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- Ep 48: Following the Path to Mastery
Ep 48: Following the Path to Mastery
- 11/15/2012
- with Robert Greene
Recommended Reading
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Power, Seduction and War
- Robert Greene
Power, strategy and seduction expert Robert Greene shares how you can tap into your inner self to reach greatness.
Critically acclaimed author Robert Greene talks about the ultimate power of mastery. He also discusses his collaboration with rapper 50 Cent.
Click the above Premium tab to listen to the Premium segment. Subsribe to Stansberry Radio Premium here.
Aaron Brabham: Welcome to another episode of Stansberry Radio. I'm Aaron Brabham. Porter, how you doing today, buddy?
Porter Stansberry: Doing great. I had a workout this morning, Aaron.
Aaron Brabham: Ooh.
Porter Stansberry: Yup.
Aaron Brabham: Back on that. Back to being a healthy guy again.
Porter Stansberry: I got the back – I got permission to start back on. You're gonna see some slimming and toning.
Aaron Brabham: I know what it was. It was you reminiscing about the pictures of home.
Porter Stansberry: That's exactly what it was.
Aaron Brabham: I know the psychological triggers of human beings. And I know you were looking at them yesterday and you're like –
Porter Stansberry: What the hell –
Aaron Brabham: – "Man, I was handsome. I was a handsome dude. What happened?" You had that real strong, clean jaw on you.
Porter Stansberry: Yeah. I got sent a photo from ten years ago from an old girlfriend, and man, I looked a lot better back then.
Aaron Brabham: Yeah, you looked awesome.
Porter Stansberry: So yeah, we got some work to do. But we were at the gym today. 8:00 AM, bam.
Aaron Brabham: Man, I like that.
Porter Stansberry: Two hours of cardio. Cha-chom.
Aaron Brabham: That's a lot. How did you feel? Was it rough or was it not bad?
Porter Stansberry: No, I felt great. No, no, I know the secret. You got to start reasonable pacing things. Work your way up.
Aaron Brabham: Well, Porter, it's a big week for us this week. We teased for a few months, and we're finally releasing the Premium show this week. We're –
Porter Stansberry: Today, first ever.
Aaron Brabham: Today, yeah.
Porter Stansberry: It better be good.
Aaron Brabham: So, after the free show, we are interviewing Dan Ferris, who's gonna be revealing what he believes is his best pick in his portfolio. And I know standards of Stansberry style, you're gonna give him the business a little bit. You're gonna sizzle him a little bit and make sure that this is what is the best pick for our listeners.
Porter Stansberry: Three tough questions for Dan. And, truly – this is not just a tease – an enormous secret for value investors. And lots of folks out there are deep value investors. I respect them. What's what I – that's the kind of analysis I like to do. It's the kinda thing I do with my own money too. But there's a simple way to vastly increase your returns as a value investor. And here's the thing. I haven't been able to persuade Dan to take advantage of this yet, so I'm gonna hammer him on that.
Aaron Brabham: Hmm, I like that.
Porter Stansberry: And whether Dan agrees with me or not, you're gonna learn a lot about it. And, by the way, for those of you out there who are free listeners, please come on. What are we charging for the Premium show?
Aaron Brabham: $10.00 a month.
Porter Stansberry: $10.00 a month gets you four Premium segments, one Premium show, personal introductions from me to all my best contacts, long discussions about investment strategies. If you can't make money by spending $10.00 a month with us, I'm sorry. I can't help you.
Aaron Brabham: I agree. Then why are you even listening to the podcast. If you don't want actionable investing advice –
Porter Stansberry: Yeah, what are you doing?
Aaron Brabham: What are you doing?
Porter Stansberry: Don't fool around. Just sign up.
Aaron Brabham: It's $10.00 and you can cancel anytime, so it's not a big deal.
Porter Stansberry: No commitment.
Aaron Brabham: And also, so for our first – for our big monthly – big education piece, we have your buddy, Van Simmons coming in and we're gonna be interviewing him –
Porter Stansberry: This is the monthly show.
Aaron Brabham: This is the monthly show, and we're gonna talk about the secrets to investing in gold coins. 'Cause right now, the premiums are really looking good, they're strong.
Porter Stansberry: Not many people understand the very few basic principles of being a good coin collector. But if you talk to people that have been doing it for a while, you'll be amazed at how strong the returns can be. Of course, like anything else, if you know what you doing, you buy the right kinda coins at the right spreads, the right prices; you can do very, very well.
Aaron Brabham: So if you're listening to this right now and you're not on our e mail list, you're not gonna receive the details of the Premium show, because that's the only way we're gonna send it out right now. We're sending it out to people that are familiar with our show, that are on the list. Go to http://stansberryradio.com, you'll see an e mail pop-up box. But if you closed it before, then it won't show up again.
But there's always a box on the homepage at the top that says, "Enter your E-Mail." And, of course, we don't sell your e mail or anything like that. We control all the content and all that good stuff. Get on the e mail list. So I guess that's $10.00. Dan Ferris is gonna reveal his pick today from Extreme Value, which I can't remember if that's his expensive newsletter.
Porter Stansberry: Yeah, that's the high-end one.
Aaron Brabham: That's the high, which is $2,500.00 a year. So you're getting his best pick of the month from the $2,500.00-a-year newsletter. That's pretty good.
Porter Stansberry: Yeah, Dan is definitely the most-respected newsletter writing in the high-level, Wall Street hedge fund world. He's the guy that the savviest investors on Wall Street read out of our stable of our analysts. And, as you'll see, there's something that you can do to vastly improve on his already good track record.
Aaron Brabham: Let's see how he handles that.
Porter Stansberry: I'm gonna smoke him out a little bit.
Aaron Brabham: You should smoke him out a little bit. Well, Porter, third term – we sent it back out to our list. I hope people understand what the third term is 'cause we got a lot of calls on it, a lot of e mails saying, "What is this Obama third-term thing?" And if you've read it, it's all surrounding oil.
Yesterday, the IEA came out and said – and usually they're pretty tough. Usually, they try to take down recoverable amounts and project really low. But they said, "By 2020, American will be on top for the number one producer of oil in the world, exceeding Russia and Saudi Arabia."
Porter Stansberry: What a surprise. I've been saying it since 2009.
Aaron Brabham: You've been writing about it since 2009 and –
Porter Stansberry: Here it is.
Aaron Brabham: – here it is. Here it comes.
Porter Stansberry: Where's Chris Martinson now?
Aaron Brabham: Probably reading for the promo right now, taking notes.
Porter Stansberry: We gotta have him on and talk about our wager.
Aaron Brabham: He's probably interviewing Leonardo Maugeri now, following our lead.
Porter Stansberry: Well, you know the thing I think hasn’t happened yet, that this oil boom obviously will cause, is a very strong collapse in the price of crude oil in the U.S. market. Right now, U.S. crude oil is at $85.00, and the global price of crude, the Brit price is like $110.00, $115.00. So that spread is enormous.
Aaron Brabham: Widening.
Porter Stansberry: And that shows you the pressures in the U.S. market in terms of lower prices, and it also sets up a very interesting dynamic as far as the possibility to start exporting U.S. energy. Now, this is important, folks. The U.S. is already a net exporter of energy. Most people don't understand that. For the first time since 1949, in 2011, we exported more energy than we imported. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean crude oil.
Aaron Brabham: NGLs, Natural Gas liquids.
Porter Stansberry: We're exporting a lot of refined products. Our refineries are exporting a lot of gasoline and other – plastics and other byproducts of hydrocarbons. We're exporting a lot of energy. If this boom continues, there's no doubt in my mind we will begin to export crude oil. And there are several major companies that have already announced plans for that.
But here's the thing to think about. Right now, it's against the law to export crude oil. So as long as that price differential remains in place, anyone who's able to export crude oil is gonna make a fortune, which is the why – which is why we've been recommending shares of Cheniere because they have a license to export natural gas, PLNG.
Now, they can't start that until 2015 'cause they’ve gotta build the facilities to do it. But this is a major, major trend. And the thing that I don't think people understand yet, politically, is how this puts Obama in the catbird seat, because he can, literally, at the snap of his fingers, decide to allow certain people to export oil or certain people to export natural gas.
So far, 12 different companies have requested a license to export natural gas and only one have gotten it. Now, just between me and you, don't you wonder how much money and how many favors and how much power Obama's going to accrue by being able to deal these kinds of licenses.
Aaron Brabham: It's a name your own price.
Porter Stansberry: It's gonna completely reshape presidential politics. And, based on his own ambition, I think he's gonna try to parlay this massive oil power that he has now into a third term for the presidency. Now, before you say, "Oh, that's crazy, twenty-second amendment," yada, yada, yada. Look, people have already written into the Washington Post from the left, saying that he could start a war with Iran in order to build this kinda political power, but this guy didn't know about the oil.
Aaron Brabham: No. Yeah, I think that's a way outlandish idea. But he's still –
Porter Stansberry: But there are people on the left that support this idea.
Aaron Brabham: Sure. Oh, there's activity –
Porter Stansberry: And then on the –
Aaron Brabham: Actually, there's advocacy groups out there.
Porter Stansberry: And on the right, Rush Limbaugh has said that he suspects the same thing. From a grass-roots perspective, he thinks that the underclass people that Obama has given all these things to are gonna demand another term or a repeal of the twenty-second amendment. My – what I believe will happen is that Eric Holder will be put up as the next president.
Aaron Brabham: And yesterday, on Drudge, I saw he was –
Porter Stansberry: Yup. He announced that he's staying in the administration –
Aaron Brabham: – he's staying in.
Porter Stansberry: – which is a sure sign. Now, you know this 'cause you're in the office. I said this a couple weeks ago that I bet Eric Holder would stay.
Aaron Brabham: We said it on the radio show.
Porter Stansberry: We did.
Aaron Brabham: We said it on air two – one or two episodes ago. That was the first time I heard it from you and I was like, "Wow, Eric Holder's the dude that's been in so much hot water for Fast and Furious, but he has gotten off scot free.
Porter Stansberry: Of course, which is another sign.
Aaron Brabham: And there's a reason, right. There's another sign. He's being protected.
Porter Stansberry: So I think he's gonna play the role of Meddedev – I can't pronounce the guys name.
Aaron Brabham: Medvedev.
Porter Stansberry: Medvedev in Russia.
Aaron Brabham: [Inaudible Comment].
Porter Stansberry: Right, he's gonna be the proxy for Obama. I mean this is what you're gonna see going forward. Now, I guess if you think that's good or bad, depends on where you sit, right. There are a lot of people out there that really like the Obama administration and they like –
Aaron Brabham: If you pay taxes, you hate it. If you don't pay taxes, you probably love this idea.
Porter Stansberry: But this happens all around the world. All around the world, politicians use oil resources to further socialist political strategies. That's what Chavez did. He bought his way into unlimited power. It's what Putin has done in Russian. It's what the Kirchners are doing in Argentina. And I guarantee you he will follow the script.
Now, I want to say one thing – one more thing about this. We'll get on with the rest of the show, but I want to say something about this. What's so funny to me is that we are gonna catch all kinds of misery for this, all kinds of heap. People are gonna accuse us of the worst kind of marketing. "Oh, you're trying to scare people. Oh –" blabity, blabity, blah.
Man, I'm just reporting what is right in front of me and what is obvious for everyone to see. And I'll give you an example. ABC News was all over us for this already, and they even post a link to the promo. They wouldn't even let people see it for themselves. They just criticized it, and me especially, right.
Aaron Brabham: Um-hmm.
Porter Stansberry: It drives me nuts that people attack me, personally, okay. By the way, I'm selling a $49.00 newsletter.
Aaron Brabham: And you get your money back too.
Porter Stansberry: With a money-back guarantee.
Aaron Brabham: It's completely risk free.
Porter Stansberry: What's wrong with this? What's wrong with that? It costs –
Aaron Brabham: And it comes with stock recommendations and big ideas.
Porter Stansberry: This costs less than your cable bill.
Aaron Brabham: It's crazy.
Porter Stansberry: And I'm supposedly ripping people off.
Aaron Brabham: Outback Steakhouse dinner for two, right there.
Porter Stansberry: It's ridiculous.
Aaron Brabham: It's ridiculous.
Porter Stansberry: And, meanwhile, no one will ever – no one ever argues against whatever it is I'm writing about. So when people got on me for the "End of America" report that warned about the looming inflation and the fact that our government couldn't finance its own debts, nobody ever talked about the facts in the report. No, they talked about me.
Aaron Brabham: Right.
Porter Stansberry: Same thing with this. I believe Obama is angling to stay in power for beyond his second term. There's a reasonable way he can do it, and there's a reason to believe that he will, based on what's going on in the oil business.
Aaron Brabham: And based on history.
Male 21: Based on history. Look at the other two presidents that ran for a third term. Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Aaron Brabham: Happened both during the biggest booms in the history of the world.
Porter Stansberry: Those are the two biggest previous world booms –
Aaron Brabham: At least in the United States.
Porter Stansberry: – in the United States, right. Spindletop in 1901 and East Texas –
Aaron Brabham: East Texas find.
Porter Stansberry: – 1930. So can you – and then at the comparative politics. Look what happened in Venezuela, look what happened in Argentina, look what happened in Russia. So can you at least acknowledge that there is a logic to what I'm saying? You can disagree with me, that's fine. But you can't say I'm making it up outta whole cloth and I've got no reasons to believe this. That's what frustrates me.
Aaron Brabham: And name one president since Kennedy that has more of a cult-like following than Obama.
Porter Stansberry: He's got it, yeah.
Aaron Brabham: He's got it, man.
Porter Stansberry: And, by the way, no other president, except for FDR, was reelected with an 8 percent unemployment rate. I mean and the employment rate, of course, is phony anyways. It's way higher than that.
Aaron Brabham: And, as we said, it was pretty much a landslide. People thought it was gonna come down to the swing states.
Porter Stansberry: Wasn’t even close.
Aaron Brabham: Wasn’t even close, man. No, he killed it, so. Well, the interview today we have – we actually recorded it a couple weeks ago, and it's Robert Greene.
Porter Stansberry: He's a great guy.
Aaron Brabham: Awesome. He's got a new book out called –
Porter Stansberry: Great interview.
Aaron Brabham: – Mastery. Of course, he's authored The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, The 50th Law of Power.
Porter Stansberry: I really like talking with this guy. But I want to make something clear. We did record this early –
Aaron Brabham: We did.
Porter Stansberry: – because he's on a huge book tour and that was the only time we could get with him. But we have not altered the interview in any way.
Aaron Brabham: Not at all.
Porter Stansberry: This is important for me that you understand this. A lot of things that other people do in business, I will not do, okay. And one of them is I would never, ever edit or cut or correct an interview, never, okay. If the person says, "I don't like the interview went, I want you to change something," we don't air it. We don't go back and change things. You're hearing the conversation as it was. Are we gonna go that now?
Aaron Brabham: Yeah, we're gonna go to Robert Greene's interview now, and hope you guys enjoy it.
Porter Stansberry: Robert Greene, how are you?
Robert Greene: I'm fine. How are you?
Porter Stansberry: Hi, this is Porter Stansberry.
Robert Greene: Hi, Porter. How you doing?
Porter Stansberry: I'm an enormous fan of your work; just absolutely love your books. Thanks for being with us.
Aaron Brabham: As am I. I'm Aaron Brabham. I'm Porter's cost host. I love the Art of Seduction and I love The 48 Laws of Power. I even went out of my way, one day, to call a radio show 'cause they were talking about The 48 Laws of Power, but they couldn't – they didn't know who the author was. So I had to call them and tell them, "It's Robert Greene. You have to do this. You have to read the book." 'Cause these things are played every day. There's manipulation everywhere.
Robert Greene: Well, thank you for doing that. I owe you one.
Aaron Brabham: No, you don't owe me anything.
Porter Stansberry: Let's start with our listeners who may not have heard about your books, may not quite understand what we're so excited about. Could you just give the elevator pitch for the things that you write about and your approach to writing books?
Robert Greene: Well, the first three books, we usually sort of the "Amoral Trilogy." And then, basically, these are books that are about the power dynamic as they play out in our career and work world, but sometimes even in our relationships. And, basically, I'm trying to say that there's sometimes a dark side to human nature.
People, particularly in the work world, can be quite political, can be manipulative. And so you need to know, arm yourself with knowledge. It's not all dark. There are certainly good people out there. But you need to arm yourself with knowledge and understand some of the power dynamics that operate out there in the world, so that you can navigate more smoothly the social realm.
We all learn our jobs and our skills fairly well, but oftentimes we ignore the very important social aspect and political aspect in our careers. And those are three books that were just trying to illuminate and make you as aware of possible of how to – of what's going on and what some people might be doing to you.
Aaron Brabham: Now, before you became an author, in your bio it says that you held 80 jobs.
Robert Greene: Yeah. I had a checkered career before I got into writing book. I knew I wanted to be a writer, but –
Porter Stansberry: All good writers have a checkered career.
Robert Greene: Sorry.
Porter Stansberry: All good writers have a checkered career.
Robert Greene: Yeah. It's part of – I mean in my new book, I talked about the importance of going through an apprenticeship, and that is sort of what a writer goes through. I did construction work, I washed dishes, I taught English in Spain, I worked in journalism, I worked in Hollywood. And when it came time to write books, all of that experience about how people operate in the world, in all different cultures and all different fields, it really sort of helped educate me and helped me – it gave me a lot of good material for my books,
Porter Stansberry: So I'm a huge fan of history and I write financial newsletters every month. And I always try to include a story from history that exemplifies whatever the lesson is in the newsletter, whatever the strategy is that month.
Robert Greene: Un-huh.
Porter Stansberry: But I've gotta say I've never seen anyone who uses history as well as you do in your books. Where do you get all that material? It's incredible.
Robert Greene: Well, thank you very much. I'm very sort of proud of that aspect of my work 'cause I put a lot of effort into it.
Porter Stansberry: I know you do 'cause I try to do the same thing in my newsletters, and it takes me more time to do the history than it does to do the finance.
Robert Greene: Well, it's a function of a lot of research, a lot of reading, and I had a lot of experience in that. But, basically, I'm looking for things that people haven't really covered before. So either these are figures in history that you may not know about that are really interesting or they'll be people that you do know about, like Napoleon or Da Vinci.
But there are aspects of their lives that people just don't write about. So I'm always looking for those unusual nuggets, and it's basically – unfortunately, it's just a lot of footwork. There's no sort of magic or –
Porter Stansberry: Well, I knew there wouldn't be. But it really is extraordinary. And just for our listeners, I want you guys to go out there and I want you to buy is book. The first one, I think, was The 48 Laws of Power. Is that correct?
Robert Greene: Yes, and then The Art of Seduction. And then, for those of you in business, The 33 Strategies of War is sort of the ultimate strategy book, kind of like the art of war for modern times. And now, my new book, Mastery.
Porter Stansberry: Right. And I have a copy of it on my desk. I'm just cracking into it. But the thing I want to tell my readers is you guys have to read these books, and I don't say that about most content. You have to read these books; you absolutely have to. Go out and order it today from Amazon. Get a copy; buy these books today. And if you want, just buy one. And then you'll see I'm right and you're gonna go buy the rest.
There is no better writer anywhere today for history than Robert Greene. And his books are not history books, but, as you'll see when you get into them, it's all history. And I love it, because the only way to know the future or to really understand something is to know its history. And, Robert, I know you have the exact same perspective. I see it in your books.
Robert Greene: Yeah. Basically, my approach is that there's something timeless in human nature. Things change a little bit, the scenery changes, things like the Internet obviously changes. But, really, human nature is pretty much unchanged for thousands upon thousands of years.
So the story that relates to the ancient Greeks or to Napoleon or to Louis XIV is extremely relevant. It reveals certain dynamics that happen in the office, but with real clarity. And so I just like to – I also love the drama in history and connecting us to the past so we don't feel like we're just – we'll think that everything is new, but, in fact, everything has been done before.
Porter Stansberry: It's not new at all. And it's so true in finance because you just have these wonderful cycles of fear and greed that repeat constantly. And in modern times and in historic times, they're always the same. You know why, Robert. Because people love to borrow money and they don't like to pay it back.
Robert Greene: [Laughter]. Yeah.
Porter Stansberry: And that's never gonna change.
Robert Greene: Yeah. In The 48 Laws of Power, I have the story of the search for El Dorado, and how it completely ruined Spain, the desire for easy, quick money. And we've seen that played out in the last few years, in the United States, many times. So that piece is sort of timeless of wisdom.
Porter Stansberry: Are you – I know you have a new book out, Mastery.
Robert Greene: Yup.
Porter Stansberry: Have you already begun your next project?
Robert Greene: No, well, I'm –
Porter Stansberry: You take some time off after these efforts.
Robert Greene: What's that? No, I'm never – it's never a time off for me. I'm starting the next project, but it's too – it's not developed enough for me to discuss it. Basically, I'm pretty much involved in promoting the book, Mastery, which is – I call it the ultimate form of power, the ability to master your field. We live in very confusing times where there's so much information at our fingertips, and we tend to become distracted, and the concern is the bad strategists.
And I make the point in Mastery that the ability to totally your field, to have it so that you have so much knowledge and experience, it's really the only way you're gonna survive these very confusing times. So I'm all out there now. I'm all in promoting this book 'cause I think it's really important for the world we're living in.
Porter Stansberry: I agree with everything you just said, tremendously. I like the Henry Ford quote about the only real security you'll ever have in your life is your own skills and your network of friends and family.
Robert Greene: Yeah, Henry Ford is a major icon in the book, Mastery. I have several stories about him. And what I love about Henry Ford is this is a man who, in starting his own business, failed not once, but not twice in a very dangerous field in which nobody – getting financing was nearly impossible. And he kept landing back on his feet, and he just said, "Failure is the best education that you can have." I use him as sort of the classic icon for an entrepreneur. A brilliant sort of classic, self-made man and totally a master.
Porter Stansberry: I agree. Now, speaking of education, what's your educational background?
Robert Greene: Well, I went to – I'm a proud graduate of the University of Wisconsin – Madison. I have a degree in classics, Greek and Latin, which would, at first glance, seem to be the most irrelevant major one could possibly find in this world. But, in fact, it was a great major because it taught me – gave me a lot of discipline and analytical skills and in addition to an incredible perspective on history. So that's my degree.
Porter Stansberry: Interesting.
Aaron Brabham: I have a question for you. And we're excited about the Mastery book as well, but I want to take a step back. Because I haven't read The 50th Law, with 50 Cent, how – I imagine you spent a lot of time with him. Is that correct?
Robert Greene: Yes. We didn't mention the book. That was my fourth book, The 50th Law, which was co-written with the rapper, 50 Cent. I was basically attached to his hip for five, six months, followed him everywhere. The idea was I considered 50 as sort of a living example of many of the people I wrote about. I called him the Napoleon Bonaparte of hip-hop.
And in being around him, I discovered what the secret to his power and his success – and he's an incredible success, not only as a musician but as a businessman. He's a great entrepreneur. And I determined that the key to 50's success is his fearlessness. And so I wrote a book – sorry, we wrote a book based around the theme of fearlessness and the power that it can bring you.
Because the idea is that a lot of people in this world are governed by fear and it influences your behavior in ways you're not even aware of. And so I – well, we break it down and we show ten different ways in which fear is probably ruining your life, and here's how to follow 50 and other people in history.
Porter Stansberry: I see that all the time. I see that all the time. That is a very deep idea. I didn't know about that book until Aaron, my co-host, told me about it this morning, so I've gotta – that's the one of yours I haven't read yet, so I gotta get it.
Robert Greene: Yeah. It's different in that the focus of the book is 50, but there's a lot of history in it. And so, for instance, I talk about the sort of new world that we're – I want to kind of keep saying "I" – we, we talk about this new world that we're entering in which your relationship to your audience, to your customers, to your clients, is totally altered.
And you're gonna – the danger is you're gonna be afraid of getting as close as possible to this client base and getting as much direct feedback as possible. So there's a chapter in there for overcoming that fear and knowing your environment and the people you're dealing with as closely as possible. That's sort of how the book is structured.
Porter Stansberry: I solicit feedback every single day from the – we have a couple hundred thousand newsletter subscribers.
Robert Greene: Yeah.
Porter Stansberry: And I solicit feedback from them every single day in an e mail that we send to every single subscriber. And we have an unwritten rule in our company of always publishing any negative feedback. And we –
Robert Greene: Well, that's great. You probably don't need The 50th Law then. But the thing is that is the new world we're operating in, and the chance to do that is unprecedented.
Porter Stansberry: It is amazing.
Robert Greene: You wouldn't have been able to get such feedback 20 years –
Porter Stansberry: It is amazing. It's amazing what I can learn because I have a staff of – I don't know – more than a dozen analysts that work for me. And there's no way I could follow all of their work. And there's also, of course, no way I could know everything that they know about their work.
But somewhere in our files there's a guy who knows a lot more than they do about what they're writing about, and he writes me back and says, "They got it all wrong." And it's fantastic. It makes me all knowing because I have access to all this feedback. And the other thing that happens is my willingness to always publish the negative feedback to our paying subscribers establishes a kind of integrity that you can't buy.
Because the guy out there says, "Wow, Porter just published this terrible thing about his own work." And I'm like, "Yup. Look, we got it wrong. And here, look, we're trying hard to get it right." But we're transparent and we're honest and we act without fear.
Robert Greene: Well, that's totally masterful on your part. In The 33 Strategies of War, I bring this to Napoleon Bonaparte in battle and warfare, that what made Napoleon such a superior general was the depth of knowledge that he had of what was actually happening out in the battlefield.
And he had a whole chain of information that would come from foot soldiers and people who were actually out there fighting the battle, so that he had more knowledge about what was going wrong than any other general. And that superior knowledge of the battlefield was what made him such a great general. So you're following in Napoleon's footsteps.
Aaron Brabham: Well, Robert, you have your new book, Mastery, coming out November 13, correct. That's the release date.
Robert Greene: Yes. Yes, that's right.
Aaron Brabham: I actually am on your mailing list 'cause I love your blog, and I love the speech that you gave at Yale; I believe it was Yale University.
Robert Greene: Yes.
Aaron Brabham: And when I received the e mail about the Mastery book, I was like, "Darn," and that's why I purchased one for myself, Porter and another one of our good friends, Eric. And then I figured, "Hey, I'll just shoot back an e mail and say, "We really respect the work." And, boom, your staff got you on air with us, and we're thankful to have you on the interview and we're really looking forward to your next book.
Robert Greene: Oh well, thank you very much. My blog is Power Seduction and War – "and" is spelled out –http://powerseductionandwar.com. And you can see the offer there that you just mentioned about if you preorder the book, you get some goodies, some blog posts and other little supplementary material that's not actually in the book. So thank you for the plug.
Porter Stansberry: It was a tremendous honor to speak with you. Thanks very much for the time today, and best of luck with the sales of Mastery. We'll do our part.
Robert Greene: Thank you very much, Porter and Aaron. I really enjoyed it.
Aaron Brabham: You got it. Have a great day.
Robert Greene: Thanks.
Aaron Brabham: I've just gotta wrap the show.
Porter Stansberry: Yeah. I just want to comment to the readers about that interview. One of the things I have found in my life, anytime you are around someone who is truly talented, who is – as he was saying – a master, they are always calm. They are always very reasonable. There's always a tremendous amount of grace in the way they behave and the way they act. And I just saw that in spades in this interview.
Robert Greene is a very soft-spoken man. He's very – but you know, it's not 'cause he doesn't know what he's talking about. He knows exactly what he's talking about. And I would really, truly urge everybody to go buy that book. And I know that if you don't buy it today, you won't buy it. So go today, buy the book. He said is website is –
Aaron Brabham: Http://powerseductionand war.com. Because you can't – you might be able to buy it on Amazon, pre-buy it. Actually I know for a fact you can. But I also know that if you go through his site and you put your e mail on, he's giving us like five bonuses of things that aren't out there, like great interviews and transcripts, and other books that if you buy three of them it's totally worth it. Give them to your friends.
Porter Stansberry: I don't know if you can make any money selling books the way he does. But he's such a bright guy, and his work has meant so much to my life, just having a better understanding of human nature. And it was a real pleasure to interview him, and I want to thank him again for being on the show.
Aaron Brabham: And that's one of the things you talk about all the time, Porter, is people don't change. Their emotions, you can see it. They all have fear, they all have these universal truths about them, and that's where they project their ideas from. They're always defending their internal mechanisms of what they believe.
Porter Stansberry: You've been around a lot of very good golfers in your day. I've been around some exceptional athletes as well, people I got to know in college or through friends. And the people who are really, truly talented, the guys who are really gifted, they're always kind. There's no ego, there's no – none of that nonsense.
Aaron Brabham: I'll give you my best example. I have a lot of friends that are UFC fighters, that top the best in the world extreme athletes and the best fighters in the world, the nicest guys you'll ever meet in your life. It would take a miracle to make these guys snap in public. They have the most fun, and it's because they have an inner belief that they're the baddest dude in the room and they don't need to prove it to anyone.
Porter Stansberry: Right. There's something wonderful about that. When you've accomplished enough that you don't – your ego doesn't act the same way anymore. I'm still trying to learn that lesson.
Aaron Brabham: You're getting there, my friend. All right, I hope you enjoyed the interview with Robert Greene. I know Porter has, according to him, reached mastery level.
Porter Stansberry: I don't believe it. You know me. I got a long way to go.
Aaron Brabham: No, man. You built this company from one, and now, you have a lot of people relying on you that feed their families and are good workers. And you've gotta take a little, at least a little bit of credit.
Porter Stansberry: I tell you, the one thing I take the most amount of pride in, seriously, is that the people that believed in me when I had nothing to show – Steve Sjuggerud, Mike Palmer, George Rayburn, the guys I built the business with that trusted in me, that we could do the things I said that we could do. They're all still here, and they’ve become extremely wealthy. And I'm very proud of that.
They trusted me and we did it together and they were rewarded. And I think there's a lot of guys out there that think, "Oh, Porter's a megalomaniac, egomaniac guy, whatever." That's the furthest thing from the truth. In fact, I didn't even want to call the company, Stansberry Research. My partners insisted on it 'cause they think that my last name sounds good.
Aaron Brabham: It does sound kind of a rich and it's sophisticated.
Porter Stansberry: Which, you grew up with me. You know that's nonsense.
Aaron Brabham: Yeah, it's not. I never thought of you as rich or sophisticated.
Porter Stansberry: No.
Aaron Brabham: I still don't even think of you as sophisticated. Rich, yes. But not sophisticated. Except with wines; you know your wines.
Porter Stansberry: And I'm very proud of the fact that the guys who built the company with me are all still here and have done very well. And I think that speaks to the core integrity of our business. You wouldn't have – I wouldn’t – there's no way that people I have known for almost all of my life would be my business partners.
There's no way that we would have zero executive turnover, which we've never lost anybody. We wouldn't have this. I wouldn't have had the same business partner, Bill Bonner, for almost 20 years. None of these things would exist if this wasn’t a core integrity place.
And that's one of the things when I looked – we're trying to buy some smaller publishing companies to grow through acquisitions – and the number one thing I look for when I sit down with people is how long have you been in business. Who have you been in business with? Are they still here? Because if you have big turnover or you've had three or four different business partners –
Aaron Brabham: Not good.
Porter Stansberry: – there's an integrity problem.
Aaron Brabham: Yeah. I totally agree with you there. Yeah, it's funny because every month we get the corporate announcements for anniversaries. And I'm always still shocked by somebody in marketing that's been here 12 years. And I'm like, "God, man, these people – I'm still a new guy." I'm a new guy and I'm almost – I'm gonna be two years into it coming up. I'll always be a new guy at the company 'cause that's just the way it is.
But I love it, man. I appreciate it. All right, let's get in some ridiculous myths with some segments. But first, I do want to give some props. So Overseas Radio Network has decided to syndicate our show. And we don't have the best shot, but I'll take it. We have the Friday late afternoon spot. So I think with their help, http://overseasradio.com, we might be able to get to 60, 70 Arbitron listeners.
Porter Stansberry: Sixty or seventy Arbitron listeners and we can convert – if we can convert 10 percent of those people to our Premium Radio –
Aaron Brabham: Wow.
Porter Stansberry: – subscription, that would be like –
Aaron Brabham: $70.00 a month or something like that.
Porter Stansberry: Wow. We could –
Aaron Brabham: I mean we might make a business come out of all this.
Porter Stansberry: That'd be like one good tab at Happy Hour. That's worth doing. That's worth doing.
Aaron Brabham: That's totally worth it. So a little shot out to them. We appreciate that. Let's jump into "You just can't make this stuff up." I –
Porter Stansberry: Hey, hold on, before we move on. How many radio show subscribers, seriously, do we need before you – before someone can start paying me for doing this show? I'm a volunteer. I don't know if anyone knows that. But it's true, I don't take any compensation from the show, zero.
Aaron Brabham: That is a fact. I get paid for the show –
Porter Stansberry: You get paid.
Aaron Brabham: – which I still don't know why you do, but I'm glad you do. I collect that check gladly. Our producer gets paid. I'm not sure why he does either, but that's fine.
Porter Stansberry: Well, you guys both do some work.
Aaron Brabham: Yeah, we do some work.
Porter Stansberry: I just sit here and gab.
Aaron Brabham: Yeah, but you're the guy that comes – you're the big gun. So, I would say we probably need to have, honestly, 10,000 paying subscribers to the Premium show, and then we'll sit down with you and we'll see what we can cut you in on.
Porter Stansberry: [Laughter]. All right, you heard that folks. If you appreciate my participating in the show, help us round up the first 10,000 so I can start making some bucks.
Aaron Brabham: Yeah. We need to keep him onboard. We gotta start paying the talent around here, damn it. All right, Porter, I got one of favorite little segments, the "nanny state.” Shocking. Baltimore announced the citywide surveillance rollout that records passenger conversations on city buses. City officials are doing this, quote, "to investigate crimes, accidents and poor customer service."
Porter Stansberry: Well, you know what. I'm all for it, because if you ride the city bus for free, essentially you're greatly subsidized, I'm sorry, you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy. And there's a bunch of damn animals that ride those buses. Those people are the worst.
Aaron Brabham: And if you guys haven't seen the bus driver in Cleveland –
Porter Stansberry: Yeah. I love that guy. We gotta –
[Crosstalk].
Aaron Brabham: - I told Naresh to track him down.
Porter Stansberry: We gotta hire him.
Aaron Brabham: I told him. I said –
Porter Stansberry: I want him to be our urban Baltimore stringer.
Aaron Brabham: I would love to hire – I think that –
Porter Stansberry: Live interviews –
Aaron Brabham: – this guy would be great.
Porter Stansberry: – from downtown Baltimore.
Aaron Brabham: Yeah, we can send him down, talk to the people, ask ridiculous questions and –
Porter Stansberry: Guys, you have to go see this video. It's spectacular. This woman is screaming at the bus driver while he's driving the bus, and hitting him on the shoulder.
Aaron Brabham: Spits in his face while he's driving.
Porter Stansberry: He says, "You're gonna act like a man, I'm gonna treat you like a man." And he gets up and he does the biggest haymaker I've ever seen.
Aaron Brabham: Who goes for an uppercut from your knees up?
Porter Stansberry: Reaches way back and wallops this girl, knocks her into the air and she falls on the ground. It's absolutely hysterical.
Aaron Brabham: Now look, we don't advocate any type of behavior like that, but.
Porter Stansberry: No, he was blatantly – no, no, no.
Aaron Brabham: He was defending himself.
Porter Stansberry: He was defending himself.
Aaron Brabham: And he was defending all the passengers.
Porter Stansberry: There's nothing wrong with that. If somebody attacks you, you got all the right in the world to haymaker them.
Aaron Brabham: That's a good point. And not only that, but it's dangerous for all the passengers. I was shocked that nobody else intervened and grabbed this chick. I'm not letting somebody harass the bus driver.
Porter Stansberry: But the thing – of course not. But the damn state does the wrong thing and fires the guy.
Aaron Brabham: Of course they did.
Porter Stansberry: Yeah, it's – they should give him a medal.
Aaron Brabham: Twenty-two years of service.
Porter Stansberry: They should give him a medal. And not only that, you should know this if you're riding the bus. If you screw around with the bus driver, you're gonna get jacked up. Don't screw around with the bus driver.
Aaron Brabham: I couldn't agree more with that.
Porter Stansberry: It's pretty simple.
Aaron Brabham: All right. Brad Jones is an owner of Buckingham Slate, a Virginia business outside of Richmond. The company produces highly valued slate for floors or whatever. Its roots trace back to the Civil War. Recently, federal regulators fined it $4,000.00 for an uncovered, smelly, fly-infested trashcan, $4,000.00. It seems a little ridiculous to me, man.
Porter Stansberry: $4,000.00 for a smelly trashcan.
Aaron Brabham: Yup.
Porter Stansberry: I've got four of those in my driveway. Lot's of children's diapers, ugh.
Aaron Brabham: Yeah, the government said, quote, "Management engaged in aggravated conduct constituting more than ordinary negligence by allowing this condition to exist."
Porter Stansberry: Hmm. Wouldn't you love to call them, figure out what really happened?
Aaron Brabham: I would like to know. 'Cause there's something going on that they're really pissed about.
Porter Stansberry: We need to hire the bus driver to be our reporter.
Aaron Brabham: We do. We can send him out and –
Porter Stansberry: Make him call them out.
Aaron Brabham: He'd love it, he would. It would be the greatest audio of – we're getting Noresh, get him. Get this guy.
Porter Stansberry: We gotta hire the guy.
Aaron Brabham: He needs a job.
Porter Stansberry: I'll tell you what, he can have my cut. Just get him.
Aaron Brabham: And you know what, from – even if he has to move, I'd rather he would – I almost consider Baltimore a slight upgrade from Cleveland, which is kinda weird, right.
Porter Stansberry: I don't know.
Aaron Brabham: There's a few places I don't want to ever visit or live in, and that's Cleveland and Detroit. And Baltimore was one that I never thought I would, but I'm starting to embrace it. It does have a little bit of charm. I'm not gonna lie. A mother will have to pay $2,500.00 in fines because her 3-year-old peed on the family's front yard.
Porter Stansberry: What?
Aaron Brabham: A cop was going – driving by. This is –
Porter Stansberry: What?
Aaron Brabham: I can picture a young traveler or ________, that they don't know. And so a cop was driving by. He spotted this, stopped, got out, harassed them. And she's like, "He's a kid."
Porter Stansberry: Wait. The baby was peeing and –
Aaron Brabham: On the front yard in public.
Porter Stansberry: In his own front yard.
Aaron Brabham: Yes.
Porter Stansberry: In public, and he's three.
Aaron Brabham: He's three.
Porter Stansberry: And they fined them.
Aaron Brabham: $2,500.00.
Porter Stansberry: Get outta town.
Aaron Brabham: That is a fact. It's a true story.
Porter Stansberry: Noresh, I want – I want to send a check for $2,100.00 to that person. I'm serious. That's absolutely crazy. And not only that, but I want to write a letter to the chief and get that cop fired.
Aaron Brabham: And I read the story, and I was reading, and she was, of course, absolutely shocked. And she didn't sound like she was inconsiderate to the cop at all.
Porter Stansberry: We gotta interview these people. These segments are fine, but this is – we gotta interview these people.
Aaron Brabham: We gotta get it in depth. I agree. Noresh, get that dude, get that Cleveland dude.
Porter Stansberry: We gotta have a reporter.
Aaron Brabham: NPR had a great story on how the number of older Americans on Social Security – this is disturbing – Social Security with student loans are on the rise.
Porter Stansberry: What.
Aaron Brabham: Yes. In about 12 years, we've gone from just six cases of Social Security benefits being cut to 115,000. And counting student-loan debt, it's following people all the way to their grave.
Porter Stansberry: So, in other words, if you don't pay back your student loans – those loans are never expunged in bankruptcy, no matter what.
Aaron Brabham: No matter what. The government owns all those.
Porter Stansberry: Okay. And then you're not allowed to collect Social Security until you've paid off your student loans. So if you don't pay them off –
Aaron Brabham: What a double racket.
Porter Stansberry: Right.
Aaron Brabham: Yeah, what a double racket.
Porter Stansberry: Holy – man.
Aaron Brabham: Man, the government's getting ruthless with that money. They are really –
Porter Stansberry: Well, I don't care about that.
Aaron Brabham: – develop a little bit.
Porter Stansberry: They should've paid it back.
Aaron Brabham: Oh, no. Hey, look. I agree. This is actually something that's positive in my view, but wow.
Porter Stansberry: I think it's crazy that you can get a student loan without any collateral.
Aaron Brabham: You don't even need credit. You can have disastrous credit. You're guaranteed money. They will not only give you money for your tuition and books –
Porter Stansberry: I don't get it.
Aaron Brabham: – they will give you tens of thousands of dollars, actually, to live on.
Porter Stansberry: You guys already know. If you haven't heard all my college stuff, go back and hit – listen to an older show. The idea that you would go into debt to pay for college, it's insane. It's insane. You know if you want to go to college and you don't have any money, you know what you should do. Join the Army.
Aaron Brabham: That's right. That's how you get your money.
Porter Stansberry: You know what, and here's an even easier idea. Get a job.
Aaron Brabham: Ooh, that's different. That's a different idea.
Porter Stansberry: Get a job. How about that. Woo.
Aaron Brabham: And you know what –
Porter Stansberry: By the way, I paid for college. I went to the University of Florida. I paid $55.00 a credit hour. I worked as a lifeguard, 30, 40 hours a week. I still had a great social life. I still had lots of fun, met lots of girls, had a great time. It was a giant waste of money. I didn't learn anything in college. But I had a blast, and I graduated without any debt. And let me tell you what, folks. I'm no super genius, right.
There was no trust fund. Somehow I managed. And, by the way, look at every generation of Americans before this one. They all somehow managed. People who wanted to go to college, they'd find a way to pay for it, right. I got a letter from this kid the other day. And he said he went to college, and he said he ended up with $140,000.00 in debt. And he was arguing with me that it was worth it, that his decision was worth it.
Aaron Brabham: Sure.
Porter Stansberry: And I'm like, "Bro, put $140,000.00, when you're 22 years old, into some kind of conservative investment program yielding 7 percent, 7 percent. Compound that till you're 60. How much is that?
Aaron Brabham: Several million.
Porter Stansberry: I don't know. It's probably not several million. It's probably like –
Aaron Brabham: At 22. Every seven years it doubles.
Porter Stansberry: Yeah, it probably would be – yeah. No, no.
Aaron Brabham: Eight years. Every eight years at 7 percent it would double.
Porter Stansberry: No, every ten years it would double.
Aaron Brabham: Ten years, okay.
Porter Stansberry: So, no. It's not gonna be millions. It's gonna be – I don't know, probably $1.5 million, something like that. I can't do it in my head.
Aaron Brabham: It'd still be great.
Porter Stansberry: Yeah. But you can't tell me that the education you got was worth that.
Aaron Brabham: No. And especially this guy has $140,000.00 of debt. With his interest, this guy's gonna end up paying $300,000.00 or he may take it to his grave like these other people.
Porter Stansberry: Listen. We'll go too far on this. We always do. I understand. Please, I understand. There are some people who are very smart and do very well in school. And there are those people who want to be in a profession, like a lawyer or a surgeon. And those people require lots of expensive training.
I get it. I understand. And if you're one of those people, that's fine. Go ahead. But think about what you're doing. If you get a degree in geography and you rack up $140,000.00 in debt, or English literature or public relations or basket weaving, you are making an enormous mistake.
Aaron Brabham: Enormous.
Porter Stansberry: And we see it every day, where these people end up coming to us, and they all say, "Hey, I only have $5,000.00 saved. I have hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. And I want you to tell me which options to trade to make millions."
Aaron Brabham: Yes, I need that one option trade to moon shot it.
Porter Stansberry: That's not gonna work. It's not gonna work.
Aaron Brabham: That's not what – you are guaranteed to lose all your money.
Porter Stansberry: It's not gonna work.
Aaron Brabham: You'd be better off going to Vegas and putting it on black.
Porter Stansberry: Here's what works. Get a side job, make some extra money. Invest it conservatively, have a diversified portfolio. Work hard, save money. Twenty years from now, you can be rich.
Aaron Brabham: Ah, it doesn't sound – that sounds like too much work for me.
Porter Stansberry: You cannot be rich two years from now.
Aaron Brabham: Nobody will –
Porter Stansberry: It will never happen.
Aaron Brabham: It's too hard.
Porter Stansberry: That's the only way. What can I tell you, Aaron?
Aaron Brabham: I know. You're right. That is the only way. I've tried a lot of these schemes that didn't work out.
Porter Stansberry: But now, you're on the right track.
Aaron Brabham: Absolutely. And I love it.
Porter Stansberry: And are your stops with the naked option buying yet?
Aaron Brabham: Yes, I have lost enough already to be done with that.
Porter Stansberry: So now you're gonna get onboard with the option selling.
Aaron Brabham: I didn't put selling too, but I was still trying to get that moon shot. I was trying to get that car.
Porter Stansberry: It doesn't work.
Aaron Brabham: And my mentality was if this hits, I'm gonna buy this. Forget it. I'm done with all that, man. I need to learn my – fortunately, it only cost me about $1,000.00. But still, $1,000.00 is painful because it's just ridiculous.
Porter Stansberry: I hate losing money.
Aaron Brabham: I knew I was gonna lose it. It just was stupid.
Porter Stansberry: All right, let's move on. What's next?
Aaron Brabham: Voice mails, and then we have Dan Ferris joining us for the Premium segment. All right, Jessie, fire up the voice mails.
Voice mail 1: That was somebody that lived in the apartment complex that you lived in at one point in time in your life, who was also involved in the cocaine industry. The comment that I really objected to was –
Porter Stansberry: Oh, oh. I knew that was gonna get –
Voice mail 1: that he was providing a service to the community. I'm a parent of children –
Porter Stansberry: Ooh, the children.
Voice mail 1: – and you're also a parent of children. If anybody were to distribute cocaine –
Porter Stansberry: To children.
Voice mail 1: – to my children –
Porter Stansberry: Yes, right.
Voice mail 1: I would not consider that to be a service to my community. I would consider that to be a cancer.
Porter Stansberry: A cancer.
Voice mail 1: I'm thinking of responses likened to a guillotine. I'm calling you –
Porter Stansberry: Okay, cut that guy.
Aaron Brabham: He gotcha.
Porter Stansberry: No, hang on. That guy absolutely needs to get a life. This whole thing that adults shouldn't have the right to do with they want in their private bodies with their own bodies, because there's some risk that somewhere, somehow, a child is gonna get a hold of cocaine. It's completely, pathetically ridiculous.
Look, you're not going to stop adults from doing drugs, you dumb retard, okay. Nor, is anyone in any community that I've ever been a part of advocating children using drugs. It's ridiculous. The two things are totally separate. Just stop. That's just so ridiculous. I shouldn't even respond.
Porter Stansberry: Next.
Voice mail 2: This guy, Mr. Raines, under Fannie and Freddie with the severance package he did get. This'll put you on the map, big time, because it's cold, hard thievery. They knew they could sell all these loans, all the banks, to Fannie and Freddie. Show me the stipulation that they couldn't sell them for five years if they took them. Get this guy, Raines, and his Taj Mahal apartment in New York "Shity." Go get Mr. Raines.
Porter Stansberry: Go get Mr. Raines.
Voice mail 2: And don't worry about being black, just get him.
[Laughter].
Porter Stansberry: I tried.
Aaron Brabham: I like that guy.
Porter Stansberry: I've written about the Raines deal many, many times. No one cares. Sorry. I wish they did. I would love to go get him. But what can I do? By the way, he's not the only one. There's a whole cabal of these black financial leaders who got off scot-free. The guy who was the head of Merrill Lynch did exactly the same thing that Raines did, exactly the same thing.
Chenault at American Express did the same thing, bought all these crappy securities and run up a bunch of so-called profits. Later, they had to all be written off and, in the meantime, made huge bonuses on the basis of it. Now, did they get away with it because they were black?
Aaron Brabham: I don't know.
Porter Stansberry: I don't know.
Aaron Brabham: I don't know.
Porter Stansberry: They got away with it.
Aaron Brabham: They got away with it. That's the bottom line. Something happened.
Porter Stansberry: You know what. They were all black and they all went to Harvard. Guess who else is black and went to Harvard.
Aaron Brabham: Umm.
Porter Stansberry: Obama.
Aaron Brabham: Columbia – and Harvard, yeah. Harvard Law School. That's right.
Porter Stansberry: Coincidence.
Aaron Brabham: No, no coincidence.
Porter Stansberry: I don't know. Maybe.
Aaron Brabham: Porter, I got an e mail yesterday, and I added this one immediately to the feedback. Nathan wrote us from overseas. He's serving our country. He said, "Given the government's actions in the past with runaway inflation, price controls, rationing, et cetera, have you given any thought to how it might play out this time, and what Uncle Sam will do in response, once these things get bad. 'Cause the Fed won't go down without a fight.
Porter Stansberry: That's true.
Aaron Brabham: And don't they have too much to lose by seeing the dollar collapse?
Porter Stansberry: They absolutely do, and he's absolutely right about all of that. He's a very sharp guy.
Aaron Brabham: Yeah. We're sending him some slag by the way.
Porter Stansberry: Nice.
Aaron Brabham: Yes.
Porter Stansberry: And by the way, thanks very much for the service to your country.
Aaron Brabham: Oh, and something else he says too –
Porter Stansberry: We appreciate that.
Aaron Brabham: – which I love. I love this form the serviceman. He said, "I can tell you the military won't buy off on the regulated state BS either, since 90 percent of us are conservative or Libertarian mindset folks. I swore an oath to the Constitution –
Porter Stansberry: That's right, he did.
Aaron Brabham: – not a person. What do you see as possibilities for them to handle the situation fiscally?" Look, they're just gonna praying. They're just gonna inflate this thing away. They're gonna do their best to take the ship down.
Porter Stansberry: I think he makes a very good point, and I think that's something that gives me a lot of confidence.
Aaron Brabham: I like that a lot. When he wrote that, "I swore an oath to the Constitution."
Porter Stansberry: That's right.
Aaron Brabham: So when they ask our servicemen to start doing things to citizens, they could easily resist and say, "Oh, you know what."
Porter Stansberry: There's just no way. There's just no way that our military would back any kind of oppressive regime in America. They would never. That would never happen.
Aaron Brabham: No way. All right, Vaughn wrote, "I'm only 25, so God willing I have many years of investing ahead of me. I love the show not so much for investment strategies, but to get into the mindset of wealthy people, parenting, politics, life, entrepreneurship. This, in the long term, is worth more than any stock picks," although you should subscribe to the Premium show. "I hear people say constantly that World War II got us out of the Great Depression. My argument is building tanks and shipping them to Europe to be destroyed did not create wealth." Another sharp guy.
Porter Stansberry: Good, very good.
Aaron Brabham: Marty asked, "Who would hire a kid for $9.00 per hour, part time and in high school? Can you give us some examples? I guess you weren't involved in anything after school. So what did you do for work? What did your friends do at 30 hours per week?" 'Cause remember, you were talking about way –
Porter Stansberry: Yeah, this is – just stop it.
Aaron Brabham: This is ridiculous. This is the same type of question of somebody who just wants you to deliver a job and blah, blah, blah.
Porter Stansberry: Oh, boohoo, boohoo, boohoo. I have a hard time going out and proving myself and finding a good job. Stop it. I'll tell you what I did. I hosed out dog [beep] in a kennel at 5:00 AM, seven days a week. I hosed out all the crap, I fed all the dogs, and then I went to school at 7:00 in the morning. And I did it seven days a week. And that was every morning and every evening. And that was like – I don't know, a total of maybe five hours a day. That's 35 hours a week right there, buddy.
Aaron Brabham: That's it.
Porter Stansberry: And guess what. Jobs like that, they pay pretty good, as long as you prove that you're reliable and you'll do a good job.
Aaron Brabham: And there's plenty of them.
Porter Stansberry: 'Cause nobody wants to do that job.
Aaron Brabham: Nobody wants that.
Porter Stansberry: And by the way, jerk, I was involved in lots of after school activities, but yeah, stop.
Aaron Brabham: All right. Shannon loves Stansberry Radio, loves your ringtone. I believe she purchased it. She also wants the "Just stop it" one. And, of course, we had somebody write to us. "Just stop the "just stop," and it's so juvenile. Now, you just stop it. How about that?
Porter Stansberry: Just stop.
Aaron Brabham: Mike asked, "Porter mentioned some political action in Washington to potentially seize 401(k) money."
Porter Stansberry: Yeah, that'll happen.
Aaron Brabham: "Please expand on this. Are IRAs any safer?"
Porter Stansberry: No.
Aaron Brabham: No.
Porter Stansberry: Of course not. Hey, here's a little simple tip for you, okay. If you tell the government where all your money is.
Aaron Brabham: They know how to access it and what to do with it.
Porter Stansberry: Hmm. Now, why do they want to know? Hmm.
Aaron Brabham: And they write the rules for it, too, by the way.
Porter Stansberry: Hmm.
Aaron Brabham: And they can change the rules at any time. So he does say, "How do we protect ourselves?" I would take some –
Porter Stansberry: Please.
Aaron Brabham: – get some gold, get some foreign –
Porter Stansberry: Look. Read the reports that are on our website, subscribe to my newsletter. We tell you all about the various assets you can own that you don't have to ever tell the government about. It's super simple. It's stuff that's just basic, basic, basic, basic; foreign real estate, gold and silver bullion, certain kinds of insurance policies.
These are where you want to have your "can't live without money." And, by the way, if you don't have $100,000.00 or so saved, don't worry about it. Stop. I can't tell you how many people with nothing, they're all freaked out. "What should I do? How can I protect myself?" Well, you can't.
Aaron Brabham: You can't. You have to have resources.
Porter Stansberry: You gotta have something to protect first, dummy. "What should I do? I got a –" dah, dah. Well, you can't. That's what's so terrible about inflation. You can't protect yourself 'cause your wages are gonna get wiped out through inflation. I'm sorry. What do you want me to do? I tell you what's – that's what's so terrible about it.
But there's no point on you spending a bunch of money on newsletters and hiring and expensive lawyers and brokers and stuff, if you don't have any assets to protect. And by the way, this idea that the government won't take your 401(k) and won't seize your IRA and stuff, it's just I think you're completely fooling yourself. You're delusional.
The moment the bottom market cracks, the moment the ten-year yield falls apart, like it did in Italy, like it did in Spain, like it did everywhere in Europe, the moment that happens and the government has to go in there and support the market, that's what they'll do. They will mandate that everyone's 401(k) and everyone's IRA has to be invested in U.S. Treasuries. That's how they'll support the market, mark my words.
Aaron Brabham: Donald asks, "Let's say I drank the Kool-Aid and ready to start putting some of my cash into gold as a hedge, the question is how much do I put in there."
Porter Stansberry: Hold on. Drank the Kool-Aid?
Aaron Brabham: In other words, you're ready to drink –
Porter Stansberry: So gold's been in a bull market for 11 years, buddy.
Aaron Brabham: Right. Now he's ready.
Porter Stansberry: Drank the Kool-Aid. Now, you're ready. Stop, just stop.
Aaron Brabham: "What percent" is what he wants to know, "should people consider putting into gold?"
Porter Stansberry: I had a guy. I don't want you to tell his name 'cause I don't – I'm not trying to hurt anybody. I had a guy that wrote me every – almost every week, since 2004, telling me that I was a complete charlatan and an idiot and a moron and a jerk, and all this stuff because I was recommending gold. Just said, "Gold's not a hedge against anything. Gold's worthless, gold is nothing," gold is blah, blah blah.
Aaron Brabham: Sounds like Vatay. Was it –
Porter Stansberry: Every time we would about gold, this guy would go off the handle and just attack, attack, attack, attack, attack. Well, since then, gold's gone from – I don't know, $400.00 to $1,700.00. So did gold work or not. And, by the way, you donkeys out there who don't understand gold and silver, why do you think gold has been used our money for all of recorded human history? You think it's because some newsletter guy just made it up?
Do you think we just made all this up that people like gold, that people will always accept gold, that gold is a good form of savings? The things that these people out there – the way they react to our information just boggles my mind all the time. It's not about drinking Kool Aid. It's the oldest, most traditional form of money. It works everywhere.
I'll tell you about Van Simmons going up into the Darien Jungle. The Darien Jungle is in remote Panama. It's the only place on the entire North Central and Southern American Continent, where the Pan American Highway doesn't connect. They couldn't penetrate it to build a road. It's unpenetrable. It's a really dark, deep jungle, the real deal.
Aaron Brabham: Yeah.
Porter Stansberry: So we go up in a boat. I don't know, 20 miles up into the jungle. And there are these Indians running around, literally, in like rages.
Aaron Brabham: Sure. Yeah, they’ve never experienced any modern form of anything.
Porter Stansberry: They don't go anywhere. There's no electricity –
Aaron Brabham: No. That's their –
Porter Stansberry: – nothing.
Aaron Brabham: That's it. That's their gig.
Porter Stansberry: And Van says, "Hey, look. I'm gonna rip some Indians off." They don't know what this gold is worth. They're panning for gold in the river, okay, this alluvial gold. So there's – he said, "I'm gonna go buy the big nugget and they're not gonna know what it's worth." Well, he goes and he starts negotiating, okay. Indian picks up a satellite phone out of a bag, calls up, gets the London spot price, tells Van, "That'll be $1,200.00 please.
Aaron Brabham: Stop.
Porter Stansberry: I swear.
Aaron Brabham: I was wrong.
Porter Stansberry: I saw it happen.
Aaron Brabham: How much did you laugh? How hard did you laugh?
Porter Stansberry: I laughed all day long. The point of the story is, no matter where you go, no matter where –
Aaron Brabham: Everybody knows.
Porter Stansberry: Everybody knows what gold's worth. Everybody knows what gold is. That's why it's a universal form of money. So it's not about drinking the Kool-Aid. It's about understanding what the safest form of savings are. And I look at gold as savings. Not an investment, doesn't provide a yield, may not go up in price. It's a form of permanent savings, and that's why I buy some every year. Now, how much, okay? What I do is at the end of the year, however much money I've got left in my checking account, I buy gold with it. It's that simple.
Aaron Brabham: You do it every year.
Porter Stansberry: I do it every year. So in terms of what it is as a percentage of my net worth, I really don't know. 'Cause my net worth is so tied up into other things, and things that may or may not be of real lasting value. So I just buy some, constantly, regularly, every year, year in and year out. Now, if you're gonna get really technical about it, okay, I think that something around 10 percent of your net worth is reasonable.
But I wouldn't just go and buy 10 percent today. No, just make it a habit. Make it a pattern. Make it something that is a part of your life that you do. If you buy gold regularly, it's a form of permanent savings. And please, for dear God, do not write me in – do not write in and ask me how to store it. It's gold. It doesn't tarnish. You can store it anywhere. Put it in your freezer; put it in your bathtub. Put in a shoebox. Just don't forget which one. You can put it anywhere.
Aaron Brabham: All right. Well, that is our show for today. Once again, if you want to get the Premium offer and see exactly what's in it, and you want to hear Dan's recommendation, then make sure you add your name to our e mail list. And I believe we are going to have http://stansberryradio1.com up that will have the offer available as well, so you can check that.
The guest on the next show will be documentary filmmaker Billy Corben. Ooh, Porter, you're gonna like this. I forgot that I had requested this. This is why Noresh is good. Billy Corben made the hit, ESPN 30 for 30 film on the financial struggles of athletes I was telling you about.
Porter Stansberry: Oh, is he coming on soon.
Aaron Brabham: And we've got him on next week.
Porter Stansberry: Oh, I love this guy.
Aaron Brabham: And one of the things they were talking about was like it was so hard to get some of these athletes to step forward because of their pride, but they felt like they needed to teach the other athletes, which they know is a worthless cause.
Porter Stansberry: Step one. Step one, don't get married. Don't do it. Step two, if you get married, make sure you have an ironclad prenuptial agreement. Step three, use condoms. 'Cause the way all these athletes go bankrupt is – I guarantee he'll tell us.
Aaron Brabham: Tons of kids.
Porter Stansberry: They have way too many girlfriends and wives they have to support –
Aaron Brabham: Way too many baby mamas.
Porter Stansberry: – and they have way too many children.
Aaron Brabham: Absolutely. Also – I didn't know this. He also directed the critically acclaimed documentary, Cocaine Cowboys –
Porter Stansberry: Oh, I like that.
Aaron Brabham: – back in the '70s and '80s.
Porter Stansberry: He'll know all about all my Miami stories.
Aaron Brabham: This is gonna be awesome. Nice job, Noresh.
Porter Stansberry: He'll know about how all the guys that are dealing cocaine to children in Miami got rich.
Aaron Brabham: Right.
Porter Stansberry: The children.
Aaron Brabham: Exactly. Retract it. Retract it now, sir. Send us e mails at htpp://feedback@stansberryradio.com. Hit us up on Twitter, Facebook's starting to grow, finally.
Porter Stansberry: Also, call us.
Aaron Brabham: 855 SARadio. That's 855-727-2346.
Porter Stansberry: Hey, I got one more thing for you.
Aaron Brabham: One more.
Porter Stansberry: About the donkey with the cocaine thing.
Aaron Brabham: Yes.
Porter Stansberry: What I love about these people is how totally naïve they are, right. So guarantee you, you look in that guy's background, guarantee you look in that guy's background, you find all kinds of crazy crap. He's the guy out there that was an alcoholic or a drug addict or a crazy guy.
Aaron Brabham: Some massively reformed person that –
Porter Stansberry: Right. Meanwhile, how many – what percentage of people that we grew up with do you think have used cocaine at some point in their lives.
Aaron Brabham: I would say, maybe 5 percent of the people I know.
Porter Stansberry: Not many, not many.
Aaron Brabham: No, not – yeah, not even that.
Porter Stansberry: And out of those people, how many of them became addicted, cocaine-crazy people.
Aaron Brabham: I can't name any.
Porter Stansberry: None.
Porter Stansberry: Zero.
Porter Stansberry: Zero, right. So what's the – these people are crazy. They think, "Oh, cocaine's gonna __________." Man, it's nothing. Leave it alone. Makes no difference, stop it. And, by the way, you think that just because – you think that your kids aren't gonna experiment with drugs. Stop.
Aaron Brabham: Stop.
Porter Stansberry: Now, out of all the guys we grew up with, what percentage do you think tried some kind of illicit drug, marijuana, ecstasy, something?
Aaron Brabham: I'd give it to 30, 40 percent.
Porter Stansberry: That's it.
Aaron Brabham: Of the ones I know of for sure.
Porter Stansberry: Of the guys that we grew up with?
Aaron Brabham: Yeah.
Porter Stansberry: At Winter Park High School.
Aaron Brabham: Well, more than that. Yeah, well, Winter Park, the people we grew up with, probably 70, 80 percent.
Porter Stansberry: Yeah. I'd even say three out of four.
Aaron Brabham: I would say that's – yeah, that's probably about right.
Porter Stansberry: And I'd say, in our close, social group, maybe higher.
Aaron Brabham: Ooh.
Porter Stansberry: Maybe. I mean just about everybody I know smoked marijuana at some point or another.
Aaron Brabham: Oh that's true.
Porter Stansberry: Not me, not Swechie. I can't name another guy that never did.
Aaron Brabham: I can't either, actually.
Porter Stansberry: Right. So very high percentage of casual drug users.
Aaron Brabham: Very high. Maybe 80 percent, 90 percent.
Porter Stansberry: And how many people that we knew and grew up with have any kind of alcohol or drug problem, whatsoever.
Aaron Brabham: I know one.
Porter Stansberry: Yeah.
Aaron Brabham: But that's it, one.
Porter Stansberry: Maybe – certainly less than 10 percent.
Aaron Brabham: One out of a class of 500 people. And I was friends with probably 60 or 70 of those people, one.
Porter Stansberry: And it was probably alcohol.
Aaron Brabham: It was alcohol. That's right.
Porter Stansberry: So the point I'm making is that all these donkeys out there are crazy worried about drugs, when drugs are not the problem. Alcohol's the problem, and guess what's legal. Alcohol.
Aaron Brabham: Thank you Nancy Reagan. You really perpetuated some craziness out there.
Porter Stansberry: And it just seems that everywhere I turn in our society, that's what happens. People believe in this wicked boogieman that doesn't exist. Meanwhile, they're ignoring the thief in their own house who's taking all their [beep] and screwing their wife. Look at what happens in the world –
[End of Audio]
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This Episode's Guest
Robert Greene
ROBERT GREENE: Robert Greene is the author of three bestselling books: The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, and The 33 Strategies of War. He attended U.C. California at Berkeley and the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he received a degree in classical studies. He has worked in New York as an editor and writer at several magazines, including Esquire; and in Hollywood as a story developer and writer. Greene has lived in London, Paris and Barcelona; he speaks several languages and has worked as a translator. He currently lives in Los Angeles.
- Website: Power, Seduction and War
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