Helmholz Watson

Gold and Silver Bug, Professional Contrarian

[Helmholz Watson @HelmholzW]

@HedgehogTrader What a great question. Thanks for sharing.

[Helmholz Watson @HelmholzW]

@ThomasEWoods @em_Lazzy The floggings will continue until morale improves.

[Helmholz Watson @HelmholzW]

@Will_Tanner_1 Thank you for posting this. For the last decade of colonial rule, I highly, highly recommend this book this autobiographical book by someone who worked directly with the Congolese people. Fascinating, and eye-opening.

[Helmholz Watson @HelmholzW]

@Milajoy How much time elapses between buying a barrel of oil, converting it to gas, and then shipping it to the customer? I’d bet there’s a solid month lag between the oil price and the price at the pump.

[Helmholz Watson @HelmholzW]

@ChristianHeiens Peak leftist was a couple years ago… it’ll take a couple decades to get to peak right, which will probably be just as scary but for different reasons. The next 15 years ought to be awesome.

[Helmholz Watson @HelmholzW]

@Cernovich @Will_Tanner_1 The terrific @jchilders98 has an article on the Democrats’ structural problem. Worth a daily read and a larger audience.

[☕️ Coffee & Covid News 🇺🇸 @jchilders98]

☕️CLOWNS AND CIVIL WARS ☙ Wednesday, May 24, 2026 ☙ C&C NEWS🦠

Media claims that Mamdani's comrades stealing safe seats from establishment Dems is a progressive victory. It's actually the DNC's worst nightmare. All in today's roundup.

https://t.co/5V7XdZyyEd

[Helmholz Watson @HelmholzW]

@politicalmath Here’s a terrific graphic from the must-follow @jchilders98

[Helmholz Watson @HelmholzW]

Perfect opportunity to repost this excellent piece from @jchilders98 He also did an excellent piece on the Democrats’ ��polycrisis”. https://t.co/7ag3Rs6X0Y https://t.co/8Nv1FHjfSB

[PoIiMath @politicalmath]

My takeaway from this is that we are much closer to a civil war than I previously anticipated

[PoIiMath @politicalmath]

My takeaway from this is that we are much closer to a civil war than I previously anticipated

[Helmholz Watson @HelmholzW]

@nittylife Heat is amazing, but handicapped by unnecessary Pacino scenes with Portman, also the age gap with Deniro and his girlfriend is cringy.

[Helmholz Watson @HelmholzW]

@TFL1728 @jimiuorio The only thing worse than a cold shower is a cold plunge. Although not mentioned, avoiding snacking between meals, especially before bedtime, is most likely more effective than just about any diet/routine.

[Helmholz Watson @HelmholzW]

@realAmRen One of my favorites, @ThomasEWoods mentioned at the end. Taylor is a guest I’d love to hear on his show.

[Helmholz Watson @HelmholzW]

Regarding US as #1 oil exporter, months of high prices equals a tremendous profit margin and needed capital for exploration and maintenance, and positions US companies for many more years of energy dominance. Also, all countries will need to fill their reserves, so although prices should come down, they should remain elevated for many months. Once that is complete, prices should get back down to the $60 level and that’ll be the time to be long again.

[Helmholz Watson @HelmholzW]

@TFL1728 @ArcadiaEconomic Let’s say the opposite message was in the agreement: Iran complies with everything the US asks for, and gets nothing in return. The complaint then would be “Trump’s not letting them save face!!! Trump’s not letting them be a part of the world community!!!”

[Helmholz Watson @HelmholzW]

Trump did more in his first 100 days than any other president since FDR. Unfortunately he has had to accomplish so much through executive strength, but that I believe, is strategic. He is spotlighting how awful and impotent Republican congressmen are (especially the Senate), and how neutered the presidency has become (he intentionally pushed constitutional executive leadership that has been resolved in his favor through SCOTUS—perhaps Bondi’s greatest contribution). I suspect that his voting integrity initiatives will bear fruit beginning this mid term, giving him more aggressive Republican legislators. Finally, many have pointed out how dominant the boomer class was, but they are slowly aging out.

[Helmholz Watson @HelmholzW]

Regarding US as #1 exporter, several months of high prices means a tremendous amount of capital for exploration and maintenance, position US companies for many more years of energy dominance. Also, all countries will need to fill their reserves, so although prices should come down, they will remain elevated for many months. Once that is complete, prices should get back down to the $60 level.

[Helmholz Watson @HelmholzW]

@minenergybiz Where does one find this chart?

[Helmholz Watson @HelmholzW]

@paul_jkrause I’m reading the Grant biography by Ron Chernow.

[Helmholz Watson @HelmholzW]

Wow, that was a fascinating first-hand account of different cultures interacting with one another.

[John Ʌ Konrad V @johnkonrad]

This article has me nodding in full agreement. But there is a deeper problem with Indian and Pakistani immigration this only begins to touch on.

Strap in and let me explain in this long 🧵

When I worked on an oil rig in India, my most trusted bosun was a Sikh named Balbir Singh.

I can’t fully explain how critical he was to the operation. An operation that won us a world record and launched the Ambani family into the stratosphere of wealth.

It was an incredibly difficult assignment. We brought a vintage drillship into southeast India and drilled through monsoons, shipboard fires, and the 2004 Asian tsunami.

When we arrived, most of the crew were good ol’ boys from Mississippi and Louisiana. But the Indian government had set an aggressive schedule to replace us with Indians.

We had more problems than I can recount here. The most pressing involved three things: the caste system, honesty, and safety.

I was chief mate, the first officer, so the crew was my responsibility.

The caste system wasn’t a big deal for me, but it was for my southern crew. Most of these guys grew up in the segregated South. We had a small handful of racists, but the vast majority were fiercely anti-racist. Many had come up in a divided South and had zero tolerance for segregation.

My Indian officers were from the higher priest and warrior castes.

Here is what you have to understand about India: labor is extremely cheap. It is not unusual to hire five men to dig a hole with one shovel, supervised by a sixth man of higher class.
That might work on land. It does not work on an oil rig with a limited number of cots.

In American culture, officers are expected to get their hands dirty and pitch in.

So we would assign an officer to a job on deck, and 15 minutes later he had a gaggle of crew working for him. Crew who had abandoned jobs of their own to do it.

Safety was another problem. Life is cheap, so the crew often prioritized the task over their own survival. You would send a man on deck and he would walk out barefoot, straight under a suspended load.

Last was honesty. The answer to almost everything was yes.
“Did you check to make sure the safety pin is in place?”
“Yes sir.”

It often wasn’t.

We had crew from every Hindu caste and every region of the subcontinent. We also had a token number from other faiths: Christian, Sikh, Muslim, and Jain.

Balbir came in at the lowest level, ordinary seaman, with no experience. He quickly became my right-hand man and the go-to guy for any critical operation on the rig.

Let me say that again. He had zero knowledge or experience when he started. /1

[Helmholz Watson @HelmholzW]

@MattWalshBlog The next step for slop sequels should be to hire interesting directors to do take the slop films in interesting new directions.