 Really a cornerstone of economic progress, of economic prosperity is trade. Trade allows for specialization. It allows for all of us to benefit from the productive abilities of 8 billion people on planet Earth. It allows for the state of living we have, you know, this is trade between individuals, but of course trade globally between individuals. Trade is the most important feature of the world economy over the last 200 years, you know, freedom within countries and then trade globally which has allowed the kind of increase in wealth that we have experienced and that we are experiencing today and it is responsible for much of the quality and standard of living that we have today. 80% of the trade that is done internationally by volume and 50% of the value of trade travels on boats, mainly 105,000 container ships, tankers, freight vessels that are out in the ocean pretty much all the time. The trade routes that make it possible for this trade to happen, you know, exist because of certain geopolitical realities. The first wave of globalization that hit the world in the 19th century was basically made possible and protected by the British fleet. It is the Britain who kept the sea lanes open that allowed for trade throughout the world, the spices from Asia to, you know, put aside colonialism with or without colonialism. It is what allowed trade to become global. The opening of the Suez Canal was a major feat and a major shortcut from Asia to Europe. There's only so much you can carry by camel. There's only so much you can carry in trucks and railroads from Asia to Europe can do either of those to get to the United States without shipping global trade grains to a halt. A standard of living quality of life collapses and I'm not exaggerating, collapses. We become much poorer, all of us. In the 19th century was the British Navy that kept this trade moving. In the 20th century and into the 21st century, it has been the American Navy that has kept these ships and these moving and these trade routes open. Certainly since World War II, the United States has been the dominant naval power in the world and its mission. This is why we have a fleet in Asia. We have a fleet in the Mediterranean. We have a fleet in the Arabian Sea. Its mission is to keep the trade routes open to facilitate this trade. But as America has gotten weaker, as other countries like Russia and China have become much more willing to challenge America because of its weakness, not because of its weakness on the seas, not because of its military weakness, not because of the weakness of its weapons, but because of the weakness of our will to engage that fleet, those weapons, to engage in defending those sea lanes. I mean, it took years to clean up the mess of Somali pirates when it was 20 years ago. It shouldn't have been long at all. It should have been trivial. It was less than 20 years ago, maybe 10, 15 years ago. America has been tested more and more and viewed more and more as a paper tiger. And you're seeing this. You're seeing this all over the world, really. Right now in the headlines, of course, are the Houthis basically closing down the Red Sea and passage towards the Suez Canal. We're seeing, though, that is not the only hotspot in terms of global trade. The Black Sea, an important shipping route, particularly from Ukraine and Russian ports, out towards parts of Europe and to Africa and to the rest of the world, is basically a battle zone filled with mines and battleships. The Baltic Sea. Baltic Sea, this would be north of Germany and Poland, west of Lithuania, Latvia. The Baltic Sea now is kind of a shadowy place. It's, of course, filled with pipelines and cables and a bunch of different powers are struggling to dominate the area and to figure out what to do. And, of course, Asia. Right now, off the coast of China, in the waters of the China Sea, in the western Pacific, you're seeing one of the largest concentrations of navies we have seen certainly since World War II. Not only are the Chinese deploying more and more ships, a bigger and bigger navy, but the United States is deploying significant forces. China is trying to intimidate Taiwan. We get to the Taiwanese election in a minute trying to intimidate the Philippines, trying to intimidate all its neighbors. Any United States is there to say, uh-uh, we're not going to allow you to dominate the space and to strangle global trade. Indeed, a second carrier group just left San Diego heading towards western Pacific, unscheduled. This was not a scheduled send, so America is amassing naval troops off the coast of China, one could say. I don't think, certainly since the end of the Cold War, but maybe even pre-Cold Wars, there ever been so much tension across the world in the oceans of the world. Now, I've been talking about this for a long time. I've been saying for the past couple of years, I think that the United States better be investing in its navy. It better be improving its naval capabilities. It better be increasing its capacity both to deploy forces on the sea, but also to defend them against missiles, anti-ship missiles and the likes. Whether that happens or not, we will see. The United States is still behind in deploying the latest class of aircraft carrier. We've only got one of the new class out there, the Ford, two others. One should be deployed sometime in 2025. I'm not sure what the next one is going to be deployed. We'll get the DEI. DEI is not affecting the US Navy. What's affecting the US Navy is a lack of political commitment, the fact that our shipbuilders and so on in our procurement offices in the military are incompetent and therefore drive budgets through the roof. There's probably a lot of corruption going on. Of course, what really is lacking is political will from the top. Our inability to deploy those forces and really the class case right now is with the Houthis. Houthis, of course, have closed the Red Sea in solidarity with the Palestinians as if they care. There's nothing to do with solidarity with the Palestinians. It has everything to do with the joint shared common hatred of Israel in a sense by the Houthis, by the Iranian overlords, that they can get away with it. That they can do whatever they want in this world because America is weak and we'll get to, even Israel maybe is weak, we'll get to that in a minute. And therefore they can stop shipping. They can close the Suez Canal. They can close the Red Sea and nobody will do anything about it. On Thursday and over the weekend the United States and Britain responded militarily after weeks, weeks of doing nothing other than shooting missiles out of the sky but doing nothing in terms of actually taking out responding militarily in an offensive way to the Houthis. They took out some of their capabilities to launch missiles but it was a pinprick. The Houthis don't have much military capabilities. They are a weak opponent. I wouldn't want to put troops on the ground because they're pretty good at guerrilla warfare if you will but in terms of actually missile projection, rockets, launching attacks against boats, they are weak. The United States not only has the capacity to shoot the missiles out of the air but they have even the capacity to from the air destroy, destroy completely the Houthis capability of launching anything. All that's needed is the will to use that capability, the Americans capability, to destroy the Houthis. But all we did was a half measure, a pinprick, something insignificant. It won't make much difference. It's the same thing every president has done for the last 40 years, nothing substantial, nothing regarding the real threat. Remember the Houthis just get their orders from the Iranians. The Iranians are scot-free. We do nothing to them. The next few days we'll see how the Houthis respond to the U.S. attack. We'll see if the U.S. continues to attack. We'll see if the Iranians want to engage further. Generally, generally, I think it's important to note, the Iranians don't want a war with the United States. They know exactly what the outcome of that will be. Just like Hezbollah in the North in Israel doesn't want a war with Israel. They know exactly what the outcome would be. What they want is to bug Israel. What they want is to kill here, kill there. What they want is to distract from the war in Gaza. What they want is to show that they can kill Israelis with impunity. What they don't want is a full-fledged war, which is exactly what Israel is not giving them, which is a massive strategic mistake. Iran doesn't want a full-fledged war with the United States. They want to obstruct their operations in Iraq. They want to kill as many Americans as they can in Syria. They want to injure as many troops as they can. They want to stop the shipping lanes. They want to obstruct and interfere and bug and harass and show the world how weak America is. But what they don't want is a war. And they know America is not going to give them a war because they've been doing this for a long time. They know America will not give them a war. They were killing Americans during the Trump administration. Trump killed Soleimani. Great. Iran can handle that. That's not going to change their global plans. Did anybody go to war with Iran? No. Biden is going to go to war with Iran? No. So they're just going to continue to do this, continue to kill Americans, continue to harass, continue to disrupt, continue to destroy the capacity of the U.S. Navy to defend the shipping lanes. Now this has implications that go way beyond the Suez Canal and the Red Sea because it basically sends a message to all the rogue regimes in the world out there, to all the pirates all over the world. The U.S. is weak. Its Navy will not deploy. The U.S. is not committed to protecting the sea lanes. And therefore it's a freefall for pirates and it's a freefall for the bad guys of the world. And if we allow trade to collapse, as I said, we're basically allowing western civilization as an economy at least to collapse. And we know that there are many people within our countries and outside of our countries who are just waiting for the opportunity to pillage what we have, to destroy what we have. And part of that will come when economies are collapsing. So what's at stake with the Houthis? What's at stake around the world? What's at stake in the ocean? It is our way of life. It's our quality of life and standard of living. And people don't seem to care. Republicans don't want intervention. The left doesn't want intervention. Nobody wants to actually protect, trade, global trade, and do what's necessary to keep it facilitated. Indeed, in the streets of the United States over the weekend you saw demonstrations everywhere, siting with the Houthis, these barbarians who treat women like dirt, who throw gays on the top of buildings, who go out there and behave like mid-aged barbarians, who kill their own people and have killed hundreds of thousands of their own people. And yet women, the Houthis side now, isn't it cool to be on the side of Houthis, not realizing the barbarity of these people? It truly is stunning, because what is being revealed since October 7th in the West is not so much the anti-Semitism, not the hatred of Israel. We all knew that. What's really been revealed since October 7th is the sheer utter hatred of so many people in the West, of the West, of America, the hatred of Americans from America. And here, the crazy leftists and the, you know, Tucker Carlson's of the right, they hate America. They hate the West. It's only explanation for supporting the Houthis. It's self-hatred. Of course, they will also be the people who are, you know, they will not survive the coming collapse when there is one. They will not survive it. It truly is stunning and unbelievable when you see these demonstrations yelling for Hamas and for the Houthis and what that means and what that signifies and who they're standing with. Who are they standing with?