Okay, so let's just start this episode by giving a traditional shout out to nobody. Actually, no, this time let's give a shout out to some people because last time on Instagram there was a lot of hate that I got for not giving shout out to anybody. So if you're a regular listener, I am feeling compelled to give you a shout out this time and this time only. So thanks for listening. Ra, what do you think? So you're not shitting on people this time. So I mean, we will not for funny intro. I mean, if you think about it, they have pretty sad and boring lives. And this is the only voice of reason and happiness in their life. So there you go. Now, this is what this is what people are waiting for for two weeks. You know, we didn't do it last week. So this is exactly what people were missing in their lives. Exactly. The voice of reason and happiness. And now you have it. And no matter how sad your life is, combustible brains is here now. So at least for the next combustible brains is here for your. Exactly. So at least for the next 30 to 45 minutes, you will feel some happiness and joy in your life, which I guess you're welcome. So we have to traditionally shit on our listeners a little bit. So anyway, people must be like, if this is little bit, how much will be a lot? So I think this is when we have the most drop offs from our listeners. I approximately 30 seconds in. If you look at the statistics, people are like, fuck this. I'm going to not listen to these idiots. And then they leave, which is unfortunate, but also. No, that's actually cool because because then the people who really, you know, listen to the shit, then they at least get some sense of like, you know, sanity later in the episode. True, true. Okay. So Ryan and I were discussing what to call this episode. And we called it blue bald. And for good reason, because we are talking about cobalt today, which is blue. If you're, if you're ever a painter, there is a color called cobalt blue. I really like that color. So anyway, so why are we talking about cobalt? Yeah. So the previous discussion that we had, like we had quite a lot of people come up to us regarding, you know, talking a bit more about cobalt and the EVs and all of that. And even we found it interesting that there is a lot more to dig in with this, this and China and, you know, Congo and all of that. So yeah, a lot to unpack there. Yeah. So what's going on is I think in our EV episode, we mentioned this, that cobalt is a super necessary material or a mineral that you need for building electric cars. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. also prevents the corrosion or rusting of the cathode. So it actually extends the battery life. And it's not a rare mineral, but there are specific deposits of cobalt in the world. And China is now controlling almost all of them. So to back up a little bit, Congo has, or the Democratic Republic of Congo, that's some ironic naming going on there. But the Democratic Republic of Congo has a lot of cobalt reserves. And they have a huge problem of child labor, slavery, abusive working conditions, etc. And it just happened to be that over the last 10 years, China just went in there through coercion, through making false promises, whatever, like completely colonial British East India style. They took it from that handbook itself, I guess. They looked at what... what the British did back then, how they conquered, you know, how they conquered all these territories, how unfair they were. And they're like, OK, this is what we need right now. That's exactly what they did. So they went in and, well, the story there is they promised Congo that they would build roads, ports, schools, hospitals, you know, all the promises of a nice developed country. And in return, Congo will provide them with cobalt. So it's such a brilliant move because through making these promises, China has acquired a complete, almost complete control of the cobalt reserves in the world, which is absolutely mind boggling. That is genuinely scary. Yeah. And that is scary because of how dominant the lithium batteries have started becoming in literally everything as we are moving towards clean energy and all of that. Right, exactly. And see, until date, so what was happening, right? Like you have cobalt in all these, all batteries have cobalt. So like your cell phone batteries, your laptop batteries, blah, blah, blah. Everything has cobalt. But the problem is with electric car batteries, these batteries are insanely huge compared to your phone battery or your laptop battery. So the usage of cobalt is going to go up significantly in the next few years. So especially when you like use an electric car example, an electric car has a brox, like 20 kg of cobalt per say 100 kilowatt hour battery. So approximately 10 pounds for the Americans. This is huge. So just imagine that essentially there is an indirect control of the Chinese government on your electric car, regardless of where it is built in the world. And I find that extremely scary. Exactly man. And electric cars are, you know, just the next thing, right? I think even more than that, even industries and things like that are starting to move towards clean energy and stuff. So it was okay when it was at cell phone gadget level battery sizes. But like you mentioned for EV, it became significantly more quantities and with industries and all also, you know, having all their equipment slowly and steadily moving towards electric, that's going to be even larger than what cars are going to need. And China controlling that is like they are like, essentially, so essentially this, you know, this felt like the whole oil thing that, you know, the Brits or the Americans used to do all these years ago, where if oil is found in some country or, you know, some area they used to go in and, you know, try to get that as a, you know, the resource to themselves or something like that. And this is exactly what China is doing now with batteries, which is the next oil. Yeah, exactly. In fact, the ship has already sailed for that. So just a few months ago, China completed, a transaction which allowed them to buy. Can you Google this for me, please? Like what the company's name is? I think it is called China, Molly building them or something like that. But this company now controls the complete. It has complete control of the largest Cobalt mines in Congo. So yep, it is child China Molly, but then I'm code out limited. Right? So largest tungsten, a lot of largest like five or so largest materials. They are. So I think that's the main reason why we're doing this podcast. We're going to talk about the financial advice and on the listener list. This is a good investment opportunity. We give great financial advice on this podcast. So I the Roblox was a good one from the matter. Financial advice is like a consequence of listening to our exactly. So invest in China, Molly, but in them support the evil Empire or don't, you know, that's up to you, but I'm not telling you how to live your life. So anyway, so back to point China, Molly, but in them essentially controls Congo's Cobalt and I was just looking up. What is the difference between say an American company controlling, you know, a Cobalt mine and what is the difference between a Chinese company and the differences aren't small. First of all, you know, just inherently, the Chinese government is a communist government. So they don't give a fuck about, you know, people's rights and all this stuff. This has been proven over and over again with their own population with minorities in China. Truly like this is not, you know, some woke minority rant that they actually abuse minorities in China. So there you can go look up videos of people traveling to literally detention camps and it's really fucked up. It's completely fucked up. So they do that. They are the country who don't give a shit. About their own citizens time and again. They have shown that that they don't really care about the humans even living in China. No, just want, you know, like whatever the government has set out to do like maybe conquer countries or link get better at AI or whatever. The that's what they give a shit about. They don't care about people. People are just like, you know, consequence like it's like exactly. Did you see by the way the Uyghur? I don't want to fuck this up, but there is a Uyghur. What do you what is it called that we good? So yeah, I think we go or we go or something like that. We both must be really screwing up the pronunciation there. But yeah, the Muslim minority right and in China. Yeah, and you do do you see there is a video of a guy. I'm sure he's dead. Now. I'm not even kidding. I think this was posted maybe two weeks ago, two three weeks ago and they they not they the guy travels by car to this region in China where they have literally detention camps prison centers. They call them re-education facilities. I think and they have something like that. They try to make it sound like it's you know, just they are just giving it free education or something like that. But it essentially is like detention camps or you know, those Nazi things exactly that this is exactly what I was going to say. It is actually a Nazi thing. So it reminded me of Nazi detention camps and all these centers. So it's I mean, it's so fucked up and the point here is like well, they they're doing this to essentially. They're own citizens. So just imagine them being in Congo. They are not going to give a fuck about what is happening to the people of not at all man. Not at all. I guess for years people no one gave a shit about Africa, right? I mean India Africa, you know all these countries people like back then it was like the Britishers or the Americans used to do that in Africa or Middle East and all now China is doing it and to some degree even in India, but at least you know as a nation India is better off than African nations. No, I mean that is not even close. But there is a huge that is not even a fair comparison. But I mean if you look at Congo, they don't even have roads. Have you seen videos of people in Congo? It's really sad. Yeah, it's like the typical cliche African video that you know, we usually see on news and stuff. It literally is like that in so many places, right? I guess right exactly. So the point here was like China's is going to abuse these places and there. There are reports from on-ground, you know reporters. Of course, there might be some bias involved here. So this wasn't like Western media reporting, but of course there have been abuses since the Chinese have taken over essentially. They got rid of safety, right? So first of all safety was non-existent in Congo's mines, but they really just got rid of it. And so basically now you can show up in shorts to like mind this toxic mineral without any masks and you just start digging essentially. That's what they want. When life is non-issue for China is like few people die every every day. That's okay. As in as long as the efficiency of mining is good enough. They are good enough like good good for it. Exactly. They don't give a fuck. So there is a lot of abuses happening these days and for anybody listening, you should go to YouTube and actually see movies and videos about cobalt mining in in Congo and you should see how people do this because in this voice only podcast, it's not it's not easy to convey what the serious problem. This is they are really like very poor people for literally dirt, you know, you know, nothing but basically like scraps they start digging day in day out and then they fill them in these sacks in completely unsafe conditions. Mind you this is toxic. So they get cobalt is toxic. So they get all kinds of in what we in what way is it toxic like it's not an idea. It's well, it causes. Tumors like all these things. It's fucked up. So if you're not supposed to handle cobalt in a you can't eat it for example, so or you can't breathe it and since they have no n95 masks and stuff, they do breathe it and you can see all these miners. They are not miners as in miners in a mi any RS they have they literally have issues. Some of them have like large tumors like it, you know, it affects the body. I'm not a medical expert. I'm man. Yeah, and they keep digging for scraps. And what happens is they, you know, essentially go to some mine that they don't even own. This is the other thing we'll touch upon that. Put you know, the ore into huge sacks take them to Chinese traders and then the Chinese traders pay them some money for it. I felt really sad after watching these videos. It was quite quite eye-opening. Do you realize how sad the overall situation is for Congo like I think due to lack of education, of the people there and as well as I bet a lot of corruption in you know, the leadership whoever is there and all of that and also China trying to be, you know, telling them fake promises and all I was just thinking that day like when we were speaking, you know previously on this that the promises of building schools and roads and you know, all of that if Congo would have just understood the gold mine that they are sitting on and would have sold. This you know cobalt to the countries whoever wanted it first like firsthand, then they could have literally gotten dollars back for it and that would have helped them hire better talent to build roads and stuff like that instead of having it like a deal with China to you know, exchange and and I bet you that the reality is that all those promises must have just you know, like done been done like only 20% or something. So yeah at the end of it the chat like like they must not be having roads and schools. Yeah. Yeah. All of that. they're definitely and whoever and was it the king I guess of Congo who did this or maybe the prime minister if it's you know, quote-unquote Democratic. Well, so they don't have a king per se but they have a dictator. So they have a guy that just runs the country. So then the guy what was he like thinking right when he did the deals with China like why I mean you could have literally sold it gotten way more money out of it at his, you know personal level also if he wanted money. He wanted to. To do corruption. He would have gotten way more money if he would have sold it himself and he would have done at least some benefit to his people. Right? Yeah. So there is a failure of the American system here and I just want to I just read the story. It's true. So it's factual. So when this deal happened the guy was only 33 years old, right? So a year older than I am which is which is I mean, you're a young adult, but I mean you're you know, like you're a grown man but being in charge of the entire country. Maybe you don't have the experience for it and he was some sort of dictator, you know, like some that kind of guy. So the dictator died or something right and that's why he came into power or something like that. Yeah, I think he got assassinated, but I'm not sure but something like that before he died and then his son came into power and then what happened is he went to China and he's he said, you know, like these are the demands that I have for you know, blah blah blah building like you build all these hospitals roads, Etc, Etc. And the Americans at the same time like imagine right you have the same opportunity. I think the I forget there was a woman I forget her name. Maybe you can Google it on the side. We need we need a intern to Google stuff on the side for this podcast. Don't you think the intern needs to Google shit for us and send signal messages when we are talking? No, really? I need this because we are hiring. We're not paying but we're hiring so so we need this intern first of all, but, the Americans just Google her name. I don't remember her name, but she was the ambassador or whatever for Congo and she goes in there and she presents this guy, you know what she presented him the dictator Harley Davidson motorcycle because he likes motorcycles and there was some small talk between them the Americans and the dictator and that was the end of the meeting. Whereas the Chinese meeting went into basically like a PowerPoint presentation. They're like boom in this area. We're going to build five, you know, hundred miles of roads like boom. 500 hospitals boom 500 schools all this stuff. So as a immature dictator, right? What do you think is going to be cool? You know, okay, there is this Harley Davidson motorcycle that the Americans are giving me on the other hand. I have millions possibly billions of dollars for myself as a dictator, you know, maybe some Western passport that he can buy, you know, move to Europe or something and in addition to that he in his naive mind thought of course that you know, China is going to give him all this stuff. And the country all this stuff. So the country is going to be better for it. Even if he had good intentions, he got fooled the oldest trick in the book, you know? Yeah, I think he might generally be having good intentions for his people, you know, can't can't say that he didn't but I mean, how can he be so naive man? It's China. I mean, come on. It is a communist country. It has been shown time and again since you know, like history like if you just see any history, you should not rely on people like that. As in governments like that. You just shouldn't not that the American government is like, you know is going to be the best or anything. Yeah, they'll of course have their own selfish interests, but at least it's going to be way better than you know, a communist government. Yeah, like see the thing is he did not have a choice. You know, that's the point I'm trying to make like it was hardly versus. Yep. Yeah, so but no the so the original point that I was trying to make I think is he shouldn't have chosen either of them, right? Neither the Americans, nor the Chinese. He should have just used like whatever resources he had in his own country. They tried to sell it off first then start getting money from it. Then, you know, higher talent, you know the way any say any say small startup would grow right? If if if you don't have resources you start shipping, you know smaller products you get profits from that then you hire better talent than you, you know, build larger and larger products. So the time mean it's easy for us to say, you know, after the events have happened and we weren't in his place and all of that, but still I mean that is what anyone should have had that right? I mean the other thing is look at what the Saudis did right? He would have looked at the Saudi example, which was basically a shithole village when they found oil and after you know, they hire talent from all over the world. They did collaborations all also. There's a lot of abuse there. So there is there is no free cake, but it is I mean Congo and say, Dubai look completely like two different worlds today. So they could have followed the Saudi model. Indeed man, and I think for the Saudi model, they did do what I was saying, right? I think they they hired talent and they did they didn't ask Americans or Chinese to build them build them everything for like for exchange with directly with oil like that, right? I'm assuming no, no, there is a lot of exchange with the Americans and it's not just that there is also like military. Cooperation. So like the Americans have bases there and so on. So it's it's different, you know, Americans obviously have bases everywhere. So right but not in India. So not everywhere. So no, I really want to stress on that point because this is where I really respect India for keeping separate from either Eastern or Western interests. They do their own thing. So that's something to be proud of even if you don't get the best of the best technology, you are independent, you know that there is a lot of value in that. So anyway, so back to this Congo point, you're right. I mean the dictator could have chosen some other model, but see greed at the end of the day gets gets everybody. Imagine that as a 33 year old, you know, somebody tells you that I'm going to give you a billion dollars in a year and your country will be better. Even if your country fucks up, which is exactly what happened here because the Chinese are approximately 20 minutes from parking, you know, warships and like a military and having a military presence there. They're probably already. It is and you know, controlling that country that is exactly what is happening. But the dictator got rich, you know, he got very rich. He has made a lot of good instantly rich like he would have gotten richer if he could have done his own thing, but it would have taken time and effort. Whereas here he just sat in his you know mansion and he just got money, right? I think no really that do that. That's exactly what has happened. And this is a theme that you see in all these countries where you know, there are no no good governments. Dictatorships try to overthrow each other. There are assassinations. So he must be looking for, you know, a quick in and out. He's not interested in sitting there for 35 years and then seeing a great Congo rise on all that. No, he wants his billion dollars, whatever his money is and then he wants to get out. So this is exactly what he did. He followed the African dictator model and as a consequence now China controls a lot of the cobalt supply of the world. Don't just think about it like, you know, just right now while we were talking. I just got that thought where we always say right that Africa as a whole is kind of dealt dealt with really bad weather heat not epic resources, you know, all of that. So a lot of poverty this day. What are you talking about? They have some of the most conventionally. No, no, that's what I'm saying. Like they have natural resources. Why is Africa is the richest place on Earth? So it wasn't. They were discovered all these years, right? So that's why all of them were extremely poor, right? Is what I'm saying. They were discovered. They were just abused. So that's the problem with Africa. So it was just a piece not but it's not as great as like the cobalt like mines, whatever they have found. I think that is extremely in need and not there in any other place like very lesson across the world right is what I'm trying to get at. Okay. So the point I was trying to make is that if they were enough educated, if they were enough, you know, they had good leadership. They could have been literally, you know, one of the best countries in the world like the region. They are in currently like the all those African countries would have been rich developed countries if they had like vision, you know, and this is something which I appreciate about the West. I always think like West. Yeah, they might be, you know, especially back in the day Brits and all of that even Americans ethically questionable things. They might have. I've done but one thing that they always had is I think vision of you know, what they want to do where they want to go both technologically power all that and that is I think what many of you know East lacked for all these years. Now, of course India China are doing good recently. So that's good. Yeah, conventionally. No, I mean that is exactly right. And I think this is a route of complaints for a lot of the the woke population these days that claim that the white man is, you know, essentially fuck the world over many times, whatever. We are not going to get into that. But the the Chinese government is doing exactly that now and in some regard you can't blame them. It's you know, it's a power struggle either you win or you lose, but the way they do it is is really bad. So I don't blame anybody for trying to make progress or making money or making the country better, but doing it at the expense of other countries or doing it at the expense of your own people in my opinion is ethically wrong. Of course, ethically. Yeah, it was ethically wrong. Even when you know, the Americans or the bridge did it and it's ethically wrong. Even when the Chinese are doing it, you know, it's not your country. You should have no business there basically of like treating those people badly. Yeah, but I think if China yeah, if China was democratic and you know, they had better ethics. I don't think the world or us we would have been that annoyed with it, you know, because if they just because they are getting more powerful wouldn't itself be, you know, something which everyone in the world. Would have been alerted with but the fact that they are a dictatorship, it's a closed box inside. They are not, you know, treating humans. Well, I think that's where the whole issue with China and all of this comes. Yep, and they are combining technology with abuse right, which is the most fucked up thing. So with these Muslim minorities in China, they are using some of the most advanced camera and vision systems combining them with like sophisticated AI systems to detect Mark and track people all this stuff. So they have their uniquely essentially. Yeah, exactly when they're essentially like the dystopian future that is always shown in the movies, right there. They're literally doing that right now. Yep, and shout out to our own episode brave new world. Go ahead and listen to that. Give us a spike in views. I don't want yeah, that's a good does good placement, right? I think that's a good shameless plug. That's a good shameless. It's our podcast. Damn it. Yeah. No, I it is. I'm pretty shameless. I'm pretty shameless about our podcast. So go listen to it and give us your money by our merch. Okay, moving on. So don't start with the merch thing. Speaking of which I think we need to hire some local locals in India to create some cheap merch, you know, yeah, man ship it across the world. Yeah, free shipping as long as you pay us for it. So it's we will come up with some merch now. You're a talented graphic designer, right? Why don't you make some? Why don't you make some t-shirts or something for this podcast? Yeah, that's the next project. I'll take up. Okay, cool. So rah has promised us shirts and free shipping when you pay us for it. So that's we promise those things. So but anyway back to back to what we're talking about. It is uniquely abusive. Because they're combining technology right with their abusive mentality. So I think this is a huge red flag and something that the world should consider seriously, especially when looking at issues like cobalt and when I say the world should consider seriously, what does that mean? Okay, so when you're buying your next electric car, you know, maybe take 10 seconds out and check what kind of battery it has. So if it has some abusive cobalt battery and this is my bad like the Tesla that I have has does use cobalt. And currently there are not too many alternatives for you as a consumer. Unfortunately, you should throw your Tesla. Let's do it. I'm throwing it in the river. Burn it bro. Burn it. Burn it. Actually, if it doesn't have cobalt will burn anyway. So I just need a cobalt free battery. So then you can just drive it and said set itself on fire. But the thing is there are alternatives in the world. Ironically Tesla in China has started using a high-end battery. I nickel cathode which does not use cobalt anymore. So I thought that was 0% cobalt 0% cobalt. Yeah, completely. And they have slightly lower lifetime on this on this battery as we know they have slightly lower range and I think there's some something else but overall it's why are they using that in China weather as ironical as it is? Why so Tesla wants to shift their entire? Battery technology to be cobalt free exactly for the reasons that we talked about. So in the last few years, they have done a lot of research to use high nickel cathodes in their cobalt free batteries. So this battery is called a lithium phosphates LFP. So lithium ion phosphate battery, so it does not use any cobalt and they can offer this also at a lower price because what happens is the moment you're dependent on cobalt because of these abusive conditions and a singular point of control. You have to pay. Good money for it as opposed to an LF or LPF. Can you Google it? Please? I'm away from it. LFP right? Lm ferro phosphate. Yeah, you're right LFP or whatever the battery is. The the cobalt free battery is much cheaper to buy or cheaper to produce. So it's also advantages for Tesla to produce cheaper batteries and then as a consequence are also cobalt free. So that's fucking awesome in my opinion. That's cool, man. There was one more technology, which was in one more type that I read and I was like, how is that even possible? It's what lithium air Li air battery. Okay, what's that? So basically the cathode is air. Oh what? Okay, no idea how that is supposed to work. But yeah, the cathode is essentially air. Okay, and the lithium is anode basically. So lithium metal is anode and cathode is air. Wow, that'll be amazing. So I think there will be. A shift to cobalt free batteries and I hope that's the case is very hard to do. It's not easy, but given the innovation, you know of you know humans entire industry. Yeah as a whole. Yeah, so I can't wait for a time when we are not dependent on China for something like electric cars for I don't know why but for some reason these things bother me a little bit. I think electric cars hits home for you. I think so. I think so every time you. Every time you drive your Tesla, you're like China every time you know every time you drive it you hear this voice in your head that says you you're a call me call me. Nobody that's exactly what I was going to say every time you like put like put down like, you know, like accelerate. It's like you call me that would be pretty funny if they make that sound available in the Tesla app so that you switch to cobalt free Tesla's. But yeah, I can do that bro. You don't can do that if he can put like fart cushions on like, you know chairs like that effect is there right? I heard it there. Yep. So he can do this. Yeah, and you would be surprised how many people have quote-unquote impressed with this feature, especially women. They love this stuff. This they sit in your car and you can map it to the horn button or some button. So when you just hit the horn, they fart. So it's pretty funny. Oh man, Tesla is farting. Tesla is for kids. Basically. Yeah, no, just, you know, adults who haven't grown up basically. Exactly. It's very funny and it also works in stereo, which is awesome. You can fart all around the car. So anyway, so do we have anything to add on this cobalt or should we just call it? Yep. So in short don't buy like check the the sources of your battery basically check the sources of a battery and encourage your your friends and yourself to also look at how stuff is mind, you know, there is some there is something about the human brain that when you see something, you know, even if it's on YouTube, then it impacts you more than listening about it or reading about it. So go to you and we should put those videos on the you know, the show notes section. So we'll try to if we find anything we will definitely link that up. Please do check that out. Yeah, we'll link all that out and cool. So that's it anything else? So the merch the merch so do you know anybody doesn't exist? It doesn't exist, but maybe we should at least make shirts for you and me. Why not? Which which no one will see but at least we'll feel awesome while you know, recording the podcast. No, no, we'll create we'll put it on our Instagram. So everybody will see I'll put at least 3 30 to 35 people will see so whoever however many people view my Instagram. I thought I thought three people will see. Oh, no, we've gone a bro. I think we are doing good these days. It's damn our stats are up. We have the metrics are looking better. We are into the big double digits now. So dope metrics are looking good. Cool. All right, we are going to call it. That's the end of the episode. Thanks for listening. Until next time. Bye. Bye. Bye.