fact. 560 00:25:56,550 --> 00:25:58,950 Yeah, I feel. Justified One of the things that 561 00:25:58,950 --> 00:26:01,910 we kind of danced around was we were talking about kind of 562 00:26:01,990 --> 00:26:03,790 unequal enforcement of these rules. 563 00:26:04,030 --> 00:26:06,590 And that's often kind of my worry here. 564 00:26:06,590 --> 00:26:09,590 Because when you have certain regulations and they end up 565 00:26:09,590 --> 00:26:14,270 applied so unequally, the unequalness is often a like 566 00:26:14,390 --> 00:26:16,790 point of contention where you worry that resulting in 567 00:26:16,790 --> 00:26:21,110 equalness is due to grift, graft or other forms of corruption. 568 00:26:21,430 --> 00:26:23,630 Right. And like, I think that that can 569 00:26:23,630 --> 00:26:25,990 be seen sometimes in Musk's actions. 570 00:26:26,390 --> 00:26:30,830 Where because of his size, his wealth, the number of 571 00:26:30,830 --> 00:26:33,870 corporations he runs in, like how connected he is. 572 00:26:34,510 --> 00:26:39,310 I think that some regulators and prosecutors are reticent to go 573 00:26:39,310 --> 00:26:43,030 after him because he represents like the case. 574 00:26:43,150 --> 00:26:46,150 If you go after Musk, there's a good chance that's the case that 575 00:26:46,150 --> 00:26:48,710 defines your career. And if you lose it, you're 576 00:26:48,710 --> 00:26:50,990 always going to be the guy who lost going after Musk and 577 00:26:50,990 --> 00:26:54,450 couldn't even prove he did this. Do you have any thoughts on like 578 00:26:54,450 --> 00:26:57,290 the interaction between like these unequal enforcement of 579 00:26:57,290 --> 00:27:00,170 these laws and regulations and how it interacts with like these 580 00:27:00,170 --> 00:27:01,730 different types of companies? Yep. 581 00:27:01,730 --> 00:27:04,650 And so I've worked, I've worked in an industry and I've also 582 00:27:04,650 --> 00:27:08,890 been a regulator myself, a Clean Air Act regulator. 583 00:27:09,210 --> 00:27:12,170 And what you see is, is really interesting, is this dynamic. 584 00:27:12,170 --> 00:27:15,610 The government doesn't like to be the one that like executes a 585 00:27:15,610 --> 00:27:17,090 company, puts it out of business. 586 00:27:17,090 --> 00:27:20,050 If it's like, you know, doing well, that's kind of true across 587 00:27:20,050 --> 00:27:22,210 the board. And so that's why small 588 00:27:22,210 --> 00:27:25,610 companies, especially very small companies kind of get special 589 00:27:25,610 --> 00:27:27,810 protections and a lot of rules where they actually get these, 590 00:27:27,810 --> 00:27:29,610 you know, special assistance programs. 591 00:27:29,650 --> 00:27:31,610 I don't actually entirely disagree with it, but there, but 592 00:27:31,610 --> 00:27:35,130 there's, you know, they get kind of some leeway before they they 593 00:27:35,130 --> 00:27:37,690 get in trouble. And then the large companies 594 00:27:37,690 --> 00:27:40,170 what happens is that a lot of times the regulations kind of 595 00:27:40,170 --> 00:27:43,170 turn into taxes, right. And so we see right, you know 596 00:27:43,170 --> 00:27:47,210 your Facebook, you know you have to pay $500 million, you have to 597 00:27:47,210 --> 00:27:49,890 pay you know billions and billions of dollars at times. 598 00:27:50,170 --> 00:27:53,330 And these companies are making so much money that it's like 599 00:27:53,330 --> 00:27:56,610 well this is just the regulatory tax companies in the middle 600 00:27:56,610 --> 00:27:58,970 struggle with that a little bit more because they can get you 601 00:27:58,970 --> 00:28:02,210 know they can have big enough operations to cause issue where 602 00:28:02,210 --> 00:28:04,170 where a regulator will feel like they need to go after them and 603 00:28:04,170 --> 00:28:05,970 the and the medium sized company doesn't really have the 604 00:28:05,970 --> 00:28:08,770 resources or the lobbying power to prevent it. 605 00:28:08,770 --> 00:28:12,010 And so they get themselves into trouble where they they can be 606 00:28:12,010 --> 00:28:13,370 put out of business by the government. 607 00:28:13,370 --> 00:28:16,490 But I think ultimately it's that this is, and this is kind of 608 00:28:16,490 --> 00:28:20,850 what I talked about that kind of like Obama neoliberal framework 609 00:28:20,970 --> 00:28:24,050 is that we want to do all these great things we don't want to be 610 00:28:24,050 --> 00:28:26,290 responsible for like killing our innovators. 611 00:28:26,290 --> 00:28:28,770 And I think Musk has really weaponized that. 612 00:28:28,770 --> 00:28:31,290 And he's been like, you know, he goes into things and he's like 613 00:28:31,570 --> 00:28:33,290 he's like got it. You know, he's got a suicide 614 00:28:33,290 --> 00:28:35,290 vest on, right. It's like if you go after me at 615 00:28:35,290 --> 00:28:37,930 all, I'm going to just, you know, you're going to blow up my 616 00:28:37,930 --> 00:28:39,490 company. Like, let's, let's see you do 617 00:28:39,490 --> 00:28:41,500 it. And I think he's kind of had 618 00:28:41,500 --> 00:28:44,380 that attitude, which is pretty unique because he has this 619 00:28:44,380 --> 00:28:46,700 scale. But like, you couldn't levy, 620 00:28:46,740 --> 00:28:48,620 right? For example, if you were to levy 621 00:28:48,980 --> 00:28:53,020 a, I don't know, a 5 or $10 billion fine against Google, 622 00:28:53,020 --> 00:28:54,500 like they would be really mad about it. 623 00:28:54,500 --> 00:28:56,620 They'd obviously fight it, but they could just pay it, right? 624 00:28:56,980 --> 00:29:01,430 If you were to levy A5 or $10 billion penalty against Tesla, 625 00:29:01,430 --> 00:29:02,870 like, they would have to raise more money. 626 00:29:02,870 --> 00:29:04,910 They would be like, functionally insolvent, right? 627 00:29:05,230 --> 00:29:08,070 And so, like, there's like this, this disconnect between the size 628 00:29:08,070 --> 00:29:10,550 of their market capitalization and the impacts they have on 629 00:29:10,550 --> 00:29:14,310 kind of how investors, you know, interface with Tesla versus the 630 00:29:14,310 --> 00:29:17,790 actual economic realities of how much profit they're generating. 631 00:29:17,790 --> 00:29:19,350 So there's a lot of interesting dynamics. 632 00:29:19,350 --> 00:29:22,080 But yeah, it's basically that the government doesn't want to 633 00:29:22,080 --> 00:29:24,800 just be responsible for killing companies. 634 00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:27,360 And so they kind of let them hopefully just blow up, do their 635 00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:29,720 own fraud and they come in afterwards and then, you know, 636 00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:32,600 slap the cuffs on on on the guy in charge, right. 637 00:29:32,600 --> 00:29:35,360 I mean, like, you know, FTX, you don't get a better example of 638 00:29:35,360 --> 00:29:36,960 that, right? You let him blow up and that's 639 00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:40,080 like, well, this, this this bad terrible guy, he's he's the one 640 00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:42,440 we're going to slap the cuffs on him and now we're all good. 641 00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:44,200 It's been that way for a long time. 642 00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:48,420 But I would say kind of that that 08 to to 2010 era really is 643 00:29:48,420 --> 00:29:52,380 when it just kind of became formalized and then Musk is just 644 00:29:52,660 --> 00:29:55,060 kind of a natural progression from that. 645 00:29:55,100 --> 00:29:57,820 As you're explaining this, all I keep thinking about in my head 646 00:29:57,820 --> 00:30:02,140 is one of the ways that Elon Musk has managed to keep his 647 00:30:02,140 --> 00:30:07,300 company's solvent and profitable is by accepting a shit ton of 648 00:30:07,300 --> 00:30:09,780 government money, right. Like whether it's subsidies for 649 00:30:09,820 --> 00:30:13,140 electric vehicles or we're talking about Starlink where 650 00:30:13,220 --> 00:30:15,780 they are accepting government contracts and space. 651 00:30:15,980 --> 00:30:18,060 Where they're accepting government contracts, and I 652 00:30:18,060 --> 00:30:23,100 think I just checked and SpaceX made $55 million profit on $1.5 653 00:30:23,100 --> 00:30:26,100 billion revenue last quarter. He's making money from the 654 00:30:26,100 --> 00:30:28,700 government. So I can only assume, and maybe 655 00:30:28,700 --> 00:30:31,740 this is presumptuous of me, but I can only assume that the 656 00:30:31,740 --> 00:30:34,180 government really doesn't want to be embarrassed by somebody 657 00:30:34,180 --> 00:30:37,500 that they're constantly providing money to to keep his 658 00:30:37,660 --> 00:30:39,860 his enormous corporations propped up. 659 00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:44,320 And while he attacks them, he constantly is attacking Biden or 660 00:30:44,560 --> 00:30:47,920 the Democrats or whoever he wants to attack at that moment. 661 00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:50,320 It sure seems like he's more than willing to accept money 662 00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:52,240 from them to keep his companies going. 663 00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:54,920 And I I'm just curious if you think that plays a role these 664 00:30:54,920 --> 00:30:57,880 government contracts in oh absolutely it does. 665 00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:01,690 And and to be clear to to to characterize from what we've 666 00:31:01,690 --> 00:31:04,530 seen from Spacex's own financials, they are not 667 00:31:04,530 --> 00:31:06,370 anywhere close to being profitable. 668 00:31:06,410 --> 00:31:10,490 They lump payments in and out to kind of either show like they'll 669 00:31:10,490 --> 00:31:14,370 selectively say oh we were cash flow positive for the year. 670 00:31:14,370 --> 00:31:16,850 They'll say it in like middle of quarter one or whatever. 671 00:31:16,890 --> 00:31:19,850 You're right for some bills have to go out the door and then 672 00:31:19,850 --> 00:31:21,210 profits you can do a lot of stuff. 673 00:31:21,210 --> 00:31:23,490 The interesting thing with with with Tesla is that they did 674 00:31:23,490 --> 00:31:26,050 become you know decently profitable. 675 00:31:26,130 --> 00:31:28,850 I think it's at the expense of of releasing more models in the 676 00:31:28,850 --> 00:31:31,090 future and I don't think it's going to just be failable going 677 00:31:31,170 --> 00:31:32,490 for. But they were able to generate, 678 00:31:32,490 --> 00:31:34,650 you know, they generated billions of dollars in profits. 679 00:31:34,930 --> 00:31:38,370 SpaceX has absolutely not. They've incinerated I I've 680 00:31:38,370 --> 00:31:41,250 estimated somewhere around 10 billion in in invested in 681 00:31:41,250 --> 00:31:44,290 capital and then you know several billion in in contract 682 00:31:44,730 --> 00:31:46,650 payments upfront. So it's actually really 683 00:31:46,650 --> 00:31:50,890 interesting because because not only is Musk relying on them for 684 00:31:50,890 --> 00:31:55,340 their kind of top line, but like he's also reliant on this, this 685 00:31:55,620 --> 00:31:59,220 ecosystem that allows that that I guess rewards people to 686 00:31:59,220 --> 00:32:02,700 continue to pump capital into companies that don't return that 687 00:32:02,700 --> 00:32:05,020 capital ever. It's all connected, right. 688 00:32:05,020 --> 00:32:09,300 It's like Musk is is paid at both ends and it's I I'm amazed 689 00:32:09,300 --> 00:32:10,340 has been able to get away with it. 690 00:32:10,340 --> 00:32:13,260 But it's kind of as I, as I said, I kind of appreciate him 691 00:32:13,260 --> 00:32:17,860 for it because it kind of shows how farcical that whole circular 692 00:32:17,860 --> 00:32:21,180 economy is and then you see it from like every type of 693 00:32:21,180 --> 00:32:23,500 regulator, right. So if you look at you know FCC 694 00:32:23,500 --> 00:32:26,220 guys that are these really up and coming attorneys, they go 695 00:32:26,220 --> 00:32:28,380 around and they turn into corporate counsel and then if a 696 00:32:28,380 --> 00:32:31,060 good enough government gig shows up and presidential 697 00:32:31,060 --> 00:32:33,220 administration they'll they'll get that job. 698 00:32:33,220 --> 00:32:36,210 And it's this this door and you see it, it's in, it's very true 699 00:32:36,210 --> 00:32:41,770 in in in the FCC, FAA, FDA. And and as long as someone's 700 00:32:41,770 --> 00:32:45,010 exploiting that you're going to have these kind of bureaucratic 701 00:32:45,050 --> 00:32:47,490 you know enforcement mechanism, they're going to grind to a halt 702 00:32:47,490 --> 00:32:50,330 until the public says we have to actually do something about it. 703 00:32:50,370 --> 00:32:53,090 I think that's I would like to think that that we're at that at 704 00:32:53,290 --> 00:32:55,490 the kind of Nexus or or the peak of that. 705 00:32:55,490 --> 00:32:58,810 But I've been surprised before. So it could just continue on 706 00:32:58,810 --> 00:33:01,330 forever or for a lot longer than I would like. 707 00:33:02,050 --> 00:33:03,730 And kind of like you mentioned we saw. 708 00:33:04,210 --> 00:33:07,570 Forms of backsliding under Obama and then again under Trump, 709 00:33:07,730 --> 00:33:12,010 under both the different parties and like my entire lifetime, 710 00:33:12,010 --> 00:33:15,530 basically growing up to this point, I've been hearing the 711 00:33:16,090 --> 00:33:20,250 narrative from at least one group that often in our society 712 00:33:20,370 --> 00:33:24,130 the role of these regulations. Is for existing players by 713 00:33:24,130 --> 00:33:27,490 coopting the regulatory process to create barriers for new 714 00:33:27,490 --> 00:33:30,690 entries and what are basically just costs for themselves that 715 00:33:30,690 --> 00:33:33,690 they can afford to pay to try to like reduce their competition 716 00:33:33,930 --> 00:33:37,410 and make it so that they have more control over the industry. 717 00:33:37,490 --> 00:33:40,370 In view of that argument and what you know about regulations 718 00:33:40,370 --> 00:33:43,690 and regulators, what do you view is the appropriate role of 719 00:33:43,690 --> 00:33:46,410 regulations and regulators? What should they be trying to 720 00:33:46,410 --> 00:33:47,770 do? There's some truth to that? 721 00:33:47,770 --> 00:33:49,290 Absolutely. I kind of struggle with it 722 00:33:49,290 --> 00:33:51,850 because it has to be kind of both ways, right? 723 00:33:51,890 --> 00:33:55,530 And so one example is there was an EPA rule that was being 724 00:33:55,530 --> 00:33:58,410 updated back in like 2015 or something like that that had to 725 00:33:58,410 --> 00:34:02,250 do with a certain very specific type of organic pesticide 726 00:34:02,250 --> 00:34:05,290 manufacturing process. It had to do with the Clean Air 727 00:34:05,290 --> 00:34:08,969 Act control mechanisms for if you had a scrubber behind a 728 00:34:08,969 --> 00:34:10,850 relief valve or. And so it was just kind of 729 00:34:10,850 --> 00:34:13,409 really esoteric process. And there's only like there's 730 00:34:13,409 --> 00:34:16,610 only like 6 or 7 plants in the US produce this stuff. 731 00:34:16,989 --> 00:34:19,510 And so the EPA started like suggesting rules and then 732 00:34:19,510 --> 00:34:21,710 they're like, oh, actually we need to bring the companies that 733 00:34:21,710 --> 00:34:24,230 actually produce this product in to make sure that we're not 734 00:34:24,230 --> 00:34:27,550 going to make just like a burdensome rule where it says 735 00:34:27,550 --> 00:34:30,870 you must do, you know, this exact thing with your, you know, 736 00:34:30,870 --> 00:34:32,710 pressure relief systems or whatever. 737 00:34:33,030 --> 00:34:36,260 And that's actually not a bad thing like that's a good thing 738 00:34:36,260 --> 00:34:38,780 because then you're you're like you're saying well we want to 739 00:34:38,780 --> 00:34:41,980 make sure that it's not emitting these hazardous chemicals but 740 00:34:41,980 --> 00:34:44,420 also we want to make sure that you can actually functionally 741 00:34:44,420 --> 00:34:46,460 run the plant. And so there's there's good 742 00:34:46,460 --> 00:34:49,580 reasons to do that but it's kind of taken on its head and and and 743 00:34:49,580 --> 00:34:52,409 what that that is exactly what happens is that you know 744 00:34:52,409 --> 00:34:55,530 companies will will lobby for more regulations to create 745 00:34:55,530 --> 00:34:57,330 protectionism. That's something that does 746 00:34:57,330 --> 00:34:59,770 happen. And so to find a balance between 747 00:34:59,770 --> 00:35:02,690 that is really hard. It's not always perfect, but 748 00:35:02,690 --> 00:35:05,850 that's why a lot of things need to be disclosed better to the to 749 00:35:05,850 --> 00:35:09,490 the public, you know, kind of both the rulemaking themselves 750 00:35:09,930 --> 00:35:13,430 and then kind of required disclosures from company through 751 00:35:13,750 --> 00:35:16,190 mechanisms like ESG reporting and stuff like that. 752 00:35:16,270 --> 00:35:19,390 And I think that there needs to just be more openness about how 753 00:35:19,390 --> 00:35:21,950 it happens. It works both ways and there is 754 00:35:21,950 --> 00:35:25,350 a way to kind of over regulate and and stifle competition. 755 00:35:25,630 --> 00:35:28,510 But then also you have to realize that when people say 756 00:35:28,510 --> 00:35:31,310 this that a lot of times they are complaining because it is 757 00:35:31,310 --> 00:35:33,270 going to be a cost to them. I guess for like, yeah, 758 00:35:33,270 --> 00:35:36,410 rulemaking, I would rather that you know, kind of on the 759 00:35:36,410 --> 00:35:39,970 regulatory front, I would rather regulators and this is how kind 760 00:35:39,970 --> 00:35:42,650 of regulators operate. They do treat it like they're 761 00:35:42,650 --> 00:35:45,770 like collecting their toll or their tax and that's not how it 762 00:35:45,770 --> 00:35:47,450 should be. It should be, you know, there 763 00:35:47,450 --> 00:35:50,730 should be some flexibility within the kind of outlines of 764 00:35:50,730 --> 00:35:54,410 the rule where you know there's there's different ways to to 765 00:35:54,410 --> 00:35:57,050 comply with like an end emission standard or whatever. 766 00:35:57,250 --> 00:36:00,570 I'm fine with that. But what what regulators need to 767 00:36:00,570 --> 00:36:03,050 do is that when you really step out of bounds and when you 768 00:36:03,050 --> 00:36:07,000 really mess up that the regulator should not be afraid 769 00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:08,920 to go and just lock the head off of that company. 770 00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:11,840 And I think that's something that we have not been able to 771 00:36:11,840 --> 00:36:13,320 do. One other thing that that, you 772 00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:14,960 know, before we move on to the next thing is that there's been 773 00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:18,160 this talk that like, you know, you know, these regulations are 774 00:36:18,160 --> 00:36:21,840 just killing progress in the US and killing industrial, you 775 00:36:21,840 --> 00:36:24,800 know, progress in the US And that's simply not true because 776 00:36:24,800 --> 00:36:28,600 you can look at USGDP growth. But even more telling is if you 777 00:36:28,600 --> 00:36:32,640 actually look at a graph of liquid natural gas LNG exports 778 00:36:33,020 --> 00:36:36,460 since like 2010, every single one of those plants that exports 779 00:36:36,500 --> 00:36:39,860 liquid natural gas has to go through this very burdensome 780 00:36:39,860 --> 00:36:41,900 NEPA approval process through FERC. 781 00:36:41,940 --> 00:36:45,540 The the energy Regulatory Commission that actually kind of 782 00:36:45,540 --> 00:36:48,220 got a lot of teeth post Enron for a very good reason. 783 00:36:48,220 --> 00:36:50,220 But they they have to go through this process. 784 00:36:50,220 --> 00:36:52,780 And so it's been every single year we've been able to increase 785 00:36:52,820 --> 00:36:54,620 and increase and increase exports. 786 00:36:54,900 --> 00:36:57,260 And so people act like it's just killing progress. 787 00:36:57,650 --> 00:37:00,690 It's just if you look at any sort of metric that would that 788 00:37:00,690 --> 00:37:03,330 would be like number of widgets produced, number of you know 789 00:37:03,330 --> 00:37:05,770 barrels of oil produced, all these other all these other 790 00:37:05,770 --> 00:37:09,610 metrics that would be an indication to prove their point. 791 00:37:09,810 --> 00:37:11,650 It just doesn't. It doesn't, it doesn't flesh 792 00:37:11,650 --> 00:37:13,970 itself out. Any explanation for kind of 793 00:37:14,010 --> 00:37:17,090 shortfalls can almost always be explained by labor costs which 794 00:37:17,090 --> 00:37:20,010 are higher in the US And so that that's that's kind of where I'm 795 00:37:20,010 --> 00:37:21,970 at on it. One kind of interesting 796 00:37:21,970 --> 00:37:24,810 regulatory thing that has been discussed a lot recently. 797 00:37:25,430 --> 00:37:27,230 Because of my job, I end up having to watch a lot of 798 00:37:27,230 --> 00:37:29,710 congressional hearings, which I don't recommend if you enjoy 799 00:37:29,710 --> 00:37:31,950 your sanity. And one of the things that keeps 800 00:37:31,950 --> 00:37:34,630 coming up in the hearings I have to listen to is discussion of 801 00:37:34,630 --> 00:37:38,670 the SEC's new ESG disclosure rules and whether or not those 802 00:37:38,670 --> 00:37:40,870 are going to fundamentally bankrupt the entire global 803 00:37:40,870 --> 00:37:42,990 financial system as soon as they go into place. 804 00:37:43,070 --> 00:37:46,110 Do you have thoughts on these proposed disclosures? 805 00:37:46,560 --> 00:37:50,360 And what they mean in terms of like ESG and what ESG is 806 00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:53,280 supposed to be accomplishing. Yeah, yes, the ESG question, but 807 00:37:53,280 --> 00:37:56,560 I mean like that's that's the, I mean that I named my publication 808 00:37:56,560 --> 00:37:58,480 that before it became such a hot button topic. 809 00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:03,600 So the first thing that I will say is that ESG reporting was 810 00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:07,440 basically revolutionized by oil companies who didn't want to 811 00:38:07,440 --> 00:38:11,120 lose their investment dollars from big state pension funds. 812 00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:16,790 And so oil companies have been doing this for 12 years and they 813 00:38:16,790 --> 00:38:20,590 do, they do a really good job for the most part of disclosing 814 00:38:20,910 --> 00:38:23,190 these risks. I'm not saying that the business 815 00:38:23,190 --> 00:38:26,070 is fundamentally right, there's not a lot of greenwashing. 816 00:38:26,070 --> 00:38:30,470 They absolutely do that but it but in terms of the expectations 817 00:38:30,470 --> 00:38:34,840 under that rule, they have met this requirement for eight years 818 00:38:34,840 --> 00:38:37,280 and medium size oil companies have done it. 819 00:38:37,280 --> 00:38:41,080 Small oil companies have done it and it is not that burdensome. 820 00:38:41,160 --> 00:38:44,960 It is a Nexus For more information to the public. 821 00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:48,000 So I'm all for it on a logistical basis. 822 00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:50,560 I think any complaints about it they don't want to disclose more 823 00:38:50,560 --> 00:38:52,280 risks, more investing risks to the public. 824 00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:56,040 That is what it comes down to. And you know I saw for example 825 00:38:56,040 --> 00:38:59,480 like you know Carson Block who I really respect kind of went on 826 00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:03,320 this like anti ESG tirade which I agree with in a way because 827 00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:06,640 it's like when you kind of characterize this is like an ESG 828 00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:10,000 stock or whatever or you say it's like a green stock that 829 00:39:10,040 --> 00:39:13,480 creates a great opportunity for fraud to come in which we've 830 00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:15,480 seen like I mean like over and over and over again. 831 00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:18,800 I started with Solyndra that's it's, it's it's a tale as old as 832 00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:21,080 time. Things like ESG scores or ESG 833 00:39:21,200 --> 00:39:24,520 rankings or ESG funds, those are ways to collect fees. 834 00:39:24,600 --> 00:39:28,550 But the actual reporting itself, all we're talking about and this 835 00:39:28,550 --> 00:39:31,950 is what I am super for is we need to disclose risks. 836 00:39:31,950 --> 00:39:35,230 We need to disclose you know, risk related to our supply 837 00:39:35,230 --> 00:39:37,390 chain, right. How many are we doing? 838 00:39:37,390 --> 00:39:40,950 Anything about the, you know, the child slave laborers you 839 00:39:40,950 --> 00:39:43,830 know, Nestle Corporation, are we like and what are we doing? 840 00:39:43,830 --> 00:39:46,310 Have we reduced those numbers? What are we doing to address it? 841 00:39:46,750 --> 00:39:49,470 Because these those types of risks and even things like 842 00:39:49,470 --> 00:39:52,490 diversity that people like really melt down about companies 843 00:39:52,490 --> 00:39:55,250 with high levels of diversity. Guess what, you know, especially 844 00:39:55,250 --> 00:39:58,090 across the management, they have less complaints of sexual 845 00:39:58,090 --> 00:40:01,170 harassment, they have less complaints of of of, of racial 846 00:40:01,170 --> 00:40:03,770 abuse and those things can cost real money. 847 00:40:04,050 --> 00:40:07,570 And so my whole argument is like a lot of the ESG stuff, you know 848 00:40:07,570 --> 00:40:09,970 when it comes down to like the rankings or the discussion 849 00:40:09,970 --> 00:40:13,130 points about it, it's very there's really good points that 850 00:40:13,130 --> 00:40:15,650 it's being misused. But at the but at a fundamental 851 00:40:15,650 --> 00:40:19,450 level, all this stuff is is to disclose risks. 852 00:40:19,830 --> 00:40:24,430 That will actually truly impact the financial performance of 853 00:40:24,430 --> 00:40:26,910 these equities going forward. And I think there's some, it's 854 00:40:27,030 --> 00:40:29,590 it's not perfect, it's not great, but there's some real 855 00:40:29,710 --> 00:40:32,230 strengths to it. And if you're an investor, I 856 00:40:32,230 --> 00:40:35,630 don't care if you're, you know, as right wing as they come, more 857 00:40:35,630 --> 00:40:39,350 ESG disclosures just mean more information for you to make good 858 00:40:39,350 --> 00:40:41,310 investment based on and I'm all for that. 859 00:40:41,750 --> 00:40:43,750 I always will be. So that's kind of where I stand 860 00:40:43,750 --> 00:40:44,870 on. It for me, what was most 861 00:40:44,870 --> 00:40:47,950 interesting about it is like you said, most of these disclosures, 862 00:40:48,030 --> 00:40:49,710 many of these things that they're going to be. 863 00:40:49,830 --> 00:40:52,030 Has to disclose. Many of these corporations have 864 00:40:52,030 --> 00:40:55,510 already been disclosing, perhaps not included in their SEC forms 865 00:40:55,510 --> 00:40:57,830 about risk, but in other investor communications or other 866 00:40:57,830 --> 00:41:00,510 things like that. And so what's been kind of 867 00:41:00,510 --> 00:41:03,830 frustrating for me watching it has been the political message 868 00:41:03,830 --> 00:41:06,150 making around it, how the rhetoric has developed around it 869 00:41:06,150 --> 00:41:08,690 and how. It has become like this divisive 870 00:41:08,690 --> 00:41:12,810 issue, despite just being a disclosure requirement, like 871 00:41:12,810 --> 00:41:16,210 even just being asked to disclose certain information, 872 00:41:16,450 --> 00:41:20,250 has become this kind of huge sticking point that blows up for 873 00:41:20,370 --> 00:41:23,130 months, probably going to be years, before it finally gets 874 00:41:23,170 --> 00:41:27,250 implemented officially in that kind of political situation 875 00:41:27,410 --> 00:41:29,850 where we have. At least the way I see it, and 876 00:41:29,850 --> 00:41:32,650 you may disagree with this characterization, like the Obama 877 00:41:32,650 --> 00:41:35,610 administration was really weak on enforcement against white 878 00:41:35,610 --> 00:41:37,810 collar criminals. Basically across the board you 879 00:41:37,810 --> 00:41:40,250 see this criminally, I think Jesse Eisinger does a good job 880 00:41:40,250 --> 00:41:42,850 of describing some of this and like the chicken shit club and 881 00:41:42,850 --> 00:41:44,610 stuff like that. And you see it regulatorily 882 00:41:44,610 --> 00:41:47,250 across the financial regulatory agencies and stuff like that. 883 00:41:47,530 --> 00:41:49,650 Well, also as you mentioned like in the case of Solyndra, 884 00:41:49,850 --> 00:41:53,810 creating these very capital rich programs that had a high risk of 885 00:41:53,810 --> 00:41:57,090 corruption or misuse. Then I look at like the Trump 886 00:41:57,090 --> 00:41:59,570 administration and across there my impression was it was 887 00:41:59,570 --> 00:42:03,970 basically all about reducing or eliminating as many regulations 888 00:42:03,970 --> 00:42:07,050 as possible will also not enforcing and as many of the 889 00:42:07,050 --> 00:42:10,610 existing regulations as you can. So when you have kind of that 890 00:42:10,610 --> 00:42:13,690 political landscape or even disclosure requirements become 891 00:42:13,690 --> 00:42:16,250 discussed as if they represent a potential threat to the 892 00:42:16,250 --> 00:42:18,370 stability of the global financial system. 893 00:42:18,570 --> 00:42:22,770 How do you create meaningful useful or good regulations. 894 00:42:22,770 --> 00:42:24,610 I don't know. And that's been that's been 895 00:42:24,650 --> 00:42:28,730 really the the problem is that we've we've relied on right. 896 00:42:28,730 --> 00:42:30,890 You talk about environmental regulations like you're talking 897 00:42:30,890 --> 00:42:34,890 about the last time there was a major amendment to the Clean Air 898 00:42:34,890 --> 00:42:37,970 Act for example was in like 92 right 1992. 899 00:42:38,250 --> 00:42:40,770 And so people will complain about rules but like the Clean 900 00:42:40,770 --> 00:42:43,810 Air Act specifies mechanisms that the EPA must take every 901 00:42:43,810 --> 00:42:45,930 single five years. They must update these standards 902 00:42:45,930 --> 00:42:47,970 every single year. They're not allowed to backtrack 903 00:42:47,970 --> 00:42:49,730 or whatever. And so people complain about 904 00:42:49,730 --> 00:42:52,280 these mechanisms they put in place, but there's been 905 00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:54,440 regulatory inaction for decades. Right. 906 00:42:54,440 --> 00:42:57,080 And so you're letting these systems that are that truly are 907 00:42:57,080 --> 00:42:59,760 imperfect and then probably sometimes do stifle innovation, 908 00:42:59,760 --> 00:43:02,400 sometimes probably are overly strict and then also don't 909 00:43:02,400 --> 00:43:04,920 enforce well enough where they should in certain cases. 910 00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:08,800 Like, we don't have an actual federal congressional signed 911 00:43:08,880 --> 00:43:12,160 standard on greenhouse gas, so we've had to shoehorn it into 912 00:43:12,160 --> 00:43:14,080 the Clean Air Act or it doesn't really belong. 913 00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:16,840 Yeah, we need regulatory reform. Yeah, we need to rewrite all 914 00:43:16,840 --> 00:43:18,760 this stuff. But I don't know because it's 915 00:43:18,760 --> 00:43:21,000 kind of been politically untenable. 916 00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:24,640 It's like every single politician is kind of OK with 917 00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:27,840 allowing these bureaucratic systems to claw along because 918 00:43:27,840 --> 00:43:31,240 they have worked well enough. And so then you scream about 919 00:43:31,240 --> 00:43:34,960 stuff anytime there's a new rule or you eliminate a rule and it's 920 00:43:34,960 --> 00:43:37,120 just it turns into just a rhetoric that doesn't make any 921 00:43:37,120 --> 00:43:38,480 sense. It's just red meat. 922 00:43:38,480 --> 00:43:40,720 And that's what a lot of this anti ESG stuff is. 923 00:43:40,720 --> 00:43:43,240 It's just it's red meat. I think the ESG rankings are 924 00:43:43,240 --> 00:43:44,560 bad. I think the way it's marketed 925 00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:47,800 does allow greenwashing frauds to suck up capital. 926 00:43:47,800 --> 00:43:49,560 It shouldn't. I agree with that 100%. 927 00:43:50,090 --> 00:43:51,810 But at the end of the day, if you're talking about like 928 00:43:51,810 --> 00:43:54,570 disclosures like that's that's not, I mean like that is not 929 00:43:54,570 --> 00:43:57,250 going to tank the global economy, it just turns into just 930 00:43:57,330 --> 00:44:00,490 shit flinging and that's that's what kind of rulemaking has been 931 00:44:00,490 --> 00:44:03,450 in Congress for. You know, really probably since 932 00:44:03,450 --> 00:44:05,490 you could argue since Obamacare was passed. 933 00:44:05,490 --> 00:44:08,970 That's probably a great, great time that there is a a huge 934 00:44:08,970 --> 00:44:12,340 regulation that was passed that was really contentious and was 935 00:44:12,340 --> 00:44:15,340 pushed forward and since then it's been plugging holes in the 936 00:44:15,340 --> 00:44:17,220 dams. If we go, if you're yelling 937 00:44:17,220 --> 00:44:20,300 about ESG disclosures, like wrecking the global economy, it 938 00:44:20,300 --> 00:44:22,500 just like that's not, that's not an honest argument. 939 00:44:22,500 --> 00:44:24,260 It just isn't. Now, what about the argument 940 00:44:24,260 --> 00:44:27,020 that it's a secret way to turn the United States communist? 941 00:44:27,020 --> 00:44:29,620 Is that a serious argument? No it's not. 942 00:44:29,860 --> 00:44:32,060 I mean, as you know I mean it just it's so funny because I've 943 00:44:32,100 --> 00:44:33,900 I've. I reach out to people that I've, 944 00:44:33,940 --> 00:44:36,700 I've talked to and and pretty smart people and they're just 945 00:44:36,700 --> 00:44:38,260 like, you know what about BlackRock? 946 00:44:38,260 --> 00:44:39,860 What about this? What about whatever? 947 00:44:39,860 --> 00:44:41,500 And I'm like, yeah, I don't like those guys either. 948 00:44:41,500 --> 00:44:43,860 So in ESG is a way for people to collect fees. 949 00:44:43,860 --> 00:44:46,420 And so like if you look it as a way to like collect fees, like, 950 00:44:46,420 --> 00:44:47,860 yeah, I mean like you're going to push for it. 951 00:44:48,020 --> 00:44:49,580 Yeah. The whole, like communist or 952 00:44:49,580 --> 00:44:51,620 whatever. It's like, no, we've had all 953 00:44:51,620 --> 00:44:54,460 sorts of regulatory controls on market disclosures and they've 954 00:44:54,460 --> 00:44:57,580 been updated with time. It's just exhausting to respond 955 00:44:57,580 --> 00:44:59,620 to there. There are great critiques of how 956 00:44:59,740 --> 00:45:02,740 ESG has been kind of marketed and implemented. 957 00:45:02,740 --> 00:45:05,380 I'll scream them from the rooftops, but I just the 958 00:45:05,540 --> 00:45:08,940 rhetoric itself is just doesn't match what we actually see, I 959 00:45:08,940 --> 00:45:11,060 guess. On this point, though, what kind 960 00:45:11,060 --> 00:45:14,460 of ended up getting me to reach out to you, Eric, was that I was 961 00:45:14,660 --> 00:45:18,500 thinking again about this golden age of fraud concept that Jim 962 00:45:18,500 --> 00:45:22,300 Chanos has put forward that we are in this time period where 963 00:45:22,500 --> 00:45:26,380 it's almost like everyone who can do fraud and make and make 964 00:45:26,380 --> 00:45:28,860 money on it is just going for it, right? 965 00:45:28,860 --> 00:45:31,140 There's nothing to impede that process. 966 00:45:31,140 --> 00:45:32,980 There's no obstacles to just going out. 967 00:45:33,350 --> 00:45:36,830 And committing the fraud. And I just started thinking to 968 00:45:36,830 --> 00:45:39,630 myself like it doesn't seem like it's slowing down. 969 00:45:39,710 --> 00:45:42,590 It doesn't seem like even we have the collapse of FTX, we 970 00:45:42,590 --> 00:45:46,470 have SBF, we have all the all these like very intense large 971 00:45:46,470 --> 00:45:50,310 criminal enterprises getting shut down on their own accord. 972 00:45:50,310 --> 00:45:52,230 Like nobody did anything to stop SBF. 973 00:45:52,230 --> 00:45:54,830 He fucked up. And I I think to myself like. 974 00:45:55,160 --> 00:45:58,000 This isn't going to end now this is going to end up being like 975 00:45:58,040 --> 00:46:01,080 it's already been a generation that has had to deal with this 976 00:46:01,080 --> 00:46:03,320 golden age of fraud. Is it going to be another 977 00:46:03,320 --> 00:46:04,960 generation and the generation after that? 978 00:46:04,960 --> 00:46:09,640 Like what is the optimistic and the pessimistic view here of how 979 00:46:09,640 --> 00:46:12,960 we're how this plays out and and I'd like I'd love to hear your 980 00:46:13,280 --> 00:46:15,520 both, both both sides of this argument from you. 981 00:46:15,600 --> 00:46:18,840 I'll start with the pessimistic one and it is that it has gone 982 00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:22,000 on I think a lot longer than people would have expected 983 00:46:22,160 --> 00:46:25,680 having worked in energy and specifically in oil and I moved 984 00:46:25,680 --> 00:46:28,760 to Houston in in 2015. I think that I think the debt 985 00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:32,880 blow up at the end of 2015 and into 2016 should have been a 986 00:46:32,880 --> 00:46:34,720 wake up call. There were these kind of knock 987 00:46:34,720 --> 00:46:38,280 on impacts from from from credit blow ups, right. 988 00:46:38,280 --> 00:46:40,840 You had you had companies that were going out and they were 989 00:46:40,840 --> 00:46:46,200 raising junk debt right to fund EMP projects that were like at 990 00:46:46,200 --> 00:46:50,480 best break even on returning the money for these junk bonds. 991 00:46:50,480 --> 00:46:53,960 And that was before you considered how far these how 992 00:46:53,960 --> 00:46:58,000 quickly the levels from the frack wells would drop off and 993 00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:01,800 would would the duration did not match for the for the well life 994 00:47:01,800 --> 00:47:05,040 versus the bonds you were taking out but even if even if it did 995 00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:07,880 like it didn't even like include like corporate costs right. 996 00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:11,140 So all your SG and A, you know, your MA or your executive 997 00:47:11,140 --> 00:47:12,740 compensation, all that stuff wasn't even. 998 00:47:12,860 --> 00:47:16,020 So like the the entire scheme wasn't your expected value of 999 00:47:16,020 --> 00:47:18,660 return, but like always be negative if you're buying these 1000 00:47:18,660 --> 00:47:20,460 bonds and yet they still happen, right. 1001 00:47:20,460 --> 00:47:23,340 And so a lot of these started to to roll over and blow up and I 1002 00:47:23,340 --> 00:47:26,060 was like OK, we need to have like a reset and a lot of this 1003 00:47:26,060 --> 00:47:29,300 stuff and it didn't happen like there was like a mild reset and 1004 00:47:29,300 --> 00:47:31,460 we basically went back to status quo. 1005 00:47:31,460 --> 00:47:33,140 You look at the Fed balance sheet, you look at the 1006 00:47:33,140 --> 00:47:36,950 coordination between, you know, central bankers and basically 1007 00:47:36,950 --> 00:47:39,390 that this, this monetary relief that'll just like we're not 1008 00:47:39,390 --> 00:47:42,750 going to allow a huge blow up. And I don't think you're going 1009 00:47:42,750 --> 00:47:45,190 to get regulatory change without a huge blow up. 1010 00:47:45,190 --> 00:47:47,630 And so I think I think that it should have happened back then, 1011 00:47:47,630 --> 00:47:50,190 it probably should have happened a few times and hasn't happened 1012 00:47:50,470 --> 00:47:54,550 means that we can ratchet up and we can, we can kind of globalize 1013 00:47:54,550 --> 00:47:59,990 or we can wallpaper over these these kind of systemic risks 1014 00:47:59,990 --> 00:48:03,150 that are tied to fraud. I think, I think that can go on 1015 00:48:03,150 --> 00:48:05,950 a lot longer than anyone would like to admit because we've gone 1016 00:48:05,950 --> 00:48:09,470 through a few possible credit cycles where they've been 1017 00:48:09,470 --> 00:48:12,270 wallpapered over. So that's that's against the 1018 00:48:12,270 --> 00:48:15,390 pessimistic view. The optimistic view is that 1019 00:48:16,030 --> 00:48:19,670 they're called Black Swan events for a reason and I'm not hoping 1020 00:48:19,670 --> 00:48:21,710 for a Black Swan event, right, because you don't. 1021 00:48:21,830 --> 00:48:25,230 There's always pain that comes with kind of economic broiling, 1022 00:48:25,510 --> 00:48:28,820 but I think that is the opportunity for a moment of 1023 00:48:28,820 --> 00:48:32,780 clarity and to be able to go after the types of people that 1024 00:48:32,900 --> 00:48:36,300 perpetuate these frauds because they do cause harm when they 1025 00:48:36,300 --> 00:48:38,380 unwind. They cause, they cause harm the 1026 00:48:38,380 --> 00:48:41,020 whole way, but that harm isn't obvious until it unwinds. 1027 00:48:41,520 --> 00:48:43,920 So I don't like the positive case is that there's like a big 1028 00:48:43,920 --> 00:48:46,360 blow up, which is maybe not positive. 1029 00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:49,520 But in terms of going forward, if we have another, if we have 1030 00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:52,200 another GFC type thing and you see people, you know doing 1031 00:48:52,200 --> 00:48:56,040 something like on Occupy Wall Street or whatever and there 1032 00:48:56,200 --> 00:48:59,200 isn't major regulatory reform, we're hosed. 1033 00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:03,000 But that's that's both I guess the positive and the negative 1034 00:49:03,680 --> 00:49:05,560 prediction. They're they're the same thing, 1035 00:49:05,560 --> 00:49:06,680 I think. I appreciate that. 1036 00:49:06,680 --> 00:49:09,600 I think that's a pretty level headed response if still 1037 00:49:09,960 --> 00:49:11,680 unfortunate. Eric, is there anything else you 1038 00:49:11,680 --> 00:49:14,520 want to leave us with before we we sign off here in terms of 1039 00:49:14,520 --> 00:49:17,840 whether it's about Elon or the global, the global financial 1040 00:49:17,840 --> 00:49:20,920 system or fraud or whatever? Is there anything you you care 1041 00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:24,400 to say as we as we sign off here, There's so much public 1042 00:49:24,400 --> 00:49:27,120 record out there that you can dig into and learn about stuff 1043 00:49:27,120 --> 00:49:29,200 that's going on. If there's one positive thing, 1044 00:49:29,200 --> 00:49:32,610 especially in the US, is that we have really great public 1045 00:49:32,610 --> 00:49:35,570 disclosure laws and sometimes they're a little bit hard to get 1046 00:49:35,570 --> 00:49:38,130 around, but you can find all sorts of cool stuff and you can 1047 00:49:38,130 --> 00:49:40,850 learn things about how the world works. 1048 00:49:40,850 --> 00:49:43,770 I always encourage people to do that because a lot of times, you 1049 00:49:43,770 --> 00:49:47,530 know, fraud happens because we don't understand how, you know, 1050 00:49:47,530 --> 00:49:50,290 companies operate, how governments operate, how 1051 00:49:50,290 --> 00:49:53,730 individuals operate. And we we have so many tools 1052 00:49:53,730 --> 00:49:57,450 available that are free and that's kind of my passion is to 1053 00:49:57,450 --> 00:50:00,760 teach people about that. And so always you can always 1054 00:50:00,760 --> 00:50:04,040 e-mail or whatever because I I I think I think there are some 1055 00:50:04,040 --> 00:50:07,960 positives out there and I think some of the public disclosure 1056 00:50:07,960 --> 00:50:10,960 rules and and especially in the US you can find all sorts of 1057 00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:13,280 interesting stuff out. I encourage anyone to become 1058 00:50:13,280 --> 00:50:15,320 their own researcher. One thing I really appreciate 1059 00:50:15,320 --> 00:50:18,560 about the crypto community is that they do, they do like, they 1060 00:50:18,680 --> 00:50:21,040 don't necessarily do a good job of regulating, but when it comes 1061 00:50:21,040 --> 00:50:23,920 to like doing kind of forensic investigations, they do a really 1062 00:50:23,920 --> 00:50:26,240 good job. And I really enjoy watching that 1063 00:50:26,240 --> 00:50:28,690 play out. So there are other avenues you 1064 00:50:28,690 --> 00:50:30,530 could do that kind of stuff. I think that's a really 1065 00:50:30,530 --> 00:50:32,090 beautiful note to go out on actually. 1066 00:50:32,090 --> 00:50:34,130 And I think I agree with you 100%. 1067 00:50:34,130 --> 00:50:37,770 I think Bennett and I have both learned about so much just by 1068 00:50:37,890 --> 00:50:42,170 having to explore corporate filings and history of for 1069 00:50:42,170 --> 00:50:45,850 executives and all this stuff that I I didn't know how to do 1070 00:50:45,850 --> 00:50:49,130 this five years ago and now I I love doing it. 1071 00:50:49,130 --> 00:50:51,170 So I I agree with you 100% on that. 1072 00:50:51,610 --> 00:50:53,730 If anyone doesn't already follow Eric. 1073 00:50:54,050 --> 00:50:58,810 Obviously go follow him on Twitter, ESG Hound and if you 1074 00:50:58,810 --> 00:51:02,690 can also check out his sub stack which is unbelievably 1075 00:51:02,690 --> 00:51:05,170 informative and fantastic and I think, yeah, I think that's 1076 00:51:05,170 --> 00:51:06,650 going to do it. Thank you for joining us, Eric. 1077 00:51:06,770 --> 00:51:08,450 Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.