Joy and Greatness: Political Slogans

eorge grombacher 0:00
I am not happy about it. I don’t think, I don’t think that I’m happy about it, but it’s a reality. Here I am. I need to be honest about it, that I cannot take my eyes off of this train wreck known as the 2024, presidential election and politics in general, and I know better. I intellectually know that I should not pay such close attention. I should not allow this process, these people to occupy rent free so much space in my head, but there they are. Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, Donald Trump, JD, Vance, joy, Maga, all of it. Maybe it’s so exciting because everybody is trying to save our democracy and everybody’s trying to wreck our democracy at the same time. So when you’re facing such an existential threat and a pivotal moment in the history of the world, certainly history of our great Republic, maybe it makes sense that I’m paying attention. No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t. I just need to remind myself to stop paying such close attention and take my own advice, my own advice that I’ve been doling out about how to not let politics ruin your life and freak you out and ruin relationships. I think I’m doing a good job with that for the most part. I don’t know what the term is, compelling, captivating. Maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s captivating. It’s head scratching, and you look at what’s going on, you’re like, This can’t be real. It’s gotta be we’re clearly part of some kind of a simulation, whatever that means we’ve been sucked into an alternate reality. I don’t even know you can’t make this stuff up, though it is, it is so much professional wrestling, it is so much production. It is so much soap opera, drama, it is so much reality show. It is so American. That’s it. That’s it. Let’s go. Let’s go to, race to the bottom the top. That’s, that’s not clear. So much, so much going on with it. So I, I’m, I’m bemused by, by Kamala talking about joy. I find that to be mildly amusing. I’m amused by by the absolute disdain of of Maga, and now we have Maha make America healthy again. These slogans are, are pretty extraordinary. So I was, I was curious as to what Harris’s campaign slogan is, and it is, what is it? Win this. I thought I wrote it down. Now, win this. We’ve got to win this. Let’s win this. That’s it. Let’s win this. Sorry, I had a bit of a a brain fart there. Let’s win this. That’s what her her website says. And I don’t know if that’s actually what her campaign slogan is, but it just got me thinking about all of it, and you’ve got so much, so much narrative around around the presidential election this year, so many feelings like the idea that you would have a a whole election based on our your campaign is based on joy, is, is, is curious to me. And the idea that you want to make something great again is also a curious thing. So I’m not saying that one is better than the other. I’m going to sit right on the middle of the fence on this deal right on the fence pole, both uncomfortable actions, if I’m being honest, but that’s where I’m going to be. So it’s more a function of how narrative has has. My perception was that narrative has crept in to so many different aspects of our lives, from how we sell product to now. Always sell candidates, but maybe it’s always been that way. So Obama had hope and change, which was extremely powerful, and he was such a compelling speaker and orator, you couldn’t help but feel like he was going to absolutely deliver on the things that he said. So many feelings, and if joy is one of those. I thought, Well, how would you feel if the campaign slogan was retribution or if it was chaos or fear? Make America fearful again, or elect me and I will vanquish our enemies? And while that is not and has not been. I don’t believe in an actual political slogan over time throughout our country or even the world. That’s essentially what one party is saying about the other, that if you or if these people are elected, chaos and fear will reign. We’ll lose our democracy. That both parties are saying that of the other is, is incredible. It’s absolutely incredible that we have two completely different sets of facts and that we don’t even know what facts are anymore. It seems, is an extraordinary thing. So I was just curious. I thought, Well, okay, maybe it’s not a function of maybe it’s not a function of that our country. Maybe it’s not that this is new, or maybe this is brand new using narrative to sell politics and just feelings over policy. So I went back. So here is a rundown of the last handful of American presidential candidates and what their slogans are. Obviously Trump will start on the Republican side. Keep America Great. Trump again, make America great. Romney, believe in America. McCain, country first. W Bush, yes, America can. W Bush, compassionate conservatism. Bob Dole, the better man for a Better America. George HW, President. Bush, the experience of leadership. HW, a kinder, gentler nation. Reagan, it’s morning in America. Reagan, again. Let’s make America great again. Gerald Ford, he’s making us proud again. Nixon. Nixon now. Nixon again, this time, vote like your whole world dependent on it. Goldwater in your heart. You know he’s right. Nixon for the future. Eisenhower, peace, prosperity and progress. Dwight. Eisenhower again, I like Ike Dewey. Dewey defeats Truman Dewey when the war finished the job. So there you go. Not dissimilar, pretty much the same on the Democratic side. Biden, build back better. Clinton, stronger together. Obama, forward. Obama, change. We can believe in Kerry. Let America be America again. Gore, prosperity and progress. Clinton, building a bridge to the 21st century. Clinton, it’s the economy, stupid. Dukakis, the best America is yet to come. Mondale, America needs a change. Carter, a leader for for a change. Same thing again. McGovern, come home America. Hubert Humphrey, there’s no alternative. LBJ, stakes are too high for you to stay at home. Kennedy, time for greatness. Adelaide Stevenson, new America. Adelaide Stevenson, again, you never had it so good. Truman, give him hell. Harry Roosevelt, FTR, win the war. Finished the job. Okay, so pretty much always the same. Pretty much always the same. Got to be catchy, it’s got to be short, it’s got to inspire people. It’s got to be attention grabbing. All of these things, but not dissimilar. So there I was thinking that there was something new under the sun, and that all of a sudden we were using new tactics to win elections, when, in fact, it’s always been the same stuff. So there you go. But is that true of America, or is it everywhere? Well, let’s have a look. So slogans emphasizing renewal or strength, let’s make Britain great again. 1960s making Germany strong again, Nazi Germany. 1930s New day, new way in the Philippines in 1992 dawn of a new era. Shinzo Abe, 2012 in Japan. Focus changed, or slogans on change in progress. Tony Blair in the United Kingdom ran on change. Trudeau, time for change. Duarte and the Philippines, change is coming. Um

forward, Germany’s Socialist Party in 1991 Avanti forward. Okay? Nidal Mussolini, yikes. Slogans emphasizing unity and togetherness. Hillary Clinton, stronger together from 16, unity is strength together for new victory, France and 88 together, we can Spain in 2004 Germany had a slogan on traditional German values in the 19th century. Kinder, Kush, kirschie, I obviously don’t speak German. Slogans emphasizing economic prosperity, the economy stupid, various Australian position or politicians in the 90s, jobs and growth. Australia, again, prosperity and progress. Obviously. Al Gore, stability and prosperity. Vladimir Putin for a stronger economy. New Zealand slogans emphasizing peace, come home, America. McGovern, no more war. UK’s Labor Party post World War One, peace. Land and bread. Russia and Bolsheviks, 1917, peace and prosperity. Taiwan in 2008 peace and justice. Obrador in Mexico 2018 so there you go. So it’s not just us. I don’t know if that brings you any solace or makes you feel any better about the situation, but everybody does it because obviously it works, or that’s just the madness of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I don’t know. What do you think? Has there been a politician in your memory, your recent memory, ever that you think had a pretty dynamite slogan or something that wasn’t simply pulling on our heartstrings or trying to trying to trigger emotions I don’t know. Reality is that emotions are extremely powerful, and we’re motivated much more by the avoidance of negative things than we are pulled towards something that is good. So that being said, I think we just need to stop accepting it. I don’t think that simply saying, Let’s win this or make America great, these are not good enough, and we have, I guess, been conditioned to accepting what we’ve been given, because we haven’t had that much of a choice. And now what we’re seeing is the decline in viewership of traditional media sources and a massive uptick in viewership in non traditional media sources, like YouTube videos and podcasts and things like that, which I think is evidence that we’re fed up with our pre packaged, for lack of a better term, propagandistic messaging. I think we’re sort of on to it that it’s been the same crap over and over again and not a lot of backing it up with actual policies. So if we could return to a time where we were talking about actual policies and arguing based on those in the merits of our arguments over just emotional pleas, I think that that would be good, and that demands that we have the attention span as consumers, to be able to call people out when they are not doing the things that they said that they were going to do. For example, if somebody said that they were going to build a border wall and then they didn’t do it, we would need to in order to be able to hold that person to account, have an accurate accounting of what it was that happened, why it didn’t happen, if it didn’t happen, and that’s maybe a terrible example, because so polarizing, so but you could look at anything. Could be funding for schools, it could be could be, I was just going to say reproductive rights, but that’s obviously another one of the biggest Hot Topic issues that’s ever existed in the history of humanity. So let’s talk about tax rates, funding for education, stuff like that. Did it happen? Said you were going to try to do this. Why didn’t it happen? Can we have some kind of blockchain that’ll actually show us? Here’s why, here’s the money that actually flowed to it, here’s who voted for it or against it. Is that too much to ask? It seems like it ought not be, but maybe it is. But that’s in a perfect world, how that would work out. You said you were going to do this. Did you do it? Yes, good job you didn’t do it. Or it didn’t happen. Why not? And then we can make judgments on that, versus, well, this, that and the other thing, the last, the one debate that. Did see between Biden and Trump. It really wasn’t a matter of any accuracy. It was just them saying that they were the best and the person was the worst. Anyway, public companies, publicly traded companies. So if you go and you buy shares of a stock on a stock exchange, that means the company is a publicly traded company, and there is enormous amount of compliance and reporting that must go on. They file reports on a quarterly basis, semi annual basis, and annual basis that gives an overview and an update on everything that happened, and it’s really driven by their financials, because when we are evaluating whether or not we want to invest in a stock or remain invested in a stock or sell no longer invest in a stock, so much of it is based on the actual results, the financials, the numbers, all that stuff. And we need to know. We need transparency. I don’t want to be lied to. I don’t want narrative. I don’t want the I don’t want the people at at any of our publicly traded companies getting up and spinning some yarn, telling some story, using flowery language, using narrative to distract me from what the actual results are, in some ways it’s good, and obviously in other ways it’s bad, because it forces us to focus on short term thinking. But if we can get to the place where we actually knew, factually speaking, this is what actually happened that would put us in better position to be better consumers. And so public Google alphabet reports its quarterly numbers, and they are rewarded or they are penalized for how they did. And you’re you as an investor, have the opportunity to sell your shares of the company and to move on. And when that happens, when lots of people are selling, that will cause the price of your stock to go down. That will make the value of your company go down. If you report incredible numbers, if you are hitting all of your benchmarks and doing all the things that you said you were going to do, you will be rewarded by additional money, by additional investment. More people will want to own your company, because you are demonstrating yourself as a good operator, as a good investment, therefore the value of your company will increase. You’ll have more opportunities. How does that work for politicians? Well, theoretically speaking, it’s supposed to work in the form of an election. So the President’s four year terms could be elected if the presidency twice. We’re not happy with what you’re doing, Mr. Mrs. President, we will not vote for you. We don’t think that you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing. Mr. Mr. Congressman, Congresswoman, Senator, we will not vote for you anymore. But all that demands that we actually know that we have your quarterly reports. Where do we used to get those? Well, we used to trust the news the news media reporters to cover and to hold to hold them to account, since they’re sitting in front of them every day, we have the White House press corps asking questions of the press secretary, but do you feel like you’re getting any real answers out of that? And I think that the answer is no. It’s always the way that’s kind of been in recent memory, is because we’re so focused on narrative and feelings and vibes and also their nonsense, we’re not getting a real accounting of our results. Therefore, can’t make real decisions on what’s what. We need an impartial referee or umpire to call balls and strikes all that kind of stuff. Foot was on the line, out of bounds. 3.2 points, whatever you get the idea. So where’s that person? Is it Rachel Maddow, is it Sean Hannity, no, of course, not. Until that person emerges, maybe they’re already here. Maybe you’ve got a favorite non traditional pundit,

somebody on YouTube or favorite podcast, it’s bringing you what you perceive to be correct answers, and that’s great, but until you find that person, it’s up to you to work a little bit harder, to recognize our biases and to prioritize issues. Is, what is the highest truth, what is the biggest priority, what is the most important thing, and then make decisions based on that, because not everything can be the most important thing. So when we’re voting based on one issue, that means we’re not voting based on other issues. And while this election may not be the referendum or the destruction or savior of democracy, as both candidates are claiming right now, it’s certainly an important one, and all of our elections are important, and because they’re important, we should act and treat them as though they are important, and we do that by becoming better consumers of politics. We become just more informed, better voters. I guess that that’s probably the term. So what’s most important to you. It’s up to you to decide. When you’ve done that, gone through, you’ve thought about it, you’ve weighed out different variables. I respect your decision. It’s our right to vote as Americans. Let’s be informed practitioners of those rights. Let’s continue to work to hold our elected officials to account, to represent us and our needs, and not their own, not the needs and the desires of special interests, the needs and desires of us, regular everyday Americans, as always, do your part. Doing your best. Do.

george grombacher 16:00
So if I want my iPhone, and my Tesla and my Bitcoin to work, we need to get the metal out of the ground.

Pierre Leveille 16:07
Absolutely. Without it, we cannot do it.

george grombacher 16:13
Why? Why is there a Why has production been going down.

Pierre Leveille 16:21
Because the large mines that are producing most of the copper in the world, the grades are going down slowly they’re going there, they’re arriving near the end of life. So and of life of mines in general means less production. And in the past, at least 15 years, the exploration expenditure for copper were pretty low, because the price of copper was low. And when the price is low, companies are tending to not invest more so much in exploration, which is what we see today. It’s it’s, it’s not the way to look at it. Because nobody 15 years ago was able to predict that there would be a so massive shortage, or it’s so massive demand coming. But in the past five years, or let’s say since the since 10 years, we have seen that more and more coming. And then the by the time you react start exploring and there’s more money than then ever that is putting in put it in expression at the moment for copper at least. And what we see is that the it takes time, it could take up to 2025 years between the time you find a deposit that it gets in production. So but but the year the time is counted. So it’s it’s very important to so you will see company reopening old mines, what it will push also, which is not bad, it will force to two, it will force to find a it will force to find ways of recalibrating customer, you know the metals, that will be more and more important.

george grombacher 18:07
So finding, okay, so for lack of a better term recycling metals that are just sitting around somewhere extremely important. Yeah. And then going and going back to historic minds that maybe for lack of technology, or just lack of will or reasons, but maybe now because there’s such a demand, there’s an appetite to go back to those.

Pierre Leveille 18:33
Yes, but there will be a lot of failures into that for many reasons. But the ones that will be in that will resume mining it’s just going to be a short term temporary solution. No it’s it’s not going to be you need to find deposit that will that will operate 50 years you know at least it’s 25 to 50 years at least and an old mind that you do in production in general it’s less than 10 years.

george grombacher 19:03
Got it. Oh there we go. Up here. People are ready for your difference making tip What do you have for them

Pierre Leveille 19:14
You mean an investment or

george grombacher 19:17
whatever you’re into, you’ve got so much life experience with raising a family and doing business all over the world and having your kids go to school in Africa so a tip on copper or whatever you’re into.

Pierre Leveille 19:34
But there’s two things I like to see and I was telling my children many times and I always said you know don’t focus on what will bring you specifically money don’t think of Getting Rich. Think of doing what you what you like, what you feel your your your your your, you know you have been born to do so use your most you skills, do what you like, do what you wet well, and good things will happen to you. And I can see them grow in their life. And I can tell you that this is what happens. And sometimes you have setback like I had recently. But if we do things properly, if we do things that we like, and we liked that project, we were very passionate about that project, not only me, all my team, and if we do things properly, if we do things correctly, good things will happen. And we will probably get the project back had to go forward or we will find another big project that will be the launch of a new era. So that’s my most important tip in life. Do what you like, do it with your best scale and do it well and good things will happen.

george grombacher 20:49
Pierre Leveille 21:03
Thank you. I was happy to be with you to today.

george grombacher 21:06
Damn, tell us the websites and where where people can connect and find you.

Pierre Leveille 21:13
The it’s Deep South resources.com. So pretty simple.

george grombacher 21:18
Perfect. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did show up here your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciate good ideas, go to deep south resources, calm and learn all about what they’re working on and track their progress.

Pierre Leveille 21:32
Thanks. Thanks, have a nice day.

george grombacher 21:36
And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.