Comments

Episode-1281- John Pugliano on 10 Trends for 2014 — 38 Comments

  1. I doubt immigration reform will be passed under either party. Neither party benefits from immigration reform. Democrats upset unions and Republicans upset the evangelical base. Businesses don’t really want immigration reform either when they can get the same kind of labor for less. Immigration reform is simply the carrot that’s dangled in front of Hispanics by Democrats when it is safe to do so, i.e. when there is no chance of passing.

    Illegal immigration is not the problem but the symptom of our welfare state. Get rid of welfare checks for able people and get rid of minimum wages and the problem of illegal immigration solves itself when Americans are forced by necessity to take the jobs illegals do. By the way, nobody talks about the 4 million illegal Asians when discussing immigration reform, but there are plenty working here on expired visas and they are not necessarily doing high tech jobs.

    • Yea here is the thing, I agree neither side will pass actual immigration reform but I am betting a Republican owned government will pass something they will call that in 2016-2017.

    • Population growth is key to perceived “success” (i.e. “GDP growth”) under the Keynesian model. Whether there is actual “immigration reform” is an open question but the above fact will provide a strong incentive for…something.

    • This may sound biased towards Mexico, but it’s not. I propose that the biggest loser in the immigration debacle is Mexico. Young men and women are fleeing Mexico by the thousands leaving behind ghost towns with old people and single women with kids. Not a good demographic pyramid for a country. The same people that are building houses, fixing streets, and doing a host of other hard jobs here in the US are the people Mexico needs to fuel its growth but can’t retain. It may not seem like it now because illegals have been demonized, but the net gainer in all this is the US. It’s getting an immigrant that is hard working, docile, ingenious and Christian. Compare this to Europe’s choice of immigrants.

      The US has an infinite source of young labor and cheap energy, the two crucial building blocks for anything else. Most countries have one or the other, but seldom both. If the politicians don’t screw-it up too badly, the US can remain a great country for a very long time.

      • Yea I see two sides to that though! The other side is the massive numbers of dollars going back to Mexico. Many men leave their families and send 80% of their incomes back home. I knew one man who had need seen his wife and two kids for 10 years who was doing this. I both respected this man and felt horrible for him.

        That is a loss too for Mexico, a man like that. But the economic gain is undeniable.

      • Jose, your views on immigration and the economy are very insightful. We probably think a lot alike.

        I’m glad I found your Liberty Garden blog– I need to learn more about gardening. I’ll let you know next time I’m in your area, maybe we can get together. Best returns, John Pug

        • Thanks John, sounds like a great idea. Feel free to shoot me an email anytime. You can send me a message on the about page and it goes to my email.

    • I feel there are definitely way too many headwinds for immigration to pass openly. But, there is no doubt about it when the corportacracy comes full tilt crying about not having enough cheap labor, we might see changing of tunes.

      I also believe as the collapse comes, forget about party affiliations, the government will do anything and EVERYTHING to preserve. I believe shit is going to get way way bumpy and immigration is one of them. It would appear that oscillations of extremism is basically going both ways. We could see a panic to close off all immigration, or a panic to completely open up immigration (or both!).

  2. I think the Fed printing machine will go into overdrive if new energy sources, technologies, innovations bring deflationary pressures.

  3. Before Christmas I went to Laredo, TX. Cotulla, a small town that made a living off speed traps is now lit up like a Christmas tree. I stopped counting at 60 the number of chimney stacks burning gas. It’s where the Eagle Ford shale begins. I thought to myself, it’ll be a long time before the US collapses. The US has enough natural gas and oil, especially if Mexico approves drilling by US companies in the gulf, to bankrupt the Middle East and Russia. War came to mind, but I was tired and letting my mind wander.

  4. Can’t wait to listen to this tonight. Liked the one John did a few months back.

    On another note poor Brown in my state of comufornia is not getting his fed money request for his choo-choo train. Wonder where the ass clown will get his money from?!

    Time to leave this state quick before I go bankrupt bailing this ass clown out…..

    -Shasta Ron

  5. Re: education,

    My family got together with two other families, hired a teacher to teach 4 kids in a one room school house manor. Total cost is far, far less than any private school. Teacher to student ration can not be beat. The teacher is excellent. She speaks only Spanish to the kids, with no exceptions. And what do you know? The older kids are fluent in Spanish. The younger kids understand much of it and speak some.

    Jack you called it. We have been doing this for two years now and its the best opt out, freedom minded thing I have ever done. And its awesome.

    Great show. I am a big fan of Mr. Pugliano.

      • It’s a long story but here is the short of it;

        We started kindergarten at a Spanish immersion private school. I don’t remember the cost. We returned the next year for first grade. The owners of the school, husband and wife, divorced, badly. The school imploded. The parents of the 1st grade class quickly organized, hired the 1st grade teacher, and continued the school year but paying her directly and renting out some space in a church. This was a wonderful 6 month. Magical. The families and the teacher were completely aligned.

        Meanwhile a core group of parents hired a Charter School Consultant, petitioned the local school district, and won a charter for a Spanish immersion school. The next 2 years we and the other parents worked tirelessly to get the charter school up and running. My daughter attended the charter school as well.

        After the second year at the charter school I approached the teacher from the private school and we negotiated the home school co-op arrangement we have currently. We left the charter school because I could not capture the magic we had when we hired her two years previously to finish out the school year when the private school imploded. We left the charter school for a variety of reasons that I will call “growing pains”.

        None of the families that joined us in the co-op 2 year prior joined us this time. They all wanted to stay in the system. We went it alone. We hired the teacher and paid her $400 per month. Now we have 4 kids among 3 families and she gets $400 per kid, per month.

        Words can not describe how good this arrangement is for all parties. I could go on at this point for pages and hours… We have direct control of the curriculum. We have a 4:1 ratio. We have the freedom to make any scheduling changes we want. They do filed trips all the time. They do a garden every year. They have class in the kitchen while cooking lunch or dinner. they even have class sleep overs and bon fires. We paid $300 for the entire Panamanian government 4th grade curriculum text books. We tossed the social studies and use the math and sciences materials. We have lots of time left over for other activities like soccer, ballet, music, gymnastics, etc. We also do activities with other non immersion home school co-ops. We have a family member that works on English with the older girls and another family member that will start doing some deep math sometime next year. When you opt out of the standard public education paradigm and take direct control of the education process the possibilities are limitless.

        With two kids now $800 a month is not trivial for us. We forgo other stuff to make this happen. its still way cheaper than private schools in the area. The results are fantastic. I have been told repeatedly by native speakers that they can not detect an English accent in my daughters Spanish. Our kids are a becoming a manifestation of what is possible when Kids are left to flourish and reach their potential. Kids fill can fill the space and the expectations you give them!

        My 5 year old boy, only ever home schooled in Spanish, is talking to a 9 year old girl who attends a “regular” non immersion public school;

        Him; What do you speak at school?
        Her; What? English.
        Him: What other language do you speak at school?
        Her; Just English
        Him; You only speak one language at school?

        My boy does not even know the paradigm of “regular public school” even exists…

        Hope this helps. If you are on the fence; Do it.

    • Really good idea, and a great option for those who can’t afford private school and homeschooling is not an option for whatever reason (single parents, etc.) What state are you in? I would think state laws could make this more difficult (legally speaking) in some places. I suppose you could say you were homeschooling and just be very involved in the “school” if state laws were a problem.

    • My wife and I plan to homeschool our two daughters. Our oldest starts “officially” in Aug of this year although she is already fully reading. More importantly, evidently the schools now only do sight words and have abandoned teaching such fundamental English-language constructs such as how to pronounce letters or special combinations of letters. Our oldest daughter HAS been taught so-called “phonetics” (by us) so she is progressing well in actually reading and reasoning out how to pronounce words she has never seen.

      My wife is a “stay at home mom” who is also running our marketing/web design business. The plan is to (hopefully this year) have me also make the move home. For homeschooling, we are considering hiring a part-time teacher who can manage the girls in a classroom type setting a few hours/day. One who speaks fluent chinese or spanish would be preferable. The local University has a huge teaching program so we plan to seek help there (at least, while they are very young) but I’m curious how others might have found this kind of help.

  6. I really like the tip jar idea. I will say in general its uniquely a problem with the current monetary system adapting to an internet world.

    Lets look at pre-internet, pre-total-mass-globalization (or if you’re just a street performer in any major city like down here in New Orleans). Somebody gets something out of your actions (listens to your music, or reads tarot cards for you) they tip you a few cents or a dollar. The problem with that model is it requires LOTS and LOTS of people to be in the same area as you, to “like” what you do, to provide that money. But the good thing is, you could make your own way doing whatever activity that people liked/enjoyed.

    With the internet, you can have people anywhere, get value from you but currently absolutely no way to give gratitude, or exchange (on a small level). I really see this as a possible game changer because there are probably so many small niches just not being fullfilled because in the “old system” its just completely not profitable because you’d have to have so many people “enjoy” what you’re doing in your PHYSICAL location. There are also some other changes that are happening that might really push this forward, such as the possiblity of ISPs breaking up google’s dominance and empire over the “free everything” space. Very real possibility Youtube might become completely unaffordable for Google (right now I don’t understand how its not already, but thats another story). Meaning the days of “everything is just free” might be coming to a close (we’ll see).

    The only real “Argument” i can say against some of this, is the lack of integration with your local community. However, there is no reason you can’t do both (although there might be personal time limitations on that one, I doubt Jack could run his business, and meanwhile have a local edible landscaping business. Granted perhaps the podcast provides an income stream to be able to give/back and invest in community things that wouldn’t have been possible elsewhere.)

  7. There’s something about natural gas I’ve been wondering for a while. I would like to participate in the benefits of the boom that’ll be coming from it, but up here in rural NH there are no natural gas pipelines (and I’m sure never will be). How can I use it? Why is it not sold in pressurized containers like propane is? Why can’t I have a submarine-shaped tank in the yard that they come by and fill? In countries that have cars that run off of natural gas, what do they do? I’m sure cars don’t get physically connected to a pipeline.

    Thanks for the great show.

    • Natural gas has to be liquefied, they are building large ports to start exporting it. NG sells for ~$4 in US, $8-10 in Europe, >$12 in Asia. I haven’t confirmed it but my understanding is the gasoline – NG equivalent is ~ $1.50/gal. The big money seems to be in replacing gas and diesel for transportation. Westport (WPRT) is teaming up with Cummings to build engines. Clean Energy Fuels Corp (CLNE) has a distribution network and builds out refueling service stations. [Not recommending any securities, just giving you some background info.] After export and transportation, I think they’ll go after the non-pipeline residential market- to your point NG is a much better option than propane and especially heating oil.

  8. H1B Visa I believe.

    I had a TN1 Nafta Visa when I was on contract with EMC in Westboro MA.

    • Yep H1B as soon as that marathon of a interview was over it came to me, I was like DOH!

  9. There is no way in He$$ that oil is going to $40 a barrel. Also the problem with shale gas is the 50% decline rate vs conventional gas, these unconventional wells deplete very fast, you need tens of thousands of wells. I say shale gas is a bubble pop.

    • From the Post Carbon Institute:

      A shale gas well with multiple frac costs between $2 million and $10 million to drill. But unlike a conventional well, which declines between 25 and 40 per cent in its first year of production, a shale gas well drops like lead from 63 to 85 per cent

      • Keep in mind those stats are from the bias of people that want to believe in peak oil/gas.

        I can tell you they are nonsense in reality. The reason the production drops so much is because of how the heck much comes out at first. When the well is first tapped the pressure is unbelievable and it blows like mad.

        The numbers these idiots are using assume that you are punching a well and taking as much as you can as fast as you can right from the get go. No one does this! It would actually be too much too fast.

        Then if you did it wouldn’t matter! The amount that keeps coming may be 65% of peak but it is still a full ton shitload of gas and that drop STOPS. You read that and you would think in another year that you would be down to 10% or it would be dead, it won’t. These wells generally run for about 10-12 years after they are put in. Keeping in mind that they are getting better at getting more out every day.

        Hell I just got a royalty check for a gas lease on my Arlington property that I sold in 2010 because we still have the gas rights. We sold that house in 2010 but the well was tapped in 2008, so that is what 6 years. My royalty check isn’t big (we had 1/3rd of an acre only) but it has been pretty much for the same amount non stop.

        When you get a statistic always consider the source. What a stat comes as a percent always be a skeptic.

        • Ok, that is info I was not aware of (the amount that comes out at first). I hope most shale gas wells behave this way since I do own stock in CDH (TSX). A Canadian company trying to JV with a partner to drill the Fredrick Brook Shale in New Brunswick (67 TCF in place, they figure 15% recoverable; they were partnered with Apache, but the frac went bad and the casing cracked and leaked fluids. Then a shitstorm started about fracking/earthquakes etc. I see Natural gas as a good transition fuel. Energy independence for North America would be a good thing.

        • Brent consider as initial infrastructure (pipelines not just wells) has a huge cost as wells were put in early it was logical that when you had few wells and lots of pipe they pumped it as hard and fast as they could to recoop the initial investment. This did take down some wells very fast. But over time you have more and more wells and only so much transmission pipe, so wells are throttled to a more appropriate extraction speed.

          There is more at work too! Remember how some oil wells went dry, they were capped but later checked and again had oil? They were restarted and produced more oil? The conspiracy buffs say it is abiotic oil (the earth is just shitting oil all the time, nonsense of course). What happens is deeper oil seeps into the formation. This happens with gas too, in fact it happens more with gas than oil.

          Soooooo, if you are not completely draining it as fast as you can, 10 years into it there has been more time for other gas to seep into the much more slowly drained formation.

          I think the other thing is people don’t get

          1. How much you can do from one well when you start going horizontal.

          and

          2. How much gas we really have! This is pretty staggering. There is almost no place in the Fort Worth area where you can’t just drill and hit the Barnett Shale. This is true going north into Oklahoma and all the way south to Austin and then some. These are highly populated areas and pumping oil in them would be hard to do. Not so with Gas, we have gas wells going up in residential areas all over. The amount of gas we have just in the Barnett is hard to comprehend.

          The total basin is enormous, here is a map of it http://jsedres.geoscienceworld.org/content/79/12/848/F1.large.jpg

          To give some scale to that map the distance from El Paso to Fort Worth is over 600 miles! Pretty much everywhere you see orange on that map if you drill yo hit gas. I talked to a gun running geophones one day. These are sensors used for oil and gas exploration. He said when he was in oil they used them to find oil period. Now they are simply looking for the best locations in the gas because gas is frankly everywhere they look.

          Now I am not saying all this is good for the environment (though gas is better than oil) but it is what it is.

    • As to how low oil could go- I can only speculate, but don’t ever be surprised when there are extreme price variations of commodities. In the 80’s there was a glut of oil after the OPEC scare of the 70s….most of TX went into foreclosure…then prices went up in the early 90s, but by 98 the average WTI crude price for the year was only $14.42…imagine oil below $15!!!. Remember in 2008 when oil hit $145 and people were hysterical over peak oil? By the end of the year, oil was at a low of $30.28. I can remember in the 90s when people said interest rates would never go below 6%. In 2000s when people said real estate would never go down. Gold was over $800 in 79/80 and dropped to around $235 in 2000…then went to over $1800 in 2011…today it’s $1250. In the 70s the Soviet Union was going to dominate the world with communism, in the 80s Japan was going to be the economic superpower. The only thing I can guarantee 100% is that commodity prices will fluctuate. My goal is to make a profit on the fluctuation.

  10. I’ve heard of the Barnett and the Eagle Ford (I don’t see it on that map, I think it is further south)

    I hope there is enough capital to make it all come to fruition

    Thanks Jack

    • Pretty much the entire thing is a giant structure called The Barnett, things like Eagle Ford and Fort Worth Basin are regions of the Barnett. I can’t speak for places other than here, what I can tell you here though is wells are going in, gas is coming out and I have yet to see a site abandoned and all this really started with heavy earnest back in 2006.

      Then while I have yet to fully vet this out it appears there may be gas reserves in Europe that are greater than our own. The Dutch alone are sitting on an utter crap ton of gas. http://www.europeanenergyreview.eu/site/pagina.php?id=1109

      Odds are they days of cheap petro energy are numbered, but so our the years of our lives. I am of the opinion that supply of gas, oil and coal, while numbered has bigger numbers then you and I do until we run out.

      In stead of peak oil hysteria right now the questions we should be asking are like

      How to we use this amazing resource responsibly?
      How do we build systems with it that will be here for our great grand children?
      How can we use it to better build energy technologies that are sustainable?

      Again I say, future generations may be less pissed of about the fact that we burned it all, and more pissed off that we burned it to do stupid pointless crap like light up Time’s Square.

  11. I remember when we talked I’m Denver Joe. I feel u have to have a good foundation. The family farm is no more. Making one.

  12. I should be fair John and clarify, that I doubt that oil will drop to the 2009 equivalent of $30 a barrel. A book that illustrates how to profit off the price of swings; “The Oil Factor” by Steven Leeb is a good read. Good interview John

  13. This episode illustrates why I continue to listen to TSP. I continue to be impressed by the depth and breadth of knowledge that Jack and his guests bring to the table. After many discussions about permaculture and gardening (which I love, don’t get me wrong, got my Geoff Lawton PDC due to this show), we get an extensive review of the nation’s financial outlook and trends. I continue to learn from TSP, something I am unable to do from most of the nationwide syndicated talk shows that are out there.
    As one of the doctor clients that Mr. Pugliano has talked to who is looking for alternatives to our crashing medical system, I enjoyed the discussion about cash practices and especially the American Indian reservation medical system idea. Since I don’t have the resources as an individual to start such a venture myself, I am keeping my eyes open to that opportunity should it arise, and would be glad to be part of building such a system. I wondered how it would work for a U.S. citizen to immigrate to an Indian nation, should one choose to. Is that ever done? Is it allowed? Are they subject to the taxes and laws of the U.S.? If not, couldn’t this also be an alternative to the banking industry, such as those “off shore” accounts we often hear of. If any TSP’ers have insight into the American Indian reservation system, please inform the rest of us. (Oh, and if anyone hears of an Indian Medical Hospital( / casino?) starting up, let me know where to send my resume.)
    Thanks so much Jack and John such for a compelling discussion.

  14. Jack, have you thought of making an agreement to an Native American Reservation to build Permaethos? Leasing from them for 100 years is just as good to me as from anyone else and I know you’ll be doing everything possible to protect the leasee’s interest.