Where-Are-We-Right-Now-
00:00:00.000 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge,
00:00:03.760 | skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now, while
00:00:08.560 | building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.
00:00:12.280 | My name is Joshua.
00:00:13.280 | I am your host.
00:00:14.280 | Today I'm struggling with something that I don't generally struggle with, namely how
00:00:19.440 | to start a podcast.
00:00:21.640 | Usually it comes fairly easy to me, but I'm struggling to know how to begin today because
00:00:26.600 | the actual topics that I want to talk about are a little fuzzy in my head still.
00:00:32.440 | So I don't know what to do other than just begin.
00:00:35.560 | So let's talk about where things are right now.
00:00:37.840 | I would imagine that if you are anything like me, you're looking around at the world and
00:00:44.840 | are concerned about where we go from here.
00:00:47.440 | Over the past days as I have watched the current world events, I have chatted privately with
00:00:54.160 | friends and I've just said, "Where do we go from here?
00:00:56.400 | Where's the exit ramp?
00:00:57.760 | What's the next thing?"
00:01:00.440 | And for clarity, of course, I'm recording this on June 4, 2020, and there are three
00:01:06.120 | large scale, very impactful circumstances that are impacting our lives.
00:01:15.920 | So of course, a big one, coronavirus, the worldwide global coronavirus epidemic, pandemic,
00:01:22.960 | excuse me, is certainly affecting all of our lives to some degree or another.
00:01:28.600 | Now that effect is markedly different depending on your residence in a place like the United
00:01:35.160 | States or Brazil as compared to your residence in a place like New Zealand or Singapore.
00:01:45.040 | These are very different experiences of the coronavirus pandemic at the moment, but all
00:01:50.040 | of us are being impacted by the coronavirus epidemic.
00:01:54.840 | The tone that I sense right now with regard to coronavirus is a tone of optimism.
00:02:02.460 | The general consensus seems to increasingly be that the actual fatality rate of coronavirus
00:02:11.380 | infection is much, much lower than previously feared.
00:02:16.160 | Now that fatality rate varies tremendously in different countries, and as always, the
00:02:22.120 | data is never as complete as you would like it to be.
00:02:25.560 | But it does seem that we are improving with our ability to handle the actual sickness
00:02:33.240 | that somebody's experienced and give them better treatments.
00:02:36.400 | And the other thing is we have an increasing confidence that there's a higher infection
00:02:41.600 | rate than previously assumed.
00:02:43.720 | Now the case fatality rate is still extraordinarily high on a global basis, but that should continue
00:02:49.280 | to come down.
00:02:51.120 | And yet I still take the situation very seriously.
00:02:54.960 | I still don't want to get coronavirus.
00:02:57.040 | I still would prefer to not get it.
00:02:59.160 | I'm still taking significant precautions, and I think that those are wise, especially
00:03:04.520 | for people who are at higher risk.
00:03:07.980 | But there is, of course, the coronavirus pandemic.
00:03:10.200 | That's one thing that's large and concerning, and it's going to be with us for a very long
00:03:13.560 | time.
00:03:14.560 | Now the second order of effects, kind of the second situation that flows naturally from
00:03:18.840 | coronavirus is, of course, the economic situation that we're in, which is truly dire.
00:03:25.120 | It's truly devastating.
00:03:28.000 | It's truly awful.
00:03:30.200 | And here again, your experience of this economic crisis varies greatly depending on where you
00:03:37.360 | are and at what social class you are.
00:03:42.640 | One of the things that I was wrong about a few months ago is I thought that the coronavirus
00:03:49.920 | epidemic and the associated lockdowns would flat out destroy everything.
00:03:58.120 | I was in the mindset of kind of global depression for many years.
00:04:03.840 | And yet I think that the effects are going to be less severe, less severe than I previously
00:04:10.440 | feared.
00:04:11.440 | And the basic reason for that is the revolution in telecommunication and the ability for so
00:04:16.880 | many of us to telework, to work through an internet connection.
00:04:21.920 | That's truly astounding.
00:04:23.120 | If we were living in the world of a century ago, where we all needed to be physically
00:04:28.200 | present in an office, and if we were facing the kinds of lockdowns and restrictions that
00:04:33.880 | so many countries have put in place, then it truly would have been that bad.
00:04:38.880 | But many of us, especially many of us who are very high productivity people, can still
00:04:44.200 | work through a phone and an internet connection, which is really remarkable.
00:04:49.320 | The people who are hurt the most by the lockdowns tend to be those who are overall lower productivity
00:04:56.720 | people, people who are working lower income jobs, physical labor jobs, et cetera.
00:05:03.320 | That's not universally true, but it does seem to be generally true.
00:05:06.280 | So much of our work has become knowledge work that now many of us can work from anywhere
00:05:11.920 | in the world, and that has allowed us to stay highly productive.
00:05:15.680 | Most professionals that I interact with have continued to be highly productive during their
00:05:20.640 | times of isolation.
00:05:22.960 | Now there are legions of businesses that have been hurt, obviously restaurant businesses,
00:05:27.400 | hospitality businesses, airlines.
00:05:29.740 | And so it's not right to make a totally wide sweeping statement, but it's less severe than
00:05:37.200 | I thought.
00:05:38.200 | That said, it is still dire.
00:05:40.400 | Best estimates are that currently unemployment in the United States is something like 20%.
00:05:45.680 | And of course, that impacts people differently depending on where they actually are in the
00:05:54.120 | overall social stratum and in terms of the kind of job that they have.
00:05:59.520 | Unfortunately the people who are hit hard by unemployment are those who don't make a
00:06:06.080 | lot in the first place, but still with unemployment benefits in the United States, with the extra
00:06:11.520 | unemployment benefits, the effects are still somewhat modest for those who were employed.
00:06:17.620 | If you were to compare those effects versus say, people living in Mexico or Guatemala
00:06:25.040 | who are in lockdowns and who are experiencing massive increases in unemployment just due
00:06:30.160 | to the lockdowns, total social lockdowns, and yet they don't have the social safety
00:06:35.160 | net, the unemployment payments and the generous unemployment payments and the extra unemployment
00:06:39.400 | payments, et cetera.
00:06:41.240 | It's just so much more devastating in a country like that than it has been in the United States
00:06:46.440 | or Canada or the UK.
00:06:49.520 | So the economic effects truly are dire and those are being felt.
00:06:57.280 | News is now that defaults are up as would be expected.
00:07:01.600 | Late payments are increasing as would be expected.
00:07:05.240 | And I think that there was a lot of hope a few weeks ago that things would get back to
00:07:10.460 | normal fairly quickly.
00:07:12.080 | There was a lot of hope that everything was looking better and better on coronavirus.
00:07:15.800 | We're lifting restrictions and everything seemed like it was going to perhaps be back
00:07:22.760 | to normal a little bit faster.
00:07:25.020 | Which brings us now to the more current events of the social unrest, especially in the United
00:07:31.640 | States, but to some degree around the world.
00:07:35.480 | This is certainly not a global situation of social unrest, although there are some global
00:07:39.720 | manifestations with the riots in the wake of the killing in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
00:07:47.440 | And as I've been thinking about this, it's so fascinating to consider whether to connect
00:07:52.280 | this to the coronavirus epidemic or not.
00:07:57.720 | I think an honest analysis would have to say that this could properly be characterized
00:08:03.640 | as almost a third order effect of the coronavirus epidemic.
00:08:09.440 | It's hard for me to imagine that you would be seeing what you're seeing right now on
00:08:15.320 | the news or wherever you get your sources of information.
00:08:18.760 | It's hard for me to imagine that you'd be seeing that if there were not so much stored
00:08:24.400 | up tension related to coronavirus and all of the associated restrictions and lockdowns.
00:08:32.560 | It's also interesting to think about if things would be as vigorous in terms of the number
00:08:38.820 | of people protesting, the number of people looting and rioting, if there weren't so many
00:08:45.480 | economic problems, if people had more employment.
00:08:50.200 | One of the interesting things is that many times when you see protests, you'll often
00:08:54.320 | see them, they'll work on the weekend, but if you get to a Monday, people don't exactly
00:08:58.480 | have a lot of time to protest.
00:08:59.640 | Well, when you pour a volatile situation into a world in which people have more time to
00:09:06.840 | protest and possibly even more income still coming in because I'm unemployed, what else
00:09:12.080 | do I have to do?
00:09:13.340 | It makes for a very volatile mix.
00:09:18.160 | This situation seems different to me than it has in the past.
00:09:25.760 | Don't know where we go from here, but things seem different to me than it has in the past.
00:09:33.440 | First of course, although police shootings and police shootings of black people have
00:09:38.160 | gained widespread publicity and support in years past, it's certainly never been as widespread
00:09:47.200 | as they are right now in terms of the amount of support.
00:09:50.240 | I think that that's got to affect the people involved with the protests, all of the associated
00:09:58.880 | marches and political movements, et cetera.
00:10:01.440 | I think it's going to be a significant effect that will make that continue.
00:10:07.640 | On the other hand, I think it's tremendously dangerous that the entire movement is very
00:10:15.600 | likely going to continue to be co-opted and corrupted by violent elements.
00:10:22.660 | With every day that goes by, it seems as though the risk of that just rises day by day.
00:10:30.040 | Then that means that there will be continuing crackdowns by police, by military officials,
00:10:36.640 | et cetera, to stop the rioting, to stop the looting, to stop the protesting itself.
00:10:42.880 | It doesn't make a good mix.
00:10:46.080 | It doesn't make for a very peaceful mix.
00:10:51.400 | Yet we're stuck with this conundrum that, again, unless you're living in a downtown
00:10:55.600 | area or you live in an area where you're actually been targeted by a protest site, your life
00:11:06.680 | outside the window probably looks about normal.
00:11:10.360 | And yet your emotional life and your mental life and your social media life, most of those
00:11:17.160 | things have been rocked.
00:11:21.360 | So it's kind of astonishing because usually you would expect a disaster to have external
00:11:30.720 | manifestations, and yet we're living through a disaster, and we're living through a series
00:11:35.920 | of disasters, and yet none of them are as immediate and none of them are as predictable
00:11:41.840 | as you might think.
00:11:46.240 | You of course know that I've been concerned about many of these issues for a very long
00:11:50.920 | time.
00:11:52.520 | I'm concerned about, I've been concerned about pandemics.
00:11:57.360 | I haven't talked a lot about it on the show, but I've done various preparedness shows over
00:12:02.960 | the years to try to help people get ready for pandemics.
00:12:05.360 | I started talking about quarantine back in January of 2020 here to try to help people
00:12:10.800 | prepare for that.
00:12:12.680 | And the pandemic is, I think, not as bad again as previously feared, and yet the second order
00:12:19.720 | effects are truly dire.
00:12:22.360 | The economic crisis is truly dire.
00:12:26.200 | It's really severe, and we haven't really even gotten into many monetary effects.
00:12:32.480 | Right now there seems to be possibly some mild deflation.
00:12:35.480 | There's no evidence of inflation at the moment.
00:12:40.120 | The government finances in the United States are day by day destroyed by this, but we don't
00:12:48.960 | know the actual numbers yet.
00:12:50.800 | We don't know the actual figures, and we won't for a while.
00:12:53.960 | And so this is going to be a very long and slow moving crisis.
00:12:56.760 | I still don't expect any kind of, I don't expect any kind of Weimar Republic style hyperinflation.
00:13:05.680 | I expect sort of a malaise, but this is faster and more difficult than I anticipated, which
00:13:12.680 | concerns me because I'm usually pretty pessimistic on some of this stuff.
00:13:17.760 | I try to think of the worst case scenario.
00:13:19.440 | And so when real life starts to look like more of a worst case scenario than I imagined,
00:13:25.600 | then that bothers me because I always want to think the worst is going to happen, and
00:13:32.160 | then of course hope for the best and then prepare for the worst.
00:13:36.720 | But when situations start getting worse than I anticipated, that bothers me quite a bit
00:13:41.080 | because I don't like to go down to the depths below that of how bad it can get.
00:13:46.400 | So I don't know.
00:13:50.440 | I don't know.
00:13:51.440 | I don't know where you go.
00:13:53.160 | So I'll just tell you kind of what do you do?
00:13:56.800 | What do you do?
00:14:00.560 | I feel like a boring host when I talk about what you do because it's the same small set
00:14:05.360 | of things that you do.
00:14:06.720 | And over the years, as I've thought about a lot of things, I've studied a lot of topics,
00:14:11.640 | I've studied various doomsday scenarios and considered them.
00:14:16.720 | What I find is remarkable is you almost always wind up with about the same set of solutions.
00:14:24.160 | About the same set of solutions regardless of whether somebody is, what particular disaster
00:14:28.800 | somebody is concerned about, a pandemic, social unrest, civil war, or versus what political
00:14:37.240 | perspective someone is coming at.
00:14:39.180 | Somebody can be a righty, a lefty, a century, and you wind up with kind of the same set
00:14:45.460 | of solutions.
00:14:47.440 | And so let me just talk through what I'm seeking to do and my advice for you of what to do
00:14:54.440 | at this point in time.
00:14:56.420 | So number one, guard your mental health, guard your psychology.
00:15:04.840 | If you find yourself in an unstable place psychologically, pull back, pull back.
00:15:11.680 | Believe it or not, you don't have to respond when someone tells you that you should.
00:15:16.560 | You don't have to respond when someone tells you, "You have to do this thing."
00:15:20.320 | It's always your choice whether to respond or not.
00:15:22.960 | And you should only respond to people who, you should only respond to things that line
00:15:27.760 | up with your personal goals.
00:15:30.760 | And so you need to guard very carefully how you feel and guard your head.
00:15:38.040 | You probably like me have lost a lot of time over the last few weeks, you know, glued to
00:15:44.240 | the internet, watching everything happening, trying to figure things out.
00:15:48.160 | And yet, much of that time, it's largely unproductive because it gets me into a place where I'm
00:15:55.280 | not particularly useful to anybody.
00:15:57.200 | It encourages me to move into a place of arguing with people and debating with people and it's
00:16:03.680 | not particularly healthy.
00:16:05.800 | And it harms my life, harms your family, harms your health.
00:16:09.720 | So guard yourself, guard yourself very carefully.
00:16:14.880 | Don't let other people control your thoughts.
00:16:17.720 | If other people can control your thoughts, they can control your life.
00:16:21.640 | And you may be sovereign over nothing else in your life, but you can still be sovereign
00:16:27.680 | over your thoughts.
00:16:29.880 | You may not be able to control your body.
00:16:32.660 | Maybe you're locked in a prison.
00:16:35.720 | Maybe you're disabled, right?
00:16:37.200 | You could be a paraplegic sitting in a wheelchair.
00:16:41.360 | You may not be able to control anything external to you, but what you can always control is
00:16:44.880 | you can always control your thoughts.
00:16:46.840 | And yet, that's a discipline.
00:16:48.160 | It's something that we have to practice.
00:16:50.140 | It's something that we have to actively do.
00:16:53.400 | And probably most of us are weak in it.
00:16:55.520 | I'm certainly weak in it.
00:16:57.080 | I struggle.
00:16:58.080 | I struggle with that.
00:16:59.680 | And yet, I'm determined to continue focusing on that.
00:17:02.720 | So guard your thoughts.
00:17:04.320 | Don't let other people manipulate you.
00:17:06.540 | Don't let other people manipulate your thoughts, manipulate your feelings, and manipulate your
00:17:11.280 | actions.
00:17:12.520 | Don't be manipulated by other people.
00:17:14.520 | Especially, don't be manipulated by guilt.
00:17:19.000 | Somebody tries to guilt you into doing something and they use tactics of guilt on you to try
00:17:24.280 | to get you to say something or do something that you don't believe is right.
00:17:30.680 | Just say no.
00:17:33.280 | Don't let other people manipulate you.
00:17:34.920 | So guard yourself.
00:17:35.920 | Guard your psychology.
00:17:36.920 | Focus on what you're building.
00:17:39.360 | Let that focus expand out to your family.
00:17:43.720 | One of the most important things for you to guard and to protect is your family life.
00:17:48.640 | You must be the sentry at the door to your home that makes sure that the only things
00:17:53.360 | that get into the door of your home are things that are wholesome, that are good.
00:17:59.160 | People would love to come into your home and control your environment and manipulate your
00:18:06.520 | family into their chosen course of action.
00:18:10.520 | You've got to stand at the door and stop it.
00:18:13.520 | And you be the one who decides what's right for your family.
00:18:15.680 | And you be the one who moves your family in the right direction.
00:18:18.960 | So guard your family.
00:18:21.880 | Keep peace in your family relationships.
00:18:25.080 | To the extent it's up to you, live at peace with all men.
00:18:28.040 | But most importantly, in your family relationships.
00:18:31.680 | For example, there can be these fourth order effects.
00:18:34.360 | In my family, we're feeling the strain of the quarantine.
00:18:37.000 | We'll go back to fourth order effects in a moment.
00:18:39.800 | But in my family, we're feeling the strain of the quarantine.
00:18:42.920 | And I have nothing to complain about.
00:18:46.200 | We've done fine.
00:18:47.200 | I don't live in a tiny apartment on the 50th floor of a high-rise.
00:18:51.560 | We're not cooped up.
00:18:53.400 | We have all that we need.
00:18:54.440 | We're very, very fortunate.
00:18:56.600 | And yet still, it's frustrating to be locked down and not be able to go places.
00:19:01.240 | It's frustrating.
00:19:02.240 | And the last few days, I just realized how much it was building.
00:19:06.960 | And that's my responsibility to adjust that and to relieve that strain, to find ways to
00:19:12.880 | let that pressure go out and bring us back to a place of peace.
00:19:19.280 | So pay careful attention.
00:19:21.880 | And fourth order effects, what I was alluding to is you can have coronavirus, a strain that
00:19:28.240 | comes in because you're worried about getting sick or you're worried about your family member
00:19:32.000 | who's susceptible to the symptoms of coronavirus.
00:19:36.480 | Or you're concerned about whatever it is that you're concerned about.
00:19:41.440 | You're concerned.
00:19:42.480 | And so the stress starts to build in your family.
00:19:45.400 | And then the stress of financial stress just builds and builds.
00:19:50.200 | And then the stress builds with social unrest and concern about the police and just goes
00:19:58.960 | on and on.
00:19:59.960 | And then finally, it just boils over and you put that stress on your children.
00:20:03.400 | And then all of a sudden, now your children are tense and on ease.
00:20:06.640 | And that just brings back over on you and it causes the whole family to be out of rest.
00:20:11.840 | So guard that, guard your home, make it a sanctuary, a safe place, a sanctuary where
00:20:17.360 | the only things that come in are the things that you've chosen to be there.
00:20:23.880 | Financially the steps are pretty simple and it's pretty basic.
00:20:29.240 | I continue to be conservative financially, continue to keep expenses low, continue to
00:20:34.800 | keep cash on hand, continue to try to keep an add to the war chest and look for investment
00:20:41.560 | opportunities, continue to try to keep income strong, continue to try to keep your business
00:20:45.040 | going as much as you can.
00:20:46.920 | As I have talked about many, many times, when you go through a recession, if you can keep
00:20:51.540 | your job and keep your income flowing into your house, your experience of that recession
00:20:56.040 | will not be severe.
00:20:57.480 | It'll be kind of a, it won't be a big deal in your life.
00:21:00.280 | It'll just be a relatively minor thing that you remember.
00:21:06.040 | Okay, there was a recession of 2020.
00:21:09.640 | But if you lose your job, then it will be a deeply emotional thing in your life, a deeply
00:21:15.360 | difficult scarring thing in your life.
00:21:20.920 | You know, you get kicked out of your house, you get foreclosed on, those now, you get
00:21:25.320 | your car repossessed, now those things become deeper and heavier and much more difficult.
00:21:29.760 | So work, work, work to keep your job, to avoid the layoffs, to work really hard.
00:21:34.360 | And if you do get laid off, work hard to get another source of income as quickly as you
00:21:38.840 | can.
00:21:39.840 | Just be, do everything you can to keep the income coming into your household.
00:21:45.520 | Look for opportunities to grow on it.
00:21:48.040 | I've got a couple of consulting clients that are starting to have some opportunities, some
00:21:51.600 | investment opportunities.
00:21:54.040 | You know, competitors are starting to go bankrupt, they're starting to get in difficult times,
00:21:58.040 | mismanagement is showing up, and there's opportunities to expand their operations.
00:22:01.720 | And so in your business, look around and see, keep your feelers out there.
00:22:07.360 | One of the most useful and impactful things that you can be doing at all times is cultivating
00:22:12.160 | deals, cultivating deal flows, what I call it, but just building deal flow.
00:22:19.720 | And every business is different in terms of thinking about how you're going to build deal
00:22:23.080 | flow, but you've got to think to yourself, where are my investment opportunities going
00:22:26.940 | to come from?
00:22:28.120 | And then how can I cultivate them by cultivating the relationships that would lead to them?
00:22:32.960 | Sometimes it's cultivating a relationship with a center of influence.
00:22:36.300 | That center of influence might be a broker, it could be a financial professional, it could
00:22:40.200 | be a bankruptcy attorney, it could be an accountant, it could be somebody who's just connected,
00:22:45.040 | you know, the person who leads the local business networking group or something like that.
00:22:49.840 | But sometimes it's cultivating a center of influence.
00:22:52.480 | Sometimes it's building friendly relationships with your collaborators or your competitors
00:22:57.200 | or joining and finding out.
00:23:00.520 | But you've got to sit down and analyze your business and say, where's the deal flow going
00:23:03.400 | to come from?
00:23:04.400 | How are you going to be aware of the investment opportunities?
00:23:08.340 | That's how I talk about it in terms of businesses, if you're going to invest into an actively
00:23:12.180 | managed business.
00:23:13.420 | But it's no different in any other kind of investment.
00:23:16.260 | If you're looking at real estate, you've got to start to cultivate that real estate deal
00:23:19.680 | flow.
00:23:20.680 | Where are you going to find the properties?
00:23:21.680 | Are they going to show up on a listing website?
00:23:25.600 | Is it going to come from finding out from a family member?
00:23:29.020 | How are you going to cultivate that?
00:23:30.440 | If you're investing into paper assets, stocks, you've got to ask yourself, where are my areas?
00:23:35.060 | What am I watching?
00:23:36.060 | How am I going to judge these things?
00:23:37.640 | So be working on your deal flow because there may have already been deals.
00:23:43.000 | There may be more deals coming.
00:23:44.420 | So if your investment strategy involves anything other than dollar cost averaging into a mutual
00:23:51.000 | fund, be thinking carefully about your deal flow.
00:23:56.680 | If you're dollar cost averaging into a mutual fund, good for you.
00:24:00.280 | I think it's pretty remarkable to see the changes in the stock market over the past
00:24:04.800 | months and to see where we are.
00:24:08.360 | It's certainly head scratching, I think, for most of us.
00:24:13.560 | It's head scratching, but you can see it there, see the difficulty of predicting market momentum,
00:24:19.480 | broadly speaking.
00:24:21.200 | So it's an interesting time to be an investor.
00:24:25.400 | What else?
00:24:26.440 | I think that you see now more than ever the importance of physical preparedness.
00:24:33.400 | I expected the risk of violence to increase over the course of a pandemic.
00:24:40.360 | Usually when you have economic unrest and economic difficulties, you usually will have
00:24:46.760 | increased risks of violence, increasing crime rates, et cetera.
00:24:51.240 | I didn't expect that the cause of those things.
00:24:55.480 | I didn't anticipate that the cause would be a police killing or a couple of killings,
00:25:01.240 | I guess, but certainly that's as reasonable as anything else in terms of a cause.
00:25:06.520 | And so good preparation still comes into play.
00:25:09.920 | I think one of the most important things to learn from the current emergencies and the
00:25:14.400 | current disasters is simply how disasters can build one on top of another.
00:25:22.160 | And this is, I think, common example.
00:25:26.480 | Hurricanes.
00:25:29.160 | Hurricane comes through town, blows some trees down.
00:25:34.120 | It's bad, but it's not terrible.
00:25:42.320 | What makes the hurricane terrible is when you're out cutting trees down after the hurricane
00:25:46.080 | and trying to clean up your yard and you saw your leg off with a chainsaw and now you can't
00:25:51.200 | go to work the next day.
00:25:52.880 | That's what makes the hurricane really, really terrible.
00:25:55.320 | It's the combination.
00:25:57.520 | And usually that's only the case for a small number of people.
00:26:02.200 | But what you see right now, if you study the current disasters, you see that happening.
00:26:06.480 | So you see coronavirus, disaster for some people who are dying, six figures in the United
00:26:11.880 | States, hundreds of thousands of people globally.
00:26:14.240 | It's a disaster for them, disaster for their families.
00:26:18.780 | Coronavirus is having a heavy impact on many businesses, certain types of businesses.
00:26:26.800 | And then all of a sudden, you're one of those people who is in a business that's in an area
00:26:32.080 | that's affected by rioting and looting.
00:26:35.080 | And now it's just triple whammy.
00:26:37.560 | There are people out there right now who have lost a loved one due to coronavirus, who have
00:26:43.120 | lost huge amounts of business due to the lockdowns and the restrictions.
00:26:52.840 | And then their front windows have been stoved in by a looter and now they're done.
00:27:00.760 | And so you see how these things add on top of each other.
00:27:04.640 | And it's just a sobering reminder, very, very sobering reminder as to how things can go
00:27:10.160 | from bad to worse quicker than you imagine.
00:27:13.600 | And even where we are, an honest accounting, there are a number of ways that things could
00:27:19.440 | get much, much worse very quickly.
00:27:23.080 | I don't even like to talk about it, I don't like to think about it, but it's worth thinking
00:27:27.280 | about and talking about, and you got to be prepared.
00:27:30.300 | So stay focused on your basic preparations.
00:27:35.000 | Have physical security in place.
00:27:36.340 | If you're not living in a safe place, get out.
00:27:39.100 | You can see right now how many disasters can be affected differently by being in a safe
00:27:45.340 | place versus not being in a safe place.
00:27:50.300 | Whether that's simply living in a downtown city, which is prone to social unrest versus
00:27:57.640 | living out in the country, even just the experience of a lockdown.
00:28:00.300 | I've reflected many times over the past months of how dramatically different the experience
00:28:05.460 | of somebody living in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, or downtown Atlanta, or downtown
00:28:11.500 | New York City is versus somebody living in a rural area of Tennessee, or a rural area
00:28:17.980 | of Nebraska, or et cetera.
00:28:20.300 | It's just night and day in terms of the actual experience of something like that.
00:28:24.580 | I'm so grateful having children not to live in a little tiny apartment.
00:28:28.980 | And it's such a brutal situation for the millions of families around the world who have a little
00:28:34.460 | apartment that they live in and they've got children and everyone's locked down.
00:28:37.500 | It's really, really tough.
00:28:39.980 | So be considerate and thoughtful of your physical safety.
00:28:45.660 | If you live in a place and you're concerned about your physical safety, I'd encourage
00:28:48.500 | you to go.
00:28:51.580 | This comes into play even on a broader state level and national level.
00:28:56.260 | It would seem to me that with the current social unrest in the United States, it would
00:29:00.620 | seem to me that most of the physical safety concerns could be handled by simply staying
00:29:07.740 | home.
00:29:08.740 | There would be only a few places, I guess, where there would be that much of a risk of
00:29:14.700 | physical safety, of loss of life, unless you're out and about and involved in a violent incident.
00:29:21.340 | But if you simply stay home, the physical safety is pretty low.
00:29:24.820 | But that could change very quickly.
00:29:29.020 | The current tensions, political and racial tensions in the United States, certainly very
00:29:34.620 | bad, very, very bad right now, but they could get far worse.
00:29:38.980 | And there are a couple of things that could happen that could just simply set things off.
00:29:44.420 | So far, I've been generally appreciative of the amount of restraint and the number of
00:29:50.540 | peaceful people as compared to the small number of people using the opportunity to be violent
00:29:57.540 | and engage in violence and theft and killing.
00:30:03.060 | But that could change.
00:30:04.300 | A significant – a small but significant percentage of society is made up of people
00:30:09.540 | who just don't care and people who are fundamentally evil and who will use any situation that they
00:30:15.500 | can to do things that they just feel they can get away with.
00:30:20.820 | And so thus far, things have been on the whole about as much as you can expect.
00:30:30.980 | But it could get a lot worse.
00:30:33.500 | All you need is for – I mean, if the police violence has been bad so far, there have been
00:30:41.260 | a couple of police officers killed, but all you need is a handful of people to go out
00:30:46.220 | and – like happened in Dallas a number of years ago.
00:30:48.620 | It was at 2017, I think, when the guy went out in Dallas and just started killing and
00:30:53.660 | shooting police officers.
00:30:55.420 | I mean, think things are bad now?
00:30:58.500 | It would be far worse if some guy goes out and just starts killing people randomly.
00:31:04.380 | The police arrested today some of the far right violent elements, and all you need is
00:31:13.740 | for a few of those guys to slip through and all of a sudden things could be much, much
00:31:17.260 | worse.
00:31:18.260 | So if you're living in one of those places, if you're living in a big city, have a plan
00:31:21.900 | to get out and have a place to go.
00:31:23.700 | You'll have to judge the risks locally.
00:31:25.740 | It would be foolish for me to say, "Get out," right?
00:31:28.740 | There's no need for that at this point in time.
00:31:31.140 | But you better have a plan to get out.
00:31:32.780 | I think it's remarkable to watch.
00:31:34.980 | One of the things I didn't expect is that – I didn't expect the United States of
00:31:39.500 | America to start to get behind on things like passports.
00:31:44.460 | Right now if you want a new passport, the United States of America, unless you can prove
00:31:49.020 | to them that it's an emergency, basically you can't get one.
00:31:52.460 | You can't get one.
00:31:53.460 | I've been preaching at you for years, feeling like a broken record.
00:31:57.620 | Get your passports.
00:31:58.620 | Get your passports.
00:31:59.860 | Make sure that you and everyone in your family has passports so you can get out.
00:32:03.060 | That one little document, that one little piece of paper, or little booklet I guess
00:32:06.920 | I should say, is the thing that opens up the ticket for you to get from one place to another.
00:32:11.740 | You can completely change your circumstances if you go from one place to another with that
00:32:17.460 | little passport.
00:32:18.780 | But if you can't get that thing, you're sunk.
00:32:22.560 | There are so many people around the world.
00:32:24.780 | My travels, I ran into Venezuelans and so many Venezuelans and they're always – they're
00:32:29.260 | like, "Yeah, I'm Venezuelan but I'm also Spanish.
00:32:32.500 | Here's my Spanish passport.
00:32:33.500 | This one is I got because my Venezuelan one, I can't get a new one made."
00:32:36.300 | Well, to see that in the United States right now, you can still get one but you have to
00:32:39.660 | prove that it's an emergency.
00:32:41.460 | So don't wait around.
00:32:43.660 | Get that stuff going because countries can close their borders and if you got to get
00:32:49.340 | out, you got to get out.
00:32:50.900 | So you need to have that stuff now.
00:32:52.360 | So I would have some bags packed and have a few different places ready to go and just
00:32:57.700 | be watching because things could get worse.
00:33:02.300 | I hope they don't.
00:33:03.740 | So far, some of the worst case fears have not come to pass.
00:33:06.660 | Thankfully, for example, there's not been any evidence of bank instability in the United
00:33:11.620 | States.
00:33:12.620 | I'm grateful for that.
00:33:13.620 | There's been no runs on the banks in the United States, modest runs on the banks in
00:33:16.780 | other places.
00:33:17.780 | There's hyperinflation in Lebanon right now.
00:33:22.660 | Some modest bank runs in Argentina, bank runs in Brazil but very, very modest.
00:33:31.140 | And so thankfully, my fears about bank runs have not happened.
00:33:40.260 | And again, thankfully, no major concerns yet about inflation but you need to be prepared.
00:33:45.260 | The time to be prepared is far before you ever need it.
00:33:48.320 | What else can you do?
00:33:49.320 | I think one of the things that you see right now is the power of community and community
00:33:54.820 | is at the core of how you get through something.
00:33:58.660 | And so whatever community means to you, invest into your local community.
00:34:03.180 | Get together with your neighbors.
00:34:04.400 | Make sure you get together with your neighbors.
00:34:06.220 | If there are various groups that you're involved in, it can be political groups, political
00:34:10.780 | action groups, whatever it is, be ready.
00:34:16.300 | But be involved in your community, your local church, your town, etc.
00:34:21.940 | It's crucial and there are a lot of people right now who are hurting.
00:34:25.180 | There are a lot of people who don't have food.
00:34:26.580 | There are a lot of people who are hurting.
00:34:28.380 | And so find out about who those people are.
00:34:30.940 | If you really want to gain political influence in your community, meet the needs of the people
00:34:36.980 | in that community.
00:34:37.980 | When a government stops meeting the needs of its people, the authority of that government
00:34:45.180 | quickly disappears where people just aren't willing to pay attention.
00:34:49.100 | And so what do you do?
00:34:51.740 | You step in and you meet the needs of that community.
00:34:54.160 | So get involved in your local community and seek to build and to cultivate community,
00:35:01.420 | whatever that means in your local context.
00:35:05.020 | Beyond that, there's not a lot that you can do.
00:35:07.380 | There's not a lot that you can do.
00:35:09.820 | You can do things.
00:35:11.140 | You can be an activist, write on social media, write articles.
00:35:17.020 | There's of course a place for that and that may have some effect.
00:35:21.860 | I'm skeptical of the effect.
00:35:24.700 | I don't see a lot of people that are able to effectively persuade other people to their
00:35:29.740 | position.
00:35:30.740 | But if you've got a tool of persuasion to bring people over, then exercise that.
00:35:38.780 | I think you see right now, I'll stop there.
00:35:43.220 | I don't know a lot else that you can do except to those things.
00:35:48.020 | Work to care for your family, care for your community, work to shore up your personal
00:35:52.260 | finances, work to keep your income coming in, and then look for opportunity.
00:35:58.420 | Look for opportunity in the midst of crisis.
00:36:02.860 | I know that my tone is not as boisterous as it usually is.
00:36:13.380 | Got to be honest.
00:36:14.380 | I'm trying to be honest.
00:36:15.380 | I always try to tell you where I've been wrong, where I think I'm right.
00:36:19.540 | But I can't.
00:36:21.540 | It's hard to put on a happy tone and kind of be Mr. Optimistic sometimes, as you well
00:36:26.300 | know.
00:36:27.780 | So that's where I think we are.
00:36:30.980 | But I hope you're doing well.
00:36:32.260 | I hope that you're prepared for this current event and I hope that things will go through
00:36:37.060 | there.
00:36:38.060 | I'm going to go ahead and re-put into, in the light of the current police tension, I'm
00:36:44.380 | going to go ahead and put again into the podcast feed a replay of the show I did a number of
00:36:48.900 | years ago on how to arrest proof yourself, how to arrest proof yourself and your children
00:36:54.260 | so that you don't get arrested.
00:36:57.380 | If you are in the process of going out and getting arrested, I certainly understand.
00:37:03.660 | It certainly seems that there are times that it's worth it to take a stand for what you
00:37:09.580 | believe in and to get yourself arrested.
00:37:13.900 | I would beg of you though, count the cost.
00:37:16.340 | Make sure you're ready to pay the cost.
00:37:18.380 | Just the simple act of getting arrested, if you're engaging in civil disobedience or protesting
00:37:25.620 | or some other form of demonstration.
00:37:29.540 | I respect you and my hat's off to you for sticking to your convictions and advocating
00:37:34.780 | for the things that you believe.
00:37:36.500 | But I would beg you to count the cost.
00:37:38.380 | And I would encourage you, one of the things that is such a concern is that one of the
00:37:43.420 | practical things, I try to find the solutions that work.
00:37:46.780 | I try to find the things that are likely to be effective.
00:37:50.220 | And if I can find those things, I like to share them.
00:37:53.140 | And it's deeply frustrating to me when I can't find the common threads that will work.
00:37:58.380 | But one of the things that does still work in the United States for those who are concerned
00:38:02.780 | about tensions with the police, what does work are the things that I talked about in
00:38:07.620 | that show on arrest proofing yourself and your children.
00:38:10.900 | It does still work.
00:38:11.900 | The rule of law is thankfully still in force.
00:38:16.220 | You still have a number of rights that you can exercise and that you should exercise,
00:38:19.540 | you must exercise.
00:38:21.140 | And there are a lot of things that you can do to protect yourself.
00:38:26.340 | And so whether it's teaching your neighbors about how to conduct themselves during a traffic
00:38:32.020 | stop, teaching your neighbors how to conduct themselves during encounters with the police.
00:38:39.260 | I teach a little classes on it.
00:38:40.980 | Anytime I can, I try to take someone and say, "Listen, let's drill you on what you do when
00:38:45.740 | you get pulled over, what you don't do, what you do if when you're speaking to the police,
00:38:51.500 | what you don't do."
00:38:52.500 | And I feel like that's a really practical area of advocacy that can really help.
00:38:57.940 | So if you listen to that show, recorded a number of years ago, but if you listen to
00:39:01.700 | that show, I hope it'll help you to take some of the ideas and techniques and teach them
00:39:05.440 | to someone else.
00:39:06.440 | Thank you for listening.
00:39:13.180 | (dog barking)
00:39:15.680 | [BLANK_AUDIO]