In the wake of the US military operation in Venezuela, corporate interests and Wall Street are chomping at the bit and salivating over a new opportunity to extract resources and turn profits, according to Brian Schwartz at The Wall Street Journal. [00:00:17] Wall Street is already at the ready post Nicolas Maduro's capture by US forces, about 20 business leaders, including those from some of the top hedge funds and asset managers, are preparing to go on a march trip to Venezuela to look at investment opportunities there, including an energy and infrastructure. [00:00:37] The trip is being led by Charles Myers, the chairman of consulting firm Signum Global Advisors. Myers estimates there will be between 500 billion and 750 billion in investment opportunities in the country for foreign investors over the next five years. [00:00:56] Donald Trump has made it abundantly clear that he has, specifically after Venezuelan oil. We're going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, [00:01:11] spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country. But no, we're going to be taking out a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground. And that wealth is going to the people of Venezuela and people from outside of [00:01:30] Venezuela that used to be in Venezuela. And it goes also to the United States of America in the form of reimbursement for the damages caused us by that country. And that's why today, S&P Energy Index hit an over one year high of 2.5%, [00:01:48] with heavyweights ExxonMobil and Chevron rising 2.5% and 5.5%, respectively. And of the oil companies, Chevron is the one that stands to benefit the most [00:02:03] because of their preexisting presence in Venezuela and then refineries. Other external or other other associated companies in that broader industry have all seen massive upticks in their stock price today. [00:02:19] What do you make of this? Yeah, I wouldn't count their chickens before they hatch. So I understand why those prices went up. Because Trump is saying, yeah, we're going to steal their oil, period. We're stealing their oil and the tankers, we're going to steal the oil in the ground. [00:02:35] And if you don't know why we're hostile to Venezuela in the first place. Originally, Venezuela used to be our best friend, in, in the, in South America. That was literally one of our presidents said that verbatim quote. And so what turned? Well, eventually they got a democracy. [00:02:51] And when they did, and we couldn't control their dictator as a puppet for us anymore, the democracy then said, hey, wait a minute. Why are we just giving you our oil? Why don't we take 50% of the proceeds? Seats, which makes sense. And the oil companies eventually were like, God damn it, [00:03:07] we like stealing it from you. But okay, fine, we'll pay the 50%. And they did, and they still make a gigantic amount of profit. So it worked out fine. And then they had another leader and he asked for 65% of the oil revenue. And guess what? He got it. And the oil companies still made a gigantic amount of profit from Venezuela. [00:03:25] So things were fine. But then, when they got to a point where they got past 65% with Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro and they privatize it, and they said, now privatize publicly nationalized it, and said, this is Venezuelan oil, [00:03:40] and we will sell it at whatever price makes sense. That is best for the people of Venezuela. We're like, that's it, you know, good communist. How dare you try to control your own resources? And we've been, on a collision course ever since. Because this is about the oil. Well, it's not a mystery where we attack. [00:04:00] Venezuela is the number one oil reserve in the world. Iraq is top five. We've got Saudi Arabia as an ally locked up in the top three. And and by the way, the other one in the top five is Iran. [00:04:16] And we're threatening to topple them as well. So these factors are huge. There's another factor that's very important. There's refineries in the Gulf, and they were built for Venezuela for the type of crude oil that they have. [00:04:31] This is back when we had deals with them at 50%, at 65%, etc. But that's still very profitable. And that oil was set to come to us. But when they nationalized the oil industry, Chevron stayed. Everybody else left, and that business slowed down. And we started doing sanctions and we didn't allow their oil. [00:04:48] So all of those refineries on the Gulf Coast of America are now being underutilized. So there's a lot of business interests, oil interests, the refineries, Wall Street, they're all looking to make billions and billions of dollars from this. [00:05:05] And then, as always, you have Israel first coming in and oh, they worked with Iran. We hate him, but that's a different story. But it is part of the confluence of events here. And you could tell that the donors are going to make out like bandits here, because secretly the corporate Democrats are leaking to the press. [00:05:21] I mean, removing Maduro, that made a lot of sense. I mean, we get that. We like that one. I mean, they they did it slightly wrong. They did it slightly wrong. They shouldn't have done it this way, but that's not such a bad thing, etc.. So you get a sense all the donors in Washington are ecstatic over this. [00:05:39] And of course, of course, it's never done for us. And by the way, if you're not aware of this, when we quote unquote take Venezuelan oil, the American people get none of it. Zero. The companies get the oil. They sell it at the same exact price to you. [00:05:54] Sometimes because of the instability, the price goes up. And that might be another reason why their, valuations are going up, because they're about to make a killing. Right. So you don't get it for any less at all. They just keep the extra profit. But remember, we didn't give the politicians millions of dollars. [00:06:13] The donors like ExxonMobil, etc. Did. In this case, I think the refineries are more excited than the oil companies. Jordan, because the oil companies are like, yeah, but I got to invest tens of billions of dollars to get that oil out. And Trump is telling me I got to do that, but I'm not sure that Venezuela [00:06:30] is going to be stable enough. So final thing on this. And to actually two things on on the oil part of it, we told you about Michael Burry, last week. He's the guy who was, in a sense the star of The Big Short. He predicted that the housing collapse would happen, and he's now predicting [00:06:49] an AI collapse and a Palantir collapse, and we're rooting for him on that. But he's just a businessman. He's not progressive at all. 2026 just started. And like a lot of us, I've got some big personal goals here at TT. We believe in changing the world for the better, but to do that, I'm going to need the [00:07:04] right team of people to make it happen. Let's be real, sometimes it can be hard to find the right people who are that good at what they do. It's like if you're hiring for your business, how do you find the best people for all the different roles on your team? Well, it turns out it's actually kind of easy because of ZipRecruiter. [00:07:19] And right now you can try it for free@ziprecruiter.com. That's a great offer. They're matching technology works fast, so you find top talent without wasting any time. You can instantly see how many qualified candidates are in your area and reach them directly. [00:07:35] That's why ZipRecruiter is the number one rated hiring site at ZipRecruiter. Help you find the best people for all of your roles. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. See for yourself. Just go to this exclusive web address right now [00:07:53] to try ZipRecruiter ziprecruiter.com. Again, that's ziprecruiter.com/ziprecruiter the smartest way to hire. So he was explaining today he's like, oh, this is why I've been long on Halliburton [00:08:08] because Halliburton is going to go back to making a tremendous amount of money. So that's the defense contractors and all those guys who are about to stick their, you know, nose in the trough there and eat off that pork that's being, delivered to to all those guys. [00:08:24] So but I Jordan, I think they're all wrong. I don't think we're going to be able to occupy Venezuela. I think it's going to turn into a giant mess, and they're not going to listen to us unless we have troops on the ground. So I don't think the oil companies are going to get what they want [00:08:39] or the refineries or any of them, because this is a totally dumb plan that I think has almost no chance of working. I mean, it's certainly going to be a mess. I don't feel confident saying it's going to look one way or another. [00:08:55] I wouldn't, I wouldn't, out or I don't know what the word I'm looking for, but I, I, we can't overstate the influence the oil industry has and how willing they are to put other people in the firing line on their behalf. [00:09:15] I it's going to be ugly, it's going to be messy, and it's going to be a massive risk. But not for the CEOs. Why do they care not for the executives? They're fine if other people are caught in the crosshairs, if other people suffer or languish or injured or whatever on their behalf, they don't. [00:09:36] They don't care about that. So I guess I'm curious what it might look like. It might look like some sort of, you know, militia or other fighting force in there. We could see contractors in there protecting drilling sites, but who knows? [00:09:54] Who knows what's going to look like? Time will tell, but I just I don't know, I'm I guess I'm not as pessimistic on oil companies just throwing up their hands and saying, this is too much of a mess. Yeah. No. Remember, if they're going to, to refurbish Venezuela's oil industry [00:10:14] because it has fallen apart at the seams. They're only producing about 25% of the oil that they used to. So the Maduro and Chavez, Hugo Chavez, regimes didn't work in terms of efficiency, etc., and being able to get that oil more productively out of the ground, but also the sanctions hurt them, etc.. [00:10:32] But in order to rebuild that industry, they're going to have to put tens of billions of dollars in. There's no question about that. So companies are not going to put in that amount of money unless they have security guarantees. And the only way they can have security guarantees [00:10:48] is if we do complete regime change. We put in our guys, they control the country 100%. So there is no way of getting the oil companies to invest until we do regime change. That's why this thing isn't even close to over. [00:11:04] I think what a lot of the right wing is seeing is, oh my God, we had great tactics and there's nobody better than our special forces, and we were able to get in and get out, and we kidnaped a guy effectively. And who cares about international law. It's another thing we'll get to a story we'll get to later in the program, [00:11:20] where the right wing is. Some in the right wing are literally saying that who cares about the rule of law? We're bigger. We're stronger. So we took their stuff. No, but you didn't take their stuff. You got to get on the ground to take their stuff. And that's where you run into a buzz saw. So I don't think any of this stuff is going to come to fruition. [00:11:38] I think these knuckleheads push for a plan that they thought would profit them to the tune of billions of dollars, but the only one like maybe some of the speculators will win. The oil companies will might win on the instability alone. Right. Because that drives up gas and oil prices. [00:11:55] And certainly the defense contractors always win when there's a giant conflict. But we will lose. And I think at the end of the day, we will not get that oil in the way that they're imagining. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets his wings. Totally not true. [00:12:10] But it does keep you updated on our live shows.