prepping
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Transcript
Note: This transcript was automatically generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and therefore typos may be present.
Rob McNealy
Hey guys, Rob McNealy here. And today I am excited. So I am talking to a new our he is the host of the cigars and crypto podcast. And he is a really cool dude. So we’re just gonna gonna hang it up a little bit tonight and see what’s happening on his side of the country. So new are welcome to the show. How are you today?
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Well, my friend, thank you so much for having me. How about you?
Rob McNealy
Oh, good. You know, it’s a it’s been interesting with this little pen demick. Like, adjusting but not adjusting. So like a lot of times, people are like freaking out because they’re, you know, home with their kids and they’re working remote and like, my wife and I work have been working out of the house forever. And we’ve been homeschooling our kids for 10 years. So our kids are like, not really, it’s funny because our kids are like, what’s going on? Because to them, this is like normal life. And they’re just like, I thought everybody to freak it out, but that’s no big deal. Like cuz your life is already kind of like this. But it’s been interesting. My wife for her company she telecommute to Washington, DC. And she’s like one of the only people in our country she a company that works remote and she’s uh, she’s at the director, Deputy Director level for a big company out there. And it’s funny because her entire company went remote, and they’re all freaking out. And it’s funny because I listened to her like conference call sometime and I’m just sitting there laughing and they’re like, her HR department is like saying sending memos around to help support the troops with their new like staying home from you know, the office kind of thing and telling them, make sure you get up in the morning and put on your dress clothes like normal and my wife’s like, dude, I’ve been wearing pajamas to work for seven years with this company. I am not getting dressed now. So it’s kind of funny, right? So Todd Flynn, let’s get into it. Tell us a little bit of our podcast.
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Well, I’m I am the host of cigars and crypto. It started out as guys sitting in a cigar lounge and me sitting in there with a tablet and my MacBook and people asking me, what are you always staring at, you know, talk to us? And I’m like, I’m looking at Bitcoin charts. And, of course, the next question is, what’s Bitcoin? And so I explained to them, you know, what this magical internet money was, and how it’s both money and an asset all rolled into one. And so then they kind of looked at me like, well, how does that work? And so down the rabbit hole we went, I explained it to one person in three, and five. And then I found myself explaining it over and over and over again for about maybe seven months. And I said, You know what, there’s got to be an easier way to do this. So I said, I’m just going to start recording things. I have a background in radio. I did Country radio for a couple years and gospel radio as well. So I’m was familiar with the recording aspect. But I never thought about doing a podcast and so I just said, Well, I’ll just give it a shot. And here I am Episode 96 later, and I’m like, maybe I’m onto something here.
Rob McNealy
So well part of this, what part of the country you out of you don’t have to give an exact location but
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I’m just outside of Philadelphia,
Rob McNealy
Just outside Philly. So what do you what do you find is the response to you go into these What do they call them hops or herps or whatever at the cigar bar kind of thing? Yeah. What’s their response? When you kind of explain what internet money is and stuff like that? They into it, they in denial, they they hate it, what do you what do you seeing?
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
They look at it from a speculative point of view. Um, the thing about cigar smokers is it’s not a cheap hobby. So a lot of the guys Smoke with already investors. But because they don’t understand cryptocurrency, they tend to shy away from it. But they like to ask a lot of questions about it. So they have lots of questions about custody. Volatility not so much where to get it, how to get it. They’re not hung up on the criminal aspects, potential criminal aspects of cryptocurrency they’re really hung up on you know, what is this? How does it work? How do I see it? How do I own it? What can I do with it? That type of thing, you know? So that’s kind of interesting. Some of my friends are libertarians. So they’ve always looked at like, this is money bro. This is like the best money bro. You know, it’s and I agree with him because for me Bitcoin is sound money. And so then there are just some people who just like Oh, Bitcoin crashed it won’t ever be anything. And then they’ll see it go up $100 and then they’ll say, What’s Coinbase? How do I get onto that? If I if I spend $100 will it be 1000 next week? And I’m like, come on, man, you gotta do your homework. You got to do your research.
Rob McNealy
So have you converted a lot of people then?
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
A lot? No, maybe ten?
Rob McNealy
That’s, that’s a good fair amount, though. I mean, I don’t think I’ve covered it. You know, really? It’s been interesting. Seeing where people are with crypto. Yeah. So where do you Where do you see it going over the next year or two? Do you think the the havening is going to make a big difference for Bitcoin? I mean, I think there is the is it priced in is the pandemic priced in. That’s what I’d like to know.
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I think the havening is priced in but I do not I think the pandemic is priced in, I think all of this printing of money is going to inflate the value of Bitcoin. Not monetary value, but source of wealth value. And I say that because people will be looking for something that is stable, that can’t be manipulated. When people start going to the gas stations, and it’s cost seven bucks to get a gallon of gas, or they go to buy a loaf of bread and cost $3 because there’s so much money that’s been printed. People will start to look for things that they can use to conduct commerce and trade and buy things. And when people look at cryptocurrency, they’ll begin to ask the same questions I asked in 2014. What is money? What is the difference between hard and soft money and when Why’s hard money better? What is sound monetary policy? In principle? They won’t ask it that way. But they’ll have very basic questions. Why doesn’t this work?
Rob McNealy
You know, I think that’s an excellent point, right? And then you can say the same thing about the pandemic. And I think part of the problem is, I think a lot of people have a hard time abstracting things that they can’t physically see or physically touch. Right. And so when the money situation when they start seeing, oh, the price of this is going bananas. And I think that loaf of bread is going to go up regardless of what the dollar is doing, because I have concerns about the supply chain anyway. But but I think it’s the same thing with the the pandemic. People on the east coast. You know, three weeks ago, four weeks ago, I have a lot of friends in New York City. And when I was telling them to get the hell out in New York City four weeks ago, they’re like, it’s no big deal. There’s been a few and no Now there’s like 1000 bodies today stacking up in New York City right now with COVID. They’re like, yeah, this is serious. I’m like, okay, but I was telling you that a month ago, and I think, you know, and I don’t want to be that guy, because this is not the thing I want to be right about. But I think you’re right. I think when it starts hitting people in the checkout line, I think that’s when they’re gonna start looking for alternatives to the dollar.
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Yeah. Because for right now, everything is abstract to them. It doesn’t impact me, it’s not affecting me. They look around and they see gas at $1 89. And they’re like, Oh, this is the best it’s been in decades. You know, but they’re not understanding what’s coming on the other side of that, because the amount of money that we’ve pumped into the economy because of the backroom deals by politicians and bureaucrats, that we’re not privy to the information that we’re not privy to, how it will directly impact us, even though we don’t have directly knowledge of what’s happening. I prefer to stay prepared as best I can. I try to make sure that my family is prepared as well. Not just in terms of defense, but understanding knowledge and information as well.
Rob McNealy
You know, I think preparedness is one of those things that is going to get more important going forward on all fronts both, I think, I mean, I don’t know if you’ve ever really listened to the show very much but I read a lot at least on Twitter about financial literacy being an important thing. And and part of that is crypto and and i believe investing in other asset classes and diversification. I’m old so I don’t have all my eggs in one basket. But, you know, and I just think that sound investing, right? You don’t want to put everything in one place but but what I tell people is, you know, you got to prepare yourself in other places, too. It’s like it’s great if you got some investment in Bitcoin, but if you’re carrying, you know, 100 grand in credit card debt, student loan debt, you know, why don’t you you need to focus on that and get that get your house in order. Because to me long term Yeah, you can gamble on crypto and really a lot of crypto is gambling right now. And I’m not bad mouthing any crypto, I run a, you know, or I’m involved in a crypto project, I found a co founder to crypto project. So, you know, I, you know, I still see, even our project is high risk investing if you’re viewing it as a speculative asset because it’s so early on right now, and it’s just the nature of the beast. But that doesn’t mean that you know, I would like to see. Well, I’d like to see people have an awakening from the pandemic.
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I want..I want that to happen. But I don’t think people can keep their eyes off the television. keep their eyes out. Their ears off the radio and their ears out of the echo chambers that surround them every day. When you have and it doesn’t matter, your political persuasion, when you exist in an echo chamber, you suffer from cognitive dissonance. You look for thoughts and ideas that reinforce your own. And the act of doing that prevents or prohibit you from receiving new information or looking at things differently, and making your own decisions and your own determinations on what your reality is and what’s going on around you. And that’s why we have these people kind of falling into these camps. You know, and not really looking out for their neighbor the way they should be, you know, because of like tribalism. You know, I don’t really Subscribe to that, um, you know, I like people who are different than me. Because it’s an opportunity for me to learn and experience new things. I am different from everyone that I live around. But I found out in the last three weeks that I’m really not, because now Well, I mean, of course, we maintain our social distance, but I see my neighbors every day now. And I talk to them every day now. And my neighbors are really cool. Like really cool. And I didn’t know that because we’re so caught up in the rat race to nine to five, every day that you don’t really stop and have an opportunity to talk to people. So the awakening the potential and possibility for an awakening is there. But people have to get away from the noise and just get to know the person to the left in the writing.
Rob McNealy
I think there was an event point was brought up in a book I read a long time ago. And it says it was it was there’s an old book, and it was talking about the internet age and, and it says, people can talk to people around the world now, but they don’t talk to their neighbor kind of thing. Right? And, and I think with social media and online communities, we now have that option to just pick and choose that echo chamber of everybody we like results with, you know, without having to necessarily, you know, it’s easy to filter out the crap you don’t want to see the block and mute months for and I’m just as guilty of using those buttons as anybody else’s. But I think you’re right, I think, you know, I think that some good things are going to come out of this pandemic and the economic fallout from now, I’ll be the first to say and I’d like to get your opinion on this. I don’t believe COVID is causing the problem with the economy I think it’s a trigger exposing an existing problem with our financial systems and I believe a problem with American culture and I want to get your I’ll go into explain what I mean by that, but I want to hear your take on it. I know that’s a loaded questions. Okay. We’re just gonna go we’re just gonna skim the surface right off
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
the surface, right? Okay. Um, As Americans, we are greedy. We consume more than we need. We spend more than we should. We take on debt, instead of saving. We have very high timeframes for life instead of thinking about the future that affects businesses that affects commerce, trade, our spending habits. We are to blame for what happened to the economy. I don’t blame politicians because we put them in office. We listened to what they had to say. And we put them in office anyway. And we keep putting the same people in office over and over and over again. And they’re not doing things in our best interest. So I don’t blame them. COVID did not cause what’s happening to the economy. The economy was on its way down. Anyway. The economy has been down since 2007. Don’t right, go ahead.
Rob McNealy
I was gonna say you’re my echo chamber now. But I agree with you and you’re hitting on all the points that I hit on and people hate me when I talk about about this, and I say it’s like this. Really, if the entire country is destitute with two weeks of not getting a paycheck, we’re so much more fucked than whatever this virus is going to do to us.
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Exactly.
Rob McNealy
I you know, the I Am. I think humans can adapt to all sorts of good things and and can adapt to shit. And I am utterly dismayed that our country is so how do I say fragile? And look we all live paycheck to paycheck all right? Well, here’s the problem. Maybe you shouldn’t live paycheck to paycheck. Why are you living paycheck to paycheck, but there’s that many people don’t get me wrong. Now one of the things I did as an entrepreneur Believe it or not, I owned a get a liquor store in Denver in the worst neighborhood in Denver. We opened carried pistols in the store. It was everything was behind the counter bars on the window. I’m originally from Detroit. trade area too. So, but I grew up in Michigan, but when I lived in Denver and we had our store, it was interesting to me because the people coming into the store were low income people. And these people had $300 shoes. Every one of them had big screen TVs, because they talked about it. Every one of them had the latest and greatest, most expensive iPhone. Now at the time, I was running a cricket phone. You know, flip phone kind of, Oh, looks an awful lot like this one. You know, but, but to me, it was like shocking, because I mean, I we weren’t living paycheck to paycheck at that time. Like we had some money in the bank and some savings and we’re trying hard to, you know, get rid of the little debt we had at the time and things like that was like time ago, but it’s interesting to me that the one of the things about our poor people in this country Is that our poor people are all obese, and they have every possible consumer electronic gadget and consumer luxury good, you can imagine. And having traveled a little bit, it’s amazing to see that. And to me, I believe it’s a cultural flaw in the United States, and I think it’s part of our downfall.
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I think it’s a byproduct of advertisement in communication. folks don’t do better if they don’t know how to do better. If you are surrounded by images of $300, tennis shoes and iPhones and big TVs in flashy cars, those are the things that you strive to obtain. If you’re never taught about sound money, or what a checkbook is, or How to invest or the proper way to budget, you won’t do it. And some cases, some people learn differently. life experience changes them in a way that they have to learn. But if everything around you is moving at the same pace, there’s no need for you to slow down or speed up. And so people emulate what they see. And I think about, you know, one of the books that really changed my life man was the Bitcoin standard. And it really changed the way I look at money, and how I view what money is and what money should be. No one taught me that I asked questions, who became curious because I didn’t expect The answers I got. So I wanted to validate what I was hearing and what I was reading. So I read something else and I read something else and I read something else. Then I looked at my decisions and was like, yo, like, I had to change some things. If I want something 20 years from now, I can’t keep doing this today. I’ve got to learn how to put money away. I’ve got to learn how to start looking for assets, appreciating assets, not depreciating assets. I don’t want to go out and buy even though I can afford I don’t want to go out and buy 2020. Lexus now, I will go out and buy a 1964 Ford F 100 pickup truck and never drive it. You see what I mean? And then wait 10 years and sell it for five or 10,000 more than what I paid for.
Rob McNealy
Those fleet sides are going up in value. Aren’t they?
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I am trying to tell you baby?
Rob McNealy
I watch Barrett Jackson.
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Yeah, my wife looks at me like I’m crazy. She’s like, he’s such an old man. I’m like, No, I’m trying to tell you there’s something to this. Not only is it beautiful, but it will appreciate your value over time.
Rob McNealy
I think one of the things you’re hitting on is really good. And I think a really good primer of this, this thinking as well as Rich Dad, Poor Dad. You know, it’s a very clear, it’s a very cliche book. But it really lines out the basics is the fact is, were you even even outside of sound money though, you know? Robert Kiyosaki is now on the Bitcoin bandwagon and crypto bandwagon as well now, but the whole point is, is getting your financial ducks in a row and i and i think you know, Dave Ramsey, that’s a great place to start Financial Peace University. Right? And and so I grew up I grew up in a fairly poor family. And I came from people that were the poor dads in that book, my family that was that that was my family. And so I had learned really bad money management behaviors from my family. You know, and and when I, when I’m bad bashing financial literacy in this country, it’s not even demographic specific. It crosses every income, every ethnic, you know, demographic, every education level in this country. Almost everybody falls down into the same problems of living paycheck to paycheck, spending more than they make not saving money, getting into a lot of debt that is normal in the United States today. And, and the reason I’m talking about is not because I want to rub it in people’s faces. When they’re struggling. That’s not what I’m trying to do. What I’m hoping is that once we get through this name, mer that’s unfolding in like, slow motion because it is in slow motion for a lot of people is I hope that they come out of this going Holy crap, I need to do something different because I only had I could only last two weeks. Right? And and basic financial literacy is three to six months or at least a year’s worth of emergency fund. Now think of it this way you are think of it what happens if 75% of the country had a six month emergency fund right now. D things would be very different right now.
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Very different.
Rob McNealy
But this pandemic..
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
..is very different. Because then if we had six months of savings, if if 75% of us had six months of savings, we will be able to see the difference between the Sham economy and the real economy. Because the stock market is not the economy. And I try to tell people that all the time and they don’t get it. But businesses may be hurting But the economy will be fine. Because people will have saved and prepared and will be able to take care of their needs. Not just saving money, but saving food, saving ammo, saving the things that are important when these folks are going out buying toilet paper, Bro, I was buying bullets. Because I knew.
Rob McNealy
Yeah, you know, actually, I think both are a good investment right now. And I finally figured out why the toilet paper actually makes a lot more sense and why that’s not being stocked but we can go into that offline. But no, I actually we’ve been I’ve been trying to dig into the supply chain stuff. It’s pretty fascinating. I learned a lot more about toilet paper than I ever thought I would want to know about toilet paper in the last three weeks. But But I think what’s happened what I’m seeing out there is is that Americans not only are monetarily not prepared, they’re not prepared from a personal On the fence standpoint, they’re not prepared for retirement either is that we’re inherently a really weak nation now. We’re fragile and psychologically. I’m not sure that the I’m not sure in the next two years, what the country is going to look like, on the other side of those two years. What do you think? Do you think there’s gonna be big changes culturally in this country from this?
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I think culturally, and economically, there’ll be massive changes from this. We fall victim to propaganda. And other countries for the last what 10 years specifically, the BRICS nations have been preparing for a calamity BRICS being Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. They have been buying, stockpiling, stockpiling gold, platinum palladium rhodium. They are preparing to trade with each other for oil and other goods and services in gold, bypassing the Petro dollar. They’ve been preparing. We’ve been blustering. And as powerful as our military is, and I’m in no way shitting on our military, I’m a seven year army vet. So I am not shitting on the military. But as powerful as our military is a military cannot function if it is not financed. And we have depressed the dollar so much. I am actually scared of external threats, less internal threats. You know what I mean?
Rob McNealy
You Yep. You know, it’s interesting, you know, you know, it’s a good exercise. You don’t know me that well, but I tend to go down some really deep rabbit holes when I want to know information. Again, and and, and I have a pretty I have a really big network and I know a lot of interesting and resourceful people and a lot of interesting positions all over the place. So if I really want to have a question, I have enough people in my Rolodex that are worth, you know, eight, nine digits and have lots of connections. So if I have a weird question, I can pick up the phone and they’ll take my calls. And one of those things that I I’ve gone down that rabbit hole about the military, and they started looking at, you know, okay, how was the United States poised for a war? So it’s interesting right now. And I’m going down this rabbit hole right now, but what happens if we can’t make ammunition and there’s a war or even just more war than we have right now? Do you so I don’t know if you’ve been to any kind of store. Now. We all know that. Been a lot of FOMO buying guns and ammo. But I have a lot of connections into the arms industries and from I’m going to confirm some of these things. But I’ve been talking to quite a few people and I have a bunch of wholesale accounts as well. There’s no ammunition in the distributor network or the retail network at this point. There’s nothing you can order from RSR you can order from CRO shooting supply. And these are the biggest distributors that distribute to all the retailers nationwide in the gun world. They don’t have any ammo either. They don’t have any way to backward the ammo. And so I started going down rabbit holes, and I’m like, what’s the problem? So here’s an interesting thing that no one’s talking about. And I’ve been talking about this since January. So China’s been offline since January. They make everything and people don’t even know the extent that we’re dependent on China. Like we’re not like, Oh, we could just ignore them more like we’re they’re like holding up, we’re walking down the street kind of dependent on them. So, so the interesting thing, I started looking at the supply chain because I’m like, Okay, I’m gonna get, I’m gonna move up here because I’m getting all excited now. But so I started looking at the supply chain stuff. Do you know there’s this thing called buffer inventory? So I said, Okay, if ships stop moving cargo from China, to the United States, how long before we run out of stuff? And no one’s talking about that question. No one not in the mainstream media. I have her I have a hard time even finding information about people who would ask that question. So in my day job, I got a lot of people that bring manufacturer stuff in China, and I just started picking up the phone. And they said, if we don’t get shipments By May, we’re out of our our inventory by June, and they don’t have any firm dates from China. And then I started saying, Okay, well, how long what’s the buffer inventory in the United States? Well, for most things, and I’m talking about everything, it’s one to four months of buffer inventory in the United States for almost anything. China’s not back online yet. So another way to so I go down this other rabbit hole, right? And I’m just like I’m really interested in like, Okay, well, how do we confirm that there’s a problem with the amount of stuff moving? Well, there’s this thing called the dry Baltic index, which is the marketplace where people buy shipping containers to move raw goods, not necessarily finished goods. It’s fell off a cliff. No one’s buying shipping from China to the US. And so, I’ve started talking to people and you know, I started looking at what are the things that we need in the United States to live not talking TVs at Walmart, we got plenty of those right. And everybody’s gonna buy in with their stimulus. Trump bucks. But they make 90% of our drugs and drug precursors in China. Now. Yes, he Here’s a couple other things they make. They also make all the ingredients and food processing chemicals for our food supply. Not not, and then on top of that, most of our seafood comes from China. So just on that alone, it’s like, wow. And no one’s talking about this. And then the toilet paper thing. So I always think ahead, right? I always stocked up on stuff and I said, you know, all the things that’s not back in inventory right now at any grocery store out here is toilet paper and paper goods. Still gone. totally gone. And so I went down this rabbit hole, new era of like, how like how much toilet paper? Do you know how much toilet paper we buy in the United States every year? You’re not big the market is
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Probably massive.
Rob McNealy
Massive – $6 billion a year. So what we spend, but here’s the word, but do you know what most of it’s actually made in the United States. Actually, we Don’t actually import much toilet paper we employed about $500 million a year in toilet paper. Most of it doesn’t even come from China comes from Indonesia. So it’s really interesting to me I’m like okay, so why are these shelves empty? This just can’t all be FOMO buying. Well we found two problems though. And the thing that I just uncovered the other day is all like what what’s the problem? Well guess what? Even though we make the toilet paper here, the recycled paper that makes the toilet paper is like the cheapest pulp comes from China. I think they’re out because China’s not back in line yet. And in fact, that dug into that rabbit hole. Most of the so we said whole cargo ships have you know all that recycled cardboard and plastic and or paper that you know gets bundled up goes to China. They turn it into pulp and ship it back and then we make it into toilet paper. The other problem with the supply chain we got a couple points. With the supply chain in the country, but that’s one of those external threats. Here’s another interesting thing. You know, I started looking at all these other countries with COVID now we’re getting into a whole prepper weird, crazy conversation. But I started talking to people and you know, what happens when India and you know, and some of these other countries start having a problem with COVID? How would that affect the supply chain and how could that affect us? Well, it’s interesting, you know, India’s a big country and they’re not they’re having they’re gonna have a big problem, I think with this pandemic, and they’re just starting, they’re just getting started. You know, they’re like the number two rice exporter in the planet. So what happens if because of absenteeism from illness and lockdowns and fear? They don’t produce let’s just say they produce less rice, not no rice but less rice. They feed a lot of countries and one of those other countries going to do here’s another thing so We’ve had four meatpacking plants in the United States go down because of COVID in the last week and a half, for in the last week and a half. And we’re talking one plant alone does 5% of the pork for the entire United States just went down in the last week. So, two, so a meat and a beef plant in Iowa, one of the biggest beef slaughterhouses in northern Colorado in Greeley. And then a port processing plant up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, all went down the last 10 days because COVID they don’t know when they’re coming back online. So you have this absenteeism. So there’s food and pigs and cows in the United States. But if you can’t get them processed, what’s that gonna do to people in Philly at the grocery store? Right. Right. What does that do the so we’re talking about that loaf of bread getting more expensive just because of inflation for money. What what happens when that price goes up two or three times? Because there’s no one to process as much, or what happens if the truck drivers are too afraid to drive truck across country to a pandemic zone, which you’re already seeing in New York City now. And it’s gonna get worse through the summer I predict from all the major cities, especially I think every major city east of the Mississippi is gonna have a problem with COVID bad. And so that’s my prediction. You can call me out on it by August we’ll have a conversation as car over it. But these are the things that I am getting concerned about. Now, here’s the thing, where did we get a lot of our produce from in the wintertime?
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Mexico.
Rob McNealy
China, Mexico. So what happens if they have absenteeism from fear and illness? Now right now you can’t cross the border to Mexico. Well, all those workers that work our field come from Mexico. Regardless of what the conservatives want to believe about rural America and farmers, they’re all run by Mexicans. That’s just a fact. So the workers can’t get here. But what happens if Mexico’s farms have the same problem we do? What if their processing plants go down because of fear and illness? COVID in the wintertime, you know, this fall, what does that do to the price of food? Now, you know, I’ve spent a lot of time in inner cities now. And you know, I know I come from a poor family. So what happens to people that are dependent on EBT? And now that price of hamburger went from $4 a pound to $15 a pound or $20 a pound? How are those people going to react when their food stamps don’t go very far now. And those are the things that keep me concerned. But, you know, then you get into the International, you know, incidents with like, Okay, well, if countries don’t have enough food now to feed their people, what are they going to do? And put put your military thinking hat on. What does that look like in a year from now? And, and so I think we have multiple problems happening. And I think COVID is the trigger to basically say, look, this Emperor has completely naked now. And you guys got a lot of problems. Right? Right ranting but those are the things they have me concerned right now.
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I’d have to agree with all of those assessments but I if I could convince my wife man, we will be out of here. My my family immigrated here from the Bahamas in the 20s. And I still have family there and if I could convince my wife man, we will be out. Like to
Rob McNealy
To the Bahamas?
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Damn right, right now.
Rob McNealy
I’m not sure I’d want to go to an island right now to be honest. Because they’re actually all the all the people Caribbean islands right now are having problems with COVID. Yeah, so and so the question is on an island, you’re completely dependent on outside logistics for your support. If those logistics chains start getting broken, you’re really kind of on an island.
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Just eat fish every day.
Rob McNealy
You if you can. I love the Caribbean man, I, you know, I’ve been to a lot of Caribbean islands and, man, I would be all about at least having a second house there. I’m not sure I’d want to write out this there. Right now. You know, we moved to Salt Lake City now six years ago now, and I think was a smart move because as far as urban or suburban areas were one of the most prepared states on the planet, like part of the the LDS culture, the Mormon culture, and is that, you know, they’re supposed to have a year supply of food. A lot of people don’t know that but like the whole morning A church is one giant prepper organization. And in fact, the Mormon Church has its own grain silos all over the place. And they have their own food processing, canneries and everything. I mean, they’re really dialed in. And so people in Utah are pretty, pretty resilient and self reliant. And that was one of the things that attracted me to the Utah in general. Was that self reliance? so far with COVID? We’re one of the only states that’s not locked down. We’re we’re in a semi we’re in a voluntary soft lockdown. Like the governor comes on the you know, every day at you know, lunchtime and says, Please, please, please, please, please don’t make me become a tyrant. Before she’s like, just do the right thing. Right. But but we haven’t had many cases here. So we’ve had 20 deaths in the whole state, but it’s picking up space. It’s picking up pace now. So you know, I think we’re gonna be one of the last to go if it goes bad, just because one more small population and we’re facing fairly isolated compared to, you know, the, you know, east of the Mississippi. It’s just so much more crowded in the east coast in the Midwest that it’s just a lot harder I think with this, I mean, so what does your wife Think about all this? You mean you sound like you’re a preparedness guy too, right?
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
But she’s she’s now four that she thinks I’m overreacting.
Rob McNealy
What does she think you’re overreacting?
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Because she’s never seen me act like this before.
Rob McNealy
Really? How are you acting?
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Like, I need to be prepared.
Rob McNealy
Gotcha. But were you prepared before or is this something more recent or is this kind of like, ongoing thing without divulging any opsec Right, right, right. You know, I don’t need to know what you have or don’t have but, you know, I just like to understand where people are coming from because.
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I’ve, I’ve always believed in having Little more than what’s absolutely necessary. I think we need to go all in. We need to be really putting we really need to be the squirrel and story a cause for real bad weather.
Rob McNealy
I agree with you now I have no OPSEC because I run a prepper crypto crypto conference every year called Off Chain: http://OffChain.events. So it’s kind of obvious that I do put things away. And that’s kind of part of, it’s just part of who we are. We don’t even think about it. It’s just like, but it’s funny because we just opened up pinto beans from 2011 the other day. And they were fine, by the way, right? Is it really good? But you’re like, I don’t you know, it’s one of those things like I hope I never have to open this five gallon bucket of pinto beans. But I’m glad I had the pinto beans. Kind of great. But I think yeah, I think what What I’ve been telling people right now it’s like cuz there’s a lot of people that are waking up. You know, I’m a gun guy. And sounds like you’re a gun guy as well. Yeah. Have you had a lot of people ask you about that? Guns recently?
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
What do you mean. asked me what?
Rob McNealy
Like people that are non gun people getting interested in wanting information about guns.
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
No. Everyone who knows me knows that I’m a gun guy. But they don’t ask me about it.
Rob McNealy
Now, because it’s interesting because I’ve had four people in the last two weeks three were first time gun buyers wanting to know what to buy, where to buy that kind of thing, and that one person was looking for food. And I’m like, Of course I’m and I’m like, Oh, of course. I’m the guy you call. But it’s just it’s been interesting seeing like people’s getting concerned now and I tell people right now if you haven’t prepped, you got one last opportunity right now. Do to get as much As you can get and but but I tell people, first thing you need to do is mentally prepare yourself for change. Probably drastic change, yes. Probably tough times, yes. A mentally prepare yourself that life is not going to be the same and get okay with that.
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Right. And it’s going to happen quickly.
Rob McNealy
It’s good. It’s not happening quickly enough.
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Because I don’t I don’t think we I don’t think we’re where we need to be.
Rob McNealy
Well, I think I was telling someone the other day that I think there’s people don’t have a sense of urgency in outside of the East Coast right now at all about this. All they want to do is they’re they’re healthy, they don’t see a problem. There’s not body stacking up. And so I think what’s happening is they can’t abstract what’s happening. I think it’s a combination of normalcy bias. Time preference. I think it’s like, there’s a glacier coming of really big freakin glacier. And it’s gonna run over your town. Right? But everybody’s like, well, I don’t see the glacier move, but it’s gonna run over the town. Well, I don’t see it moving. So I’m not going to do anything. And I think a lot of people are struggling with them because of it. And then they see the more immediate I’m not working, I don’t have money coming in and do those are all valid concerns, especially if you don’t have any savings. Right? So I don’t have a good answer to that. But this is not just a COVID Glacier. This is a supply chain glacier that’s affecting the entire planet in a slow moving wave like a glacier. Right? And it’s going to take a year before you know it’s gonna take months I would bet it’s gonna be a very scary summer is what I predict. Because I think you’re going to see a lot of cities all flaring up at the same time. I think you’re going to have the the buffer inventories from China burn through, I think you’re gonna have a lot of absenteeism. And you know, shortages because of this plants going down and this plant is going down and, and I think all that stuff is going to be rolling. So you’re, it’s like you’re gonna, you know, New York will be starting to be through its peak and then Chicago is going to be hitting its peak. Right, you know, or just starting in Detroit and St. Louis. And it’s just going to go on and on and on. And it’s going to take all right, well, I’ll be you know, New York hasn’t peaked yet. So understand this, right. Like, it’s been six weeks we had no, I mean, it’s like, stayed in New York, like, what 20 some thousand now or something. I mean, six weeks ago, they had zero need, it’s like, so it’s like gradually but you know, and that’s just one major city with it. But what happens when you have four cropping up in six more weeks. What does that look like? And right now most of the resources to handle COVID have been redirected to New York from other places. So I don’t I think we’re going to be I think the, the response to COVID is going to be scary. And I think there’s going to be a, I mean, there’s going to be a lot of people that are gonna, you know, not make it through this. Right. But I think what’s going to affect all of us is the supply chain failures domestically and internationally. And I think that and how people react to them. The question is, how do people react and you know, you know, I so are you from Philly your whole life? You said your family came from Bahamas, where are you? Where were you raised?
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I was, I was born in New York, but I was raised in DC.
Rob McNealy
Okay. So, you know, and I’ve lived all over but I’ve been out west about 20 years, but I grew up in the Midwest. So I spent 20 years in the Detroit area for 28 years, actually, in the Detroit area. I know this that people Americans have never had to deal with empty shelves. Think about that.
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Never.
Rob McNealy
Never. Now I’ve traveled a little bit, you probably traveled a little bit, you go to other places. Well, I don’t have any there’s nothing on the shelf for a month, but next month will be something on that shelf. And people are okay with that because that’s the system. Right? That’s what they’re used to. And the more third world or developing nations that’s that’s common, right? Well, we’ll get something pretty soon. You know, they don’t know. Americans have never had to deal with that. I’m 48 I’ll be 48 this summer. I’ve never seen that my lifetime.
Unknown Speaker
Now, add to that, that we are the nation with the most guns per person on the planet.
Rob McNealy
Yep.
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
It’s good to be MadMax in the Thunderdome.
Rob McNealy
You know it It’s I don’t know where this is gonna go. You know, I’m just saying is if you’re like imagine if you’re like around a bit I think like a big pot. You’re in the kitchen right? You got a big giant pot is thrown in, you’re just gonna make the most worst meal ever. And you’re gonna just throw in some like, throw it’s a Molotov cocktail, a little gasoline, a little acid, gunpowder, TNT, nuclear weapons, throw into pathogens, turn it all up and, and let it launch in the middle of the summertime in the Midwest, like Detroit and Philly in Chicago, and then tell people, they got to be locked in their house because there’s a pandemic and they don’t have air conditioning. Right. Just like, you know, but I think but I even think about the air conditioning piece, right? I mean, I’ve been around a lot of inner cities growing up and where I’ve worked and stuff and I’m not this is not a stereotype. It’s a fact a lot of people don’t have central air. in inner cities in the Midwest, Detroit area, every summer when there’s a heatwave in Detroit, there’s people dying because they don’t have air conditioning. And, and think about it so and part of the response to that is people hang out outside, they get barbecue, they hang out the friends that hang out late at night instead of during the day, because they don’t want to be in their house. So what happens if you stir all that in top of that? Oh, man, I am not. I am not looking forward to this summer at all with this. And and i think that i think the COVID is just exposing all sorts of problems that already were there. And I think a lot of people are gonna get mad. A lot of people are going to get frustrated. There’s not things on the shelves. I think people are going to be pissed that things cost a lot more. I think people are going to be pissed because they’re told to stay in the house. They don’t want to stay in the house. Let’s just be honest, people don’t like being told what to do. Right? Anyways, I’m ranting. I’m sorry man. I I don’t know, man. I think it’s gonna be I think it’s gonna be wack. That’s what I think it’s gonna be a wack time.
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
It’s gonna be interesting.
Rob McNealy
And so what do you think people should be doing? So, alright, so people here like, you know they’re not on the East Coast not in the Midwest. They’re just like doo dee doo dee doo. What would be your saying what would be your advice right now to those people?
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Move out, move out of debt, move out of credit. Start putting away a little cash. start, stop putting away things that you can trade and start thinking about how you defend yourself and your family. Start thinking about how you feed yourself and your family. Make those things a priority because when the time comes and you realize that you need to do it, it’s already too late. Because other people are realizing at the exact same time that they need to do it. And then it becomes survival of the fittest. And the question is, how fit are you?
Rob McNealy
I couldn’t disagree with any of that? And, man, I’m usually a lot more uplifting than this.
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Me too man.
Rob McNealy
No, but but seriously, though, I mean, I think that’s a good point is cover your frickin bases right now you’re sitting home. Don’t look at Pornhub all day, don’t play video games all day. start figuring out what you need to do to get past six months from now. Right? What’s that gonna look like? Right? You know, I don’t have a crystal ball. And I sure as hell hope that all the stuff we talked about doesn’t happen. I really hope it doesn’t happen. And you know what? I’ve been wrong before. You know I would I thought that shit was gonna meltdown in 2013. I’ll tell you that. That was I thought 20 13 if I had to put like, you know, the crystal ball on it, I was you know, my tea leaves are telling me 2013 it’s all it’s all over with. That’s gonna go mad max. That’s what I thought didn’t happen. They pumped up the housing market again. And now the housing markets way crazier now than it wasn’t you know 2007 2008 and I think that’s another I think that’s another shoe that’s gonna drop. And what do you what do you think about that? What do you think is gonna happen and how..
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
People out of work, they won’t be able to pay their mortgages.
Rob McNealy
Yeah. And the banks already tightening their credit lines again, and they’re already in get. My wife is super smart. I’m the dumb one of the family. My wife’s really smart. And we were walking around the neighborhood and there was a house that same size as mine, but they remodeled it. And they sold it for two and a half times my house. There’s a Worth right now. And it’s just a brick ranch house. Okay. I mean, this is not a fancy neighborhood or anything like that. But the numbers on the house, I mean, I look it up I like I like to look at real estate like to see what’s happening and and I was like, there’s no way in hell, I mean, we could afford that. But there’s no way I could pay that. I think we overpaid for my house when we bought it, and how my house has doubled in the last five years. And I said, there’s no way I would buy my house for what it’s valued at right now. I would not spend it. It’s not worth it. To me. It’s just, you know, it’s ridiculous. My wife made a good point, though. She’s like, because, you know, we were growing up with the house during the last housing crash, and she’s like, this housing crash is gonna be a lot faster to bottom and I go, what do you mean by that? Just to think about it, you know, in 2007, the price of a house was about a third what it is now, for the same house, even our old house. It’s funny, it’s like you look back on what our old House was in Colorado. And we’re like, holy crap. It’s ridiculous what that house costs, it’s that it’s ridiculous. So she’s like, think about this house. So she’s like, if a house has an $800,000 a month mortgage, it’s going to take two people working full time probably pay for that mortgage, and it’s probably like a 5000 $6,000 a month mortgage. She’s like, what if one of those people lose their job? Just one. Now this is before COVID head. So this was like last, you know, this is several months ago. And she’s she had a great point. She says, they can’t go and just liquidate their 401k out or go do Uber part time to come up with that nut every month. While they’re hoping they get another big boy job. She should so she says that housing markets probably going to hit bottom a lot faster because people are going to run out of money much faster because the mortgages are a lot bigger now. And I thought that was a really interesting point. That hadn’t heard anybody else make? Yeah. So, you know, I’m worried my brother I am, I’m so worried about where people are. And, and I’ve been in agony because I see so many people that are destitute so quickly. You know, I knew it was bad. I mean, it wasn’t ignorant to the savings rates and stuff, but the fact that I see people like so depressed and miserable, and they’re, I mean, I would bet that at the end of the year, you’re gonna see that the suicide rates probably gonna go crazy this year. And that makes me sad. Because, you know, you know, the regardless, we can get through all this shit. You know, I lived in a van behind a grocery store one summer as an adult, you know, and, and I would and I, and that’s no bullshit, okay? I mean, I’ve really came from a hard life growing up, and, you know, it’s like, I’m like, and you know what, none of that shit scares me. I’ve lost it all. And I’ve had an thing and I grew up with nothing so you know money and all that kind of stuff I you know, being broke like, whatever, you know figure the shit out, right that’s my attitude on it not that I want to be poor because being poor sucks but what I’m saying is but for people who have never experienced that right now because they grew up in this debt fueled really upper middle class you know lifestyle I think there’s gonna be a reckoning and I think those people are gonna have a very hard time adjusting to what the future holds.
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I think those people will be prey.
Rob McNealy
Yeah. Especially the ones that don’t like guns. And what do you think about precious metals? Are you a pro so book, silver bug, why silver over boom.
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
It’s in every phone. So most of our electronics, the price has been depressed even more than gold. So once the banks get their film off the paper Silver supply and the real value of silver is able to be discovered by the market. Got a pretty good feeling about it.
Rob McNealy
What is that? 50 is it 50 times now?
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I thought it was 75?
Rob McNealy
I haven’t looked in a couple weeks. So you really are you know like you are definitely my echo chamber right now. I like I like silver more than gold for the seasons. That’s an interesting thing. The the precious metals markets have been really bizarre, haven’t they? Yes. Tell me about what are you seeing out there?
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Ah, I dollar cost average precious metals the same way I do crypto and over the last month, actually six to eight weeks. The premium over spot for silver is Bananas. I recently purchased from admix $7 30 cent premium over spot. Now considering considering silver is like 14 $15 an ounce, so that’s 30 to 50% 50. Premium on an ounce.
Rob McNealy
So what does that mean?
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Something that we don’t know.
Rob McNealy
So explain that. So for people that are not gold or silver or precious metal bugs, what does that mean? It’s good to go into a little bit.
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Sure. Spot price is how much the market recognizes an ounce of silver for let’s say it’s $15 Okay. The premium is charged by the retailer to the consumer, because of various reasons, one of which is the difficulty in getting in Or the supply levels, how easy and how much there is to be sold at any given time, how much the mid releases at any given time, or how much silver was mined at any given time. When the supply starts to dry up, the premium on silver goes up, because they identify that more people want it, there’s less of it. So it becomes a law of supply and demand. So the less silver there is in the market to be sold and or the less silver has been mined in a month or six months or a year, the higher the price of silver will be and the higher the premium will probably be as well. And so when I went out to buy to do my regular DCA You know, I’m like damn, like $7 36 like This is like 50% like, really? Like believe what I was seeing when I saw it. And I mean, at max Providence on money metals, JM bullion, it didn’t matter where you win the premium was in that range of 50% premium.
Rob McNealy
Yeah, well, what what I think is interesting is that just based on the markets tanking, just based on global supply chain threats, the spot price of gold and silver should be off the charts. They should be off the chain they should be going nuts agree they’re not good. Not this the and usually in Newtown. I mean, typically, you might spend a buck you know even less depending for for the premium. If there is one, it’s not anywhere near you know, seven bucks, right, you make 1050 cents more for Well, I want this round and it’s got 20 Well design on it or whatever, you know. But what’s happened and what it looks like to me that for a long time in precious metals, a lot of the precious metal bugs out there have been saying that precious metal markets have been artificially depressed. And it’s, it’s easy to write that off as conspiracy, right? You see that a lot of times too with crypto, the crypto whales are suppressing the bitcoin price, whatever, you know, you hear that there too. But it’s interesting. Is that what there’s what it looks like it’s happening because right now, I don’t know how much physical delivery what lead times are you getting out there for the physical delivery, two weeks, we’re getting four to six new top. And so it’s interesting. And what so what they’re saying is, is that the the conspiracy theory that I’ve heard is that that there’s these paper gold and paper silver, and that they’ve oversold it, meaning that they’ll say this one, you know, this security is is worth so many ounces of silver, and they sell it, then treat it like a stock like an equity. And there’s a lot of people have alleged for a long time that they’ve sold those times more than once, maybe dozens of times. And so what’s happening and why the supply is all janky is that people now want physical delivery, and there’s not enough to go around. And so that premium that’s skyrocket. So what should be happening is the spot price should be skyrocketing to reflect market changes and conditions because this is exactly what precious metals are designed for a hedge against. And that’s not functioning right. But then, but what happens is since it looks like the markets not being allowed to actually, well, it looks to me that the market is not being allowed to do true price discovery on precious metals for whatever reason, right? That retail premium is where the market is finding the price.
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Right, you’re starting to see a real decoupling in precious on hand metals versus precious paper metals. So I see a real decoupling,
Rob McNealy
Which then would support that there’s been some corruption and maybe some manipulation for the suppression of those prices. And it’s like, wow, and it’s funny because it’s like this goes back to COVID the trigger, but it’s only exposing this ID Oh, there’s this other problem. This this this rot, right. That’s been there for a long time. The rot comes from consumerist mentality among Americans that come from the lack of we don’t save money. We’re not providing to literacy that’s rot in my opinion. And then you have you know, all this just crazy amounts of US dollars being printed. That’s right. And then you have the precious metals markets, being rigged, apparently, or oversold, and that’s a rot it, all this stuff and all this outsourcing to China for the last three decades and how great it was, you know, and I’m from Detroit. So I know all I mean, I grew up in I went through high school in the 80s. And and I grew up through all that outsourcing happened in the 80s in the 90s. And then NAFTA happened in the mid 90s. Thank you, Bill Clinton. And so I mean, I, I saw what it did to Detroit one because I grew up in I was living there in that and I used to work in the auto industry. And it’s like, there’s rot from all the outsourcing and it’s like, so it’s like, there’s all this immense amount of shit of rot that’s just pile up for decades and decades and decades and, you know, go back to, you know, getting off the gold standard A long time ago, and I mean, this started probably before I was born really, but it’s all coming to head from this goddamn virus. It’s like, and then the housing market, the student loan bubble, the housing bubble again, it’s all just right all at once, and it’s happening around the planet all at once. Right? And it’s and it’s not, but it’s not happening overnight. It’s gonna take a year, probably the next year as this this pandemic goes through all those different major population centers. It’s gonna and so it’s like it’s gonna get good in one spot and then just pop up into more like crazy whack a mole. And so I don’t know man if this is probably going to be the most historically speaking, yeah, good or bad. It’s going to be a fucking ride. Yeah, and and you know what and why need to connect with smart people like you they get it? Because, you know, if the ones that are slightly prepared, are also going to be targets. That’s a fact. Right? You know, I like to read history. And I actually like to read about Russian history, and Ukrainian history and things. And I don’t know if you know much about what happened in Ukraine. But when the Soviets invaded the Ukraine, they had like, two levels of peasants, right? They had the peasants and the peasants that could hire somebody to work for them. They’re only slightly better off peasants. They call them coup locks. And what the Russians did is they said that every they they created all these policies, the Soviets create all sorts of quotas and stuff and they said, all these failures are because of the coup locks because they’re rich. They weren’t rich. They were just slightly less poor than the average peasant, but they might have you know, a little bigger farm and employ two people or something. That’s how the locks work. But the Soviets through propaganda whipped up, so much froth and hate and envy between The Super poor peasants and the cool locks. And they blamed every government failure on the cool locks into the point where they basically either killed center gulags or exiled they confiscated all the property, the cool locks the entire country. And that was that’s the that’s what the whole Ukrainian genocide was about in they blame, they call them coup locks. And I tell people now that, you know, we joke around about toilet paper envy and things like that. But we’re already starting to see the signs that there’s going to be people that the preppers the people that are self reliant the people that aren’t in debt, the people that you know, have some savings are probably going to be targets. And it’s going to be propagandize much like cool locks were and I do believe this is going to be a true threat over the next year or more. Friend of mine down in Texas. He has he’s a prepper and his wife and him you know, we talked a lot And she says they have like, they actually have some decent, you know, kind of, you know, and 95 reusable and 95 mass that look kind of stylish and I have if you look at my profile picture, I have one too. And because I bought them a long time. And, and it was funny because he told and I talked to him yesterday. And he said, because the damnedest thing just happened I go Why? Because my wife was at the store and somebody started calling her out for having a good mask not a homemade one. Wow, she’s got she’s got you know, she’s got a real nice mask and we just got these, you know, homemade ones. I’m like, holy shit. It’s like just I mean, I know I my mind just going like crazy places when I hear stuff like that. Yeah. Where’s it gonna go? You know, and you know, that’s that’s the stuff that kind of gets me worried about you know, protecting my family and stuff. Stuff like that is like, you know, you work very hard and save and you don’t go on that family vacation or you don’t go on that big trip because you want to buy, you know, some extra supplies or buy, you know, you don’t buy the nice steak but you buy a couple extra cans of beans or something, you know, you do that long enough. And you know, because you feel it’s an insurance policy and then you know, so you can ride these things out. And then and then somebody says or acts like you did something wrong. It’s like, you know, I just thought ahead. I was a boy scout too. By the way, I was also a firefighter and EMT, so I think about this stuff. But I don’t know man. This is a really a downer. Thanks. So what can we do? Well, what can we do to get people to wake up more? often can we help? How can people say how can we help people say it themselves? Is it too late?
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I hate to go I really mean, but I’m really not worried about other people.
Rob McNealy
Fair enough.
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Right now I’m just worried about me and my family, I’ll help my neighbor, if I have to help my neighbor, but not at the expense of helping my family.
Rob McNealy
I think there will be a lot of people that will have to make those choices in the future. You know, and my wife and I, we have these kind of conversations too. You know, it’s like, what do you do? And, you know, because people know, we have, you know, we have some emergency supplies and stuff. I mean, I don’t hide that. I never hide it because I tried to help people and get them excited about it and say, Hey, this is an important thing. So I know those I know those decisions I’m gonna have to make at some point, because I’m the guy they call it ready. So looking for advice, right? So it just is what it is. But we knew that that we always knew that that was a risk. So you know, there’s nothing I can do about that now, but I don’t Want to be I want you know, I always say this is that I wear a mask. And my families have been wearing masks when we’re in public and things. Because I don’t want to be part of the problem. Because if you’re not part of the problem, you can be part of the solution. You know, what I’m saying is don’t be a victim first, right? Protect your family. Protect your what you got. Because if you’re in that position, then you do have the option to help other people. Right. And, you know, maybe I can’t help the whole neighborhood, but maybe I can help one person, you know, and, and that’s what I hope to do. And like, you know, we’re putting in a big garden this year, like a really big garden, like nuts. you’d laugh it’s like a farm. And I told my wife I go, you know, I don’t know where things are going. And and she’s about 98% where I am. I’m a little more like, no, buy everything we can possibly buy right now. You know, I’m a little more, you know, let’s just do we got this one last chance is how I see it. And I said, you know, let’s just put in more, let’s fill up some more lawn, put in some more plants and she’s like, why do we need more? I go, because we can help other people if we need. That’s why. And that’s how I think you know, and you know it doesn’t hurt me to buy you know, by the way you can buy seeds at the dollar store for for $1 everybody’s freaking out about seeds. Go to the dollar store dollar store has the cheapest seeds anywhere in the country. Nobody knows that. I don’t know why they don’t know that. But did you plant a garden? Are you planning a garden this year? Can you plant a garden?
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
I can but I won’t be this year.
Rob McNealy
You need to plant a garden. I’m gonna give you some shit about that. I think you should plant a garden. I really do. Please, little garden. Do this for me. Put your wife on. I’m just giving you shit. So Noir, where can people find out more?
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
About? Oh um yeah, we would way down the rabbit hole man, I thought we were going somewhere else. You can find me on Twitter: @InvestNoir, I N V E S T N O I R or you can check me out on Instagram at @CigarsandCrypto. Or you can listen to me on any of your podcast platforms of choice. Just search for Cigars and Crypto, or CigarsandCrypto.com.
Rob McNealy
You have the best radio voice ever. So, guys, you gotta listen to his podcast. He’s got some really, really great points out there. I really like where he’s coming from because he is my echo chamber. Thank you so much for listening this Robin Neely. Check us out on the web at Rob McNealy calm.
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto Podcast
Thanks for having me.
Episode Links
Invest Noir – Cigars and Crypto
Noir talks with Rob McNealy about his Cigars and Crypto podcast, self reliance, financial literacy and prepping during the COVID19 pandemic.
Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com Transcript
Note: This transcript was automatically generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and therefore typos may be present.
Rob McNealy
Hey, today I am talking to john Stokes. He is someone I met in person down at SHOT show. But we’ve been talking to each other for a while on social media. He is the originally one of the co founders of ARS Technica. He’s a former Wired editor, and programmer author. And now he is currently the deputy editor of the prepared calm. So john, welcome to the show. How are you?
Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
Good, good. Thanks for having me on.
Rob McNealy
Well, I appreciate you taking the time. I think it’s very prescient, what’s going on today in the news around the world with this Corona virus stuff. But before we got to jump into that, give us a little bit of background and about what you’re working on right now and how you got there working with ThePrepared.com.
Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
So I was had taken a bit of time off, and I, I was kind of figuring out what I was going to do next. ended up starting to work on a prepping book because I had gotten into this through writing for the firearm blog and all outdoor I started for a second media. And so I had had a lot of exposure to the prepping scene I was a bit of a prepper myself. I was sort of moderately serious like not super serious, but we covered a lot of the prepping stuff on all outdoor and so I kind of got plugged into it and I learned a lot we had the founder of the survive survival sports, com Kevin felts work work for us on there, and so just a lot of that scene. So I liked it, and I was thinking, What am I gonna do next, and I was kind of done with the programming thing for a while I had, like a couple of years where I wanted to do like a CTO track kind of deal and like get into tech and get out of media. I didn’t like online media. So I started working on this prepping book and I was going to a website and I thought you know, something like the wire cutter, but for preppers because nobody had done this and this was a kick that I had been on for like four years, I want to do it like a wire cutter for preppers. And then I came across the prepared and it had been in existence for close, it was coming up on the one year anniversary when I found the site. And I was like, Man, this is this is like what I want to do next, I already have like a bunch of content written and this is something that I’m really interested in. I’m going to hit up the founder and see if I can invest. So, so I hit up the founder, I found them on Facebook and ping them. Sky john Ramy, who had previously been an ad tech and was a Silicon Valley prepper guy and so we started chatting and he’s like, I’m thinking of raising around this is bootstrapped and so so I was like, Look, man, you know, let’s let’s work together instead of me doing my own thing. Why don’t we? Why don’t we kind of like get together and join forces and so We did and I ended up participating around and coming on as the deputy editor. And I’ve been working on the site since and I think we closed around in January of 2019. And I believe I came on full time and like november of 2018. So it’s been a little over a year that I’ve been that I’ve been doing this full time.
Rob McNealy
So how’s it growing?
Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
Well, the answer prior to January of this year would have been modestly but but robustly the answer as I’ll you know, January was insane bananas. And then as of today in the past, like 48 hours, we just had to upgrade the server package like massively because we, you know, blown you know, we blown past like, like pretty much everything that we would have expected to do and unlike, you know, a probably the next two years. So, so there’s a lot of traffic right now there’s a lot of interest in what we’re doing. We just our timing was very good. Speaking of good timing, the blog was not a big part of the site. It was more evergreen content guides, deep detailed reviews, stuff that people would find via Google. And in December, we had done it we had tried to kind of boot up the blog a little bit in fits and starts. And then we built this big kit builder tool that will it’s kind of like lighter pack is actually modeled a lot after lighter pack, but it’s for preppers. And it’s to put together bug out bags and other kinds of kits and keeps track of weight and price. And so I did the API for that. So I did the back end. Um, it’s basically like sort of an SBA embedded in WordPress. And then I did the API for the app. And so I kind of I kind of focused on that let the blog languish and so I got back into the blog. In December and really started hustling the blog into December and then shop show was going to be like the big okay we’re seriously doing the blog thing now. And shacho courses also is the end of January is when this coronavirus stuff exploded. So I was actually going back from SHOT Show and I saw a really good friend of mine, Arielle and for your on Facebook, he was on my old RS writers, and he had been posted about the virus and was like, I’m gonna start taking a real look at this now. And so I thought, Okay, well I’ve already posted about this on Facebook I’m about to write about for the prepared. And so and I had really, I mean, we had kept in touch on Facebook, but I hadn’t followed his career since it’s ours because he when he started writing for me at ours, he was an undergrad at University of Chicago. commodify is principal data scientist at GlaxoSmithKline and has a PhD in bioinformatics and develops drugs for a living so he’s like, you know, like dead center of kind of who will want to track this. And so he started writing about, about a forest and like that work that he I was like super key super critical so I don’t know how to mute this anyway so so that the work that he did was was really critical and and it’s been taken off since then it’s been going completely nuts you know it’s the blog is basically just offering a virus all the time now I’m going to go back into doing some gear doing some other knockaround virus stuff because we are spinning up other people that can help with the load it’s basically just been me and some stuff from our butt but but that’s kind of the the story of the blog and the coronavirus coverage recently.
Rob McNealy
Well, you know, we you know, I’ve talked you know, at length about you know, prepping and things like that and I’ve been in prepper kind of minded person for a long time. You know, I’m not like oh, I discovering prepping like in the last week like everybody else’s right now on Twitter. Then, you know, we organize that conference every year called off chain, which is a mash up of crypto and preparedness and things like that. So I actually am not freaking out because I feel pretty comfortable with where I am with our preps and things like that because, you know, we we just like to have an extra amount of insurance at all times because you never know when there’s going to be a natural disaster or something like that. But it’s interesting right now with the way Corona is, is that previously or prior to this, you know, white collar people and people that prep usually kept it quiet. Because they didn’t want to be seen as like this like Kook or tin foil hat guy or this redneck kind of guy. And it’s interesting, like literally, like in the last month, I’m starting to see like, oh, everyday people that are like, Oh, yeah, of course prepping is what everybody should be doing. And I’m like, dude, where were you guys like five years ago. It’s like, you know, it seems like everybody’s like now really Realizing that you know, being prepared for things is actually kind of a thing you should be doing. So, and you guys kind of come at it, I think from a little more of the prepping side of it, at least with what I’ve seen on your website, is that you guys are a little more intellectual about it. And not just that kind of that weird stereotype or critique that people have about, you know, preppers in general. I mean, are you deliberately coming at it from a different perspective? Do you think?
Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
Yeah, we, we really didn’t want to do anything that looked like a traditional forever website. And in fact, my personal goal, and I think I think john, the founder shares this goal is that it’d be great if at some point in the future, the word prepping wasn’t even on the website. This should just be like a normal part of adulting. It should be a thing people do. It shouldn’t be like a niche activity or a subculture. People shouldn’t have to learn a new lingo. It’s there. You know. There’s not um there was a car enthusiast scene, you know, back in the day muscle cars and stuff now just, you know, there’s still a car scene but like people just own cars, you have a car, you know, I mean, I could think of half a dozen analogies, but this shouldn’t be a niche activity that has its own lingo and subculture you know, people are into it in secret or in public or whatever. It’s just part of what you do. It’s like buying home insurance or buying there’s a fire insurance community there’s no home insurance community there’s no you know, anything like that it’s just something you do. So that’s that’s very much where we come where we come out of bro.
Rob McNealy
Well, I see that every year during like hurricane season where all of a sudden they show the you know, the the typical grocery store shelves are completely empty, and I’m thinking if you live on the coast in Florida, this should never be happening.
Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
I grew up in Louisiana and on the Louisiana Gulf Coast. I know what it’s like to put your stuff in the car and sit for hours in a hurricane evacuation line have evacuated a couple times. My family evacuated for returned after Katrina. I worked in the Katrina shelters in Lake Charles, Louisiana where I’m from. So yeah, Hurricane perhaps tracking hurricanes during hurricane season, having having fuel having stuff on hand to be ready to bug out. This was just what you did when you lived there. It was there was no subculture there wasn’t like a term for it. We didn’t call it anything. You just were ready for a hurricane.
Rob McNealy
So coronavirus, there’s been a lot of media attention given to this and it’s interesting how, at least on social media, it’s somehow becoming a partisan political issue which to me is absurd. But yet I you’re seeing out there where some people are saying the the coronavirus is overhyped. Some people are saying is under hyped Where is your take? Or what’s your take on it? Where are you coming from on the corona? Is this something that Americans should be worried about now?
Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
Yeah, you know, I think whether it’s overhyped or under hype depends on your filter bubble. I mean, really, it’s just this is a moment that has highlighted for me the degree to which we all kind of live in different information silos, dependent on where you get your news, who you follow, what kind of voices you listen to, you’re going to have a different headspace about this. And, and this information, you know, the silos, they’re not they’re not disjointed, they leak into each other. So, you know, I have a, I have a very carefully curated list that I have for this. Some people discover it and so you can subscribe to it on my Twitter feed. I follow people you know, I’m constantly adding deleting people and there has been a political aspect to it since the beginning. You know, frankly, there are some people and infectious disease, morality, virology epidemiology who have been more or less alarmed. There have been some people that have come from a certain political slant that you can tell from their bios that are constantly telling everybody to calm down and not panic and this is no big deal and they’ve set themselves over against the alarmist people. You know, that that’s how it is. People have different opinions on things, especially about the future. So So I’ve watched this evolve, I’ve watched virology and infectious disease Twitter and epidemiology, Twitter evolve, and kind of converge on on a more heightened state of concern heightened state of alarm. I’ve watched my media feed I have a lot of I have a media network from you know, 20 something years and online media. Watch the film take up this topic and begin talking about it and worried about it. I’m starting as of the last 24 hours to see this really spread in a big way in my normie feed on Facebook used to I would post something from the prepared I’d get like three likes you know now the the kind of stereotypical, you know, suburban moms and dads and just normal people are are picking up our posts and our Rulon coronavirus page and our sharing is blown up just in the past 48 hours so so there has been a lot of different depending on what subset you are going to where you listen who you listen to your political affiliation and yeah there there is I’m aware that rush limbaugh is telling people that this is some kind of democrat plot the tank the election, tank the markets and you know, something like this. I know that that’s going on. I’m not engaging with it, publicly, like on Twitter and stuff because you know, a nobody got time for that. Like I’m we’re here trying to get people ready. And I don’t care what kind of politics you have. If you’re if you’re super Trumpy if you’re, you know, Bernie Sanders stand Elizabeth Warren, I just don’t care. I want you to be ready. You know, I want you to have the right information and I want you have your head in the right place about this. As far as being concerned about it. I am. I’m really concerned. I mean, I think that i think that’s cool closures in this country and in a lot of areas are kind of I really think that’s a lot. I think it’s gonna happen. As far as a, you know, voluntary shelter in place for a lot of people is going to happen, it’s already happened and there are already people that I’m in touch with that are bugging out, leaving the city, you know, going out to the country if they’ve got like a relative something like this that’s already quietly happening, just the way that the Costco runs have been kind of quietly happening this week. So So more than that, going to pick up more that’s going to happen. How far this is going to go, very difficult for me to say, I try not to you can always you can always, very plausibly model a worst case scenario, you just can and I am a guy that has followed every crisis in the last, you know, two years like in a detailed way. So when we were nose to nose with North Korea and the summer of 2017. I was like I had an appetite, Twitter feed, national security Twitter feed, I followed a super closely and you how close we came or ran stuff from last summer. I followed that really closely. I was on you know, pins and needles with it. Like every one of these different crises that we’ve had recently. I’ve been right in there. I followed the experts, and I know how bad it can look and I knew how it can dissipate. I’ve seen it all happen you know you never press the red button because something always happens but I also was an investor during 2008 and I followed 2008 closely and unfolding there so I’ve seen like a real legit crisis happen and what I’ve learned is you can’t predict the future there are some drugs we’re about to have a blog post on this now the blog is backup I have a post and the camera I’ve got edit there are some drugs like an anti malarial drug and some other drugs that are very very promising at at a rest in the disease that goes with this so so we I’m not we’re not gonna have a vaccine anytime soon. year would be an absolute minimum. But we may find other therapies that work so summer could still I don’t I don’t put a lot of faith in the idea that one weather is going to knock this out. But it could it could be could tamp it down some combination of summer weather and a malarial drug which is already made it scale could be ramped up and could help and could forestalls little worst case scenario. So there’s a range of possibilities. But I think minimum minimum baseline is going to be, you’re going to be at home for a week or two, your kids are going to be at home for a while. You may have to remote work, stuff like that. I think that that stuff is very, very, very likely.
Rob McNealy
So it’s interesting. So my perspective on things like this is I monitor and I’m open minded, and I’m a skeptical at the same time. And so I have a I’m very curious, and I don’t tend to overreact. Some may know that my wife is actually a medical doctor who actually works as a government contractor to the federal government. And so and I’m a former EMT, and so I do view things through the eyes of, you know, a person who’s worked as a first responder for a long time and on this issue, and I tried to be very rational and in you know, controlled about how I view it. Mike, I think the big unknowns that I think a lot of people that I’m seeing around the coronavirus is the fact that one of many of us don’t trust China. And I think the big unknown is what’s Bs, what’s real and what’s happening in China, because you see all these random, you know, clips then you don’t know the context of the clip. You don’t know where it came from things of that nature. But that’s what has a lot of ups like me concerned is I don’t know, I don’t know what’s real are the numbers on that little tracker app that’s out there. Are those real? Are those are being underreported? Are they being over reported? The one thing that least between conversation with my wife and I about this is that at least in my lifetime, I can’t remember where large population centers in China have been completely locked down. In this quarantine. I don’t recall that’s ever happened. Before So, in my mind, this isn’t just SARS, this isn’t the flu, this is something different. It definitely has some government officials over there concerned because they’re taking much more extreme action than I’ve ever seen. So the question is that I would have for you, do you believe that the numbers and reporting about this in China are accurate being underreported over reported or accurate or you know, are normal.
Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
So we have a reporter in Beijing. That is that is done some work on this for us, and this is the source. And she’s, she writes for a mainstream outlet is fluent in English in Chinese is native Chinese. And we’ve talked to her about this, I followed this, and my take home on that is that, of course the the the absolute number is going to China in terms of the magnitude or garbage They’re not real, but directionally in terms of when things are swelling and when they’re dropping, that seems to be broadly like probably right. I think that it seems likely that the extreme lockdown measures that the Chinese have done, have arrested the spread and stop the growth and use cases outside of Dubai. I think that’s probably likely i think it’s it’s likely that things may be getting better and move on right now. Again, now, these are people that have been locked down for weeks, they have been under very like welded doors welded shut it not able to go out for groceries, extreme quarantine measures, that’s going to have an impact. Social distancing is apart from hand hygiene. Social distancing is the number one thing that you’re going to do to turn the arrow around in the absence of a vaccine to turn the, you know, the arrow is the, the viral coefficient, which says how far it spreads. And so you want to get that below one. And so to get it below one, if you don’t have a vaccine, you’re gonna have to keep people from spreading it to each other, like physical separation. The Chinese have done an insane amount of that. And it’s probably worked outside of just so so. So my point there is that like directionally when you look at the China, of course, there’s, there’s far more cases far more death than they reported. But I think it is very likely that that things are getting better and some of the cities because of the extremists of the measures, big questions are Can we do that here in the West? Can you do that? Can you lock down a Chicago when people have got guns and you know, stuff like this? open question. To me, I think, if people are scared enough, you know, maybe But I really don’t know. Other questions are about the Chinese health system now in the world, the world, the who is ranking of health systems, they’re pretty far down there, you know, below us. But then but then, you know, these Asian countries have been fighting, have been prepping for SARS mer stuff like this for a while and they’ve got ventilators they can China can ramp up hospital production stuff like this. So there are a lot of unknowns there. I think it’s more instructive for me to look at what’s happening now and what’s unfolding in South Korea, what’s unfolding in Japan? Iran less so but still, that stuff is going to tell the tale because yeah, you’re right. China is largely a black box, a lot of noise. Very difficult to get signal. But But now things of things are in a different a different realm. Italy. Keep an eye on Italy, you know.
Rob McNealy
Yeah. One of the things that my wife and I have kind of looked at is, the United States is very different than Asia and Europe, you know, if those different, you know, those countries decide that you’re going to stay put, they will enforce that. Whereas Americans are a little more persnickety about constitutional rights and things like that. And I keep thinking, you know, I’ve seen people where they have tuberculosis or something, they shouldn’t be going around in public because they’re supposed to be under self quarantine. And they’re like, well, I ran out of smoke. So I had to go to the store, right. And in between our, you know, our homeless populations and Americans just happened to travel a lot more than I think a lot of a lot of places around the world like China, people don’t move around quite as much as we do. And I think, you know, I think Americans are going to be less likely to do self quarantine for me and I was talking to some people in a group that I’m in I’m in a group right now that is talking about prepping for this and look at it like this. Americans send their kids to school. when they’re sick, and they go to work now sick because they think nothing of possibly infecting their friends or coworkers, because it might be inconvenient for them to stay home or have their kids stay home. And I’m not sure that’s going to change just because of this. And it goes back to, you know, people are, you know, you know, going down, you know, partisan lines and saying some people like, Oh, it’s no big deal and all this other stuff. And I’m like, there’s there’s two factors that have been most concerned, you know, because we don’t you’re right. We don’t know yet. how bad it is, because until it starts getting into other countries, and where we have probably better information and communication coming out. It’s hard to evaluate, you know, what this really looks like. And I agree with you, I think the extreme powers that the Chinese government haven’t or you know, the the quarantines and the extreme measures they’ve taken probably are effective. I don’t think the American government can do the same thing and I don’t think Americans will put up with it. And that’s what has me concerned about here. That is actually might get more if it is as bad as we think it is, it might get more out of hand here than it would say it in China. The other the other thing that I’m sorry, good. Oh, the other thing has me concerned is is the economic impacts of this. I’ve been trying to do some research about how much of our supply chain, it comes from China. And the numbers range from anywhere from 20 to 50%. Of all the stuff we get is manufactured in China right now. And my concern is, is that depending on which store you’re talking about, we only have between 30 and 90 days of inventory isn’t like their buffer, right. That’s about what the American supply chain holds currently. The question is, how long is China going to be shut down from their production levels? And how is that going to impact the United States? And so, to me, even if, say, we don’t have a viral outbreak that gets out of hand here. How does the economic impact of the Chinese government and their political production. How does that trade impact? You know, our economy, for instance, a big chunk of our building materials are supplied from China right now. And right now a lot of our economy is being driven by the the current housing bubble that we’re in. Well, even if, you know the price of materials goes up 20% or 30%, that could do a lot to put the brakes on the housing market, which could really hurt the economy. Have you been looking at any of the economic potential economic impacts of coronavirus outside just the normal viral part of it?
Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
Yeah, I mean, I’m an investor. I pay close attention to this. I’m very concerned about it. I’ve been talking to other finance people investor types. They were largely not concerned before Sunday night, Sunday night there was some kind of shift in as aight guys, I think well, I’ll be One of the things was that the stock market futures just started to get really ugly. And it was clear on Sunday night that it was going to bloodbath on Monday. There was a big shift in the Zeitgeist on Sunday. I woke up Sunday morning, I had conversations with with market types. And they were like, yeah, I’m a little worried about this, but but we’re gonna handle it. And then Sunday night, you know, it turns into Well, you know, there’s a lot of deer in my neighborhood that I could do. So it’s like, seriously things things change fast for a lot of people. And, and, and so I bill I’m worried about this. I it’s hard for me to model a lot of a lot of what I think is that this is a we’re not destroying a lot of productive capacity. This is not like a war where factories getting bombed or something like this. It’s it’s one of these things where they’re there may be some kind of V shaped recovery. Once people go back to work, factories reopen, that kind of thing. And I think the system will knit will knit itself back together more rapidly than people think. That said, everybody with a brain is now looking at their dependence on on single sources in China and Asia. And thinking, Okay, well, clearly, I’ve got geographic risk. I knew that I had geographic risk, but I didn’t care. But now I care. This isn’t going to happen again. And we’re going to diversify. And so that’s going to have all kinds of impacts on the cost of goods and employment, the US and stuff that’s really hard to think through. But my top line is that is that at some point, depending on how bad this gets, I mean, there are scenarios where you’ve got medical bankruptcies that, you know, frees up the credit system and vaporize a big chunk of the economy. You know, you’ve got people you got a scenario where a lot of people are staying home. looking after their school’s out, like, let’s say that we did what just happened in Japan today, where they announced that all the schools are closed, somebody’s gonna look after those kids. So that’s a lot of people stay at home and a lot of people missing paychecks, a lot of people aren’t financially prepared. There could be a really large impact. But I mean, I think the government’s going to need a government up to and including negative rates and helicopter money, they’re going to do what they can do to get people spend and again, so we have we have maybe some tools there. I don’t know. I tried to maintain some optimism as an investor that that we can snap back pretty quickly. And I also part of this is my experience with 2008. You know, I was bearish for too long. I was bearish into 2010 so I missed a big a big turn up on the market. And you know, I finally got religion near the end of 2010. I was like, Okay, well, this you know, this is real. There’s a real recovery here. This is happening and And I got back in. Um, so I’ve seen how fast things can turn around how suddenly they can turn around. And the big thing to remember too, and this is what people miss, I think with a lot of the doomsday scenarios and the doomsday prepping is when you bet against against the market and you bet against civilization and economy, you’re betting against the combined efforts, the best efforts and billions of people to make this thing go. Humans collectively are trying to make it work. We’re all trying to make it work, whatever for some definition of making it work. And I don’t want to bet against that. I don’t want to gamble that that all those billions of individual efforts at trying to trying to make something productive trying to make money trying to hustle trying to feed themselves are going to go to pot You know, they’re going to amount to nothing so so I like I said I maintain some some optimism but but there are scenarios. I think you’re right Our hospital system is very under resourced. We have a lot of problems, like I said, with people missing work, medical bills, all this kind of stuff is bad already. And this virus is going to whack it hard. And we’re going to see how that shakes out. And it could get really ugly. We don’t have a lot of capable centralized response and not a lot of capability to respond to this. Then there’s the election. You know, I wrote the big, big wired up as a big in terms of length, it was very long. I think it also did pretty well in terms of traffic, but it was it was a it was immediate, immediate editorial about the possible impact on the election and how, you know, do we really want to send people to polling places to stand in line and breathe on each other and touch the same touch screens in November if we’ve got a viral epidemic raging over here and fill out hospitals, I don’t think we do. So there’s that aspect. I said we should move immediately to vote. By Mail, I do not hold out a lot of hope of anything like that happening. I think what is probably realistically going to happen is we’re going to have a big fight over if if there is a big if if the summer doesn’t stop it, and if we’re not able to tamp it down and if we’re still like very substantially fighting this in November. I think that we’re going to have a big argument over whether or not to postpone the election, because there will be a lot of urban dense urban areas where people are not going to want to turn out for this and we will probably not postpone the election. I just I think the the baseline scenario is escalating, nothing gets done, there is no vote by mail. There is a fight over putting it off, but nothing enough is put off and then we just have a situation where rural turnout is is a lot better than urban turnout. And you know, who knows which way things swing if the Rules types are still are still looking for for another Trump term or if they’re sour on them because of the coronavirus response. I don’t have a crystal ball. But but either way you slice it, it’s going to 2020 is going to be even more contentious than we all kind of thought it was. And I know a lot of people, myself included, were looking for trouble around the election in 2020 thinking, well, things are going to get are going to get spicy, and we’re going to be at each other’s throats. And we may see some instances of domestic you know, crazy breakout here. And and I think we were already worried about that I was already worried about it. Now even more worried about it.
Rob McNealy
So before we wrap up here, what would be the things that you say now? What advice would you give to someone who is not already prepared? What would you be? What would be the things that you think people should stock up on right now while there’s still things on the shelves?
Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
Obviously, the big one is prescription meds if you’re on something, try to get a stockpile of that by hook or by crook. What are you going to do? You know, I’m not not that I’m telling people to go on the dark web and you know, order drugs. But like, seriously, I wouldn’t even know how to find the dark web personally. I mean, you might get some garbage. That’s like fake fentanyl. I’ll send you a URL to really, really yeah, don’t do that. I know nothing about the dark. I know nothing. But uh, but yeah, however, you got to do it. If you got if you’re on if you’re on something, if you’re on heart meds, whatever it is you’re on, and a sudden stoppage of it is gonna is going to wreck your business. Figure out how to get some more. Um, that that’s, that’s the number one thing. The number two thing is you need to eat hygiene. You need hygiene products, especially for a pandemic. So they talk About I think it’s the three is or the three ages of survival or four there’s there’s hygiene and heat and hydration, you know, and that’s actually not the right order. I think it’s like heat hydrate hydration Anyway, there’s some orange thread. hygiene is one of the big ones that kills a lot of people in any kind of survival or disaster situation. hygiene is huge. So you want to get toilet paper, which was being used as currency in Hong Kong and Hong Kong, walk down joining get toilet paper, feminine hygiene products, bleach, alcohol, things to clean your body things to clean your space that you’re in. If you’re in a confined space with a lot of humans for three weeks, it’s going to get nasty and you want to keep it clean. Um, personal protective gear. If you don’t already have a mask, you’re not going to get one. Those are out nitrile gloves are still in stock, pick those up. They’re probably more important, more important than the mask anyway. So that kind of stuff. So, hygiene stuff prescription meds, plenty of water potable water, I do not think the grocery stores were going to be in a situation where there’s no groceries. At least after some initial panic surge there may be like a spell where everybody runs out on possibly this weekend, everybody runs out and just cleans out the grocery store. The trucks are going to keep running there will probably still be groceries. So so that’s why I put food you know less underneath water you know, PPP stuff like that. still get food, start with two weeks but but get a month you know, get three months if you can, however much you I’m telling people that shoot for 90 days, the very people are going to get there but you know, try to shoot for 90 days but do what you can and and just think about the fact that you’re going to be eaten for a month, two months, three months regardless. Try to get it all at once and then eat your way through it as opposed to just go into the store wants A week or you know, every couple days you want food, you know you want entertainment things that distract yourself. Boredom is has been a big problem in the Chinese lockdown and and the other thing that’s happening per source in China is that people just go on social media, and they drive each other crazy. They share rumors and conspiracies and weird stuff and their mental state deteriorates. And they just thought it’s a bad scene. It’s a bad scene if you’ve got a couple of hundred million people in lockdown, which is what happened in China, and they’re all on social media driving each other nuts. You want to have something else to do besides Facebook, besides Twitter, besides whatever you’re into, to be able to unplug from the news and get off that stuff. And, and, you know, spend time with with with whoever you’re locked down with and connect with people. So game board games. puzzles, books, any that stuff those are all now Congratulations, your board game addiction, your puzzle addiction, video games, whatever those are now pandemic preps, you know, you’re, you’re blessed to go forth and like, you know, load up your Steam library or Nintendo downloads or whatever. Because you really just want to, you want to maintain a good mindset. You want to be able to make high quality decisions, you’re able to see what’s going on clearly. And you don’t want to be in a panic or in a frenzy hopped up on a bunch of weird rumors about what’s going down at the local supermarket or somebody found this or you know, the virus is here or there you just don’t you don’t want to be into that stuff. So, so look out for your mind. You know, protect your your physical person, your body, keep yourself clean, keep your space clean. Keep yourself fed. keep yourself hydrated.
Rob McNealy
Sounds good. Jon Stokes. Where can people find out more about you?
Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
ThePrepared.com, visit and check us out. My personal website is just like a bare HTML page john Stokes. com jail in St. Louis, calm you can find out more about what i what i do want to meet you there. But really ThePrepared.com is where I’m spending all my time. Every every waking minute now with this fiber stuff.
Rob McNealy
Very good and I will make sure that I have all that linked up on our website at Rob McNealy calm. JOHN, thank you so much for coming on today.
Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
Thanks for having me.
Episode Links
Jon Stokes – ThePrepared.com
Jon Stokes, the Deputy Editor of ThePrepared.com, talks with Rob McNealy about the Corona Pandemic.
Ron Holmes, Inventor of the Ryker Grip
In This Episode
In this podcast interview, Rob McNealy interviews Ron Holmes, inventor of the Ryker Grip, side mounted fireams grip.
About Ron Holmes
Ron Holmes retired from Marine Special Operations Command after serving over 20 years in the U.S. Marines. During his time at MARSOC as the Communications Operations Chief he was the senior enlisted responsible for the creation of the first Marine Special Operations Communications School called MNOC (Marine Network Operators Course). Prior to this he served with Force Reconnaissance commands for the majority of his time in service. His primary job was Reconnaissance Communications. Post retirement he worked in support of the Global War on Terror for the Joint Special Operations Command as a Program Manager for a Communications Company. Shortly thereafter serving as a Sensor Operator on an Intelligence Reconnaissance Surveillance platform. This lead him to working as an Independent Diplomatic Security Consultant for over 3 years. In 2014 he was diagnosed with cancer and could no longer deploy. As of today he is cancer free and focuses on his firearms training he has provided over the last 10 years. His training has provided over 5000 hours of marksmanship instruction for all skill levels on multiple weapons platforms. He holds a patent for the RYKER Grip that he invented. He is a principle owner of RYKER USA. He has a Bachelors degree in Homeland Security and Emergency Management, with honors. He is married to Traceylynn Holmes together they have their son Ryker Jeffrey Holmes who the company and grip were named after.
About the Ryker USA
RYKER USA is the first to market side mounted grips, thus creating a new category, that being The RYKER GRIP. During the prototype phase when shooting the grip we felt faster and our accuracy was improved. We assembled a team that includes an ergonomic specialist, ophthalmologist, statisticians, engineers, and a variety of gunfighters. The RYKER Grip works on any rifle that you can side mount too; Shotguns, SCAR’s, AR,AR, PCC, SAW, FAL. The heavier the gun, the larger the caliber, and or full auto the shooter will recognize the benefit of the grip instantly. This September [2019] we will have been on the market 2 years. From prototype to production we have over 3 years on the ground in combat.