Every movie about World War III starts out with the same scenario — S**t gets crazy in Israel.

I spoke to someone high up in the royal family of one of the countries in the Middle East.

I asked him, “How does this situation get better? Can there be peace? Can war be avoided?”

He said to me, “This can only get worse. Palestinians only want to kill all the Jews. They don’t care about land. If they got land they would have to do what every other country does: borrow money.

Instead, they get GIVEN money in the form of humanitarian aid and the leaders become billionaires.

“Now, a new generation of hate has risen. Meanwhile, Israel keeps quoting the Bible on the reason they are there. They shouldn’t do that. It just pissed off the whole Middle East.

“Meanwhile, China and the US have warships in the Gulf. Iran controls the Straits of Hormuz and funds Hamas and Hezbollah and can easily lob a missile in.

“Then what happens? Does the U.S. send a missile back? Then Russia sends a missile back? Then it, quite literally, blows up the situation.”

I said, “Is that what people think will happen there?”

“Put it this way,” my friend said, “It’s a possibility.”

“Don’t tell anyone we had this conversation,” he said.

The Reality of the Situation

I do care if there is World War III. I am scared. The older I get, the more I want the status quo at the very least.

It’s the lesser of all evils. And there are a lot of evils.

I want things to be good for my kids.

They live in NYC where girls are pushed in front of subways, and Jewish people are being harassed by protesters who applaud the death and rapes of a “few hipsters” at a dance rave.

I’m scared and I’m sad.

When I spoke to David Rubinstein, the head of The Carlyle Group, a half trillion private equity fund that has had several Presidents working for him after they left the Presidency, came on my podcast.

He outlined the problems he sees in the US economy in the future. Particularly the rise in debt and the obligations of Social Security and how the US will pay for them.

I’ve written about this before myself.

I asked him, “Do you worry about this?”

“No,” he said, “It will be a few decades before this gets really bad. I’ll be dead by then,” and he laughed.

This might be true.

But the current situation, we’re watching it unravel in real-time. We are all alive.

A lot of people have opinions. People say, “Jews are bad.” Or “Iran is bad and must be stopped.” Or “China is bad.”

And on and on.

And they protest in the streets. And shout ridiculous slogans. Imagine the hypocrisy of saying, “Queers for Free Palestine?”

Are you kidding me? The actual law in Gaza is a minimum of 10 years in prison if you are gay…

But the reality is your brother will throw you off a roof if you come out as gay.

If you focus on all the hypocrisy out there, you go crazy.

It’s too much.

It’s easy to lose hope and motivation when all you see are armies of hypocrites fighting fake wars.

But there are real wars. And protests won’t stop them.

Won’t even come close.

And I can’t do anything about anything.

I tried.

During Covid, I wrote to Larry Kudlow, an old friend, and outlined how I thought they could reopen the economy.

But there was too much political pressure. Nothing could be done.

Nothing. Can. Ever. Be. Done.

So here’s the only thing I can do. Make money.

Hope for the best but prepare.

I mean, hope for the best but… make money.

Money gets you freedom in a world of terror. I am being blunt.

But in a war or a massive terrorist situation, having money is much better than not having money.

You can decide where to live, you can have flexibility in how quickly you can move and (to a certain degree) how safe you are.

And your family can have flexibility and freedom as well.

You can get medical treatment more easily. You can get the drugs you need.

All of this is a way of saying that at some point, no matter how much I care about an issue, I can’t let it affect my pragmatism on making money.

I focus on what is needed to protect my family.

On 9/11 I saw this. We were in a recession. We were in a bear market. But some stocks went up.

Here’s one — InVision Technologies, Inc. It was a $1 or $2 stock on 9/10. A few years later it sold for $50 to GE.

Why did it go up so much in this horrible market post 9/11, during a recession?

Because it made bomb detection equipment for airports.

3 Ways to Be Practical and Prepare

We’ve picked three stocks that will go up in a war or in a world of massive terrorism, cyber terrorism, terrorism in the US and Europe unlike any we’ve seen before.

You can find them under “The World War III Portfolio” in the Altucher’s Investment Network member’s portfolio right here.

I am not expecting this to happen. I’m just listening to people I know. And I want to prepare my portfolio.

These are the three stocks that look interesting in a “worst case scenario.” I put that in quotes because the worst case scenario is a constantly changing scenario.

I consider these to be solid stocks that will do well regardless but will do even better in a war-like situation.

[Not an Altucher’s Investment Network member? Click here to sign up and get access to the full ALN portfolio.]