The Grant Williams Podcast Ep. 119 - Marvin Barth

**Grant Williams** (0:10)
Before we get going, here's the bit where I remind you that nothing we discuss should be considered as investment advice. This conversation is for informational and hopefully entertainment purposes only. So, while we hope you find it both informative and entertaining, please do your own research or speak to a financial advisor before putting a dime of your money into these crazy markets.
You're about to listen to a special preview of The Grant Williams Podcast, featuring my very special returning guest, Marvin Barth of Thematic Markets. Marvin has been a fantastic guest each time he's appeared on the podcast, and generates an awful lot of interest. His thoughts are interesting, they're thought provoking, they are out of the left field in many, many cases, but he puts them together so beautifully, and this conversation was no exception. Every episode of The Grant Williams Podcast, including The End Game, The Super Terrific Happy Hour, The Narrative Game, This Week In Doom, Shifts Happen, The Hundred Year Pivot, and Kaos Theory is available to Copper and Silver Tier subscribers at my website www.grantwilliams.com Copper Tier subscribers get access to all the podcasts, while Silver members get both the podcasts and my monthly newsletter Things That Make You Go Hmmm. So, if you enjoy what you hear on the show, and you'd like more high quality content like it, then please make your way over to www.grantwilliams.com and join our Exciter Community today. And now, on with the show.
Marvin, welcome back to the podcast, my friend. So good to see you again. It's been a while that we've done a podcast, but we saw each other in person a week ago, which was lovely.

**Marvin Barth** (1:52)
It was a lovely dinner that we had. I was very pleased to join that and to see you in person, but glad to be back on the program. Thank you.

**Grant Williams** (2:00)
We had originally decided that we were gonna sit and chat about your recent couple of pieces you wrote, your interrupted opus about dollar debasement.
But I think we're gonna kick off with the thing that's interrupted it, because it's, I think you published it last night, Eactor S, which I won't kill the lead, and I'll let you walk me through what that means. People will, I'm sure, be familiar with that phrase. This is really about the Iran War, and it was such an interesting way to frame it, and really had me thinking about possible outcomes that I think we've all been completely conditioned to believe it should be one or the other. You've thrown more things in the ring than there is to think about, which I thought was fascinating. So why don't I just give you the floor and you can start with this whichever place you feel like you want to start with it, and we'll go through it, and I'm going to ask you a whole bunch of dumb questions as we go along.

**Marvin Barth** (2:47)
They're never dumb questions, Grant. There's a reason why you have such a following, Grant, and I think it has more to do with you than the people who come on. But, having said that, enough buttering you up, you've already invited me on. I actually, I think one of the starting points, because I think it's really important, is what you mentioned, that my debasement series has been interrupted, and it's a three-part series, and it's been interrupted twice. I still haven't gotten to the part three. And why is it interrupted? It's because of this crazy man in the White House.
And I say that crazy in not the pejorative sense that I think a lot of his critics do, but more in the sense of what a frenetic guy's pace is unbelievable.
You received my research. Feel free to call me out on this and say that I'm full of crap. But I would say I have had a better handle on Donald Trump than almost anyone out there.

**Grant Williams** (3:49)
I would agree with that.

**Marvin Barth** (3:50)
And yet, the last year, the guy has just driven me crazy because even though I see most of this stuff coming, the pace is just difficult to keep up with. And then on top of that, his rhetorical tricks, which they are rhetorical tricks, and they should be something you see coming a mile away.
We still find that we fall for them, right? So look at the reaction of markets yesterday to his, we've had constructive or productive conversations, right? Now, if you go back and look, that phrase, productive conversations, literally the exact same words he uses every single time he's stalling and delaying for time. And yet everybody fell for it, including me, by the way, when I first saw it, I was like, oh my God, this piece that I've just spent the last week writing is now worthless. And then I thought about it, I was like, no, actually.