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Welcome to another edition of the Chicks
on the Right podcast, where we feature

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our friend and sponsor of the show, Zach Abraham, who's the chief investment

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officer at Bulwark Capital Management. And
we are always really, really grateful to

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get your insight, Zach on all
things money and economy related. And last

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time we talked to you, man, it was a whole different world than

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it is right now. Now it's
looking like World War three maybe upon us.

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There's all this conflict that's been reignited
in the Middle East, and so

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I feel like we should just revisit
some of the things that we talked about

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a couple of weeks ago, maybe
mortgage interest rates, what might happen to

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them as a result of this,
What people should think about and know about,

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and what they're asking you about when
you get calls from people right now

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who are like, what do I
do? What do I do? What

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do I do? Yeah? No, great question. So, first of

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all, on the international conflict side
of it, man, I mean talk

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about a complex issue, right And
I don't you know, I always think

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it's important when we're talking about these
things to really separate the moral aspects of

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it from the from the investing aspects
of it. So what I would say

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right now is on the financial side
of things, as long as the conflict

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remains between Hamas or you know,
Palestine, the larger Palestine and Israel,

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I really don't see too much of
an impact. I it was. It

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kind of concerned us a little bit
last week when some of these murmuring started,

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or over the weekend when the murmuring
started, like, oh, this

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is going to make the price of
oil go way up. When you look

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at Palestine in Israel, there's virtually
no oil production, So if there at

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war really has little impact. Now
where it gets different is if this conflict

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draws in Iran or anybody else that's
an oil producer. One of the main

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ways to swing a big axe in
that part of the world is to basically

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barricade the Straits of Hormus, where
the vast majority of the oil flows out

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of the Middle East. If if
if another player that was a significant oil

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producer, a significant oil exporter,
which you know so many of those countries

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are, if they were to get
involved, you would probably see a very

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significant rise in the price of oil, which would obviously impact inflation. You'd

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probably see a dollar surge, which
would be extraordinarily negative for stock markets.

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And so at this point, right
now, you're gonna hear a lot of

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craziness and a lot of all the
sky is falling as it relates to finances

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at this point right now, I
don't really see anything that's going to change,

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that's going to change the calculus.
Like I said, if people,

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you know, if other players get
involved, it's a different ballgame on the

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on the more social side, if
you if you wouldn't mind me addressing that

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for a second, it is really
appalling to me and extraordinarily scary. The

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amount of nonsense you hear, the
and the naked anti Semitism coming out of

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especially the left. It just it's
mind blowing to me. And the moral

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equivalencies between the two. And there
is a massive difference, right and the

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difference is, you know, I
don't want to oversimplify it, but to

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me, it's this simple. If
Palestine, if Palestinians laid down their arms,

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the conflict would be over. If
Israeli's laid down their arms, they'd

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be annihilated, right right, right, right, there's the moral discussion.

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I hear people say, you know, equating it to Ukraine and all.

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And I'm sitting there going who whah
whoa. Okay, Russia and Ukraine,

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that's like a family fight, right, they speak the same language, they

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have the same culture, they were
a part of the same country thirty five

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years ago. Okay, this is
effectively a civil war. What you see

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happening in Israel is aspirational genocide,
right it is. It's not surprising hearing

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this coming out of the left,
because the extreme left, especially because I

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think, as we all know,
there has been an underbelly of anti Semitism

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that nobody would discuss on the left
for quite sometime. Absolutely really showing its

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ugly face. But it's also appalling
at the same time, so I you

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know, you guys probably editorialize on
that enough, so I don't want to

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go overboard. But it's just shocking, it's scary, it's sad, it's

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yeah, what a mess. What
do you say to people who immediately say,

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but what about all of the innocent
Palestinians? What is your response.

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I'd be curious to know how you
respond to those people, because there's a

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lot of them. Who are you
know, they're doing the pro free Palestine

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protests and rallies and all of that
stuff. Well, so I, first

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of all, I talk about it
two different ways. When I say free

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Palestine, free them from what?
And they go, well, a prison

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they've been locked into? And I
go, are you referring to the hundreds

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of thousands of Palestinians that live and
thrive inside of the borders of Israel?

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Are those the ones we're talking about? And why is it that they're both

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from that region? But Palestine has
ownership of the land, right, It's

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it's not like the Jews showed up
on the Mayflower in sixteen hundred and fifty

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and took over the land. Right
They've been fighting over this plot of land

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for three thousand years. So how
we sit there and treat them like this

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indigenous people that are being you know, murdered. So it's tragedy on both

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sides, and it's horrific and one
of the most tragic parts about it is

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it's a blood feud essentially, right, Like, so a lot of these

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people on both sides, especially on
the Palestinian side, they're willing to go

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kill and murder because people that they
know, friends, family, have been

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murdered. Right. It's it's horrifically
on fortunate and it's awful and and and

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I'm not saying I don't feel sympathy
for them, but I would sit there

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and ask these same people, what
are you supposed to do? If you're

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what are you supposed to do?
They go give them the land back again?

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Why do they have more claim to
it than Israel? I just it

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it to me, it's just a
mess. And uh, I think it's

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been going on for thousands of years, and at some point, especially the

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academics and the elite left in this
country decided that whoever is stronger is is

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at fault in any given conflict.
Even if that's us, right, that's

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such a great way to put it. Yeah, it's it's just ridiculous.

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And like I said, I just
think it's really simple, right if you

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look at the platforms of both the
tragedy is absolutely on both sides, and

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both of those people got you know, both sets of people. God bless

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them and pray it comes to an
end. But in the Charter of Hamas,

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they are dedicated to the eradication of
Israel from the face of the earth.

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Israel has been, in my opinion, mostly in good faith, trying

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to negotiate for peace literally since the
inception in nineteen forty nine. So it's

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all they want. It's literally all
they want. You. I mean,

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you think it'd be simple to understand
it, but like it's what's really like

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baffling to me is like what you
were saying, the rationalizations that people are

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going through in their brains to try
to rationalize terrorism and barbarism and just the

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unthinkable. They're rationalizing it. Like
I that's what I just I can't believe

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that people that people that you think
you know that are around you. You're

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just like, Wow, you're trying
to rationalize that. What the heck?

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Yeah. The other big difference,
if I got that question the other day,

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and the other big difference to me
is there is a difference between summarily

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beheading children, yeah, and children
dying in collateral damage due to bond being

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totally there is a massive difference.
You can sit there and tell me dead

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kids are dead kids. As a
father, I get what you're saying,

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But on a geopolitical basis, you
could not be further off based. Yeah,

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absolutely, it's just madness. And
then and you know, if you

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guys have any other specific questions,
I'd be happy to answer them. But

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as this feeds back economically to us, when a conflict like this is going

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on, I don't think it should
change anything anybody's doing, but I think

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it should make them. This is
this type of event is what I look

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at as kind of a volatility multiplier. Right. It is just going to

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and it has the potential to just
enhance things, right, enhance chaotic markets,

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enhance asset price moves. Like I
said, by and large, at

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this point, it doesn't look like
it's going to be a game changer.

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But when you look at the issues
that the world is dealing with, any

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level of increase in geopolitical conflict makes
all of these issues worse, Right,

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it just does. When you're looking
at inflation, when you're looking at shortage

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of energy and all these different things. War does not help any of those

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things. And the larger scale it
goes, you know, I think by

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and large, you know, I
personally, I think a lot of investors

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are looking at the wrong thing.
You don't need a war in the Middle

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East to create havoc. It's coming. It's economically, it's coming. We

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are seeing increase slowdowns, you are
seeing credit just evaporate. I mean,

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you can't get credit right now.
Credit is drying up, and an economy

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that is that reliant on it is
we are. The idea that people don't

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think this is going to cause a
recession is just mind blowing to me.

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But you know, it kind of
reminds me of Ben Bernanke saying in two

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thousand and six the issues in subprime
are contained right. Eight months later,

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Leaning Brothers fail. So it just
it feel again, I don't think we're

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facing that type of issue. I
don't think we're on the edge of another

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great recession, but I do think
that we're going to be through some rocky

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times investing. And then that's kind
of what I was saying about these conflicts,

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is that as these geo political tensions
increase the right, the universe of

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possible outcomes is widening right and mostly
to the downside. So again, is

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it going to have any direct impact
from where we see right now? No,

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but the bets are being anted.
Yeah, I couldn't see. I

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mean, how could you not think
that we wouldn't be having rocky times financially.

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I mean, look at the past
couple of years and look who's at

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the helm of things. I mean, it's like, that's why somebody who

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doesn't do finance, like I'm not
a finance person, but you need somebody

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that's going to be at the helm
of your ship financially to just help you

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guide, just guide you through the
waters, because I mean it's I mean,

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it's like you're saying, Okay,
whether there's gonna be a recession,

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of course, things are going to
suck over the next couple of year.

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I mean, look who we've got
in charge, of course, you know.

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I mean, you've got to be
getting so many calls from people just

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I can't imagine what the past just
two years have been like for you.

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Well they've been yeah, they've been
very good for business, right, but

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yeah, not for the right reasons. I think you're waking up to it.

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The other thing that this highlights,
you, guys, is there is

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no free lunch, right, contrary
to what a lot of people would try

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to convince us of. And what
I mean by that is, you cannot

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keep interest rates at zero for fifteen
years. You cannot have the Federal Reserve

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balance sheet go from eight hundred and
eighty billion to seven and a half trillion

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and not expect to pay a price
at some point. And I think one

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of the most dangerous things out there
is because we have with every road bump

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that we have hit for the last
fifteen years, we've filled it with the

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same asphalt. And that's just printed
money. Right. Well, when can

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you not do that any when the
printed money becomes the problem and inflation sets

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in. So this has been a
problem fifteen years in the making. And

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I think because we filled in every
pothole with money, the investing public,

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in my opinion, has become risk
and sensitive, right, just because it's

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everything's worked out over the last fifteen
years. Scare was a buying opportunity.

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It's like a false sense of security, right. But what's different about now?

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What's different about now are interest rates? Right, It's a completely different

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ballgame when you go from zero percent
and the FED buying up every bond in

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site to now jacking rates historically high
and selling bonds. You know, here's

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the other thing. Keep an eye
out. You're going to hear if rates

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stay here for any period of time
and I mean like another I mean again

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fifteen to thirty days, you're going
to hear about more banks in trouble,

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Okay, And the reason why is
that all the vast majority of collateral that

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banks own or US government bonds.
Well, the thirty year US government treasury

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is down sixty percent since January one
of last year. Okay. So if

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you bought a thirty year treasury twenty
months ago, okay, and you go

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to sell it today, you're down
sixty percent. Right, You're down fifty

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five percent in a ten year treasury. Okay. Well that's what all these

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banks own, right, So their
capital has gotten cut in half. At

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the same time the economy is slowing, defaults are going up, the banks

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are getting pressed literally on every side
right now. So again, is it

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going to create another O eight on
nine? No, because we know what

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the answer will be. They're just
going to print the money. Right.

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Is it going to create some serious
volatility? Yeah? We think so.

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Well you've been I mean, you
were super helpful to us when we tried

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our individual consultations with you, and
we know that you can do the same

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for others who out there who might
be listening and worried about out how to

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protect their savings. So what is
the best way for people to find out

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more about you and what Bulwark Capital
Management can do for them? Yeah,

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well so we're pretty easy to find. We host a radio show and do

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a podcast too. Our radio show
airs once a week on Fridays. We

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kick or Excuse Me on Thursday on
Saturdays. But we've started doing a daily

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broadcast as well, called The Daily
Dots. It's twelve to fifteen minutes long.

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What we wanted we had a lot
of people asking for this, and

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what we wanted to do is somebody's
on their way home from work and wants

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to get a summary of what's gone
on in the economy and finance that day,

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and they don't want to listen to
blowhards and commercials. We just summarized

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the day's entire action and including any
pertinent economic news in a twelve to fifteen

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minute segment called the Daily Dots.
If you subscribe to our podcast, Know

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Your Risk Radio, the Daily Dots
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or anything like that. Or you
can go to our website Bulworkcapitalmanagement dot com,

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follow me on Twitter at KYR Radio, or we're all over the places

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google Bullwork Capital. A welcome,
love, a thank you, sach,

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thanks alive, thank you, waving
siks for out me Next time, yeah,