#85. Fear of Death, 2024 Election, Drug War in Mexico

In this conversation, the hosts discuss various topics including sales techniques, authenticity in the workplace, insurance scams, forgiveness, fear of death, and the recent assassination attempt on Donald Trump. They also touch on the importance of family and the need for unity in society. The conversation raises questions about the competence of the Secret Service and the possibility of the assassination attempt being staged. In this conversation, the hosts discuss various topics including the possibility of the Capitol attack being staged, the drug war in Mexico, Joe Biden dropping out of the presidential race, and China and Belarus joining forces in a military drill near the Polish border. They also touch on the potential for a global conflict and the strategic actions of China in international affairs.

Takeaways

• Authenticity is important in sales and other professions
• Insurance scams are a concern and it's important to educate people about coverages
• Forgiveness and letting go of bitterness is essential for personal growth
• Fear of death is a common but complex emotion that can be overcome
• Family bonds should be cherished and efforts should be made to strengthen them
• Unity and acceptance of immigrants is vital for a diverse and thriving society
• The recent assassination attempt on Donald Trump raises questions about the competence of the Secret Service The hosts question whether the Capitol attack was staged or a genuine premeditated effort.
• They discuss the drug war in Mexico and the challenges faced by the country in combating cartels.
• The hosts express their concerns about Joe Biden dropping out of the presidential race and the potential implications of Kamala Harris as a candidate.
• They highlight the military drill between China and Belarus near the Polish border, emphasizing China's ambition for power projection and its strategic actions in international affairs.
• The conversation touches on the possibility of a global conflict and the need for greater awareness and understanding of international events.

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Transcript

George Angel Ramirez (00:00.31)
Welcome everyone to a light in the world. am your host, George Angel Ramirez. And I'm your cohost, Mario Francisco Bustamante. All right. Now we're live. Finally. Here we are. Here we are. Man, we're getting close to the hundredth episode now. It's crazy to think, you know, how much progress has happened. And I'm really excited about that episode. Should be special. And thanks for, you know, hanging in there, man. I really, really appreciate it. You know, as I'm learning more with just learning how to do more.

video and you know, just a bunch of different stuff with the podcast. Yeah. You're super patient, dude. And I, like I said, I appreciate it till this day. And again, I'm going to say this a hundred times, but thanks for having me. It's a privilege. It's exciting. And I really love to be able to share some advice with the world. Yeah. I know we were talking a little bit about your work and how everything is going well with that and how like your sales are going up. And, do you want to talk about that a little bit? Sure. Yeah. It's been a journey. So, you

compared to a call center where a lot of calls come in this time, I kind of have to go out of my way to kind of meet my own numbers and kind of meet new people. And I think, you know, coming from somebody who had that trouble early on at first, you know, I was kind of nervous when I was making those calls. I was like, how do I introduce myself to somebody? How would I like to be introduced to if somebody called me and was like, Hey, I'm with so and so insurance. Are you interested? And so with kind

I'd say I took about a week to practice my script. And of course I don't try to make a script, but I try to go with some guidelines, you know, and what I've realized is the way that you need to go about it is just be direct. You know, for example, if I'm calling David, I'm going to say, Hey David, this is Mario with Allstate instead of is this David? Now you find those kinds of gimmicks along the way

What I've realized is that, yeah, it's a process, but I've been getting a lot better with it. I've been kind of more natural with it. And I, whenever I, you know, call somebody, I make sure to be excited, you know, because at the end of the day, it is exciting to be able to offer them coverages that protect their assets. And I want to make sure that they are coming out with the best insurance, not just for the money, but for them personally. And I think that's the most important thing, not just any job. You look at where people,

George Angel Ramirez (02:18.732)
try to sell you like I used to be a car salesman and I absolutely hated it. love cars. That's actually why I went into that industry. But you essentially have to lie to people to make you comfortable. And I saw it. I saw it. I saw it with my coworkers. I saw how there was a lot of

you know, just people being scumbags, unfortunately. And you know, that kind of goes into a lot of things with sales, with real estate, with car sales, with just any type of, really any type of job. You know, and that was one thing I eventually, I had to quit because I was like, I can't keep lying to people. One of the really good excuses, or not excuses, things I like to say is, I was working for Lexus and the dealership was beautiful. You had to dress up in a suit. So that was nice. But there was times where, and I worked in Santa Monica.

So it was right by the beach obviously a lot of people with money and one of the things that you know they would say is basically essentially lie to the customer is what we were told a lot of the times and I Couldn't I really couldn't because that's not who I am as a person and you would get some people that would come in and really they don't know anything about cars or you would get people that come into cars and they're like hey What about how does this car compared to for a good example like the RCF? It's really good cars. It's a sports car

Beautiful car extremely reliable, but you know people at that price point. They don't care about money You know you have all the money to throw away so at end of the day I remember this one customer came in he was like hey look I'm looking at an m3 compared to the new RCF And I told them you know I started asking him a bunch of questions You know what are you looking for in a car this and that and they're like you know I want a manual transmission. I was like well Lexus doesn't offer a manual transmission and It's a it's a lot more

reliable, the horsepower isn't the same, but you know, and they're like, I really want a fast car in a manual transmission. I'm like, look, at the end of the day, you're better off going with that BMW. Yeah. Because it, what you're asking for is in that car. It's not in the Lexus, unfortunately, the Lexus is a tremendous car, but it's not, it's not what you're asking. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Lexus is the Toyota premium brand. so

George Angel Ramirez (04:33.388)
I don't know much about cars, so I'm not going to really delve into the topic, but you know, I think you're right with a lot of dealerships. You know, they're trying to just get the sale and you know, they're going to tell you, this is going to be the best car for you. You know, no matter, even if it's not again, they just want to sell the car. Exactly. They're like your best friend for a little bit. And then once you sign everything, that's it. You're on your own, you know, and it's, and it sucks because I found out when you're authentically yourself and no matter what job you take it.

there's gonna be moments where you may not make as much money as other people, but at the end of the day, you have that. You can say, hey, I didn't lie to this person. This person wants, they get what they want, and I'm a lot more happy. Yeah, they make as much money as other people, but it wasn't about the money. I think that's a lot of the times, a lot of these jobs, they push and push and be like, hey, you have to make the sale, you have to do this, you have to do that, whatever it is to get those numbers up.

It's not a good environment to be in. I left. That was one of the first jobs I've ever walked out just because I was like, I can't do this. This is not who I am as a person. That's understandable. I make a point in insurance to always educate people. A lot of people unfortunately don't know about coverages. The only thing they know are two words, liability and full coverage. But they don't know what that means. And I asked them, what do you mean by full coverage? Because full coverage is different for every person.

And they go, whatever the dealership wants. And I go, no, it's what you need. You know, what deductibles are you comfortable paying out of pocket if something were to happen to you? Would you be comfortable paying $2 ,000 out of pocket if something happened to you? Or would you be comfortable paying $500?

You know, I make it a point to educate them so they understand that if something happens, they're not going to be guessing what we cover and what we don't cover. They'll know for sure. All right. I have roadside assistance. I have rental. I have this, you know, at $500. So I only need to pay $500 out of pocket. They take care of the rest of it. You know, liability. If they were to get an accident, if I get sued, I know I'm going to be covered up to $500 ,000. You know, I make it a point that they know that no matter what

George Angel Ramirez (06:48.464)
happens. We have their back and make sure that their assets are covered because I tell them you don't have to be a millionaire to be sued like one. And I don't want you to be in that situation where you got the minimum of the minimum because you wanted to save a little bit of dollars here and now you have to pay tons of tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

One of the things I've noticed too is there's a lot of insurance scams going on. I'm sure it happened back. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of insurance scams going on with cars, especially. Right. for some reason I like my, my Instagram, I just keep seeing this car is getting stolen and people just abusing them. Like, how are you abusing this, you know, a hundred thousand dollar car. And a lot of people like, it's probably stolen. And I'm like, man, that sucks. Imagine like having to go through all of that or get your car stolen and all that. just, I'm sure it's a pain in the ass. It definitely has to be.

I can only imagine for that situation. I don't know much about what's going on on that side of things, but I'm imagining it'd be painful. It's just kind of crazy where we're at right now.

what people are doing for money. You know, it's funny enough. this morning I was just kind of talk a little bit about it. someone was trying to extort me this morning. Huh? Yeah. It was interesting how all that happened. So I wake up in the morning and this person was trying to, basically they, do I describe it? They, get a, I get a text message in the morning and they have a picture of me and my dog, two pictures of me and my dog. And then they have a dick pic and obviously

it's not mine, but they're like, if you don't send us money, or if you don't cooperate with us, we're going to send this all to your followers.

George Angel Ramirez (08:26.082)
What the hell is going on? So then, so yeah, it was interesting, like to see all of that happening. And I just ignored them at the end of the day, but I put them on Instagram. So I'm like, Hey, if you get a weird message, you know, obviously that is not me, but it's, really is crazy what people are doing to earn money. Nowadays. It's ridiculous. You know, I've seen a lot of where they now make AI generated porn and it's just ridiculous that that's something that they do. And

put people they jeopardize people's lives because again You know if something like that goes on and it's unexplained People are gonna get the wrong impression and that's gonna destroy people's lives destroy people's reputation I think so too and obviously AI is not

as advanced as it's gonna be. But it's crazy to see the advancements and how fast that's going. I think one of the prime examples is like Joe Rogan. You hear a lot of these weird conversations. You're like, wait, this wasn't him. But it's starting to get to the point where it sounds exactly like him. Right. The whole AI generated voices and how they do voiceovers, especially on YouTube. You're kind of like, he wouldn't talk about a topic like this or he wouldn't talk

this kind of thing and you realize it's just an AI generated voice but it sounds very similar and it's kind of frightening with that direction we're going. It's gonna get sophisticated. It will. And I mean already is but it's gonna get to the point where it's like you're not gonna be able to tell the difference between some sort of reality you know and who knows exactly what's gonna be implemented at that point. You know. Yeah. It's just all a wondering pondering game at the end of the day.

Like I said, who knows exactly what's gonna happen with that.

George Angel Ramirez (10:12.03)
Exactly. We'll see what direction it goes, but I think it's going to advance further. It's going to get more sophisticated. Unfortunately, like anything, some people are going to use it for the betterment and others are going to use it for the detriment. Exactly. We're just going to have to see how that goes. Exactly. Yeah. I'm curious because I know there's a lot of positives to AI. know a lot of people are very scared about AI, but at the end of the day you use it as a tool. It's like money, right? A lot of people use it, don't use it the right way and they come out in certain, certain circumstances and you know, it's the same

with the internet, same thing with AI, same thing with a lot of things. These things are designed to make our lives a little bit better. They are. But like you said, there's going to be people there that are going to use it in a malicious way. Inevitably. But you know, we just got to do our part to make the world a better place. Exactly. And I think slowly but surely that's kind of what we're doing right now. And it's going to take time. And I know we talk about this a lot. It's going to, everything takes time. Everything takes time. Patience is vital. And you know, progress, no matter how slow is

Exactly. But other than that, man, what have you been up to? What's new in your life? Yeah, so mean, besides insurance and all the learning everything again, life has been good. I've been able to take more time to spend with my siblings, kind of listen to what's going on in their schools, because it's a very different world than when I grew up in.

You know, when I grew up in the internet was barely really getting there. You know, I didn't have a smartphone. I, know, had a flip phone for a little while and then got a smartphone and, know, getting to hear their perspective on what they're going through their journey. It's been eyeopening and you know, there's some things that I'm excited about and other things I'm kind of worried about like anything, but yeah, I've, I've been taking the time to kind of make up for the lost time that I've had with my siblings. And I've gotten with my brother to go try, you know, different restaurants or

Get him a new pc part for his pc that he's putting together, you know trying to really embrace family and Strengthen that bond because I feel like through work. Unfortunately Part of that was lost Yeah that that that you basically summed up me the same thing. I was going through as well too where Obviously, I just came back from a vacation which when it was great The time went by way too quick. Mm It felt like I got to guatemala next thing, know, I was

George Angel Ramirez (12:31.46)
Yeah, and I was a little sad man just because I noticed how There wasn't that much

George Angel Ramirez (12:42.306)
I didn't get to spend a lot of time with my family. And that's one thing where, is it a regret of mine? You know, of course I was able to start my life and do a lot of things that I wanted to explore the United States. You know, there's a life outside of New Jersey.

But part of me as well too is I'm like dang, especially going to that trip where I'm like my grandparents are getting old, my mother's getting old, my siblings are growing up way too quick. Like my brother is gonna move back to New Jersey. being able to bond with them in those short five days, I was like I kinda miss this. Am I gonna move back home? I don't know. I don't know, but I miss being around my family. but then you know what, part of it as well too, I'm like.

There's a reason why I don't live with my family anymore. I look, I love my family to death. I really do. But there's all these little small little things like in fighting and just silly little things where I'm like, guys, we can do better. Yeah. You know, and that's one thing where I hope to pass on to, know, whenever I have kids, whereas like, hey, we have to all these little silly fights that we have, whether big or small.

Let's get past them. Let's talk. Let's actually do something so the future generations of our family doesn't have to go through these same exact things. Because I look at it too and I'm like, this is just either pettiness or it's

silly little things where I'm like why yeah why it's not to fault anybody it's it's it's you know everybody's fault in a way but it's just that's how a lot of people are that's how a lot of families are especially here in the US where you know you may not talk to your uncle because of something of you know something he did you know in the past or

George Angel Ramirez (14:36.768)
a father or grandfather, whatever it may be a cousin. And I'm just like, come on, we, have to do better. We definitely have to. We do. I think you hit it on the dot. You know, I think a lot of us put our egos, prides ahead of us and sometimes become blind to the fact that we should be working together. No matter what the situation was, resentment never helps anybody. And one thing I've always learned is I like to talk things out. like to have a conversation. And if the other person isn't willing to have a conversation,

whether it be family or a friend, then that's on them. did my part, you know, and I always make it a point that no matter what our argument was about or something that, you know, when it came up, that I try my best to tell them, Hey,

I'm not going to reject you if you come over to me and want to have a conversation. I know a lot of people fear rejection. That's one of the biggest reasons people are very standoffish with each other when they have a situation, you know, one person's like this, the other person's like this. And, know, it takes one person kind of inching forward and being like, Hey, I'm open to having a conversation with you. You know, I'm open to working our differences out and shaking hands at the end of the day and letting you know, I love you. And, you know, we're family at the end of the day. But of course I've had situations like that.

where me and another family member had a disagreement and it's taken years for us to finally sit down and be like, so why are we doing this? Exactly. And a lot of times too, when you go back, sometimes you don't even remember just because there was a lot of hearsay, you know, he said this, she said that. And one of the things I've noticed is it's sometimes it's just silliness. You know, really is. Under, you know, under someone's part.

And it ruins a lot of families, not just families, but it can also be with friendships as well too. Definitely. And you know, sometimes it is for the better to kind of live separate lives at that point. Yes. I'm not trying to say that in every situation it has to be fixed because inevitably there are things that you just have to move on from. But when it comes to family, especially close family,

George Angel Ramirez (16:39.01)
you got to do your best to kind of reconnect because there's things that shouldn't be separating y 'all and yet they are, but you got to work together. You got to kind of initiate. If it has to be you to initiate, so be it. Be at least you did your part. And even if they don't want to talk with you, that's on them. Yeah. You know, one of the things I always say as well too is I love

everyone in my family, whether the things that they did, whatever it is. one of the things that I've noticed with love is sometimes you do have to keep people at a distance. Sometimes that is love. You know, loving someone from a distance because sometimes, you know, sometimes you have to guard your heart. You really do. Because sometimes people try to take advantage of it. And it can become very scary, you know, and

experience so many situations where people, they come in with good intentions or it seems like they're coming in good intentions and all of sudden it switches. You know, it's like, me see what I can, what advantage can I take from this person? And I really, really do not like pretentious people. People that, you know, they come in giving you all the kindness in the world.

But deep down, all they want to see from you is what can they take, what can they abuse and get away with. And that again, I want to remind everybody is not a friendship.

You know, somebody who's a friend of yours won't be looking for ways to exploit you. They'll be looking ways to build you up. They'll be looking ways to really be a friend and for you both to grow in that friendship. It's not to be just a mono way of obtaining anything. It's for the benefit of both parties and make sure that, know, whatever friendship you go with.

George Angel Ramirez (18:33.068)
that it's an equal partnership where both of you are gaining something from it, that both of you are growing and that it betters both of your lives. Because when you grow, other people grow as well too. Exactly. And then it just becomes a ripple effect at the end of the day. I think that's very important for people to know because a lot of people are very scared to open up to other people with reason. course. Of course. know, and sometimes you do have

Just open up your heart just a little bit. Yeah. Because not everybody is trying to screw you over at the end of the day. Exactly. And there's some people that are very avoidant and fearful of others because they've been exploited so much in their lives. Even if you come up to them and want to help them, they might just be very avoidant like, no, go away, you know? And when they come to the realization that you really have the best intentions, you know, so I've had people apologize or like, I'm so sorry for treating you the way I did. I just didn't know if you were really trying to help me or if you were just trying

You know gain something from me. I'm like no I understand I understand because unfortunately there's a lot of people who have intentions to exploit and have intentions to you know be abusive but You know and I understand that and it's up to us to forgive for giving that I've learned for me It's easier now, but it used to be very hard just because You know I've been in so many situations. You know with friends or family where

you get screwed over. And you're like, I never thought this person would do that. And next thing you know, they do. And that's, that was a time in my life where I guarded my heart. And it wasn't, it wasn't a good point in my life, looking back at it now. But I've changed, you know, therapy has helped me a lot with that, because it's taught me how to love at a distance also taught

to not guard my heart as much as it should be, to open up my heart just a little bit because I know who I am as a person. I may not be perfect, but at the end of the day, no one is perfect. And we all deserve those second chances, sometimes third, fourth, fifth chance. But the thing is too, is are you learning from those mistakes? Are you learning?

George Angel Ramirez (20:47.342)
There was a time in my life where I'm not gonna name anybody, but I got fucked over more than enough. And it was a family member. And then it got to a point

you know, the family member wanted to reconnect and I was like, family members, not just one, but multiple. And they wanted to reconnect, open up that relationship again. And I said, yeah, sure. You know, but I learned to love them at a distance just because who knows if that may happen again. Am I sitting here wondering, they're going to do this again? You know, no, I'm not worried about that. But in the back of my mind, it's still there. Just be very cautious. Yes, I've forgiven them, but you know, don't.

open up your heart a little bit, just a little bit. Absolutely. I think it's a balance of you have to forgive because holding it in is like an acid. If you hold it in, it's just going to burn you and eat you alive. It does a lot more damage to you than the other person. The other person for all that you care could probably be moving on and are, you know, not giving a crap about what they did to you. So it's important that you yourself say, I forgive you, but I do not forget what you did to me. But you know, I'll love you. I'll be nice. You know, be formal.

but I gotta be careful around you, you know, and of course you gotta keep that internally. You gotta make sure that to balance the forgiveness, but also not to forget those things. Because if you do, and if you go, I'll trust you for hardly chances are they might do the same thing again. Exactly. You know, and not holding onto that bitterness is one of the most important things. Very vital. Because like you said, it just, that bitterness will just continue to grow and it does way more damage than

than it needs to be. Yeah. And you start thinking about it a lot more. And next, you know, that's all you think about when you see this person and it shouldn't be that way. Right. And that becomes hate. And exactly. You really don't want to get to that point because I've been there. There's, there's been people in my life where I was just angry at the thought of them and seeing them. I mean, my body was just angry, but I said to myself, what is the use in being that way when they probably moved on a long time ago?

George Angel Ramirez (23:00.23)
And you know, in their mind, they probably forgot about everything. And here I am kind of ruminating, as they like to say, about the same thing over and over and eating myself alive over it. You know, not not not good. Hate is strong. It's very, very strong. We see it in the world today. Where the damage is not just today, but in the past as well, too, the amount of damage he has done to.

society to human, not just humans to the environment, to animals, to ourselves, it'll bring you down to a point where it just consumes you. And that's how a lot of people are nowadays. And it's, it's a little, it can become very scary. It can. a big example of this historically is like take a country like Germany, you know, the classic example, you know,

People were so filled with hate that one person coming in and being like, I'll fix all the problems. I'll, I'll make up for the pain. People gave in a hundred percent because that they were moving in the direction that they felt was the right direction, even though it wasn't, but hate propelled them. And they thought to themselves, well, if we follow this man, we'll get what we want. We get what we rightfully deserve. You know, we'll get our vengeance. And it caused a much more pain than it had to.

And you know what's crazy too is how hate can become normalized. How people can become okay with it. Obviously a lot of it is conditioned. You when you see a poster, you know obviously the example we gave is Nazi Germany, where you see the posters of what the government at that time thought of the Jews.

And how normalize it became to the point where people didn't even see him as people people saw him less than animals at some point Yeah, and the things that has happened Because of that, you know, we can kind of see that now too a good example right now here in the u .s is obviously the hate towards immigrants and how You know, it really just makes me sad because

George Angel Ramirez (25:08.408)
you know, a lot of these people are just coming to have a better life. They are. It's one of the most heartbreaking topics for me because it hits right home. You know, I'm a first generation American. You know, my, both my parents again are immigrants from Mexico. And so my view on immigration is that it's vital. That's what America was built on. You know, we are a country of immigrants. Nobody can rightfully say that we didn't immigrate in some extent. We all did, you know, and

Even the natives 20 ,000 years ago when they crossed from Siberia into the Americas, in a way were themselves immigrants. Humanity as a whole.

And I think it's vital that we accept that and we understand that, you know, we all should be working to help and better this country with all the different views and mindsets and cultures that come in. And that's what makes America so unique and so beautiful and so remarkable is that we're able to take this cocktail of different cultures and come together and have a society and be proud of, you know, pledging our allegiance to this amazing country. And it's heartbreaking that now when we see people, you know, trying

contribute to that, we're scapegoating them as taking the jobs, scapegoating them as taking benefits, scapegoating them as being criminals, when all they are trying to do is also help and better this place. So that's why I'm very pro -immigration and I want to see us, you know, being able to accept people.

Sure. I'm not saying that we need to have open borders all the way. Of course there has to be a process. Right. I'm going to say it like that, but we shouldn't be treating people less than human in some cases, you know, where they have them in cages and the different things that I've seen, it should not be dehumanizing anybody. It's just unacceptable. It's heartbreaking. It really would. is heartbreaking at the end of the day because we're all human. Yeah. We're all trying to.

George Angel Ramirez (27:04.993)
Live this.

Life whatever it may be life. I don't even get life. I guess is the best word to describe it. And of course yes some people have it harder than others But what are we doing ourselves to try to make this world a better place? doesn't have to be anything grand. It doesn't have to be anything spectacular

It just takes sometimes a little small act of kindness. Right. No. And I love that quote, you know, that you're saying, because it's true. A lot of people, their vision of greatness again, is the mansions, the big cars, the yacht, they're, you know, being able to live a life completely independent of work. But honestly, that isn't the dream for everybody. think our aspirations should be for the embedded of society. And, know, in my life, for example, I'm not looking for grandeur. I'm not looking for mansions for

that's exorbitant. I'm just looking to have a place, a decent car that gets me from A to B, some money to be able to travel the world and get to meet new people. You got me content. That's all I want to do is to be able to enjoy life, but not necessarily have to be showered in gold for it. That's the same thing I'm looking for as well too. Because, and it's nice to meet other people with that same mindset because

I used to be someone that, you know, I didn't grow up super rich. There was times where, and I applaud my grandparents and my mother for doing this because they made it seem like we never struggled. But there was a lot of struggles along the way. And my grandparents, they didn't speak English that well. But what they were able to do...

George Angel Ramirez (28:57.506)
with the limited knowledge. My grandfather, I think, only went to the third grade. My grandmother, fifth grader, somewhere along those lines. But what they were able to do with that limited education and build the things that they built. And they're very happy. They still work to this day. And we try to tell them, hey, you should retire. Enjoy your life. You guys are getting old. But they're happy with what they have.

I have a good friend that he's going to turn 80 in a couple of years and I found it surprising that he was still working at Home Depot, but he has such an energy about him. Really, you know, very educated, very well traveled. He went to Tibet, you know, for a lot of his younger years and

George Angel Ramirez (29:52.394)
One moment. Perfect. so anyway, where I'm going with this is, you know, for him, he wants to remain active because a lot of his friends who retired, passed away five years afterwards. And he told me one of the keys to a long life that he's noticed is staying active in some capacity, obviously not working yourself and stressing yourself too much. Right. But having a kind of, at least a little bit of work here, a little bit of work there, remaining active.

But he has told me so many amazing stories. I've learned a lot from him. Very inspirational guy. But he's told me the reason I'm still here and feeling as great as I am is because I do want to work and remain active to some capacity. So still a little note there. What do you think about death? ever? It's a very deep topic.

At first I was afraid of it, just the idea, you know, the concept that I'm gonna die one day. And I think as I've gotten older, I've accepted that. I have life insurance, you know, even though a lot of people look at me crazy, they're like, you're 24, why are you having insurance that just gets paid out when you die? It's because I accept that it's a way of life. I'm never gonna be able to prevent it, you know, it's one of the guarantees because they say death and taxes.

And so I've come to accept it and I've told myself, no matter when it happens, at least I'll be able to take care of the ones I love. And you know, whether it be today, whether it be 50, 60, 70 years down the road, I want to make sure that I'm prepared for it and that I make it as painless as possible for the people around me and that they're taken care of. As long as I have those things, I accept

I used to be afraid of death and to be honest with you, I still am in a way. And I think that's that young part of me where I want to experience so many different things, but I'm starting to accept it. And I know it's weird to say it at such a young age, but when that fear of death kind of, I've seen so many people that don't have that fear of death anymore. And the way they live life is so different from someone that fears death.

George Angel Ramirez (32:12.332)
And that's really what made my mind change. I'm like, I'm enjoying life as much as I want to. Yeah. And I have to get that. I have to get rid of that fear of death. And it's slowly getting there. And obviously, I feel like not everybody is going to. I'm sure there's a little fear in everybody, of course, but. I don't think you're going to fully take that fear away.

until that moment comes, but slowly but surely I'm picking at it as much as I can, just because there's so much to enjoy in life. There's so much to do, there's so much to experience, there's so many people that I wanna meet and so many places that I wanna discover.

You know, one of the things I used to not really be afraid of airplanes. then when I got on the airplane again, I, I, you know, so I was on the airplane, right? Going to Guatemala. And I think it was the second flight. It was from Houston to Guatemala. And. I was pretty tired. Yeah, I was getting ready to go to bed. like, you know, I'm just going to sleep, whatever. And all of sudden someone.

You hear on the intercom, is there a doctor in here? And for some reason, I started freaking out. I'm like, what's going on? My mind just started going all over the place. Next thing you I start shaking.

And everybody's kind of, know, everybody's nosy. So they start seeing, you know, the person that needs help. And I'm like, for some reason, like my body started going into like this, this fight or flight type of movie. And I'm like, why am I feeling this way? I don't understand why I'm feeling like I'm going to be okay. I hope that person's going to be okay. And then it didn't help. So I put my headphones on and I'm like, you know, let me just pay attention to this movie. And I couldn't pay attention to this movie. And then obviously the person, they were going to be okay. I think

George Angel Ramirez (34:04.016)
ended up going to I don't know if they went to hospital, but the paramedics ended up coming once we landed. And I'm like, why? Why am I experiencing this? And part of it was the flight, the flight itself, too. You you're going over the ocean and you know, what if it explodes and all these random thoughts are going into my mind? I'm like, I don't want to be like this. I really don't know. But it's tough. You know, it's tough because sometimes we as people, we like to be in control of situations. Yes. Yes. And when

Cool.

Finally, took me probably five, yeah about five, 10 minutes to calm myself down and out of nowhere, I was okay. I'm like, yeah, I have to keep reassuring myself, it's gonna be okay, they're gonna be okay, you're gonna go on this vacation, you're gonna enjoy it. But I'm like, dang dude, I don't understand why I'm feeling like this. But you just have to slowly pick at it. Right, that's a rational fear to have. I mean, you're up in the air. Of course, the statistics always will tell you it's safer to be on a

than in a car. Exactly. But it's a rational fear. know, I again, I feared death. I'd say up till my early early 20s.

Cause I've come to accept it. I've come to understand that it's inevitable and it's going to happen when it happens. But in the meantime, between now and death, I'll make it a point to enjoy every single moment that I can and not be bitter over things that again will end the moment I die. Exactly. And I don't want to remain bitter about, know, whether that be a disagreement, whether that be something, because again, you want to make this life as enjoyable as possible for not only

George Angel Ramirez (35:44.92)
but everybody around you. Because if you have resentment and pain and all these things, you take it out on the people who you don't have that resentment towards who get in that crossfire. And so I made it a point, you know, to enjoy life, to not think about death, but when it happens to accept it. It'll happen when it happens. Yeah. Yeah. But that's the journey. Yeah. Yeah. man. So there's been a lot on the news that I want to cover.

Yeah man, here we go. one I want to cover man is Donald Trump. my man Donnie. Don you know what? I... He says some of the

funniest and ridiculous things you've ever heard from a politician and it's just insane man I really I haven't been keeping up with this election just because I'm like it's a comedy yeah it just seems like a it seems like a like a TV show you know what I mean seems like a a novella you know what I mean yeah it makes so obviously he there was an assassin trying to there was this assassination yeah attempt

And man, what is your take on it? What do you think about that assassination? know a lot of people are saying that it looks staged or... You know, it's insane that it's happened. It's insane to think that there was a man who was able to... kid, really, 20 years old, who was able to get on the top of a roof, 150 yards away from the president with a rifle, and Secret Service had an eye on him. People saw him. You know... were videos of people pointing at him. And yet...

He nothing happened. Nothing was done of it until shots started to be fired. And, you know, Donald was literally a quarter of an inch away from death. And to me, it's crazy that all that was allowed and there was an awareness of it. And it does raise the question, was this actually staged by people we're not aware of? It looks interesting, doesn't it? From the moment from him, you know, people pointing at him.

George Angel Ramirez (37:58.402)
to the moment that shots were fired, to the moments after him getting in the car and everything. It's just, it's a little suspicious. Isn't it? It raises questions. It raises questions on whether the Secret Service was just not as good or well -prepared as we thought they were. Cause it's, mean, at best it shows incompetence. At worst, that shows that really there are people behind.

in behind the scenes who have things planned out that we're not aware of that the situation played out in that way. You know, so really no matter how you take it, it shows a general lack of.

competence than what we thought was competent. Right. You know, and so to a degree, possibly it was staged, but again, I can't tell you exactly. I don't think we'll ever know. It's up in the air as to why or what happened, but I can say this for sure. It shows incompetence in our secret service, you know, and being able to handle a situation that could take the life of a president. My thing. So I have a lot of questions. I don't, I'm not going to sit here and say, it was staged. My thing is it just looks suspicious from the first thing I

to talk about is the photographer because obviously I'm a photographer and it was crazy how this photographer and the camera that he used I think it was a Sony a9 which is an amazing amazing camera my goodness but okay so you had that iconic shot of him you know with with the with the fist up right but the photographer was also able to he had a GoPro on

And he also was able to get, don't know if it was him or someone else was able to get a photo of the bullet, you know, in the middle of the air, which that's not an easy shot to get. No, no, no, not at all. No, we're talking milliseconds.

George Angel Ramirez (39:57.922)
you this to have to be focused yeah you know and for him to get that shot with the that shots a little bit easier you know with him with the with the fist up but it's an iconic one exactly almost like it if it's supposed to like like you said it's like if it was staged to be an iconic photo

You know, and the other thing I want to talk about is the bullet cell. I really, I just saw, you know, the video of him trying to, the video of the video everybody saw. Yeah. But my thing is like, I, I'm not a, I don't know too much about bullets and you know, everything, but my thing is, I guess he must've been really, really lucky for him to miss. But my thing is, I don't know what bullet he used.

But shouldn't there have been more damage if it was that close? Especially with a round that big. What round was it? I don't know the exact measurement, but again, you know, with guns and bullets, there's different measurements. There's nine millimeters, there's 0 .27. There's all these variations. What we know is he used some kind of rifle and that rifle is going to have larger rounds than a pistol. Right. You know, around that big to do such like just a barely graze. Yeah. It's like.

Something's not right. Right. You know, first of all, how did he get on this roof? A white roof plain as day for everybody to see with they saw him with a rifle too. And he was able to take shots and it raises a question. Was this all a prop, a stage, something to make Trump look a certain kind of way? Right. Or was this a genuine premeditated effort on Crooks as part?

that just got botched. I don't know. I guess we'll never know. But it just doesn't make sense with the round that he used.

George Angel Ramirez (41:55.95)
I unless it was a BB gun, you know, you know what's funny is I said that to my friend. I'm like, did this guy use a BB gun for it to create that scratch? Because, you know, for example, obviously this is a drastic example, right? But you look at a 50 cal, the 50 cal doesn't have to hit you directly. no. It can be near you and it can blow up your body. Yeah. You know what I mean? So unless he used a BB gun, my thing is like, I'm wondering if the round that he used.

You know it seemed like it was small to create that you know that little small Yeah, you know cut or whatever raise of the year raise. Yeah, so it's just insane man Like you said, I don't think we'll ever know exactly what

happened that day or the plans or if it was something staged or whatever it might be, or, know, making him look at a certain way. It's just, it's interesting. It is. I have to say, you know, I'm grateful that he's still alive. You know, I never wish anything badly on anybody and I'm happy, you know, he's still here and, know, he was able to still, you know, be able to run for the people who want him in power. Again, do I agree with his?

points of views and everything. No, but you know, I'm grateful that he's still here. Exactly.

Interesting man, very very very very interesting. There's a lot of things I'm sure especially nowadays Yeah, but the government's never gonna tell us a lot of it's like it's for your secrecy But I'm sure a lot of it is it's it's not even for secrecy It's not we but I just hope we have another Edward Snowden Somebody to you know, what's crazy man is during that time I think I was in military school during that time and I was really patriotic I would say yeah, very very conservative and everybody in the military school Even the people in charge were like all this guy is you know, he's a piece

George Angel Ramirez (43:44.272)
shit this and that but the things that he leaked out were extremely extremely important for the American that was how long ago was that money about ten years ago yeah you know it raises some questions what what people may know in those positions and believe me they they know a lot and of course they can't say for the sake of their lives but

They know a lot and there's a lot of things the government is doing that we don't know they're doing, but they're doing it. You know, again, they're serving their best interests, especially in this country. but we'll, we'll see if we ever get to know what really was the story. Exactly. Another story I want to cover very, very, do you keep up with what's going on in Mexico and the drug war going on over the course?

Did know what happened a couple days ago or yesterday, I believe, or a couple days ago? There was a police chief that got killed. I know that. Something a little bit bigger. Ismael and miles. yeah, they got captured. captured. Yeah. Quote unquote. I know. Captured. Have you seen this mugshot? No. He looks rough. It wasn't just him. I think it was also one of El Chapo's sons as well too. But that, that is big.

George Angel Ramirez (45:04.908)
him getting quote unquote captured. And I'm excited to see what comes out of this. I think he turned himself in. I didn't read the full news story, I just kind of read on some Yeah, I saw a headline about it. I really didn't get into it because I'm like, just another piece of shit got captured, you know, because that's how I view him personally. But it's big, man. It's really, really big because he essentially was

I think he was a founding member. actually, think he may have been a founding member of the Sinaloa Cartel. Yeah, he's up there. He... Dude, I don't even know. You know, I haven't kept up to date too much with what's going on because that's the thing is like...

When I did, I got so consumed on what's going on over there. And I'm like, dude, I need to stop. See, to kind of share you a little bit about my personal life. So I have a lot of family that are involved in the cartel, lot of close family, a lot of uncles, cousins, they're, they're all in that situation. And that's why I kind of try to keep my, distance away from that. Because if I look, cause I've had reports of them dying in really egregious ways.

It's close to home and I hate it, you know, and I don't like to want any part in that But you know and it's sad that a lot of them do it out of necessity, know in Mexico again poverty is so rampant that if somebody comes up to you and goes You know as the kind of quote is, you know Lead or silver a lot of people are gonna go with silver and they'll go with whatever method they got to do

And it makes their morality go out the window and do things that they shouldn't be doing, but for money they'll do anything. And that's why I kind of avoid that topic, because again, I have family that's involved in that, and it's heartbreaking. Yeah, it's interesting to see what kind of plays out now. I think it was all, that's another thing I feel like it was all staged as well too, just because.

George Angel Ramirez (47:10.296)
He evaded capture for such a long time and for him to be captured out of nowhere. think one of the stories is someone tricked them to go to Texas or something like that. Who knows if that's true. gotta understand that the Mexican cartels wield a lot of power. The government... Especially now. The government is just not capable of toppling them.

You know, they're so organized, there's hundreds of thousands of members. They're basically their own military militia, you know, and it's nearly impossible for the Mexican government to really kind of control them. You know, they have their own regions. They're kind of like warlords now. And, know, there's been a lot of talk with America going into Mexico and fixing the problem and invading and doing all that jazz. don't know if you've heard all about that. I've heard that for such a long time. And whether that would help.

I don't know. don't think so. know, Mexico's got to really go a Bukele route and completely gut itself from the bottom up. But it's hard nowadays, especially for a country like Mexico. know, obviously I'm not taken away from what Bukele did, but at the end of the day, Mexico is so huge that it's going to be extremely hard. don't think sending American troops over there will do anything. I really don't think that'll do anything. No, it won't. It won't because what will

Mexico do it's going to be like now we got to deal with Americans and it's going to build it's going to be just a really terrible terrible situation that shouldn't you know we shouldn't even be exploring exactly you know but I really do hope that something does come of it that topples these cartels something but I don't know what but I do know that for it to be necessary Mexico has to completely just reorganize itself how that's going to play out I don't know I they have to like focus on that primarily yeah but then you can't you know

have other things that you need to do to run a country. You do. And it's not it's it's such a big country that it and I'm not saying it's impossible to do. But we're at a point now for Mexico is at a point now where it's borderline impossible to fix that problem because they're so rooted in the government and so rooted into daily life where

George Angel Ramirez (49:25.112)
you know, there's so much money that goes and not only have they corrupted Mexican officials, they've corrupted American officials, they've also corrupted European officials, Asian officials as well, too, officials in Asia and the world, all over the world, not just North America or Central America, all over the world. And it's a problem now where it's like, I don't think it's just America.

the United States or Mexico's problem. It's a global issue. It is there. You know, people don't understand how far reaching this is. And another thing people don't understand is that Mexico is wealthy. You know, they have trillions of dollars that they produce in their economy. They are not a poor country, but they were so disgustingly mismanaged that they are. And they give the impression there are people at the top, you know, people in the cartels, they're just drowning in money.

The average Mexican doesn't see any of that. And so they're offered this opportunity to join this terrible way of life to hopefully have a chance to offer something to their family. And so they do it. And yeah, it's become a part of society and I hope it gets fixed. How that goes and happens. We'll just see. It's weird because, you know, some people have their opinions on how you should fix it, but I think it's a combination of so many things right now to try to fix that. Yeah.

it's a global issue now. It is kind of how it is. That's something where it's a pandemic of its own kind. Exactly. Yeah. You know, it's almost like a mindset mindset shift that has to be made over there. And that's something obviously that doesn't it's going to take a lot of time, maybe even generations to what a lot of the issues that we're facing now in the world. It's going to take a long, long time

deeply, deeply root this out. Cause like you said, it's a very wealthy country. There's more and not just there, but you know, in a lot of countries, there's more than enough money to go around in the world, but some people want to hold onto it. course. That's just the way things go there. But one topic I was going to actually ask you about, I'm curious about your perspective is Joe Biden dropping out. You know, I was going to ask you about that because I, you know what, like I said, I haven't really

George Angel Ramirez (51:45.79)
care yeah one of the things that I'm seeing is obviously a lot of people are going for Kamara Kamala Harris Harris yes but man she's done some awful things when when she was a police officer and she was a prosecutor in California yeah I've heard my brother tells me a lot of the things that she's done

like my god dude this is pretty awful so like the amount of people she locked up to African Americans as well like I said I'm not really a lot of the things that I know about her are from my brother and my brother is like very very far to the left and he hates her and I'm like if my brother hates her

my God, man. Then, you know, you got to keep in mind, she did a lot of not so good things in California. I've read up on all that. So what are you saying is true? What are you saying is absolutely true. How she's going to go about that on a country wide scale? I don't know. You know, it's like you got Trump on one corner, which I don't like exactly. you got Kamala on one corner, which I don't like. And this is offered the, you know, there's this candidate, Robert F Kennedy jr. Yes. That's yeah.

And I'm like, all right, is Bobby going to be a good option? We'll have to see. I want to hear his perspective. I think a lot of people are starting to lean that way. Yeah. But I don't think, I just don't think he's going to It's going to be a parole situation. I don't know if you know the 1992 election where you had Clinton, Bush, and then parole.

And a lot of people went with this third party candidate. About 15 to 18 % of the vote went to him, which is insane, especially in our two party system. He was kind of a spoiler and Clinton won that election. And people were kind of thinking, is Kennedy going to be the same way where he's going to just be a spoiler, maybe take 10, 15 % of the vote? Probably, you know, but he's going to mostly take votes from Trump.

George Angel Ramirez (53:46.584)
Cause a lot of his base support is from the Trump side of things. And you know, we got forever. They say about every three supporters of Trump to one supporter of Biden. So if you think about that, he, he might be a big spoiler in this election at the very least, especially with the dropping out of Biden, you know, cause a lot of people were worried about Biden's age, you know, and to be fair, his performances have been not so good. Confusing Zelensky with Putin. was a big one. You even saw his face.

You saw the video, right? see Zelensky's face and he's like, you know, he's huh? A little bit. And then, you got him confusing Kamala with Trump, calling him vice president Trump, you know, things of that nature. I was like, yeah, he's gotta go. But then when they said, we're just going to replace him with Kamala. was like, are you serious? Are you serious right now? I said, can't we just get like a Bernie Sanders or somebody else who, and I've been a big Bernie fan since.

2016 before I even could vote. You know, I was a big participant in his campaign. I helped with getting posters together for him. You know why? Because the things he was fighting for, you know, $15 minimum wage, you know, the rights of workers, a four day work week, all these things that I feel that are so important. So yes, I'm a Bernie fan, but I was hoping that they would bring somebody with a perspective similar to that.

that we really embedded the average person. We focus internally, we focus on education, we focus on the things that really are going to allow for society to grow. That is what I wanted to see with the Democrats coming together with somebody. Instead, they went with the low hanging fruit. All right, who's our vice president? Kamala endorsed her, back her up and put her out there to go against Trump. And that minimalism and that lack of effort

painful to see. It is. And you know, right now I'm kind of thinking, shoot, where do I go? Where do I vote? Obviously I don't want to, I'm not going to vote for Trump. I didn't vote for Trump in the 2020 election. I went with Biden, you know? And so now I got to think about it. And I think a lot of voters in general and not to get too political cause I'm not, I'm not one to, but you know, a lot of voters, especially us younger voters,

George Angel Ramirez (56:11.864)
We don't participate very much because we feel like our vote isn't impactful. We don't think our voices are heard. We have a general disinterest because we don't see the people we'd hope to see that actually have a vision of the country to get into power, get into power. And so a lot of us are standoffish about it and don't want to really dwell on politics. And so that's kind of where I'm finding myself in this election. That's where I'm at right now. I've stopped putting my faith into.

one specific person, especially like the presidency. My opinion, I think it's already decided. I think that's where we're at as a country. Obviously a lot of people don't want to hope that. That's just what I personally think. But my thing is just I've stopped caring about things like that. Of course I might not even vote just because.

And I know a lot of people were like, well, that's the problem. know? Yeah. But I'm like, what choice, like just vote for, you know, it's almost like people want you to vote for who they think they want. And that's why I avoid a lot of discussions with people about this because they always are trying to influence me one way or the other. And both arguments are flawed.

You know, they're going to be trying to propagate their candidate and tell me how amazing they're going to be and how I should vote and do my part. And, people have yelled at me about it. You know, some people are really passionate about this, almost like a sports team are like, what the hell, Mario, you know, put on your damn Jersey and vote. And I'm like, no, I, I don't feel resonate with any candidate. And if I don't feel or resonate with either one, I'm not going to vote. I'm sorry.

It's just, I don't feel like I'm being represented here. I feel like everybody should have a seat to the table and be able to vote for who they believe in and, you know, be able to contribute in their own way. I really feel like this two party system is completely flawed and we should be able to have a third, a fourth, a fifth voice in that debate stage and be able to hear the different perspectives. Here, a libertarian point of view, here, a green party point of view in Mexico, for example, they have multiple candidates get up on that stage and as corrupt as

George Angel Ramirez (58:27.822)
country is at least you get to see five, six different perspectives of how they're going to run the country. Maybe they're not going to run that way, but that's the, you know, at least you got a presentation here. You have to hear two people and only two people, you know, get a tell you the same thing or just a different way. And that's when it's so infuriating.

I thought Mexico was the same way where they had a two party system. had the pre and yeah, they got the pre and the pun. Yeah, there you go. Pre and pun. Yep. But they also have other third, the Morena, the different other parties. At least they get an opportunity to kind of show their side of how they're going to do things like AMLO. Yes. He's not part of the pre or the pun. He's part of the Morena party, his own party, the one he created. And surprisingly now they have a majority.

you know, and his successor, you know, is part of his own party. So at least that kind of showed there is an opportunity for a party outside of the establishment to take over and be a part of the country. And, know, I'd like to see that in the United States, but I don't know. Yeah. One of the things I was reading about, hold up, I'm just going to fix this camera real quick.

George Angel Ramirez (59:46.862)
that camera actually have to it only has a 30 minute record limit so I have to play around with it but going back to Mexico I was listening to

I was reading about this thing where they essentially had a rigged election, I think in the 90s or, forget which election it was. And you know, honestly, where I saw, I saw the narcos where they had a rigged election, you know,

drug cartels actually had something to do with it. Yeah. this is during the time of Felix Gallardo. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm wondering, have you ever done any research on that? Not as much as I should because the nineties was a crazy time. You know, the big movement that happened almost broke into a civil war in Mexico. It was kind of crazy. It's also an earthquake too. An 85. Okay. Yeah. My mom was actually in Mexico city when that happened. Really? Yeah. She was a little girl. I think she was about seven

eight years old when that happened. And she told me it was the most insane thing that ever happened. She was scared, you know, because that earthquake was devastating for Mexico city. You know, it did a lot of harm, but you know, yeah, she gave me a kind of a glimpse into what happened and seeing all the buildings toppled all the, yeah, no crazy time.

And then you had this big movement in the south of Mexico, I think it was the sapatistas or something that's that, you know, that kind of broke out in the nineties. There was a lot of, and then Mexico was finally globalizing because the U S drafted NAFTA, which, you know, opened a lot of trade and opportunity for Mexico. Cause again, Mexico is kind of isolationist up to that point.

George Angel Ramirez (01:01:31.202)
you know, they kind of globalized and that did improve a little bit of, you know, the situation there, but it was a crazy time. The nineties. Yeah. I guess that's something I want to do a little bit more research. We can cover that maybe next week just because it is a little interesting. maybe the U S is the same way how, you know, how it was then in Mexico, but I don't know. Well, I'll, yeah, I'll do a little bit more research that that interested me. I was watching Narcos on the flight to, cause I had to stay.

at the airport for a good a while, like four hours. I was just like, me, it was like the first recommendation. So I saw the show, you know, when it, when that season first came out and I'm like, let me watch it again. But it's interesting. I mean, obviously a lot of it is drama, but of course, you know, we'll, save that for another episode. Definitely. so here I want to go into the news again.

George Angel Ramirez (01:02:28.406)
So we got Ismail Zimballa, China and Belarus. Whoa. Let's cover that. actually have the article right here. Belarus. there's Lukashenko right there. right. Belarus and China joined forces in a military drill near the Polish border. Wow. Wow. Okay. You know, where do I begin with this? So I got to say this. I'm going to preface this. It's

Obviously common knowledge that China to some degree is helping Russia. Why? Because at the end of the day, China and the West have this kind of an interesting dynamic where China wants to look like it's a neutral businessman. But at end of the day, they know the West isn't on their side. And so China has to kind of focus on its fear of influence.

Russia plays perfect into China's lap. Why? Because of resources, because of opportunity, because of common resentment towards the West. And Belarus is kind of in that same sphere. Belarus is Russia's junior partner. And, you know, it's a dynamic. I'm just trying to kind of set the stage here. But to see that China goes the full route and goes, all right, we're going to host a military drill over there.

right where the border is with Poland. Kind of the same way that Poland does NATO drills close to Belarus. So it's kind of a show of force. Kind of like, okay, you're going to have your kind of parade, we're going to have ours. And I feel like for China, it's kind of to show the West, we've got power projection. We can cover our bases just as much as you can. And because keep in mind, China wants that reach. It has that ambition.

It wants to be able to project beyond its borders. It's no longer about being able to control its backyard. It's to be able to say, we can kind of face you anywhere in the world. So for China, it's a display. For Belarus, it's a, you know, we also got friends because they don't want to be the lone wolf against NATO. So in the end of the day, it's all playing into the geopolitics of every country. Yeah. So would you say China's almost like they're kind of watching?

George Angel Ramirez (01:04:51.924)
Of course, of course they, know, are trying to get that training, that practice that NATO gets, because at the end of the day, China's last war was back in the seventies against Vietnam. Right. That was the last time they had a conflict. think also, I don't remember exactly when it was, but I was also reading this thing where China sent troops to Kenya and they got, they got demolished pretty much.

just because like you said, they haven't been in a war. So their troops and their troop structures is...

different than ours. Yeah, they are mostly conscripts. know, they, again, they have a humongous military, millions, millions of Chinese are there, but it's corrupt. You know, again, it's ran by the CCP. It is not the army of China. The military is not China. It's part of the communist party and their sole purpose is to defend the communist party. And when you have a, and it really raises the big question.

There's most of the training about the, you know, how do I say this about that philosophy or is it really to prepare for a conflict? But this shows that at least the communist party wants to strengthen their presence, wants to give a show of force, wants to say, you know, we are a powerful contender in the world stage. We're not going to allow you to humiliate us or allow you to push us around. Here we are now in Europe.

you know, in your backyard showing you that we can show up in a matter of hours. Right. You know, and for Belarus again, it's showing, Poland, I know you have all your buddies doing all these parades on our border. We got ours too. You know, so it really is to serve interests. That little part of, I'm going to put the European map on.

George Angel Ramirez (01:06:50.988)
That little part of Russia that's more in Europe. You know which one I'm talking about? Are we talking about Klinengrad? I think so. me just look.

George Angel Ramirez (01:07:07.214)
Just like around here. So right where Lithuania is in Poland, you got this little enclave called Pol, Kaliningrad. So if we were to, sorry, I'm gonna. are you doing okay? Yeah. So here you go. It's not quite moving with me, but you see Kaliningrad. Yes. That's a military enclave exclusively. Really? So there's about a million Russians that live here, but mainly.

They have a lot of arsenal, a lot of military infrastructure here. And this is the only, the warm port year round. So a little history of how Russia acquired this. all know about world war two. We all know that this used to be East Prussia. This was part of Germany. You know, this was one of their heartland kind parts of the country.

But Russia wanted to get a year round warm port because most of their ports are frozen year round. this kind of gave them an opportunity to kind of get, it's kind of like a Crimea situation in the black sea. And when the Soviet union broke up, this was part of Russia specifically. And for a time, interestingly, Russia was offering Kaliningrad to Lithuania. Interesting. But Lithuania didn't accept.

Because why you would have a million Russians in Lithuania and this might give in the future an excuse for Russia to go, you got a big part of our population in your country. got to help those people. Right. And they wanted to avoid a situation like that. Pretty smart. So they played it smart. They said, we're not going to take that. You can keep that. That's yours. Because if we take that eventually you're going to want it back and you want all of us, but you know, you're to take this country again. And.

what Russia has been doing with this strip of land has been militarizing it to the extreme. So that in case war were to break out, I'm going to show you something else here. You see this little strip between Belarus and Leningrad? Yes. It's called the Zvolinsky gap, something like that. It's a hundred, it's a hundred kilometers that separate the two and Russia's focus for the longest time has been how do we bottleneck NATO?

George Angel Ramirez (01:09:27.126)
and cut off the, my iPad kind of, think it's out of battery here. no. That's all right. I'll continue with my explanation. How do we bottleneck the Baltic countries, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and cut them off from NATO, isolate them, sandwich them and capture them. And that's been a big focal point for them is that hundred kilometer gap having Kaliningrad and Belarus.

and being able to sandwich these countries in a way it's strategic. Yeah. And so that's why Kaliningrad has been such a focal point, such a militarized place. Interesting. A little bit of background. Yeah. No, thanks for that, man. I definitely learned a lot. It's just interesting to see how all of it kind of plays out in the future. You know, it. I know we talk a lot about because I'm a very firm believer on.

What happens over there is going to affect what happens obviously over here and different places in the world as well, So it's good to keep up your knowledge with what's going on over there because you might never know the start of another world war. And this is not like any other world war. It's going to be completely different. And it's sure that, you know, there's reminiscences of previous wars, but there's a lot more at stake to what it is now.

It is a little scary. It really is because war isn't going to be fought the same way. Now, Ukraine is obviously showing trench warfare and a lot of old habits, but on a scale that large, we're talking internet grids being taken down, electric grids, civilian things, the things you depend on potentially being jeopardized by a hacker. It's a cyber war as much as it is a physical one, as much as it is a nuclear one.

You know, have all these factors that go into play that were you didn't see in World War II. You didn't see in all these proxy small scale conflicts. You're going to see something far beyond the reaches of those conflicts. You know, for example, India and Pakistan, one of the most classic rivalries of all time. Pakistan told itself we would we're going to build nuclear weapons even if we have to eat grass, but we're going to have them.

George Angel Ramirez (01:11:46.86)
Why? Because it was the greatest deterrent to make sure that India would never fully take in that country. Because why? If India is to try to invade us and take us over, at least we'll be able to bomb them to oblivion. Right. And that's why wars aren't fought the same degree that they are, you know, back then. But if they were to break out, it raises the question, would that be a factor? And possibly if Russia finds itself on the back foot against a conflict like that, they might just say, all right, end it all. Exactly. And.

It's a scary thought. Yeah, that's what I always tell people is that exactly. Yeah, sure. know, like you said, Ukraine, that trench warfare is going on. But at a large level, that's really where things come to play, where it's like, yeah, you might have a country where like, you know what? Press the button. You know, who knows what country that may be. But still, it can be a huge, huge factor. And that's why this is different from other wars where it's now we can destroy the war. Right.

It's a scary thought, you know, especially back in the forties when Oppenheimer and his team of scientists back in the man, in that part of New Mexico were coming up with this new concept and seeing it, you know, go from what was still a very devastating loss of life in Japan to now potentially ending the world. It's, crazy. And I hope that again, we don't come to a point where that.

comes into play where we have to fight, you know, in this war to end all wars, because it will be the war to end all wars. A conflict with China, a conflict with Russia, a conflict with anybody with those nuclear weapons has the potential of ending it all, you know, and...

We're just gonna have to see how that goes, I'm an optimist by heart and I hope that things get averted. Hopefully the aliens then can... Yeah, be like, alright guys, alright, we've watched enough episodes of you guys...

George Angel Ramirez (01:13:41.314)
from throwing stones at each other to now potentially destroying your planet. All right, we've got to sit you all down and let us run things for a moment. Exactly. That are maybe AI. He's like, you know what? That's it. All right. We're taking away your controls right now. We'll see. We'll see how these things go, man. But no, thank you so much for always sharing very important things, knowledgeable things that are going on.

because I feel like a lot of people have, they've kind of stopped paying attention to what's going on over there. like, that's old news. In fact, again, the average American doesn't even know about Europe. If you ask them, where's this on a map, they're going to point somewhere in America or somewhere, they just don't know. A lot of people don't keep up with that because to them and their immediate lives, that ain't important.

My bills are important. My bills, my expenses, my immediate things that matter more in my life are more important than what's going on out there. Why do I got to worry about that? But I feel like to an extent we have to because if something were to happen there that becomes a domino effect of events, chances are we might find ourselves in a lottery system where the U S government is now having to draft you again. if you happen to get picked,

Now you're going to care. know, now you're going to be putting the uniform with maybe a month of training and then you're sent out there. I'm sure that's how the Russian soldiers feel. You know, like that. I'm sure a lot them I don't want to be here. want to be home and join, you know, time with my And Russia is making big offers to foreigners. They're like, Hey, you can be a Russian citizen. We'll pay you all this money. You know, you come over and fight for us. We'll even make your family citizens. And sadly, a lot of people.

are doing or falling for it. because they have no other options. Tens of thousands of foreigners are flocking to Russia, joining their military and becoming cannon fodder. Tens of, and potentially hundreds of thousands, are just, and even people from wealthier countries like Japan. There's been a lot of high Japanese officials, former Japanese officials, who've come to join the Russian military. Unthinkable. Why? Because Russia and Japan have never been friends.

George Angel Ramirez (01:15:56.216)
They've never been friends. fought wars against each other. They've had such a bitter rivalry. And then you have Japanese officials of their military that used to be in the self -defense forces flocking up to help Russia. It's like, really? What incentivized you to do this? Well, money, potential influence, whatever ambition. But a lot of people, you know, are making that sad choice and losing their lives for it.

For some country that sadly could care less about him All right aliens take over man. We got to live a better world I hate to give that deep note guys, but you know what you're absolutely right because That's the thing is it's good to be educated on these topics because there's always something going on There is always something going on over there. That's big like last time we talked We talked about the North Korean troops going over there right now. They're Chinese troops over there

And it's like, all right, yeah, this doesn't, this doesn't look pretty. North Korea already going there was already like, wow, okay. You know, cause again, North Korea is dependent on China for North Korea to be like, all right, we're sending troops around fruition. It kind of raised the point. Where's China's perspective on this? What are they thinking about that? And now we see what China's thinking about it because they sent troops over to Belarus. Exactly. And so now it gives the picture really clearly. China would be willing to go to blows.

if need be. Again, they're a businessman. They're going to try to balance the West and the East. They're going to try to kind of be that intermediary, that diplomat. We saw that with Saudi Arabia and Iran. I don't know if you knew about that, where China kind of was hosting the diplomatic talks, taking that position of being able to one to facilitate that. And that's crazy because we wouldn't see China usually in that role. But here they are doing that, trying to be a facilitator.

But also in a way, we know what side they're on. It's evident. But they're going to be discreet. They're going to be smart. And China is very strategic with every decision. They make every decision incrementally. They try to test where are the red lines.

George Angel Ramirez (01:18:10.07)
Not like a lot of other countries, you would say? Right. A lot of countries are very, you know, black and white. This is going to be my decision for this purpose. Very spontaneous. China, again, has learned has taken pages from a history book because they're an old civilization. They're not like a lot of the countries that have just sprung up. China has been around for thousands of years and they've learned their lessons through history and they've learned that everything has to be done incrementally.

Everything has to be done strategically. You can't swing one way all the way. You've got to do so. You can pick a side, but you've got to pick it bit by bit, like a chess board. And you want to appease your potential rival. I want to be like, we're good. We're good. I know, but I don't like you, but there's ways I'm going to circumvent this. Russia or China has taken that approach in every decision. And.

It's kind of frustrating, but they're smart and we got to give it to them. They make their choices very smoothly. Think about the Belt Road Initiative. I don't know if you know a lot about that. So back in 2013, 2014, China was for the first time really taking its steps on becoming a world influencer. in 2013.

And they came up with this Belt and Road Initiative. Because back in the ancient times, China had the Silk Road. This trade route across Central Asia. And in a way, China wanted to rebuild that. However, unlike in ancient history, they wanted this Silk Road to spread to Europe. They wanted to have links to Europe. And they did. They built all this infrastructure across all of Central Asia and parts of Europe.

and they lent over a trillion dollars. That's what the T not a B guys, a trillion dollars and built ports, built high speed rail lines, built infrastructure and all these developing countries, even in Europe, keep this in mind, Serbia, different countries there. And what did China do in exchange? They knew a lot of these countries wouldn't repay them because they didn't have the money. And China was smart. They go, okay.

George Angel Ramirez (01:20:30.03)
You don't have the five, $10 billion I gave you. Lend me that piece of land I developed for 99 years. It's mine now. You weren't able to repay me. That's fine. It's mine now. That port I built for you. It's mine now. I'm going to use that for military purposes. Now I'm going to station my boats there. I'm going to make my pearls as they like to call it. You know, all these different ports that kind of line up, you know, those, those are my property.

We're going to benefit you to my benefit. Even if you can't repay the debt, you're helping me regardless. And a lot of countries at first were really excited about having all this money. But again, they weren't able to repay. And we see situations like in Sri Lanka where they became bankrupt. The country had no money. People were starving. They had to reorganize their government. They kicked out their president and China got to possess the ports that they built

and have them indefinitely. So that's just a little bit of a to show you how China is very strategic. Interesting. Yeah, they'll help, but also they'll exploit. yeah. It's kind of crazy, like watching Narcos Mexico kind of how like the same thing, like the drug cartels do almost the same thing, you know, and kind of leave it at that. But it's very, very, they're smart. Very, very smart. So we'll kind of see.

what happens from that decision. You know, and so, yeah, we'll see. We'll see. But right on, man, I think that's a perfect spot to leave off. there anything else you're doing today? Well, man, Saturday, so I don't know yet. Potentially gonna go watch Deadpool. When is that? I think probably in the afternoon. Yeah. Probably five, six o 'clock. You ever been golfing? No. You wanna go golf?

I'll see. Yeah. Today is just, I want to join, but you know, I know there's things going on in my day. So you don't have to keep that I just offered just because that's what I was getting around. Thank you. I appreciate that. But thank you again. This was a wonderful episode. Thanks for everybody tuning in. You know, I'm really excited about the next, you know, few episodes here cause we're coming up on our hundredth episode, which.

George Angel Ramirez (01:22:49.902)
We're gonna try to get your buddy on as well too. You guys wrote a book together. We're gonna definitely get that sometime, sometime soon, sometime in August. And also have a friend of mine from Russia that I was telling you as well too. We're gonna get her on and you know, just get some good people on man. I think people deserve to listen to those conversations and to listen to the different perspectives on life. And you know, we're gonna continue to go on forward.

Wonderful. Yeah. Well, thank you so much again, George. Thank you. Thank you everybody and have a great one. Take care. Love you guys. Bye.