{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"The Strait "Reopens" and Gold Keeps Climbing","description":"In today\u2019s episode: Good news broke this morning: the Strait of Hormuz is officially open again \u2014 assuming you believe what you read in the papers, which Doug emphatically does not. Oil dropped toward $80, gold crept toward $5,000 (a combination Doug calls \u201ca little bit counterintuitive\u201d), and meanwhile C-130s keep flowing into the Middle Eastern theater around the clock. As Doug puts it, \u201cchances are this is just a pause in hostilities \u2014 everybody\u2019s taking the opportunity to reload.\u201d From there the conversation goes exactly where you\u2019d hope it would. We get into Pete Hegseth\u2019s now-infamous \u201cprayer breakfast,\u201d where the Secretary of Defense appears to have lifted Samuel L. Jackson\u2019s Ezekiel 25:17 monologue from Pulp Fiction and delivered it to a room of bewildered military brass as scripture. Doug\u2019s review was not kind: \u201cIt was kind of weak and mealy-mouthed the way Hegseth delivered those lines.\u201d His proposed fix? \u201cNext time he ought to put a red bandana around his forehead \u00e0 la Rambo, strip his shirt off to expose his war-like tattoos, and then deliver it with proper fervor.\u201d Elsewhere in a wide-ranging episode: Why coin collecting is dead and what that says about how we think about money Doug\u2019s characteristically diplomatic take on Ireland\u2019s troubles The Argentine citizenship-by-investment program that was, then wasn\u2019t Whether traveling as an American is about to get uncomfortable again (Doug remembers the Vietnam-era Canadian-flag-on-the-backpack trick) Human cloning, Multiplicity, and the curious case of Adolfo Cambiasso cloning his best polo ponies \u2014 which rather settles the question of whether someone, somewhere, has tried it on people An honest look at our private placement track record: the big winners, and the ones that aren\u2019t As Doug reminds us near the end: \u201cWe\u2019re just leaves drifting down the river of time. We shouldn\u2019t concern ourselves with these things \u2014 they\u2019re above our pay grade anyway.\u201d Have a great weekend, Matt ","author_name":"Doug Casey's Take","author_url":"https:\/\/www.crisisinvesting.com","html":"