Weekly Roundup 07/17/26 (Teleprompter insider trading, the AI DeFi apocalypse fizzles, NY's datacenter ban)

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
Matt Walsh and Nic Carter are partners at Castle Island Ventures. All of these expressed by them or the guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Castle Island Ventures. Guests and hosts may maintain positions in the assets discussed in this podcast. You should not treat any opinion expressed by anyone on this podcast as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of their personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:22)
Brought down by Bad Mortgage Investments, Lehman, which has 25,000 employees, will be liquidated.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:28)
The federal government loans American International Group, AIG, $85 billion.

**SPEAKER_5** (0:35)
The federal government is stepping in to stabilize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two mortgage giants that have been threatened by the housing crisis.

**Matt Walsh** (0:42)
The Bank of England has pumped $75 billion more into Britain's ailing economy. The new round of constitutive easing.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:47)
You print a couple trillion dollars and all of a sudden people start to worry. So out of this worry, we have something called the Bitcoin.

**Matt Walsh** (0:54)
Welcome to On The Brink, I'm Matt Walsh.

**Nic Carter** (0:56)
And I'm Nic Carter.

**Matt Walsh** (0:58)
And I'm sorry for your loss. England, that was a tough one. I watched the last bit there.

**Nic Carter** (1:03)
It was exceptionally tough. Yeah, actually, I don't want to talk about it because I'm still really upset.

**Matt Walsh** (1:10)
I mean, Messi, he's just good, huh?

**Nic Carter** (1:12)
He is the greatest player of all time.

**Matt Walsh** (1:15)
Definitely is.
So now who do we have? Does that mean England's in the third place game now?

**Nic Carter** (1:21)
Yeah, it's kind of like a humiliation ritual. You have to play another game after you got kicked out.

**Matt Walsh** (1:27)
Yeah, that's weird.

**Nic Carter** (1:28)
We're probably going to lose to France because they're great.
And then the final is this Sunday and I will be rooting for Spain. You will make no mistake. Yeah. After that, after I know we probably missed some Argentine listeners, but there's such a thing as being a bad winner. You know, you can be a bad loser, but you also be a bad winner.

**Matt Walsh** (1:49)
Oh, were they gloating? Is that what was happening? Oh, yeah.

**Nic Carter** (1:51)
Big time. And they were bringing the Falklands into it. I was like, guys, let it go, man.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:56)
Yeah.

**Nic Carter** (1:57)
We fought a war over this. You lost. Resoundingly, we don't need to bring it up anymore.

**Matt Walsh** (2:02)
So who ended up getting the islands? Does UK still control those islands?

**Nic Carter** (2:07)
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Don't get me started on the Falklands. I mean, Britain has managed and governed the Falklands uncontested for 200 years straight.
When they were settled, it wasn't even initially by... Argentina didn't exist as a country when they were settled, to be clear. So there's no first claim. There was a referendum recently on the Falklands. And whether they wanted independence, whether they wanted to be British governed or what. And guess what the result of that referendum was?

**Matt Walsh** (2:38)
I'm guessing since you're asking that they wanted to stay in the UK.

**Nic Carter** (2:44)
It was about 3,000 in favor and there were two votes not in favor.

**Matt Walsh** (2:49)
Really, so they want to be part of the crown?

**Nic Carter** (2:51)
Yeah, I mean they're all British origin for the most part. And if you actually go to the Falklands, I haven't been but actually would like to go. And I do like a lot of those weird South Atlantic islands. If you go, it's like a small British village.

**Matt Walsh** (3:05)
Huh, who knew?

**Nic Carter** (3:06)
It's very British in nature. So I understand the proximity argument. I get it. But there's no real claim. And then also it was settled via violent conflict.

**Matt Walsh** (3:18)
Do they have any natural resources on the Falkland Islands?

**Nic Carter** (3:22)
They've just been licensed to exploit some of the gas fields around there.

**Matt Walsh** (3:27)
Interesting.

**Nic Carter** (3:28)
Yeah. And, you know, the proximity of Antarctica as well.

**Matt Walsh** (3:33)
So this is a rivalry that runs deep. Again, I'm sorry.

**Nic Carter** (3:37)
I would say it's more of a one sided rivalry.

**Matt Walsh** (3:39)
Yeah. Well, they did just beat you guys in the World Cup. So I guess it's two sided.

**Nic Carter** (3:44)
It's one sided in terms of the geopolitical aspect.

**Matt Walsh** (3:48)