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Natgas is down 63% from its high in late August. The average price before Q2 ’21 was $2-3, so we only have 7% more to fall to below $3. While we saw Natgas rise – along with every other commodity – in 2021, prices had begun to fall until Russia invaded Ukraine.
Russia and Ukraine are still at war, but we have this issue with the restart of the LNG terminal. Tracy Shuchart tells us what’s behind the fall in Natgas prices and what she’d look for before expecting prices to stop falling.
The Fed pivot has been wishful thinking for quite a while and Sam Rines has been repeating this for months or so. As the Fed’s minutes were released last week, Sam pointed out that NO MEMBER saw the need for a rate rise in 2023. He stated many times that the Fed has been very clear about its indicators. We see this so often that it seems obvious. Why is this so difficult for some people to see? Sam Rines explains that in this episode.
This week, Sam also made the point that the Fed is maybe “stuck in the middle”. Literally, employment in the middle of the US could be a factor that keeps the Fed from slowing down. Sam explains why the middle is so important.
We’ve seen a lot of chatter in research notes, op-eds, and tweets over the last week stating that the future is a multipolar world. This seems largely based on a call for the decline of the USD and the rise of the petroyuan, etc. Albert Marko walks us through this.
Key themes:
1. Natgas sub $3?
2. The Fed Pivot is Dead
3. Multipolar, Post-USD World
This is the 48th episode of The Week Ahead, where experts talk about the week that just happened and what will most likely happen in the coming week.
Follow The Week Ahead panel on Twitter:
Tony: https://twitter.com/TonyNashNerd
Tracy: https://twitter.com/chigrl
Sam: https://twitter.com/SamuelRines
Albert: https://twitter.com/amlivemon
Transcript
Tony
Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Week Ahead. I’m Tony Nash. This week we are joined by Tracy Shuchart, Albert Marko, and Sam Rines. Thank you guys for taking the time to join us this week.
It’s been a pretty volatile short week, and there are a number of things we’re talking about. First is Natgas. We’ve seen Natgas come off pretty dramatically this week, and we’re going to talk to Tracy about whether or not we’re going to see Natgas below $3 soon. Also the Fed pivot. There’s been a lot of statements from the Fed, and Sam’s covered that in detail, so it looks pretty dead. But we want to find out from Sam what’s going on. And we’ve also seen a lot of coverage of or a lot of commentary about a multipolar world in the last week or two, which sounds like 2006 era rhetoric or something, but we’re seeing a lot of that kind of rear its head again, and we want to talk through that with Albert. Thanks, guys. Tracy, let’s jump into it with with Natgas. Natgas is down something like 63% from its high in late August. I’ve got a price chart on the screen right now.
The average price before Q two of 21 was in the two to $3 range, 260 or something like that. So I only have 7% more to fall below $3. So we’ve seen it rise with every other commodity in 2021. But of course, with Russia invading Ukraine, we saw that spike up. So Russia and Ukraine are obviously still at war. And then we have this issue with an LNG terminal in Texas with Freeport. So we’ve got that story from Bloomberg up on the screen right now.
Can you tell us what is behind that Nat gas price fall, and what are you looking for in that market for that to stop?
Tracy
Well, first, again, Freeport, since you already put that up right, which went down in August, and people have been waiting for that facility to reopen because it’s an export facility. What happens is that since that facility is shut down, that landlocked US. Nat gas or that pushed downward pressure on US. Nat gas. Originally they were supposed to reopen in October. Then it was November, then it was December, and now it’s mid January. So that does contribute to a lot of problems. We’re also seeing warmer weather right now in the EU, and stocks are full in the EU. This market has become very complacent. That said, if we’re looking forward, there is a cold front coming in, I think January 22 to the EU. It’s supposed to be really cold for a few weeks. So what traders will be watching is to see how much does their build bring down during that time. But again, yes, the markets have become very complacent. They think that they’re indicative that this crisis is over, but that’s not necessarily true. We’ll have to see this winter how much stock is brought down in Europe due to cold weather.
Tracy
And you have to remember that in 2022, half of their storage came from cheap Russian gas pipeline. Right. So looking forward to when we have to refill this, they’re going to have more expensive LNG coming in, and that takes longer and it’s more expensive. And then we look at US. Export capacity. It’s still not built out enough for the contracts that we actually signed with the EU. So that may put pressure on US. Nat gas, but that would put upward pressure on European nat gas.
Tony
So does that pressure, does it drive the price up or does it just hold the price steady? Is there a mean reversion at some point where we go to, say, 260 or 270 on average and kind of some of these weather issues and Restocking just kind of maintains it? Or do you expect things to go back up to $9 or whatever?
Tracy
I think we could see a spike. Again, there’s a lot of mitigating factors in this market right now, and we really have to see how much is pulled from storage in Europe at this point. And hopefully Freeport is supposed to open mid January. We’ll see if that happens.
Tony
Okay.
Tracy
But that would really leave a lot of the downward pressure on prices in the US. Market because it would open us up to being able to export that.
Tony
We also saw the Japanese buying a US. Nacas company this past week. Right. Can you talk to us a little bit about that?
Tracy
Yeah, which makes sense. I mean, Japan has been one of the largest natural gas importers in the world, and they’re very concerned right now about energy security, as most countries are, particularly in Asia. They’ve had some problems with their deal with Russia because they have a joint project together, and due to sanctions, there are some problems involved in that. And so I think that was a very smart move, again, for Japan to kind of secure energy. I mean, they’re looking forward, much more forward than I would say Europe is.
Tony
Okay. Very good. So it sounds to me that there’s not really anything decisive coming up in the near term to change the direction, but the magnitude may slow.
Tracy
Is that yeah, technically speaking, we are very oversold at this point. That said, what we really are going to have to be looking at, or what traders should be looking at moving forward is do we have this reopening of Freeport mid January and this cold front coming in? If it does, traders will be looking at how much draw is is going to happen in in Europe or Bill stock? Okay.
Albert
Not to mention, Tony, that planting season for 2020, late 2023 and 2024 is coming up in Fertilizer. You need that gas fertilizer. So that’s that’s something else to look at. I’m not sure exactly how much it weighs on it or a bullish case from that gas by any means, but something will keep your eye on.
Tracy
Right.
Tony
But we have had some fertilizer volatility over the past couple of years, right? Oh, yeah. Russian invasion.
Albert
Yeah, I’ve been a big mosaic fan, which is a phosphate play, but also nat gas is the other component on the other side for the fertilizers that they use.
Tony
Great. Tracy, what’s your thought on fertilizer?
Tracy
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think we’ve seen that obviously pull back, but we’re heading into planting season again starting in the spring. So again, that’s going to be another factor as far as not gas is concerned. And the fertilizer analysts that I’ve talked to say they expect another price spike coming into about March.
Albert
Yeah, I believe also there’s going to be a price spike on the fertilizer front because the soil that the farmers haven’t used can’t sit as from what I’m told, can’t sit around not being used for too long. So 23,024 they’ll have to be replanting, those fields.
Tony
Interesting. Okay, well, good to know. Thanks for all of that. So let’s move on to the Fed. Sam, you’ve put out a few notes this week about the Fed and the Fed Pivot. Obviously, you’ve been saying for about nine months that the Fed Pivot is kind of wishful thinking. You’ve said it over and over and over again and there haven’t been hasn’t been a lot of kind of listening to it or people really haven’t heeded that necessarily as we see kind of run ups and and hope that we’ll see a pivot. But Fed minutes were released this week and you pointed out no member saw a need to raise rates in 2023. So that from your newsletter is on the screen right now.
So you’ve stated many times that the Fed has been very clear what their indicators are. And honestly, we’re seeing what you’ve said many times, that it’s vu and nominal wages. So vacancies and unemployment as well as nominal wages as well as core services, excluding shelter inflation.
And those have been very clearly stated by the Fed chair in his briefings. So why is it so difficult for people to see these things that seem to be very clearly stated by the Fed?
Sam
It’s personal preference. Right. The presuppositions and the initial conditions that you want based on the way you’re positioned. Right. So our brains really like to be correct. So if we can convince ourselves that the Fed is doing the wrong thing and should do something else and ignore the Fed will do something different, then it makes us feel a little bit better. So I think that’s part of it. But I do think that there’s something to be said for when no member of the FOMC sees the need to cut rates in 2023. That should be heated. That’s a pretty one sided trade. And you listen to some of the members of the Fed this week, bostic, who could be considered one of the more dovish individuals. He was still somewhat indeterminate between hiking 25 and 50 at the next meeting. When the most dovish member that I can kind of come up with or one of them doesn’t know if they’re going 25 or 50, that’s, that’s problematic. Right? That’s, that’s something that I think people are somewhat ignoring, particularly market participants, is that the Fed is not the Fed is not pivoting towards being dovish at this point.
Right. That the narrative that they have put out for the last six months has not changed. It has been very consistent and it has been very clear that vacancies to unemployment is a problem because one, when you poach people, you have to pay them a lot more money. So instead of call it the ADP report is really intriguing because they release what the pay rates are for people who aren’t switching jobs. It’s somewhere in the seven percentage range and the people who are switching jobs are getting 15% pay bumps. So the differential there is somewhat stark and somewhat shocking. I think that is somewhat underestimated by people when they look at what’s going on in the labor market. We have had a very good year for job creation and we just finished it off with a number that was well above expectations. And, you know, you can kind of nitpick and say, well, the average hourly wage was only up 30, basis points 0.3%. And you know, that’s that’s a positive for the Fed. Well, yeah, it’s only going to be up .3% because the vast majority of jobs were created in lower paying industries.
When you create jobs in leisure and hospitality, those are below the median. So you’re going to drag down the wage growth just naturally on that front. So I think a lot of it is going to be evolutionary for the Fed, right. They’re going to have to evolve their rhetoric at some point, but they’re not going to do it yet and they’re certainly not going to do it before the February FOMC meeting and they’re probably not going to do it until after the March 1. And that to me is probably not priced in at this point. And what’s really not priced in is the Fed just not really caring about the data until sometime in early 2024.
Tony
So you mentioned that in one of your newsletters, I think it was yesterday, talking about on Thursday most recent employment report. You talked about the Fed being stuck in the middle and literally you put some maps, which I put on screen.
Employment in the middle of the US could be a factor that keeps the Fed from slowing rate rises or at least from kind of pivoting. So why is the middle so important? We get so much coverage of what’s happening in Silicon Valley or New York or whatever, but why is the middle so important? And why is the Fed paying so much attention to the middle?
Sam
Sure, so the regions to the west were the only ones that lost jobs, according to the ADP report, which is pretty interesting. And the rest of the country made up for it and made up for it in spades. So while all the tech layoffs get a lot of headlines, you never really hear about the opening of XYZ plant in Kentucky or Tennessee, or the building of a plant in Tennessee, right? Those don’t get the headlines that Facebook laying off a few thousand people get. Quite frankly, who cares about a bunch of people getting laid off from Facebook? They probably shouldn’t have had jobs in the first place. Even say I’ll say it about alphabet. I’ll say it about all the tech companies. They overhired and they overhired in the wrong area, and now they’re laying them off. I mean, that’s what happens. It’s called the tech cycle. It’s not that difficult. But middle America is more than making up for it, and it’s making up for it in spades. And I think the Fed actually might be getting caught by the middle of the country. And it’s kind of the revenge of middle America, right?
Middle America always takes the brunt of the BS from the coast in terms of being dominated on monetary policy, being dominated on economic policy, and now they’re the ones kind of driving the ship. And I think that’s really underestimated within people’s frameworks that when we’re isolated to New York and California and see people getting laid off, that doesn’t really matter to the Fed as long as it’s being made up for by people in the middle. And people in the middle are making more money and they continue to spend. And there’s a lot of states in the Midwest and call it just flyover states. There’s a lot of states with a two handle on unemployment. A two handle. So if you want to hire people in middle America, guess what? You’re going to have to pay up if you want to hire a tech worker on the West Coast. Maybe you don’t, but that’s what’s going to get the headlines. But you’re going to have to pay up in the middle.
Tony
Well, you may not have to in terms of the rise on the West Coast, but the wages there aren’t necessarily coming down, are they, on the West Coast?
Sam
No, they’re not coming down, but it’s all about wage growth at this point. As long as you have a pretty sharp deceleration, you have some people on the market to hire. That’s important, right? Nevada and California have two of the highest unemployment rates in the country.
Tony
So is it fair to say that the middle is not say perfectly, but in some extent kind of catching up with the coast in terms of, say, real wages or something or no. No. Okay, so it’s still pretty cheap, but still just wage growth. Okay, very good. What else are we missing? Because look, you have been consistent on all of this. And you have for anybody who’s either listened to us or read your stuff for the last nine months could have seen this play out pretty much exactly as you’ve laid out. So what are people missing? I think the Fed has been fairly boringly, consistent, and you’ve said they would be, and that’s what’s happened. So are there any lines to read between that we should be looking at right now?
Sam
Yeah, so I laid it out about a week ago that I think what you really want to look for is the Fed going from a hawk to a grackle, hawkish to grackleish. And if you live in Texas, have lived in Texas, grackles are the worst birds ever because all they do is squawk. They wake you up and you can’t shoot them. They’re not like dubs, so play that all the way through there. But Grackles are an incredibly annoying creature. And when the Fed goes from being pure hawkish to really starting to grackle up its communication, squawk, squawk, squawk. You have no idea what they’re looking at. You have no idea what the metrics are. That’s when they’re getting ready to pause and pivot. And frankly, we have seen none of that right. Until the Fed process is not hawk to dove or dove to hawk, it’s dove, grackle, hawk, hawk, grackle, dove. And until they really begin to confuse their messages, they’re not changing shape. That we simply haven’t seen them begin to change shape. I do think that sometime this year, probably in the call, it the May to June time frame. That’s when you’re really going to begin to see the Grackles come out.
And a lot of confusing language about what they’re watching. A lot of confusing talk about the balance sheet. A lot of confusing talk about the future, the path of Fed Funds rates. And that’s really when I’ll get a little more bulled up on a Fed pause in the length and the structure of the potential to pivot. I don’t think there is a reasonable case to be made at this point. The Fed is going to cut in 2023. If there is a credible argument, it’s that the Fed breaks something and has to cut a lot. Right. So it’s it’s a little bit of a call. It a convex play here that if the Fed does cut, it’s not it’s not cutting 50 basis points, it’s cutting two or 300. And if and on the other side, you know, if nothing bad happens or nothing very bad happens, the Fed is just going to hold it there. So I think there’s a little bit of skew here.
Tony
Great.
Tracy
Okay, thank you. I have one question. Yesterday we had, like, Fed george came out and said the Fed, quote unquote, Fed, still has a lot to learn about how balance sheet policy works. Can you explain that to the audience? And would that not be one of your grackle birds? What is it called?
Sam
No, I think it was actually George just being honest. I think we had this convers we had this conversation a few weeks ago, Tony and I, with a guest that the Fed really doesn’t understand or doesn’t have quite the concept to pinpoint exactly how much tightening or additional tightening to Fed funds. Quantitative tightening does that’s, that’s what George was getting at. She’s a little bit behind the curve there. The Fed does have a proxy rate that I pointed out earlier this week in a, in a note. The Fed has a proxy rate that they publish that’s sitting at about 6.4%, give or take. So it’s about a 260 basis point spread, 2.6% spread to the current Fed funds rate. I think that’s something to kind of pay attention to, is that the Fed does have measures. I think it’s more that if you’re out there talking all the time, it’s difficult to get into the math.
Tony
They’re not stupid, they’re just annoying at times.
Sam
Exactly. They’re not stupid. They’re really not stupid. They know how tight they are. They know they’re sitting at about six and a half percent, 6.4% on an overall tightening basis. They don’t care that’s number one. They don’t care that it’s that tight. Number two, they’re going to continue to do it until they actually achieve their mission. Right. And it’s a multipronged process. And as long as markets seem to be fixated on what’s going on with the Fed funds rate and not going on with the entirety of tightening, that’s going to continue to be an issue for them. Like today, when everybody’s like, oh, look, we printed 223,000 jobs. Maybe this gives them reason to pause because average hourly earnings didn’t go up that much. Guess what? I mean, you can’t rip markets 2% and have financial conditions loosen like that and have the Fed go, yeah, I think we’re accomplishing our mission. Inflation is still high and unemployment is at 3.5%. Yeah, it sounds like a great time to pivot. Yeah, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
Tony
Right? Yeah. Okay, that’s great. Speaking of stupid not you, Sam. Albert, let’s talk about multipolarity.
Albert
One of my favorite.
Tony
Yeah, so we’ve had a lot of op eds and research notes and tweets over the past week or two stating that the future is a multipolar world. And this seems to be based on a lot of talk about the decline of the US dollar or the rise of the petrieon or something like that, around Chinese crude purchases from the Middle East or whatever. So, Albert, you put a series of tweets out, which I’m showing right now on screen about this very diplomatic, as you always are.
So can you walk us through this and help us understand what’s going on? And I’m going to try to play devil’s advocate as you lay.
Albert
No, that’s fine. I mean, you can play devil’s advocate if you want, but when it comes to multipolarity, it’s not simply a financial or economic thing that you need to look at. There’s multiple variables, including legal frameworks of the nation that is the currency issuer, the military strength of the reserve currency issuer. There’s multiple, multiple variables for it. And for some reason we have these economists that come out and say, oh well, the petroleum is coming into effect and that’s going to destroy the petro dollar and therefore the dollar is going to fall and blah, blah, blah. I’ll let Tracy get into the petrowan stupidity, but the dollar is simply the lifeblood of all trade in the financial system. You’re talking about for me, it’s like taking out your blood into Transfusion and putting in Mountain Dew and saying, oh yeah, everything’s healthy, you’re going to be fine. The whole system is raring to go. It’s a dumb argument. It just boggles my mind how people can sit there and even claim multipleity when there’s literally no alternative on a global scale for anyone to be thrown.
Tony
So let’s take this bit by bit. Okay? So a lot of these people are saying that the CNY will become more powerful partly on the back of crude coming out of the Middle East and crude coming out of Europe that could be denominated in CNY. Okay, so let’s take that. Tracy, can you talk to us about the Shanghai benchmark for crude? How successful has that been?
Tracy
Not at all. Even the futures market hasn’t been successful.
Tony
What percent of world order oil, just as a wild guess, do you think is traded on the Shanghai benchmark?
Tracy
2%.
Tony
2%. Okay. And it’s been around for how long? Two years?
Tracy
Yes. And if you look at their futures market, which has been around since 2016, we’re still only saying that domestically traded, you’re not seeing big players come in and hedge like they do with WTI or bread. So that aside, China came to Saudi Arabia with a suggestion after this new summit, the latest summit that they just had, and said, yeah, we would love for you to we could trade this on Shanghai and this could be traded in yuan. Saudi Arabia still has not yet come back with an answer. And so everybody jumped to conclusion saying it’s a petrol. Saudi Arabia is giving up dollar denominated oil. This is not true. I’ve talked to a lot of people in Saudi Arabia about this. I’ve talked to a lot of journalists. I actually had a spaces about it. So this is not true. And even if Saudi Arabia did decide to sell some oil in yuan on the Shanghai exchange, for whatever reason, all that would happen is they would be paid in yuan and instantly changes into dollars. Nobody wants you.
Tony
Wait a minute, let’s dig into that. Why does nobody want CMY?
Tracy
Well, because it’s not globally traded like the dollar is. Everybody wants dollars. People don’t want you on it.
Tony
Not freely convertible.
Tracy
Right. At all. Right. And especially if you’re in a merging market with USD denominated debt. You on. Nobody wants you on. Nobody wants you on. Right. And it’s not really free floating, right?
Tony
It’s not at all. We talk about crude and the ability for the Chinese purchase crude. We talk about their currency, CNY. But behind the CNY and the lack of convertibility is the PDOC, right. China central bank. So ultimately, if you trust a currency, you ultimately trust their central bank. So is there a basis for people globally to trust the PBOC? That’s a sincere question. It’s not a cynical question.
Tracy
No, I think people are not trusting central banks anywhere, but especially in China right now. People don’t believe what’s going on in China right now. People haven’t believed the data in China right now. And so, again, there will be a small amount of oil traded globally in yuan if China wants to do so and another country chooses to do that. Right? Russia has india was brought up for them, but that’s a very small 1% to 2% of globally traded oil, which is certainly not going to put the U on in a position to overtake the dollar in traded markets.
Tony
And something I’ll point out is the PBOC has literally, at times, used numerology to determine their benchmark rate. Okay? For people who go down this path, that the CNY is a rising currency. If you’re going to trust a currency, first of all, it has to be convertible. But second of all, you have to trust the central bank. And you can’t have people using numerology. I know we all complain about the Fed, right? But at least there’s a standard approach and there is a level of transparency as to the way decisions are made, right? Everybody knows what the Fed says, what minutes are released and all that stuff. But when you have a central bank that has at times and it’s rare, but at times use numerology by raising by anything that ends in eight or whatever, something like that, I mean, this is just stupid. And it’s not a credible central bank when those sorts of things are happening. Okay, let’s go on to multiplarity, to have defense. Okay? So is there a defense to enforce decisions that are made? So does China or whatever other multipolar places that these people are talking about have the ability to enforce their decisions overseas?
Albert
No, none. None whatsoever. I mean, even to take the Saudis as an example, right? The Saudis rolled out the red carpet for the Chinese, and the Petrowan argument started coming out all over research papers. But what will happen when Iran decides to press the Saudis once again in Yemen, or just through airspace violations and threatening missiles? Do you think that Riyadh is going to run to the Chinese? Are they going to run to Moscow? Or are they going to call up the Pentagon and say, hey, we need more, you know, Patriot missile batteries, you know, we need your support.
Tony
You tell me why. I think I know the answer, but I want to understand why.
Albert
The US. Has the most advanced military hardware there is on Earth by far.
Tracy
Right?
Tony
But why would they not call, let’s say the Chinese.
Albert
Do you want an effective defense system? What are the Chinese have for defense system? Are the Chinese able to put Chinese troops to defend against Iran if something happens or against the Yemenis? I mean, they failed in every single aspect of China.
Tony
Just some basic questions. Does the PLA have the logistical capability to get their resources to Yemen if needed?
Albert
Zero. They couldn’t even invade Albania if they wanted to. That’s how ridiculous it is.
Tony
I’m sorry.
Albert
How are you going to move 250,000 troops across the world, right? You have no ability. The Russians can’t even barely invade Ukraine. That’s on their border, and we’re sitting there talking about multipolarity. For an example, is the United States took out Manuel Noriega. That’s because he was in the Panama Canal area and he was screwing around. If that situation happened, do you think the Chinese or the Russians did hop on over there and take it out? They cut it.
Tony
Noriega fell out of a building, which is plausible.
Albert
Well, that’s the Russian way to fix things. But, I mean, this is just a silly conversation. I have no idea where this multiplarity is coming from unless it’s investment banks putting their analysts out there to help their clients get out of gold or get out of crypto or something. We know with the whole death of the dollar thing coming, what are we.
Tony
Missing on multi polarity? Is there something that we’re missing from this discussion on either side?
Sam
I don’t think we’re missing much. I mean, there’s always the want for multipolarity if you’re not the United States, right? Everybody wants it, but to the point. You have to have a credible currency, you have to have an open account, you have to be willing to have a deficit, trade deficit, period. And you have to have incredible military and defense. And guess what? In this world, the only country that ticks those boxes is the US. And if Europe ever got its act together, maybe it could have the military part, but that’s it. China simply does not have the capability to be a global offsetter to the US dominance. That’s simply what I would call fantasy, at least for the foreseeable future. Could it become one down the line?
Tony
Maybe.
Sam
We were all concerned about Japan 20 years ago. Look how that worked out. Then we were concerned about the Euro. Look how that worked out. I mean, it happens. Yeah, it happens on a cyclical basis. Every 20 years, we come up with a new thing to be concerned about on the multiplayer front, and every single time, nobody has the willingness to do what the US does. Somebody call it the exorbitant privilege. Right? It’s not. It is. Actually a pretty big load to bear, particularly on the military and spending front. So I think that’s wildly overlooked. And I think the other thing that’s overlooked is oil for dollars will persist for a meaningful amount of time. Nobody wants oil for Trinkets.
Tony
Right?
Tracy
And another thing I have to mention, does China even want to open up enough to be the world? They like to be shrouded in kind of secrecy, right? And they have to be secret. Whatever. If you’re world current reserve currency, you have to be completely open to the world, and they don’t seem to like that.
Tony
Well, part of it is they don’t want to be embarrassed. They don’t want to be seen to be making a mistake. It’s easier to point out other people’s mistakes. If they had transparency and they made a mistake, it’s embarrassing. If you remember, in 2015, they tried to devalue a little bit, they messed up and they way overshot, and it was really embarrassing. And then they did nothing for, like, four years. So they don’t want to be embarrassed. That’s a huge issue.
Albert
These are all complexities that have to be taken into account. And like Sam said, there’s only one nation at the moment that ticks the box. And listen, I’d be the first one to throw out warnings, red flags. If there was a competitor stepping up in the US’s shadow, they’d be the first person to say this, but just not right now. None of the components are there at the moment.
Tony
Right? And I mean, having said all this, I don’t want this to sound super pro American. Like, we’re all Americans, and I think we can all agree that the US is kind of a lumbering idiot around the US at times. Well, this is not trying to say raw, raw US. We’re just saying the Pragmatism of the moment is this.
Albert
Yeah, there’s so many different details that have to be looked at. And I spoke with Mike Green on this in our podcast and our spaces. It’s like the United States has water, has geography, is isolated from the rest of the world, has a military, has this, has that. It’s nothing to do about RA America. It’s just the way things have been laid out at the moment.
Sam
We’re lucky in that.
Tony
So if anybody’s watching and has a counter argument, please let us know. Honestly, we want to hear it and put it down there, and I’ll try to talk to Albert and see if he can come back to you. You may be careful what you wish for, but we’ll try to get Albert to come back to you. But let us know seriously, if there are valid counterarguments that encompass all these issues, just let us know in the comments, and we’d love to engage. So, guys, thank you very much. Really appreciate your time and all the thought you put into this. And have a great weekend. Thank you.
Albert
Thank you.
Sam
Thank you.
