Fifty years ago, Doug Casey walked down to the National Mall to celebrate America’s bicentennial. He was 30. I was one year old, in a working-class neighborhood where every dad worked in the trades and every mom was home.
This week I asked Doug what’s actually changed since that last big celebration. His answers were not the ones you’ll hear at a fireworks show.
What actually changed since 1976
The physical world, Doug pointed out, has barely moved: “We still fly the same kind of aircraft basically that we flew back then, jets that go about the same speed.” Cars have more chips but drive the same; houses just got bigger.
What did change? Three things.
First, the computer. “The computerization of the world is one major change over the last 50 years,” Doug said. The effect is visible at every restaurant table: “You see these people talking to their iPhones, not to each other.”
Second, the demographics. The country added 120 million people — “That’s like adding 120 cities of a million apiece” — and the mix changed as much as the count. “Fifty years ago, nobody ever thought about Islamic people... they weren’t here. But now they’re here in quite big numbers.”
Third — race relations got worse. “I think it was better back then than it is today,” Doug said. My own experience growing up matches his.
A note on Crisis Investing
A subscriber asked us to address Lau Vegys’s departure and his claim that the newsletter’s research and recommendations were his. I addressed it directly on the show: the picks have always come from a collaborative process between Doug, Lau, and myself. I discussed April and May as examples - As usual, neither pick came from Lau at all. Doug put it plainly: “Lau did the actual writing... but we always had to kind of pull him along to write stuff properly on stocks.”
John Hunt has stepped in — a man who actively speculates in the market, holds patents, and has a background in geology. We wish Lau well. The process that built the portfolio hasn’t changed.
The state has no upper limit
Several subscriber questions circled one theme: what can the US government reach out and take?
Your foreign bank account? “The US government can pass a law, and if you don’t observe the law, you’re in trouble,” Doug said. The government already knows about every offshore account an American holds — I report my own Uruguayan account to the IRS. The realistic scenario isn’t confiscation abroad; it’s a repatriation order at home — then your decision about compliance. Doug’s summary of the institution writing the rules: “They really do bestride the world like a colossus, and they’re very dangerous and capable of almost any kind of stupidity at this point.”
The Sprott Physical Uranium Trust? With data centers driving reactor buildouts, China and India building plants as fast as they can, and Japan restarting, could Trump force Sprott to sell into a physical squeeze? “Trump is capable of anything, of course,” Doug said. The deeper cost isn’t the seizure — it’s the lesson: “Why bother going into business where the government can come in and do anything?”
Doug also noted the US government now owns shares in about ten commercial companies, “not something that the Constitution authorizes.” His label for the model: “It follows the economic model of Benito Mussolini, where there’s a melding of the state and corporate interests. And Trump loves that stuff.”
Cuba, Milei, and the harder questions
Cuba appears headed for its final collapse-and-reopening. Doug has been there four times; his verdict is that the island is “a total and complete economic disaster” that has to change — a third to half of Cuban houses are privately owned and may finally become purchasable. But: “Any opportunities that occur in Cuba are going to be scarfed up by the American population of Cubans. They speak the language, they have the relatives, the connections.”
Then came one of those questions that costs us subscribers — a challenge to Doug’s optimism about Milei, focused on his ties to Israel. Doug took the points one by one. On aligning Argentina with Israel and NATO: “It’s actually insane. It makes no sense at all... he can’t impose this on Argentina.” His conclusion: “I’m afraid that Milei will wind up a mixed bag at best and probably wind up besmirching the ideals of anarcho-capitalism.”
We also covered the death penalty, abortion, goldbacks, why countries splitting up is almost always good news — Alberta, take note — and where the world’s renaissance men live. Doug’s answer to that last one, despite everything above: still America.
The Roundtable keeps paying
A subscriber asked whether our Experts Roundtable panelists buy the companies presented. Several do — and I have. When we featured MacKay Gold & Silver (MACK) about a month ago, it traded around C$2.25. It’s C$3.10 today, and the company has since announced it acquired the largest remaining piece of the historic Comstock district — arguably the greatest silver producer in American history, largely untouched since the 19th century.
Why the Roundtable matters, in Doug’s words: “Knowledge is your primary weapon in dealing with these obscure stocks.” Watching experienced speculators grill a management team — then talk candidly once the executives leave the room — is the education. And for now, it’s free.
Next Tuesday: a Roundtable on an antimony company in the critical minerals space. Worth watching.
Listen to the full episode of Doug Casey’s Take wherever you get podcasts. To ask Doug a question and get our monthly stock picks, subscribe below then click “Ask Doug” in the top navigation.
