Podcast & Video Of The Week

Election Week, The East Versus The West & Rolling Bubbles In Commodities

I have a couple interesting podcasts this week for anyone that needs a break from the political circus. One focuses on the geopolitical picture and the East versus the West, while the other focuses on financial markets and the potential for rolling bubbles in different commodities. I don’t need to pontificate on the election any more since I already wrote up my thoughts, but I’m curious to see how it all shakes out on Tuesday. There’s going to be a lot of stuff flying over the next couple days, from media headlines, voting info, and swing state polls. After the election, I’m probably due for a Twitter detox, but we will see how things go on Election Night.

The Grant Williams Podcast W/ David Murrin

If you’re interested in geopolitics, current events, and where the world might be going in coming years, this is the one for you. One of the most interesting topics of the podcast is the difference between lateral and linear thinking. Murrin talks about the herd mentality and the linear thinking of our political class, and how it has created problems for the West over the last several decades. A lot of those problems are starting to manifest themselves now, but I don’t think we will be able to kick the can down the road indefinitely. He is definitely over the target when it comes to the incompetence of the leaders in the West, and I agree that it probably takes a crisis (possibly several all at once) to wake people up to this fact.

They also discussed China and their ambitions, and the mistake of the West shipping a huge chunk of our manufacturing base to China. They also talked about Unrestricted Warfare, a book that is on my reading list. I don’t agree with everything he says, particularly in regard to his thoughts on the Middle East and Ukraine. He thinks the West should be doing more, and that we probably won’t get a deescalation from here. They also discuss the pros and cons of Trump versus Harris and how the US political landscape might look after the election. Like I said, I don’t agree with all of his positions, but this podcast will definitely give readers food for thought.

Money of Mine w/ Paulo Macro

For anyone interested in commodities, you will like this one. It’s another video with

PauloMacro

, but I might have to steal the speaking cloud bear animation if we have another podcast. Anyway, they cover several different commodities, from uranium to gold, copper, and platinum group metals. He talks about why this cycle might bounce from one commodity to the next due to supply constraints, versus what a broad super cycle might have looked like in the past. I found the most interesting section to be on oil, so if you want to skip ahead to that part, it starts at the 1:15 mark. He also talks about some of his thoughts on offshore oil services and Canadian oil sands. Below is a list of some of the points he made on oil.

• Supply/demand is tight and it’s going to stay that way. Consensus is that we’re drowning in oil and it’s going to get looser in the first half of 2025.

• While the people talking about Permian growth continuing due to long laterals, production per foot is down (AKA tier 1 acreage has already been drilled).

• Production increase in 2023 was likely due to preparation for the M&A wave in the Permian last year.

• The Permian has plateaued while consensus is that Permian will continue to grow. He thinks production is more likely to be flat to down for 2025.

• Water cut issues (Christine Guerrero, another previous podcast guest, has been vocal about this recently). Earthquakes and other issues with water reinjection.

• OPEC spare capacity more likely close 3M barrels vs the widely accepted 5-7M barrels.

• Global inventories drawing consistently since May.

• The flush in financial positioning across oil contracts.

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