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Trump just gave you a way to make a fortune, and 99% of investors

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will completely miss it. Most people hear Trump

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and Venezuela, and they think politics, they think chaos, and

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they think it's got nothing to do with them. But if you knew what to look for,

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you'd see something completely different. you'd see oil, you

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would see power, you would see sanctions lifting, and

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you'd see one company, just one, that's positioned better than

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anyone else on the planet to make billions from this

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shift. I'm talking about the largest proven oil reserves in

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the world. a company that's already on the ground and a political realignment that

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just changes absolutely everything. So in this video,

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I'm going to show you exactly why this company is about to print

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money and how you can position yourself to profit before the

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rest of the market wakes up. It isn't speculation, this is

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structure, this is positioning and this is incentives. I'm

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Lloyd James Ross, seven figure investor and entrepreneur and I've helped thousands

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of business owners and professionals turn financial stress into

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success. If you're stuck in old money habits, overwhelmed by investing

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or unsure where to start, this is for you. I'll give you the mindset

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and strategies to take control, grow your wealth and achieve

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financial freedom. It's time to make your money work for you.

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Why Venezuela suddenly matters again. So

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Venezuela isn't just another struggling country. It sits on

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the world's largest proven oil reserves of heavy crude

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on the planet. Here's the problem. Years of

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sanctions by the states have crushed the oil production there. The

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infrastructure has been dilapidated, it's collapsed, capital has fled, and

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oil output fell from three to four million barrels a day to a fraction of that.

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But here's the reality. The oil is still there. The

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US still wants energy security, particularly against China. And

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global supply remains tight, and demand's going up and

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up and up and up. A political shift changes everything when it

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comes to oil. So why has the Trump administration changed

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the game here? Well, Trump's always been energy first. You

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know, drill, baby, drill. And certainly America first. So

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here's why that matters. Trump's prioritizing cheap,

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reliable oil supply. And he's far

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more willing to cut deals and enforce a long-term isolation of that than anyone else.

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He wants to weaken it geopolitically against China and

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Russia by controlling energy flows, particularly in Venezuela. So

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if Venezuela reopens under a Trump framework, which it looks like it will be,

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it won't be charity. It will be absolutely transactional. And

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that means the US companies get in first. And he just recently had

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a meeting with those US companies, and he had them all

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in the Oval Office. He brought them in, and they're all there. Mobil, Exxon

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Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, all the major oil companies,

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particularly in the United States. And so he's

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wanting, and he said this many times in the past, he's

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wanting oil to be cheap. And

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so that's better for the everyday American, who

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he stands for, right? But most importantly, he also knows

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that if he didn't do what he did with Venezuela, China

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was about, in fact, China was already there on the ground. They'd

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already sent diplomats to negotiate oil deals with Venezuela as

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they bombed, sorry, as they kidnapped the

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dictator of Venezuela. So he

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made a mark. And the reason why he wanted to do that is because he knew if he didn't do it,

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China was about to take the oil. If you think about this, what has happened

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in the world is there's a massive race to AGI, basically

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artificial general intelligence. And everybody knows that

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the country who achieves AGI first wins. What's

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this got to do with oil, right? And the reason why it's got

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to do with oil is because you can't build data centers. You can't build,

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well, you can't really build anything and develop anything without oil. A

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lot of people don't realize that feedstock, which is all the things required to create

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plastics and build anything

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in the world, is all about oil. If we look at who produces the most oil,

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it's the United States. So they're very oil-thirsty. However, China

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is certainly oil-thirsty as well. So China's

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intention was to take or do a deal with

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Venezuela to take all the heavy crude and send

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it out to China. So China was buying the heavy crude from Venezuela. And of

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course, they're buying it from Russia. So both the United States and China

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have got this thirst, endless thirst for oil. And

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so Trump and the administration is like, well, if Venezuela is in our backyard, it's

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right below us. This is our backyard. And China's coming to

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take the oil from our own backyard. Are you kidding me? That ain't going to happen. So

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what they did was they took matters in their own hands. They went and they kidnapped

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the dictator of Venezuela. in

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an incredible move by the special forces. And they

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then now have taken over effectively Venezuela. And

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Venezuela was sending oil money to Cuba. So now Cuba's in trouble and

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it's destabilized that region in terms of the deals that were

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happening. And it certainly put a wrench in the

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spoke of China's wheel on its bike. So now

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the US does control Venezuela,

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which has got arguably, in fact, it has, I think it's to the

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tune of about three I want to say 300 billion

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barrels of oil there. But it's heavy crude. And

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what I mean by that is heavy crude is not easy to refine. And

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heavy crude is more used in jet fuel, rocket fuel, and

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feedstock. But it's super important. And so what's

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interesting about that is that now that Venezuela has been taken over, Trump's

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like, well, now how do we get the oil out of the ground? Because as I said, the infrastructure is

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dilapidated. There's not a lot of security on the ground there. Even

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ExxonMobil, the CEO of Exxon in the office of Trump the other day, said,

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hey, it's actually uninvestable. And Trump's like, well, ExxonMobil is

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not getting in there. So they went on board. But it tells you

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that there's oil in the ground, but it's like, how do we get it

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out? And so I think what's going to happen is

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the companies that can successfully do that are going to

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be best positioned right now. So out of all the oil companies, let's have a look at the oil companies

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for a second. This is important for you to understand. There was a company once founded

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by John D. Rockefeller, the richest man in the world. And he developed

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and founded and scaled a company called Standard Oil. And Standard Oil,

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at one point in time, cornered the market and really owned

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85% of the refining market. Can you believe that? 85% of

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the oil refining market was owned by John Deere Rockefeller. That's why he became the richest man in the world.

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And once upon, well, about in the thirties or forties, they went through an antitrust.

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It might've been in the early thirties. They went through an antitrust court case where

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they broke up John D. Rockefeller's company, Standard Oil, and they broke it

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up into different companies. And the companies that have

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ventuated from that are ExxonMobil, Chevron,

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I believe some versions of Shell, but basically it's all progeny

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of Standard Oil. And so the largest oil companies in the States

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are real progeny of Standard Oil. And Chevron is one of those. In

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fact, Chevron is arguably one of the biggest. It's not quite as

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big as ExxonMobil, which is the biggest, but Chevron would have to

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be the second biggest and one of the most well-known brands when it comes to

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oil. It's a very fully integrated oil company. And

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it explores oil, drills for oil, it refines oil,

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and it also distributes oil through its products and its service stations as well.

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So it's what's called a fully integrated oil

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producer and refiner. And it is a powerful company.

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And here's why Chevron specifically is positioned perfectly

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to actually take advantage of this Venezuela situation, right? Chevron

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isn't just hoping to enter Venezuela, right? They're actually already there.

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They're on the ground. In fact, Chevron has been in Venezuela for 100 years.

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So even with the sanctions, Chevron decided to do some

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deals there and stay on the ground, right? So Chevron's got lasting,

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long-standing joint ventures in Venezuela already. It already understands the

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fields. It already understands the geology. It already understands and has the logistics in

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place. It's got existing relationships and obviously, as I said, it's

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got a huge operating history there. So it can scale faster than any

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new entrant straight away, right? So as the sanctions start to loosen, and

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we all know speed wins, Chevron doesn't need to start from zero. So

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as I said, what makes Chevron effective in that space is it's got

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first mover advantage, but also it's an integrated fortress. So

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it's got this massive advantage of not just being, not just pulling

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the oil out of the ground there, which they're great at, right? It's going to be

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the matter of they can take it, they can refine it, et cetera. So

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here's what happens to Chevron. It produces oil. upstream

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so up there's two parts of oil the oil industry

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in oil companies there's upstream which does the exploration and

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drilling extracts it from the ground and then there's downstream

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which is actually the refining. So they take the crude, the core

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product, and they refine it into multiple different things, incidentally. Just

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to give you an explanation of what it can do, oil can be refined into what's

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called heavy. If it's heavy crude, which is what's in Venezuela, they can

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develop heavy crude for feedstock, for jet fuel, and

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for aeroplane fuel and for plastics, et cetera, it's

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really good. And bitumen, so asphalt and bitumen, which is a very important

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part of the construction industry. So all of our roads, asphalt,

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bitumen, so it comes from heavy crude oil. It's the hardest to refine, but

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what it does as well, it takes the oil and it refines it into, it can refine

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it into light crude as well, depending on the, beginnings

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of what the product looks like and from there it can also develop it into kerosene

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it can develop it into petrol as we know it like gasoline it

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can also develop it into gas,

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natural gas. So there's all these layers of the refining process that

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it can develop and then you can sell all these products, right? So

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the thing with Chevron is it produces upstream, so it drills and explores. Explores

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and drills, I should say. Gets it out, refines it, which is the downstream. It

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owns that too. And it also transports to markets and distributes it

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across the globe. So it makes money. It's

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fully vertically integrated as a oil company, which is

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what makes it an absolute fortress in the world, right?

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Inarguably the most important product in the world. And if you don't think oil

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matters, I have some news for you. If oil didn't

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exist, we would all pretty much perish and die. Why? Because

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not only are all the product like this desk, everything you

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see on my desk has got oil in it. Everything, everything,

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this oil, people don't realize this. And

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they're like, oh, oil's bad, really? And the other thing too is it powers

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all of the machinery for large-scale farming that creates

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all of our food. So if you don't have oil, bye-bye food. Billions

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of people starve. Just quickly, if you're ready to take control of your finances but

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feel stuck on where to start, I have a solution. My

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book, Money Bias Happiness, simplifies investing and

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wealth building with practical steps to help you achieve financial peace.

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Get your copy via the link in the show notes and let's get your money working for

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00:11:06,649 --> 00:11:09,730
you. Now back to the episode. You have to understand that Chevron's got

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a very long history. In fact, Chevron's been around since the 1800s effectively. very

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long-standing company, very safe, very effective company,

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which is why Warren Buffett, he's got 7% of

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his portfolio allocated to Chevron stock and also in oxy. So about

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11% to 12% of Warren Buffett's Berkshire portfolio, which is worth

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a bank, the portfolio is about $280 billion. So $30 to

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$40 billion is allocated to oil. So that's a little bit of a

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little tip. That's why he sees Chevron as the

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leader at the moment in the oil industry. So why

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this matters for the likes of Venezuela, right? So

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going back to the type of oil that's there, it is crude oil.

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It's heavy and complex crude. So it requires very specialized refining.

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So smaller players can't handle it efficiently, right? And so Chevron can,

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because Chevron has got the ability to pull out heavy crude and refine

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it. And so what that means for Chevron is if it already knows how to do it, it's

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already there, they're already on the ground, more or less what's going to happen is they're going to have better

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margins because there's less cost to extract it straight away. There's lower friction,

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there's faster monetization. So they're way better positioned than

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any other oil company to go and extract it and put and sell it and make money.

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And the other thing too is that they're very, the

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lower cost you can pull oil out of the ground and refine it and sell

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it, because there's costs all along the way in that integrated business model.

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But if you can have the lowest cost to extract it, you

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literally just, you're untouchable, right? So

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low cost producers in a commodity driven business, win

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every single cycle, right? And oil is a commodity, right?

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Oil, it is, it's a commodity. A barrel's a barrel. Like a barrel of

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oil now is about 60 US dollars. And so it

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will fluctuate. It can go up to a hundred, which it was. It can go, I mean, back

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in 2020 after COVID, it actually went to negative. In fact, they were paying

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you money to store oil as well. They've given it away. That's the

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first time I think in recorded history that's happened like that. But with

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commodity driven businesses, the lowest cost producer always wins. So Chevron's

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strength, is extremely low breakeven

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costs. Massive cash flow, even at the lowest oil prices.

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So as all the juniors are starting to go bankrupt, which

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they pretty well do, they pretty much go broke at like $50 to

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$40 a barrel, which is kind of where it's oscillating at the minute. So a lot of them are struggling. They're not

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even drilling right now. So a lot of the demand for oil is growing. It

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is. The world needs more oil, especially with the AI boom. It's like this

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thirst for oil like never seen before. But because the price

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of oil at a barrel is low, no one's drilling, which means the supply

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of oil is dwindling. And if you understand what that means, if

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supply is low and demand is high, we're going to see a massive oil

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boom. Warren Buffett says that when oil goes back

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and booms, it goes to the next cycle, which he knows it will. That's why he's positioned there. He said it's

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not going to go back to $100. He anticipates it's going to

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go beyond $200 a barrel. There you go.

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The ability for Chevron to operate, not only in Venezuela, but

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in general, at a cost that's way below everyone

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else of its competitors, it's going to survive. And it may even start buying up

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the juniors that go broke. That's what's effective about that company. So

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what happens? What does this mean when Venezuelan supply increases, right? Well,

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firstly, Chevron survives this price pressure that's happening. And

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that will happen if there's more supply come online, right? High cost

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competitors don't survive, it wins market share, it consolidates. And

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that's what makes it an incredible company. But here's the

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hidden cash flow that nobody really understands and

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talks about. Chevron already generates massive amounts of

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free cash flow. In fact, they just did an investor day where Mike Worth,

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who's the CEO of Chevron, incredible leader, they literally, and

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you can find this on YouTube as well. It's like sending someone to another channel. If

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you watch it, they talk about in the next five years, it's going to create substantial amounts

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of free cash flow, give it back in dividends and share buybacks all to

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the shareholders, because they don't have to use all this money to

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drill new wells and explore. That's already

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been done. All the cash flow has been spent. Now they just get to print money. And

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if the price of oil doubles from here, they're going to print so much free

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cash flow. It's going to be crazy. So as Venezuela then

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reopens, it adds incremental production with that massive new R&D

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spend for them, because they're already there. The existing infrastructure is pretty much on

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the ground. It's going to reactivate it. And the cash flow growth, as

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I said, will happen without balance sheet stress of having to spend any more money.

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That's the holy grail. That's more cash without more

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risk. and why this again benefits shareholders directly,

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guess what? Chevron is so good at distributing

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wealth to its shareholders. It doesn't waste cash. It's very capitally

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disciplined. Is that a word, capitally disciplined? The capital priorities

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are, and they've outlined this in the last presentation

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to show, only like probably a month and a half ago. They'll grow the dividend. It's

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already high. It's already almost 5%. In fact, the dividend is probably 4.5% right

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now as I record this. That's

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very high, four and a half, it's what you can get at the bank, right? And

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they're going to grow it. And they've grown that dividend for something like, I

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think it's off the top of my head, it's like 35 years they've had dividend growth,

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consecutive yearly dividend growth. Wild, right? That's

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something like a CAGR of like five or 6%, so more than the rate of inflation. So

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it's going to get progressively better and better and better. They maintain a fortress

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balance sheet, so they manage their debt really well. Of course, when they got free cash flow,

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they'll buy back shares. So it eliminates the shares that are already there and makes your shares even

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more valuable. And it acquires very high quality assets

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at a very low cost. So, I mean, it's set to just

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dominate, which is why Warren Buffett's got such a big position in the company, right? So,

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more cash from Venezuela, which will happen for them. Higher dividend safety,

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faster dividend growth, more buybacks and stronger long-term compounding

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from the underlying shares, right? And this

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is how oil wealth can turn into shareholder wealth

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for you, right, as an example. And I think a lot of people mistakenly think

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that if you're going to get into the oil business, you have to own the actual

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commodity itself. That's not how I've seen the

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major investors do it. That's not how I do it. If you ever want to be

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in the commodity game, it's about owning the company that mines, refines

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and sells. that particular commodity. That's how Warren Buffett plays the commodity,

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I shouldn't say plays the commodity market, but positions to make money

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from the commodity market. And that's what I'm talking about right now in this episode,

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right? So why is Chevron still at a reasonable price? Why is it

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still paying a 5% dividend? Why isn't it just exploiting, right? And what happens

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is the market lumps all the oil companies together. They're

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like, oh, it's just, they're all the same. And they're not, right? They also

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obsess over ESG headlines. That's for like environmental safety

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guidelines. Like it's the environmental impact. They're like, oh

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my god. One time, Exxon Valdez spilled oil. And it's not

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great. It sucks. I

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think you can go overboard with ESG, right? That's what happens. And so they underestimate

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how slow the energy transition actually moves. They

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miss how, they certainly miss how durable oil demand still

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is. In fact, it's going up from the AI boom, as I said, how critical heavy

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crude remains with all the bitumen, all the asphalt required and all the other

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things in feedstock it's needed for. So it's like heavy crude

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is the last oil that will ever not be needed. And I

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would anticipate that we'll need it for another 100 years at least. I just

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don't see it. It's not easily disrupted by

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renewables. This is not. how advantaged Chevron's

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position actually and truly is, because a lot of people don't even realize that they're the

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only oil major that's on the ground in Venezuela. And how policy shifts

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can be absolute asymmetric winners when you're investing. Okay, so this is

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all the due diligence that you have to understand when you're investing. This is why most people should

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just buy an index fund and call it a day, because this is what's required. It's

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so interesting to position yourself in a place where there's not much

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competition, right? So Chevron's not just another oil company, it's best in

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class. Yes. The risk everyone needs to acknowledge, though,

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is this. It's not risk-free, right? Some

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of the risks include this. The sanctions reversing,

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okay? Political instability inside Venezuela, like,

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you know, is it going to be secure for them to be on the ground? And again, the CEO of

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Exxon said potentially it's not. Execution delays, right? It's

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probably going to take four to five years to

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rebuild the infrastructure to a point where they can even extract the oil. So it's going to take time as

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well, yeah? Faster than expected global energy transition. I

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don't think that matters in this particular scenario. People are thinking about that like,

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oh, will oil be needed? I don't even think there's a risk, to be honest, especially

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with the heavy crew. I just don't think that's going to be replaced, right? So

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here's the key distinction. Chevron has the

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balance sheet. the scale and the diversification to

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absorb these risks better than almost anyone. All

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right, so here's the big picture takeaway from this episode. As

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Trump reopens Venezuela, that's his intention. Very obvious that's going

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to happen. Oil flow, particularly heavy crude, will increase. The

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US interests are prioritized. China's pushed away to the side. In

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fact, the U.S. has said China can still take Venezuelan oil, but they'll be

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buying it off us. What a deal. This is

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quite funny, too, because people don't realize. They're like, what? The U.S. dollar is not

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backed by anything. I'm like, really?

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Well, it just secured the largest oil reserves in the world in

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one day. So the US dollar is backed

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by the world's most powerful military that just takes what they want. So

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don't give me that it's not backed by anything, it's backed by that. How

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else can you create wealth so quickly, right? Imagine what happens

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if they take Greenland. They underestimate the

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U.S. dollar is backed by the U.S. military, right?

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Low-cost integrated majors win, and the one

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that's on the ground right now is Chevron. It sits at the intersection

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of the politics, so it's favored by Trump. It's

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energy security that the US needs. It's very much needed. The infrastructure is

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already there. The cash flow is going to increase already, even without Venezuela. And

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they're really good at giving it back to shareholders. So that's

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why Chevron stands to make more money than almost any other company from

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the Venezuelan reset. All right, so here's my final thought

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on this. The biggest fortunes, just so you know, aren't made by

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predicting headlines. They aren't. They're made by understanding

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a few things. What are the incentives? What's

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the structure? Who has the power? And where's the positioning?

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And if you look at all those things right now, Chevron's positioned exactly where

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the money flows as Venezuela reopens. And

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it even makes money even if it doesn't, right? So there's limited

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downside, massive upside. So if you want more deep dives like this,

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hit the subscribe button. Because most people you know,

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they're not gonna see opportunities like this unless they watch something like our

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channel So if you've enjoyed it hit the sub button share this with someone else and

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of course leave a comment in the comments below I'd love to know what do you

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think about Venezuela? Are you positioned to dominate the oil market? And

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00:22:01,578 --> 00:22:05,839
most importantly I'm excited for it, too. I just shared on my stories yesterday in our on

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Instagram, our positions in oil. And so if you're interested in that,

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go follow me on Instagram as well. And I'd love to continue the conversation. Are

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you positioned in oil? What do you think is gonna happen? Leave us a comment. I'll come and

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00:22:15,825 --> 00:22:19,067
talk to you then, and I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks for listening to Money Grows on Trees.

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If you enjoyed the episode, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts and

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Spotify and subscribe to us on YouTube so you never

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miss an episode. And if you're serious about building wealth, make sure to

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check out the links in the show notes and follow me on all social media

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platforms, Lloyd James Ross for more. See