Latest / International Flavor: Where the Truth Tastes Better / Infrastructure Is Destiny: China Builds, Ukraine Burns, Finance Fractures—Musk/Davos, Sachs Truth

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Infrastructure Is Destiny: China Builds, Ukraine Burns, Finance Fractures—Musk/Davos, Sachs Truth · International Flavor: Where the Truth Tastes Better

• 0:00
  Hello, good morning. Welcome. I am
• 0:04
  Samuel Trap. This is International
• 0:06
  Flavor. You are on DAM radio this
• 0:10
  morning.
• 0:12
  Very glad to have you. Uh feel free to
• 0:15
  phone in today. U might even answer.
• 0:17
  5737468020
• 0:20
  is the number.
• 0:22
  Uh I'm all coffeed up this morning
• 0:25
  because I don't sleep well and last
• 0:28
  night was a bad night. Oh, it drives me
• 0:30
  freaking bananas.
• 0:33
  Uh, not being able to sleep. It's been
• 0:35
  going on for years. And, uh, I don't
• 0:38
  know. I don't like drugging up, you
• 0:40
  know. Uh, but I suppose that's neither
• 0:42
  here nor there. It doesn't matter. Uh,
• 0:44
  very my my theme for today. I got a
• 0:46
  theme. And, uh, everybody knows that I
• 0:49
  talk quite a bit about uh,
• 0:51
  infrastructure, global infrastructure.
• 0:54
  We talk quite a bit about economic and
• 0:56
  uh financial infrastructure on this
• 0:59
  program and uh the various
• 1:04
  regionalization
• 1:06
  of trade agreements going on in the
• 1:09
  world.
• 1:11
  We spoke last week about the uh economic
• 1:16
  uh forum in Davos uh world economic
• 1:19
  forum that was held there and many of
• 1:22
  the speeches that were there today. I I
• 1:25
  want to add a little bit of the
• 1:26
  commentary uh and interview of Elon
• 1:30
  Musk. Uh there's been quite a bit of
• 1:33
  fallout. The world is still fixated on
• 1:36
  this because it's an enormous issue. We
• 1:39
  had a CL collapse uh uh yesterday.
• 1:44
  Collapse is probably too harsh word, but
• 1:47
  uh serious worry going on about the what
• 1:51
  the bond market, the uh Japanese
• 1:55
  uh funding of that bond market as the
• 1:58
  largest uh holder of US debt,
• 2:05
  which is ridiculously high. Uh there's
• 2:10
  been
• 2:11
  I talk about infrastructure and part of
• 2:14
  the financial infrastructure for decades
• 2:19
  probably
• 2:21
  it really kicked off after World War II
• 2:24
  and Breton Woods and you know creation
• 2:27
  of the World Bank and uh Japan being
• 2:31
  basically a
• 2:34
  an economic vassel of America you ever
• 2:38
  since that time and starting to make its
• 2:41
  own. You know, their their economy has
• 2:43
  been tied to ours for quite a while. And
• 2:47
  uh I've lectured before about how uh our
• 2:53
  debt is key. The dollar is no longer the
• 3:00
  no longer perceived not necessarily as
• 3:03
  the safe haven. The dollar is strong for
• 3:07
  the most part, but not that it's not a
• 3:10
  safe haven, but that it's no longer
• 3:14
  uh stable, let's call it, or no longer
• 3:18
  totally secure. Our credit rating is all
• 3:22
  our it's not mine, you know, mine's
• 3:25
  reasonably okay and reasonably good. And
• 3:30
  uh uh but the uh the United States
• 3:35
  credit rating is, you know, goes up and
• 3:38
  down and uh but I'm talking more about
• 3:42
  the stability of our
• 3:47
  system. I suppose you could call it
• 3:49
  financial, political, and I heard a very
• 3:51
  interesting I watched a video by a guy
• 3:54
  who I'd never heard before, and he's a
• 3:58
  uh what did he call himself? a capital
• 4:04
  uh capital investor. That's his job.
• 4:07
  He's Chinese.
• 4:09
  He uh was very well spoken and he said
• 4:13
  some things that I hadn't really
• 4:16
  considered before and it it it was truly
• 4:21
  interesting. I talked about and there's
• 4:23
  been some fallout from Carney visiting
• 4:26
  and Canada talking about different trade
• 4:29
  deals with China uh week before last and
• 4:32
  then the World Economic Forum and then
• 4:36
  uh
• 4:37
  the this week the big news and I'm going
• 4:41
  to share this with you because it's only
• 4:42
  a a minute or two long and I'm going to
• 4:45
  start with this um you know well you
• 4:51
  know what I'm going to get to in a
• 4:52
  second. Let me finish my train of
• 4:54
  thought. The train's going slow this
• 4:56
  morning cuz I didn't sleep that much.
• 4:58
  Um, and I did a lot of reading, you
• 5:02
  know, overnight, that's for sure. Uh,
• 5:05
  and it it just
• 5:08
  uh I I don't know. I'm I'm trying to
• 5:12
  decide if I really want to start uh this
• 5:15
  way or the other way. And I think I do
• 5:18
  want to start here. Um,
• 5:25
  I'm trying to build around the single
• 5:27
  idea. It sounds simple, but it explains
• 5:30
  uh far more than policy baits will ever
• 5:34
  be explained to us. Uh, the idea is
• 5:38
  infrastructure. And I don't mean
• 5:40
  infrastructure as like a buzzword, not
• 5:44
  infrastructure as the line item on the
• 5:47
  on the budget, but infrastructure as
• 5:50
  kind of like the operating system. Okay.
• 5:55
  Um because I you know what is the
• 5:59
  operating system in the financial
• 6:00
  market? It's the it's the uh the
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  currencies, a stable system, safe stuff.
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  Um,
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  it's roads, it's rail, it's ports
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  economically, it's power grids, water
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  systems, digital and financial networks,
• 6:18
  you know, plumbing uh networks.
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  Basically, all this is just what what
• 6:23
  goes on in the house to keep your house
• 6:26
  uh warm. You know, the basics and and
• 6:29
  that is infrastructure. And when you
• 6:32
  talk about infrastructure is things like
• 6:34
  highspeed rail, things like new ports,
• 6:37
  things like all of that. I've railed
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  about that from time to time on this
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  show in America because all of ours is
• 6:44
  is driven by capital. And if you
• 6:49
  understand infrastructure of everything,
• 6:53
  you know, or you focus first on the
• 6:55
  fundamentals, the fundamentals are
• 6:58
  infrastructure. And you know, I I want
• 7:02
  to talk specifically about China because
• 7:05
  I am not a China historian. Um I kind of
• 7:09
  wish I was, but I'm not. And so
• 7:14
  all we hear in America is China bad,
• 7:18
  America good. I mean, it's basically you
• 7:20
  put on any news program, you know,
• 7:24
  China's the evil empire and and we are
• 7:27
  the good guys, you know. and the global
• 7:30
  order, you know, is threatened by
• 7:33
  China's rise. Okay? Now, for my part, I
• 7:38
  don't necessarily see it that way. And
• 7:40
  I'm not saying that I don't see it that
• 7:41
  way. I'm saying not necessarily. It
• 7:43
  depends on what we're talking about. So,
• 7:45
  what I want to do is walk through the
• 7:48
  infrastructure world uh slowly slowly
• 7:52
  and carefully with that infrastructure
• 7:54
  world. Now, we already talked last week
• 7:57
  about World Economic Forum and about uh
• 8:00
  Davos and prior to that we talked about
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  uh
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  Carney and his uh two-day, three-day
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  visit to uh China with decent number of
• 8:14
  of staff and businesses. They're trying
• 8:18
  to
• 8:20
  the first time in I can't remember what
• 8:22
  he said six to eight years. Well, listen
• 8:26
  to this news report and and this this
• 8:29
  wasn't some this this just flashed on
• 8:32
  the screen on one of the TVs in here and
• 8:35
  so I found it and uh saved it and I and
• 8:39
  it's only 2 minutes long. So, so add
• 8:42
  this to the mix of what we are
• 8:45
  discussing, what we've been talking
• 8:46
  about the last for a long time with me,
• 8:50
  infrastructure, but here comes how the
• 8:52
  global infrastructure and especially
• 8:55
  post Davos because there's been a lot of
• 8:58
  lot of I don't know what a lot of
• 9:00
  turmoil afterward, you know, lots of uh
• 9:05
  fighting words, you know, by by Trump
• 9:08
  and stuff like that. So, I'm going to
• 9:10
  share this little news blurb with you.
• 9:11
  This comes from ABC News Australia.
• 9:14
  Okay. And here we begin.
• 9:18
  >> This will be the first visit by a UK
• 9:20
  prime minister here in nearly a decade
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  as it seeks to end what's been described
• 9:26
  as an ice age in the relationship with
• 9:29
  Beijing. Kestama will be joined by
• 9:32
  companies and businesses, all hoping his
• 9:34
  government will be able to secure new
• 9:36
  trade deals with China to boost the UK's
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  economy. And China is welcoming the UK
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  back with open arms as it seeks to
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  cement its place further on the global
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  stage.
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  Since coming to power, the UK Labor
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  government has expressed its willingness
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  to develop a coherent, lasting, and
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  strategic bilateral relationship with
• 9:58
  China and actively promote dialogue and
• 10:00
  cooperation between the two countries.
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  China is willing to take this
• 10:03
  opportunity to enhance mutual political
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  trust and deepen pragmatic cooperation.
• 10:08
  This visit is going to be closely
• 10:10
  watched by Sino analysts coming just
• 10:13
  weeks after a pretty extraordinary trip
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  here by the Canadian Prime Minister Mark
• 10:18
  Carney where he also reset ties with
• 10:21
  Beijing, making significant trade deals
• 10:23
  and boldly declaring the new
• 10:25
  relationships between Canada and China
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  was setting up a new world order. one
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  that pushed aside the traditional power
• 10:34
  of the United States and ruptured a
• 10:37
  relationship with Washington and Donald
• 10:39
  Trump. Unlike his Canadian counterpart,
• 10:42
  the UK prime minister doesn't
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  necessarily want this trip to be seen as
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  a tilt away from the United States, even
• 10:49
  as he warns that the world is the most
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  unstable it's been in a generation.
• 10:58
  >> Well, how do you like that? I think that
• 11:01
  is something quite important and uh uh
• 11:05
  that that is actually taking place right
• 11:08
  now. So and and look how carefully after
• 11:13
  Trump beat up on Carney after Davos
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  uh the UK is being a little more
• 11:19
  careful in how they are allowing this to
• 11:22
  be talked about. You know ABC is is
• 11:26
  talking about it. I'm going to share
• 11:27
  with you uh Jeffrey Sachs commentary
• 11:31
  last night. Now, I was on CNN, so you
• 11:34
  can say it's twisted or whatever. I I
• 11:36
  don't like watching CNN, but I like
• 11:38
  watching Jeffrey Sachs and uh it's on a
• 11:42
  similar topic and it's short, so I'm
• 11:44
  going to share it all with you later in
• 11:45
  the show. But, uh
• 11:48
  I think it's very important what is
• 11:51
  going on. And I may share bits and
• 11:54
  pieces of it with you. doubt it because
• 11:57
  it was a long track and I couldn't
• 11:59
  really
• 12:01
  get to the parts that I wanted to uh to
• 12:05
  uh too many tracks, too many cuts in it
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  in order to do it. It's a couple hours
• 12:10
  long and and I I just watched it and I
• 12:12
  don't want to go search for all the
• 12:13
  topics and too hard to do. But let's
• 12:16
  talk about China for a minute because
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  one of the most important points there's
• 12:20
  a guy named Eric Lee. L I Eric Lee and
• 12:25
  he's the capitalist venture capitalist
• 12:27
  that I was talking about. Okay. And he's
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  Chinese. And uh it didn't it wasn't
• 12:33
  really an ideological discussion. It was
• 12:36
  more of a factbased discussion. And he
• 12:40
  was being careful because he was at a uh
• 12:43
  he wasn't at the World Economic Forum.
• 12:45
  It was somewhere else. and he but he was
• 12:48
  having it was a small conference with a
• 12:50
  a group of people and he was addressing
• 12:52
  a large auditorium but I didn't I didn't
• 12:55
  get where it was. I just watched it you
• 12:56
  know last night that with with with
• 12:58
  great interest uh and he made a
• 13:01
  statement that sometime gets glossed
• 13:04
  over because it's almost uh
• 13:10
  uh it's it's almost
• 13:15
  well it's hard to figure out. Okay. And
• 13:17
  and what he said was that he um
• 13:23
  that he he is aware that in the last 10
• 13:26
  years since well since 2012 I think is
• 13:30
  when Xi Jinping came to power that they
• 13:33
  have lifted in China they their system
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  economically has lifted
• 13:39
  100 million people out of poverty more
• 13:44
  than 100 million. and created more
• 13:48
  billionaires than the rest of the world
• 13:51
  combined.
• 13:52
  So although it's a and he said something
• 13:55
  very interesting about the Chinese
• 13:57
  system if you get a chance. His name is
• 13:59
  Eric Lee and you might go and hunt him
• 14:01
  out. It it'll take you an hour to watch
• 14:04
  the thing but he's uh uh on YouTube on
• 14:07
  wherever whatever forum he was in or
• 14:08
  channel this was on. I don't recall but
• 14:11
  um and I'll find it. I got it in my my
• 14:13
  playlist here somewhere. But uh Eric
• 14:16
  Lee, L I and Eric with a C, you know,
• 14:19
  just E R I C. And he he gave some
• 14:23
  interesting
• 14:25
  uh facts and commentary about Xi
• 14:28
  Jinping, about the world as it is today.
• 14:32
  And uh many of the things
• 14:36
  uh that he discussed were systemic.
• 14:41
  He talked about the one of the key
• 14:44
  points that he brought out that that
• 14:46
  really struck me and got me on this
• 14:48
  infrastructure and it's something that I
• 14:49
  talked about. I did a full program on
• 14:52
  China's uh belts and roads and how it's
• 14:55
  helping develop the global south and how
• 14:57
  they're making partnerships around the
• 14:59
  globe with uh with other countries,
• 15:03
  right? And what you know he points out
• 15:07
  that China is the top trading partner.
• 15:10
  China top trading partner for more than
• 15:16
  100 countries worldwide. And I tried to
• 15:20
  find the exact quote. I think he said
• 15:22
  130 something like that. There's under
• 15:25
  200 countries in uh on the planet. And
• 15:29
  uh you know the point is that this
• 15:33
  doesn't happen because of slogans. It
• 15:36
  happens because trade follows
• 15:39
  infrastructure,
• 15:41
  ports, rails, belt and roads, energy
• 15:45
  corridors, logistics hubs, finance
• 15:48
  arrangements, they all create gravity.
• 15:51
  One, once those systems exist,
• 15:54
  trade doesn't need p uh persuasion. You
• 15:57
  know, you're not going to create trade,
• 15:59
  it'll create itself. And what he said,
• 16:02
  one of the direct quotes he said, and
• 16:03
  this is, he said, it's a saying in
• 16:05
  China. Now think about this. He said, if
• 16:08
  you want to make money or build your
• 16:10
  economy,
• 16:11
  don't build a bank, build a road, build
• 16:14
  a road, shortened, you want to, you want
• 16:17
  to produce your, you know, you want to
• 16:19
  bring people out of poverty. Now
• 16:21
  remember, in 1990,
• 16:23
  roughly 1980s and 90s, China was
• 16:27
  extremely rural and agrarian.
• 16:31
  And now absolutely not the case and that
• 16:33
  is that that is that has been like sort
• 16:36
  of a motto according to what he was
• 16:38
  saying is that they built roads and
• 16:42
  infrastructure. He was talking
• 16:43
  specifically about belts and roads but
• 16:46
  he was saying a lot of people don't
• 16:48
  realize that this is the how the Chinese
• 16:51
  think. Plus they haven't exported all of
• 16:54
  their all of their capital. They've
• 16:58
  helped build infrastructure elsewhere
• 17:01
  and they are investing their money
• 17:03
  elsewhere, but they have
• 17:07
  financed. I mean, they don't have the
• 17:10
  debt like everybody else. They were the
• 17:13
  largest holder of American debt now and
• 17:16
  they're unloading it quick and this is
• 17:18
  causing problems. Okay, so but this is
• 17:20
  the part that Western commentators
• 17:23
  consistently seem to miss. You don't
• 17:26
  become their primary trade partner for a
• 17:28
  hundred countries by exporting ideology
• 17:32
  or by changing regimes or seizing
• 17:36
  Greenland or Venezuela or the 50 plus
• 17:41
  regime change operations that the United
• 17:44
  States has been involved in since World
• 17:47
  War II. So it it's this this fact is
• 17:51
  important because it explains why belt
• 17:54
  and roads initiative matters. It
• 17:56
  explains why sanctions
• 17:59
  lose their effectiveness. It explains
• 18:01
  the drisk that I talk about all the time
• 18:05
  by people not abandoning the dollar but
• 18:08
  creating alternatives. Not by abandoning
• 18:11
  the dollar but by trading in their own
• 18:14
  currency. This same guy said something
• 18:17
  uh and and all these things. You know
• 18:19
  how you know how you can find out if
• 18:21
  something is intelligent? It actually
• 18:24
  makes sense. He said he had a discussion
• 18:27
  with a European economist that was
• 18:29
  saying uh that was saying that the euro
• 18:33
  oh gee you everybody likes to have euro
• 18:35
  and people are flooding to the euro and
• 18:37
  he says he's against that. Now I don't
• 18:39
  necessarily agree with this but it's an
• 18:41
  interesting concept. He says, "Well, I
• 18:44
  think that you actually have destroyed
• 18:48
  the cultural identity of all of the
• 18:51
  countries in the Euro zone." Now,
• 18:55
  Greece, I I used to love to travel to
• 18:57
  Greece because gez, it was so cheap.
• 19:00
  Their their their currency, I mean, gez,
• 19:02
  you live over there like a king for a
• 19:04
  hundred bucks a week. Now, you can't
• 19:06
  afford it. It's it's horrible over there
• 19:08
  now to travel there. you know, it's a
• 19:11
  great country and and I really liked the
• 19:13
  aisle of Cit. Spent, you know, week, 10
• 19:16
  days there. It was really cool. And I
• 19:17
  went to Spinolongo, which is a u
• 19:21
  an old leper colony.
• 19:24
  It's on an island, Spinolongo. It was
• 19:25
  pretty cool. Anyway, uh I I digress. It
• 19:29
  explains why countries are hedging their
• 19:31
  bets. It explains why countries are
• 19:33
  creating other scenarios, right? And so
• 19:37
  China's infrastructure-led model is
• 19:40
  making it the top trading partner for
• 19:43
  more than a hundred countries. Now
• 19:46
  contrast this with what the West is and
• 19:51
  has been doing for ever. It it just we
• 19:56
  we go in we steal uh resource not steal
• 20:00
  we usurp the the resources of other and
• 20:04
  I shouldn't say we because it wasn't me
• 20:06
  but uh uh we have u we as America have
• 20:12
  uh taken and and by the way not just us
• 20:15
  all the colonial powers before us you
• 20:18
  know but we've
• 20:21
  there I go again America has perfected
• 20:23
  this strategy regime change operations,
• 20:27
  covert CIA missions, you know, stuff
• 20:30
  like that to uh to get rid of unfriendly
• 20:35
  actors that we're going through it right
• 20:37
  now. You know, I'm not saying you have
• 20:39
  to disagree with it. I mean, you might
• 20:41
  think this is great, you know, to uh
• 20:43
  take over Venezuela, as it were, or to,
• 20:47
  you know, let's let's go get Greenland.
• 20:49
  You more power to you, but I think it's
• 20:51
  foolish long term.
• 20:54
  So let's go back to Mr. Lee, okay? What
• 21:00
  he was talking about that the 100
• 21:02
  million
• 21:04
  people lifted out of extreme poverty,
• 21:07
  not projected, not promised, but
• 21:10
  actually done. They lifted them out. Now
• 21:12
  you can argue whatever the definition
• 21:14
  is, whatever the metrics, the political
• 21:16
  framing, he showed some graphs on it
• 21:19
  that said that throughout China the
• 21:22
  which uh they have more than uh the
• 21:26
  numbers were from 15 to 20 times
• 21:30
  the income level of
• 21:34
  excuse me of the average Chinese person
• 21:36
  over the last 30 years. Now the US has
• 21:39
  has gone up too. The uh as far as GDP
• 21:42
  goes. Now we're we're talking about GDP
• 21:46
  and and China is number one in purchase
• 21:49
  power par as far as GDP goes. And
• 21:53
  Russia's number four. America is no
• 21:55
  longer number one. We're number one if
• 21:57
  you go straight dollars, but you can't
• 21:59
  afford to live over here either. And
• 22:01
  what has been stagnant for us over the
• 22:04
  last 30 years or so has been wage
• 22:07
  growth. Inflation has gone way up but
• 22:10
  wage growth has not kept up not
• 22:12
  remotely. Uh but in places like China it
• 22:15
  is definitely gone up 15 to 20 times. In
• 22:18
  America four to six times is what he was
• 22:21
  saying. Um four to however the
• 22:24
  percentage goes out on there. So, and we
• 22:27
  can argue about definitions all day, but
• 22:29
  this isn't done by accident. It's not
• 22:32
  done. When's the last time you heard
• 22:34
  about China regime changing anyone?
• 22:38
  Okay? And I'm not here to, you know, to
• 22:40
  to uh advertise for China. I'm not doing
• 22:43
  that. I'm not here to argue against
• 22:46
  America except to the extent that we
• 22:48
  engage in economic as well as real
• 22:52
  warfare, political warfare, regime
• 22:55
  change. That has been the model. And
• 22:58
  we've talked about this globalism and
• 23:00
  globalism helped lift China up as well
• 23:04
  because they're part of the global
• 23:05
  markets now. But now with Davos last
• 23:09
  week, China's been doing it for a little
• 23:11
  while now that nobody likes the
• 23:13
  sanctions talk. More people are talking
• 23:16
  about this alleged globalized
• 23:18
  rules-based order that no longer exists.
• 23:22
  Well, the rules of space order, as
• 23:23
  Carney said, never existed.
• 23:26
  Well, they all knew it was twisted
• 23:28
  toward one side and to the disadvantage
• 23:31
  of everyone else. And now world leaders
• 23:33
  are starting to say it openly. Now
• 23:38
  Canada, most of the EU and now England
• 23:42
  has all been recently
• 23:45
  in China making hedging their bets.
• 23:49
  Hedging their bets. They don't like what
• 23:51
  America is doing. Okay. Now, I don't I
• 23:55
  don't know I don't necessarily totally
• 23:58
  disagree. I disagree with the methods. I
• 24:01
  disagree with the methods of what we're
• 24:03
  doing and always have. So I'm pretty
• 24:05
  consistent in that as as far as that
• 24:07
  goes. Regime change I've never been for.
• 24:09
  So
• 24:11
  but Lee's explanation for the outcome of
• 24:14
  talking about systems is is consistent
• 24:17
  and really
• 24:20
  not romanticized at all. China didn't
• 24:23
  treat development as an abstract, you
• 24:26
  know, moral project. They didn't call it
• 24:28
  democracy. They didn't, you know, they
• 24:29
  didn't go that way. It treated it as a
• 24:32
  logistical and an infrastructural
• 24:35
  project like belts and roads is going
• 24:38
  now globally. Roads, railways, power
• 24:41
  grids, urbanization, industrial
• 24:43
  clusters, digital connectivity, ports
• 24:48
  weren't treated as secondary to
• 24:49
  politics. They're treated as the
• 24:51
  foundation upon which everything else
• 24:54
  rests. And that is absolutely true. Now
• 24:59
  one thing he said is that the the
• 25:02
  problem in the west according to him and
• 25:05
  I had never heard this theory before.
• 25:07
  Well you get it you you'll understand it
• 25:10
  as soon as I say it. I got it as soon as
• 25:12
  he said it. He said that economically
• 25:17
  in a capitalist country, the political
• 25:21
  class
• 25:23
  is controlled
• 25:25
  by the top 100 richest men in America.
• 25:32
  Now, think about that cuz it's probably
• 25:34
  true when you think about it. Think
• 25:36
  about how anything happens. It's not
• 25:39
  done for us. Sure as hell ain't done for
• 25:42
  us. the people with the money control it
• 25:44
  all because they control who gets
• 25:46
  elected and who doesn't by putting the
• 25:48
  money behind the by putting the money
• 25:50
  the advertising behind them. He says now
• 25:53
  I don't know the I I can't verify this
• 25:56
  but he he seemed pretty freaking certain
• 25:58
  of it. He goes that isn't how it is in
• 26:01
  China. He said in China there is
• 26:03
  absolutely no correlation between what
• 26:07
  the government is doing and what the
• 26:10
  richest 100 people are doing for that.
• 26:14
  They have capitalism but in a different
• 26:17
  style. And he and most of the means of
• 26:20
  production and all that stuff of course
• 26:22
  is government governmentont controlled.
• 26:25
  He said but people are able to get rich
• 26:27
  in that environment as well. So, it was
• 26:30
  an interesting concept and I liked it
• 26:32
  and I really liked listening to this guy
• 26:34
  and uh he this is where the Chinese
• 26:37
  saying that Lee was referencing was was
• 26:40
  was pretty critical. If you want to get
• 26:43
  rich, build a road. That sentence encap
• 26:48
  encapsulates according to him an entire
• 26:51
  Chinese world view. Roads connect people
• 26:54
  to markets. Rails connect regions to
• 26:57
  ports. power grids allow it to scale up.
• 27:01
  AI and power, China and India are
• 27:04
  building some of the biggest nuc and and
• 27:05
  Trump actually talked about it. Uh I
• 27:08
  forget where but in recently he talked
• 27:11
  about building nuclear power plants here
• 27:13
  in the US that it's now safe and you
• 27:16
  know they're not totally against it and
• 27:18
  he's trying to build these things and um
• 27:23
  use it to control AI, right? roads
• 27:27
  connect people to markets and all that
• 27:29
  stuff and they you know when you don't
• 27:31
  have any of those things nothing else
• 27:34
  matters does it but when you do have
• 27:37
  them when these things exist when the
• 27:39
  infrastructure exists productivity
• 27:41
  follows I'm not here to say that in
• 27:43
  America we don't have any I'm saying
• 27:45
  that we have we lack focus on some of
• 27:47
  these things this is where the hundred
• 27:49
  million do uh 100 million figure matters
• 27:52
  the 100 million people lifted out of
• 27:54
  poverty uh it it talks about outcomes
• 27:58
  rather than, you know, intentions.
• 28:01
  Trump's saying, "I'm putting a trillion
• 28:02
  dollars in the economy."
• 28:04
  You think any of that will ever reach
• 28:06
  your pocket
• 28:08
  ever?
• 28:10
  I mean, will you get any of it or is it
• 28:15
  going to be uh all accept, you know, a h
• 28:18
  100red,000 of it to a couple of
• 28:20
  investors and the rest, you know, you
• 28:23
  might get a pay raise of of of five
• 28:26
  bucks an hour in 10 years, you know,
• 28:28
  something like that. uh, you know, this
• 28:31
  is potentially why people misunderstand
• 28:34
  why the belt and road initiative that
• 28:36
  China is doing all over the world and
• 28:38
  why China is the
• 28:41
  uh, primary or most important trading
• 28:45
  nation with virtually twothirds of the
• 28:49
  globe. twothirds America by contrast we
• 28:53
  only we only are the primary trading uh
• 28:57
  country or partner with about 60 and
• 29:01
  that is going down not up.
• 29:04
  So I don't know it isn't because of
• 29:07
  rhetoric but because systems are built.
• 29:09
  We don't have any I mean when's the last
• 29:11
  time you heard of a new port in America?
• 29:13
  When's the last time you heard about a
• 29:15
  highspeed rail? I've I've lectured on
• 29:17
  that in prior uh prior uh shows. You can
• 29:21
  go back and check them out. They're well
• 29:23
  titled. U so hold on to this framework
• 29:26
  because infrastructure is kind of the
• 29:29
  theme today. So take that this
• 29:32
  infrastructure that we're talking about.
• 29:34
  Then I told you yesterday I would bring
• 29:36
  you back to uh figure out where we are
• 29:41
  uh where Ukraine is right now. Once
• 29:43
  again, we had talks. Uh we had
• 29:47
  discussions about settling the dispute.
• 29:50
  Ukraine, of course, we're not going to
• 29:53
  make any territorial concessions and
• 29:56
  they're losing their butts. But
• 30:01
  okay, that doesn't matter. Somebody has
• 30:04
  to step in for Zilinski. He can't force
• 30:07
  Russia to its knees. That's not going to
• 30:09
  happen. And so uh
• 30:14
  the dispute or the war will continue.
• 30:17
  More people will die because uh Ukraine
• 30:22
  doesn't want to face reality. And the
• 30:25
  important thing to note is over the last
• 30:30
  week, two weeks, and last night in
• 30:33
  particular, um well on the Russian side
• 30:37
  of the border, but in the last two
• 30:40
  weeks, the targeting of infrastructure
• 30:45
  in Ukraine in the coldest month of the
• 30:49
  year is targeting what
• 30:53
  they're targeting.
• 30:55
  electric grids, they're targeting water
• 30:58
  pumping, they're targeting
• 31:00
  infrastructure.
• 31:02
  That's what they're targeting. Uh on the
• 31:05
  other side, by the way, this means uh
• 31:08
  last night there was a huge gas port
• 31:11
  that they said they're not going to be
• 31:12
  able to ship gas out of there for a
• 31:14
  couple of years or ship uh uh any any uh
• 31:18
  petrol out of there for a couple years
• 31:20
  in western Ukraine.
• 31:22
  And
• 31:24
  now Kiev has more than a thousand homes
• 31:29
  without power. And the the mayor said
• 31:32
  they will not be able to have power for
• 31:35
  a long time. Those people need to figure
• 31:37
  out what they're going to do because it
• 31:40
  won't be restored. Now, how do would you
• 31:42
  like that? Your mayor says, you mayor of
• 31:45
  Lake Ozark gets up and says, "Hey, uh,
• 31:49
  well, sorry, we've lost uh power at, you
• 31:52
  know, a thousand homes. Sorry, you got
• 31:54
  to go. You know, figure out what you're
• 31:56
  going to do, but power is not going to
• 31:58
  be restored." That that'd be a wakeup
• 32:00
  call, wouldn't it? So, uh, they're
• 32:02
  having these problems in Kiev in Crevoy
• 32:05
  Rogue and in, uh, uh, which means curved
• 32:08
  horn. I don't know. I've always liked
• 32:10
  the name of that city, Creo Rogue, and
• 32:12
  uh uh then uh Odessa. They've all lost
• 32:19
  serious infrastructure. They're allow
• 32:22
  Crevoy Rogue, they had uh videos, quite
• 32:25
  a few of them where they had people on
• 32:29
  the streets daily. They are on the
• 32:32
  streets and uh in cars, you know, on the
• 32:36
  roads in their cars blocking up all the
• 32:38
  roads and having uh um
• 32:43
  protests. They only getting 2 hours of
• 32:46
  electricity and there's no continuity at
• 32:49
  all to when you're getting the two hours
• 32:51
  or if you're getting the two hours of
• 32:53
  electricity. And it is cold over there
• 32:56
  right now. You think it's cold here? you
• 32:59
  know, uh these aren't random targets. Uh
• 33:03
  Creoy Rogue sits at the heart of
• 33:05
  Ukraine's industrial and mining sector,
• 33:09
  right? Odessa is a large port city, a
• 33:12
  logistics hub and a gateway through the
• 33:16
  Black Sea through uh Istanbul. And uh uh
• 33:21
  it's it's
• 33:24
  they must keep it together and they
• 33:26
  cannot. You know, the shipping isn't
• 33:28
  good. Disrupting these cities disrupts
• 33:30
  all production, all export, all
• 33:32
  employment, all revenue. Infrastructure
• 33:35
  destruction cascades through this
• 33:37
  economy
• 33:39
  or lack thereof for a long time after
• 33:43
  the damage is done. And so they they
• 33:46
  also talked about uh and and by the way
• 33:49
  last night they said that in last
• 33:51
  night's bombardment
• 33:55
  on Kiev
• 33:57
  140
• 33:59
  147 missiles and drones were shot toward
• 34:03
  Kiev
• 34:05
  and of those Ukraine according to
• 34:09
  Ukraine's numbers they were able to take
• 34:11
  out 104.
• 34:14
  So that means two onethird of them got
• 34:17
  through and hit their targets. That's
• 34:21
  what it means. And and I mean imagine
• 34:24
  that 40 44
• 34:27
  43 whatever it is last night missiles
• 34:30
  and bombs got through to the targets in
• 34:33
  Kiev. How long does that take to
• 34:36
  recover? Especially if it's every night.
• 34:38
  It's it this is
• 34:41
  I don't know that people are taking it
• 34:43
  seriously enough over here. Uh I I
• 34:46
  really don't and I'm not sure how how
• 34:49
  there isn't more pressure on the old Z
• 34:52
  monster to do more than he is doing. And
• 34:56
  more people are saying it now. They're
• 34:58
  saying the same thing that I said long
• 35:00
  ago. If we wouldn't fund it, this would
• 35:02
  have been over extremely quickly if we
• 35:04
  weren't the ones funding it. So there
• 35:09
  you have it. Uh so when you talk about
• 35:12
  this image
• 35:14
  in Ukraine and the mirror of China's
• 35:18
  development, you know, we have instead
• 35:20
  this destruction, the logic is clear. If
• 35:23
  China's model is build infrastructure to
• 35:26
  generate prosperity and independence,
• 35:28
  which now they're saying they're going
• 35:30
  to do with Canada and England, they're
• 35:32
  increasing these in the last couple of
• 35:34
  weeks. They've done it with Europe over
• 35:36
  the last month or two and they've done
• 35:38
  it all over the world and and Trump
• 35:41
  knows this. Why did he go to Venezuela?
• 35:46
  Why is he saying that China is going to
• 35:47
  take over Greenland with Russia? Why is
• 35:50
  he trying to boot him out and take the
• 35:52
  hundred billion that they invested in
• 35:53
  Venezuela and steal all the oil down
• 35:56
  there? Because he knows that financially
• 36:00
  we are in trouble. He's a businessman
• 36:04
  and a dealmaker. Okay. And I wanted to
• 36:07
  make one more point about the
• 36:08
  infrastructure because it does go both
• 36:10
  ways. And uh now Kiev sent over some 30
• 36:15
  or 40 uh drones and missiles into uh
• 36:20
  south um
• 36:22
  uh southwestern well the port side of
• 36:25
  the Black Sea uh Sevastapole and places
• 36:28
  like that over over on the Black Sea,
• 36:30
  the Russian side over there. And uh
• 36:33
  Russia says they took them all out. I I
• 36:35
  don't know that I believe that
• 36:36
  necessarily, but they are certainly much
• 36:39
  better suited to take them out and uh
• 36:42
  than Ukraine is. Ukraine is basically
• 36:44
  without air defenses these days. So
• 36:48
  um you know if China's model is to build
• 36:52
  infrastructure to generate prosperity
• 36:54
  and independence, the war model for both
• 36:58
  sides is destroy infrastructure.
• 37:01
  What are we doing with sanctions? We're
• 37:03
  trying to eliminate the ability to uh
• 37:06
  for Russia or fund Russia's war. That's
• 37:09
  what Zilinski's always Russia's war.
• 37:11
  Yeah. Nothing to do with him. He's
• 37:14
  nothing. He's just innocent, you know,
• 37:16
  standing over there.
• 37:18
  The West didn't do anything to uh
• 37:20
  provoke this. This is just started one
• 37:23
  day in February 2022 and nothing else.
• 37:27
  uh these you know the war's model is
• 37:29
  destroy infrastructure to generate
• 37:33
  vulnerability and dependence upon other
• 37:36
  people because what's Ukraine dependent
• 37:38
  upon others completely
• 37:41
  these aren't metaphors these are
• 37:42
  operational strategies and they work
• 37:45
  they work on both ends China's works
• 37:48
  because they're building infrastructure
• 37:50
  worldwide and one of the another example
• 37:52
  he gave was in Indonesia he said that uh
• 37:54
  they had huge projects going on in
• 37:56
  Indonesia. And then they had a uh uh an
• 38:01
  election and the new person, new prime
• 38:04
  minister or whatever he's called over
• 38:05
  there that was elected said that he uh
• 38:09
  that these weren't necessarily positive
• 38:12
  for uh Indonesia. This is from uh Eric
• 38:15
  Lee's uh very interesting u commentary.
• 38:20
  He said that the Chinese immediately
• 38:24
  went into it. They they didn't go in and
• 38:25
  try to, you know, sanction them out or
• 38:28
  say, "Here's the contract." They went
• 38:29
  and renegotiated. They renegotiated and
• 38:32
  got the deal going to continue the path
• 38:35
  forward.
• 38:38
  That sounds reasonable to me. You don't
• 38:41
  go sanction the hell out of them or say
• 38:44
  look what we're doing to to what what
• 38:46
  Trump said yesterday. one of the quotes
• 38:48
  uh from Trump and I haven't I haven't
• 38:50
  gotten it right in front of me but to
• 38:51
  paraphrase he's like beating up on
• 38:53
  Carney for going over to uh China and
• 38:57
  he's doing the same you know going well
• 39:00
  you know China's going to take over
• 39:02
  Canada now basically now you're going to
• 39:04
  be subject to uh to China good move you
• 39:07
  know basically and I don't believe that
• 39:10
  at all people are creating alternatives
• 39:13
  that's what's happening economically
• 39:16
  that's what people do just because you
• 39:19
  can't afford
• 39:21
  a uh a Lamborghini
• 39:25
  you or a Por that's probably too
• 39:27
  extreme. Let's say you can't afford a
• 39:30
  sports car, a sports car convertible.
• 39:33
  Doesn't mean that you don't try to go
• 39:35
  out and find a convertible you can
• 39:36
  afford. You make alternatives. You
• 39:40
  create alternatives, things that you can
• 39:42
  live with. People can't live with what
• 39:45
  America is doing right now. And I don't
• 39:48
  think that the end result necessarily
• 39:51
  will give you what you think it's going
• 39:53
  to give you. And uh you know, all right,
• 39:57
  it's a financial transaction. But people
• 40:00
  don't make all decisions based on
• 40:03
  transaction, transactional profit. They
• 40:06
  make it on political profit too,
• 40:11
  systemic profit, infrastructural profit
• 40:14
  as well, right? And let's talk about the
• 40:17
  invisible system which is the financial
• 40:19
  structure right now because the you know
• 40:23
  the physical structure
• 40:25
  doesn't exist all on its own. It's
• 40:28
  financed. It's insured. It's sustained
• 40:30
  through a second layer of infrastructure
• 40:34
  that is very
• 40:37
  may at least as decisive if not even
• 40:40
  more so the financial infrastructure.
• 40:43
  Bond markets, interest rates, currency,
• 40:45
  settlement systems, trade, finance.
• 40:48
  These are all pipelines through which
• 40:51
  capital flows. Okay? They demonstrate
• 40:55
  whether long-term projects are even
• 40:57
  viable, whether states can borrow
• 41:00
  affordably, and whether rebuilding after
• 41:02
  destruction is even possible at all. And
• 41:05
  last night or this morning, there are a
• 41:09
  number of commentaries going on about
• 41:12
  the the Japanese bond market
• 41:15
  specifically and how it is being
• 41:20
  taxed because they are starting to look
• 41:24
  inward into China. I mean, I'm sorry,
• 41:26
  into Japan and change their processes
• 41:30
  because they have they're trying to save
• 41:32
  their own market. What does that do when
• 41:34
  the largest
• 41:36
  uh
• 41:39
  lone shark
• 41:41
  to America is changing its interest rate
• 41:46
  policies inside their own country? That
• 41:49
  means it's no longer profitable to
• 41:51
  borrow money in in Japan and use it to
• 41:55
  finance trade and investment in America
• 41:59
  because your rates are no longer
• 42:01
  profitable for that. And so you bring it
• 42:03
  back to uh to Japan because the rates
• 42:06
  are higher and the dollar is weaker this
• 42:09
  morning quite a bit. And so this is why
• 42:12
  developments in places like Japan's bond
• 42:15
  market matter far beyond Japan. And for
• 42:18
  decades, Japan has functioned as the
• 42:21
  stabilizer of long-term money because
• 42:24
  they held it long term. ultra low yields
• 42:26
  and predictable behavior made the
• 42:28
  Japanese government bond a cornerstone
• 42:31
  of global finance. But infrastructure
• 42:34
  financing depends upon that sort of
• 42:37
  predictability. But when long-term rates
• 42:40
  are volatile, when bond markets repric
• 42:42
  risk, all of a sudden infrastructure is
• 42:46
  harder to fund.
• 42:48
  Projects are delayed, costs rise,
• 42:51
  governments face sharp trade-offs
• 42:53
  between debt service
• 42:56
  and investment. And Japan is having the
• 42:59
  same trouble that we have financing
• 43:03
  their debt, funding it, debt service in
• 43:06
  America. Uh I forget which senator it
• 43:08
  was, but I was listening to one of them
• 43:10
  last week. He said that uh uh very soon
• 43:14
  our interest payments each year will be
• 43:17
  more than our GDP.
• 43:21
  That's a shocker. We're approaching 40
• 43:25
  trillion dollar
• 43:28
  40 trillion and the interest is about
• 43:30
  half of that. It's nonsense. Uh so
• 43:35
  layer on top of this the role of the
• 43:37
  dollar on top of all of these things.
• 43:39
  The dollar isn't just a currency. It's a
• 43:41
  core has been the core of global
• 43:45
  settlements. But that is changing too.
• 43:48
  It's been the road on which
• 43:50
  international trade has traveled. That's
• 43:53
  why Donald Trump says things like
• 43:57
  uh
• 43:58
  you know if you start creating an an
• 44:01
  alternative system where we'll sanction
• 44:03
  the hell out of you. That's it. That's
• 44:06
  what we're going to do is uh uh when
• 44:09
  access to to the financial roads are
• 44:12
  conditioned, restricted or weaponized
• 44:15
  through sanctions and financial
• 44:18
  coercion,
• 44:19
  it ceases to function as a neutral
• 44:22
  infrastructure and becomes a control
• 44:24
  mechanism on on you know for like we're
• 44:28
  doing. We just seize countries and uh
• 44:33
  when infrastructure is a control
• 44:35
  mechanisms,
• 44:37
  all of the international actors begin to
• 44:40
  build alternative structures. It's not
• 44:42
  an ideological rebellion.
• 44:46
  It's risk management which everybody
• 44:49
  engages in. Right? Um I wanted to add to
• 44:53
  this what Musk was talking about. if you
• 44:55
  go out his his segment was and I
• 44:57
  listened to only 20 minutes of the 30.
• 45:00
  Um I didn't finish it was starting to
• 45:01
  get a little repetitive to me. But him
• 45:04
  being present at Davos mattered not
• 45:07
  because uh not only because he's a
• 45:09
  celebrity but also because of the
• 45:11
  contrast. Musk operates in a
• 45:15
  financial physical world, electricity
• 45:18
  generation, battery storage, capacity of
• 45:21
  grids, satellite networks, launch
• 45:24
  systems. I read an article yesterday
• 45:26
  that uh uh he's allowing Russia to start
• 45:29
  using Starlink again. And I told you
• 45:31
  that Russia is creating their own 300
• 45:34
  satellite system to uh to uh launch as
• 45:39
  well. I forget what it's called, but I
• 45:40
  told you about that a couple of days
• 45:42
  ago. Um, but but uh Elon Musk was there
• 45:46
  talking about infrastructure as well.
• 45:49
  Much of the conversation was around
• 45:51
  transition of values, coordination and
• 45:54
  he
• 45:56
  talked about fundamentally capacity,
• 46:00
  electrification and generation and AI
• 46:03
  power grid density, digital economies
• 46:07
  with stable grids and stable data
• 46:10
  infrastructure. These aren't optional.
• 46:13
  They're required prerequisites. you
• 46:16
  don't finance them, you're not going to
• 46:18
  get the uh the business. Build a road,
• 46:24
  you'll make a lot of people rich, right?
• 46:27
  That's your economic function is
• 46:29
  building the pathways.
• 46:31
  So when you talk about uh digitization,
• 46:35
  how you going to digitize in a blackout
• 46:38
  in Ukraine, in Kiev, Creo, and Odessa?
• 46:43
  uh how are they going to connect to uh
• 46:46
  to the internet without power? Well,
• 46:48
  what difference does the internet make?
• 46:50
  And your phone, you can use it for a
• 46:52
  day, but how you going to charge it? You
• 46:54
  can't run your car without fuel, you
• 46:57
  know? So, you can't innovate around a
• 47:00
  dead grid. And so, you can't transition
• 47:03
  without energy, you know, without
• 47:05
  infrastructure. What are you going to
• 47:07
  negotiate? How are you going to do it?
• 47:09
  So, I wanted to uh bring this back now
• 47:14
  to it's less than 10 minutes um about
• 47:18
  Jeffrey Sachs. And I told you I was
• 47:20
  going to play this. Um and he's not an
• 47:22
  outsider. He's somebody who helped
• 47:25
  design
• 47:27
  in depth the postcold war economic
• 47:30
  architecture. When he talks about
• 47:32
  sanctions, tariffs, financial coercion
• 47:37
  as economic warfare, he's diagnosing a
• 47:40
  system that has turned its own
• 47:43
  infrastructure
• 47:44
  and its own infrastructure woes into a
• 47:47
  weapon. We talked yesterday a little bit
• 47:50
  about um uh SEO
• 47:55
  um Nordstream
• 47:57
  pipelines and and how that was
• 48:00
  destroyed. Right. His warning isn't a
• 48:02
  moral warning. It's a structural warning
• 48:05
  from Jeffrey Sachs. It was a a uh pretty
• 48:09
  cool uh you know he's what he talked
• 48:13
  about and I'm going to share that whole
• 48:14
  thing with you. unpredictability
• 48:17
  raising risk premiums. Higher risk
• 48:20
  premiums increase the cost of capital.
• 48:22
  Higher capital reduces investment in
• 48:25
  long-term infrastructure and the entire
• 48:28
  system starts to eat itself. So when he
• 48:31
  says countries are moving away from
• 48:33
  dollar dependence, he's describing an
• 48:35
  infrastructure problem. If the main road
• 48:38
  is dangerous, traffic will go on other
• 48:41
  streets. you know, new payment systems,
• 48:44
  currency swaps, trade arrangements.
• 48:47
  They're not rebellion.
• 48:50
  They're creating alternatives. That's
• 48:52
  what they are. So, I'm going to play
• 48:55
  that for you here. Let me I have it teed
• 48:59
  up here somewhere. Uh, reasonably simple
• 49:03
  to find.
• 49:05
  Uh, but I had to play that other one
• 49:07
  first. There were a couple of other
• 49:09
  interesting ones. There was another
• 49:11
  Russian um uh discussion. And by the
• 49:14
  way, the uh Eric Lee one
• 49:18
  uh was pretty good. There's another girl
• 49:20
  called uh World Affairs in Context that
• 49:23
  channel. She gave something good on the
• 49:25
  Japanese bond markets and all of that as
• 49:27
  well. And uh let's see here. There was
• 49:31
  an interesting Carney discussion which I
• 49:34
  might throw in a little bit, but I doubt
• 49:36
  it. Let's uh let us
• 49:40
  No, now it's not going to be in my
• 49:42
  history. Here he is. Jeffrey Sachs.
• 49:47
  >> Now, President Trump is threatening
• 49:48
  stiff new tariffs on
• 49:50
  >> Let's see here.
• 49:53
  Here we go. If I can figure out how to
• 49:56
  play this. Oh, I already had the I never
• 49:59
  turned it off from last time. Sorry
• 50:01
  about that. Friends and neighbors. Here
• 50:03
  we go.
• 50:03
  >> On Canada if it enters a trade deal with
• 50:05
  China. Canadian Prime Minister Mark
• 50:07
  Carney said his recent talks with
• 50:08
  Beijing comply with a deal signed by the
• 50:11
  US and Mexico. Listen,
• 50:13
  >> Canada respects uh our engagements, our
• 50:17
  uh our commitments. We have commitments
• 50:19
  under KUSMA uh that not to pursue free
• 50:24
  trade agreements with non-market
• 50:26
  economies without prior notification. We
• 50:28
  have no intention of doing that with
• 50:30
  China or any other non-market economy.
• 50:34
  Now, Trump's latest threats follow
• 50:36
  Carney's warning last week in Davos that
• 50:38
  we're experiencing a global rupture. He
• 50:41
  said the rules-based order has given way
• 50:43
  to geoeconomics, the combination of
• 50:45
  economic and geographic factors relating
• 50:47
  to international trade, and specifically
• 50:49
  how countries wield that economic power
• 50:53
  to achieve their political, not just
• 50:55
  their economic goals. Econom economist
• 50:58
  Jeffrey Saxs is the president of UN
• 51:01
  Sustainable Development Solutions
• 51:02
  Network and he joins us now. Good to
• 51:04
  have you here. As we heard so much uh in
• 51:08
  the last few days about global economics
• 51:10
  and geoeconomics in particular, you
• 51:13
  point out that in the last few days the
• 51:14
  Trump administration has started to call
• 51:17
  this in your words economic statecraft.
• 51:20
  You say it's economic warfare. How how
• 51:23
  so?
• 51:24
  >> Okay. Before she gets to that, I wanted
• 51:26
  to point out that uh what she was saying
• 51:28
  about Carney and his uh his uh
• 51:32
  commentary in
• 51:36
  Davos wasn't exactly accurate. Uh he
• 51:40
  talked about the old economic uh order
• 51:44
  and the rules based and how we weren't
• 51:46
  even uh uh following it anymore. He was
• 51:50
  more harsh than she put on here. I'd go
• 51:52
  a little bit harsher than she said, but
• 51:54
  listen to how Jeffrey Sachs responds
• 51:56
  here.
• 51:58
  >> Well, that's actually the phrase
• 52:00
  economic statecraft that Secretary
• 52:02
  Bessant used. He said that the US is
• 52:07
  waging an economic war in essence
• 52:10
  against Iran. Uh he talked about the
• 52:12
  fact that during the past year the US
• 52:15
  went out to crush the Iranian economy.
• 52:19
  uh it went out to drive the currency to
• 52:22
  collapse and to bring people out onto
• 52:24
  the streets and that happened. There's
• 52:27
  tremendous unrest and uh Secretary
• 52:30
  Bassant said, "Well, things are moving
• 52:33
  in a good direction." This is really
• 52:36
  extraordinary. Uh I thought MAGA meant
• 52:40
  looking after the United States, not
• 52:43
  going out to destroy other governments
• 52:46
  uh and other countries. But uh right now
• 52:48
  we have a kind of u lawlessness in the
• 52:52
  US uh approach. Uh it's very
• 52:55
  personalistic. Uh the president uh just
• 52:59
  uh does what he wants to do. There's no
• 53:03
  congressional role. There's no claim to
• 53:06
  law. Um and um other countries are
• 53:10
  reacting and the markets are reacting
• 53:12
  because this unpredictability is
• 53:16
  actually extremely dangerous for the US
• 53:19
  as well as for the world economy. Why
• 53:22
  did Trump back down on the threat about
• 53:24
  Greenland last week? Well, the main
• 53:27
  factor was the stock market uh plummeted
• 53:30
  the day before he got to Davos. Uh and
• 53:33
  he listened. He can't control the stock
• 53:35
  market. uh he was making chaos in the
• 53:38
  international markets.
• 53:40
  >> So you call it lawless to use your
• 53:43
  words. Prime Minister Mark Carney called
• 53:44
  it a rupture in the world order um at
• 53:47
  the instigation of the United States
• 53:49
  even though he didn't name it that way.
• 53:51
  You know ECB President Christian Lagarde
• 53:53
  said she disagreed that she thought that
• 53:55
  was going too far. Does she have a
• 53:57
  point?
• 54:00
  >> No. uh if you are trying to create mass
• 54:04
  unrest, bring people out on the streets
• 54:07
  uh and create chaos and then say that's
• 54:10
  going in a good direction. No, you're
• 54:13
  not going uh too far to call that
• 54:16
  economic warfare. Uh and to say that
• 54:19
  that's lawless. It's lawless in two
• 54:21
  senses. It's lawless in the domestic law
• 54:24
  of the United States. We have a
• 54:26
  constitution. Uh the power to put on
• 54:31
  tariffs is in article one section 8 of
• 54:34
  our constitution. It's not a whim of the
• 54:37
  president. Uh but he's treating it as a
• 54:39
  whim. That issue is before the US
• 54:42
  Supreme Court right now. It's definitely
• 54:45
  lawless in terms of international law
• 54:47
  which is the UN charter.
• 54:50
  Unfortunately, this administration
• 54:52
  sneers at the UN charter. They forget
• 54:55
  that the United States uh ratified the
• 54:58
  UN charter. It's a treaty of the United
• 55:02
  States. It is the law of the land under
• 55:04
  our constitution, a ratified treaty. So,
• 55:07
  it's not to be sneered at. And it is
• 55:10
  definitely illegal uh under
• 55:12
  international law for a country to use
• 55:15
  force to bring down another government.
• 55:18
  And this economic strangulation is
• 55:21
  precisely that. and and you you
• 55:23
  mentioned there the Supreme Court. We we
• 55:25
  will see whether or not Congress will
• 55:27
  ever step in at this point. I do want to
• 55:29
  get to the issue though of those
• 55:30
  sanctions and you've written
• 55:31
  extensively. You've studied this
• 55:32
  extensively in the past few decades not
• 55:35
  just the last few months. Uh the power
• 55:37
  of sanctions now the primacy of the US
• 55:40
  currency to wage that economic warfare
• 55:42
  that is key. But on their face sanctions
• 55:45
  against Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and
• 55:48
  I've just named three. They've hurt
• 55:49
  those countries, right? But principally
• 55:51
  they've hurt the citizens in those
• 55:52
  countries. They've not really affected
• 55:55
  change. What explains that regime change
• 55:58
  I should say?
• 56:00
  >> Yes, that's a very good point. I would
• 56:03
  say the sanctions on Russia have mainly
• 56:05
  hurt the European Union. They cut
• 56:08
  themselves off from lowcost energy. Uh
• 56:13
  maybe uh Trump and his friends like that
• 56:16
  because now Europe buys liqufied natural
• 56:19
  gas from the United States at six times
• 56:22
  the price that it was paying for Russian
• 56:24
  gas. But the sanctions just meant that
• 56:27
  Russia rrooed uh its oil and gas towards
• 56:31
  Asia. So it did not bring down the
• 56:33
  Russian economy but it did bring down
• 56:36
  German industry. Uh the threats that uh
• 56:39
  Trump made threaten the US economy. Uh
• 56:43
  they scared the wits out of the
• 56:45
  international markets. It's strange. The
• 56:47
  United States borrows from the rest of
• 56:49
  the world heavily. Uh we're running huge
• 56:53
  budget deficits and our interest rates
• 56:57
  are rising uh in part because the US is
• 57:00
  not a good bet. And then uh what is also
• 57:05
  happening that's very important for
• 57:06
  people to understand is other countries
• 57:09
  are shifting away from using dollars.
• 57:13
  The privilege that the US has uh that
• 57:16
  our industry and economy has by the use
• 57:20
  of the dollar globally is going away.
• 57:23
  Now Trump thunders about that. Anybody
• 57:26
  that threatens the US dollar, they're
• 57:28
  going to hear from us. But he can't stop
• 57:31
  that because there is no way to compel
• 57:34
  third countries to use the dollar when
• 57:36
  it has been weaponized in this way.
• 57:38
  >> Yeah. And people are really waiting to
• 57:40
  see if that comes to fruition on those
• 57:42
  markets, especially when we talk about
• 57:44
  things like long bonds and and what
• 57:45
  those long-term interest rates are going
• 57:47
  to do. Jeffrey Sachs, we do have to
• 57:48
  leave it there. We will have you back.
• 57:49
  Appreciate it.
• 57:51
  >> And that is the end. Um, now granted,
• 57:56
  uh, in some respects, people do talk to
• 57:59
  whoever their audience is and especially
• 58:02
  when they're questioning someone. And
• 58:04
  CNN, I don't usually watch. I don't I
• 58:07
  don't like any of their commentators. I
• 58:09
  think they're extremely twisted and uh
• 58:12
  extremely uh negative Trump, you know,
• 58:15
  negative I don't know uh normal folks
• 58:21
  is what it seems like to me. I don't
• 58:24
  like CNN in general, but I'm not a fan
• 58:27
  of any of the large media outlets, but
• 58:30
  sometimes that's where you get uh
• 58:31
  Jeffrey Sachs will be interviewed by a
• 58:33
  lot of different people and he's been on
• 58:35
  a lot of different channels. I like to
• 58:36
  listen to him and
• 58:39
  this is a knowledgeable guy. Whether you
• 58:43
  fully back what he's saying or not, he
• 58:47
  is definitely an expert on international
• 58:52
  financial and economic policies and what
• 58:56
  they have done. And one of the notable
• 58:59
  things is is one of the ones that I've
• 59:02
  always uh talked about is that
• 59:07
  uh people are
• 59:11
  creating alternatives to
• 59:15
  the dollar
• 59:17
  and unfortunately
• 59:20
  that the speed at which they are doing
• 59:23
  that is
• 59:26
  increasing dramat automatically and the
• 59:28
  speed at which people are not purchasing
• 59:34
  US debt any longer is going up. Everyone
• 59:39
  is hedging you know every other country
• 59:43
  England going to China some of the
• 59:45
  things that I have discussed here with
• 59:47
  you today they are very important to uh
• 59:52
  at least attempt to understand you where
• 59:56
  they are. So let's talk about this
• 1:00:01
  about the infrastructure and legitimacy
• 1:00:04
  like
• 1:00:06
  Sachs was putting out there that people
• 1:00:08
  are are not abandoning but creating
• 1:00:11
  alternatives
• 1:00:13
  to the US hegemony or the western
• 1:00:17
  hegemony the globalist
• 1:00:20
  uh theory the liberal democrat um
• 1:00:25
  liberal democray cy not Democrat but the
• 1:00:27
  liberal democracies that have dominated
• 1:00:32
  the uh financial
• 1:00:37
  systems for the last 80 years
• 1:00:41
  not happening. Um, let's see.
• 1:00:45
  At the end of the end of the line
• 1:00:48
  though, it's about whether lights will
• 1:00:51
  stay on, whether heat works in the
• 1:00:53
  winter, whether transport routes and uh
• 1:00:57
  data routes and communication routes
• 1:01:01
  function, whether currency can hold its
• 1:01:04
  value, whether the future feels like
• 1:01:07
  something you can build upon or whether
• 1:01:09
  you need to hedge your bets. And a lot
• 1:01:12
  more people are hedging these days than
• 1:01:15
  feeling uh and I mean worldwide and
• 1:01:18
  they're hedging against the United
• 1:01:21
  States in in or creating alternatives to
• 1:01:26
  have alternatives to the United States
• 1:01:28
  because we are our country is perceived
• 1:01:33
  as not as stable as it should be. Now, a
• 1:01:38
  lot of that is internal to us because
• 1:01:40
  it's always been that way. We change
• 1:01:42
  direction every four years anyway or
• 1:01:45
  every eight and things just turn. It's
• 1:01:47
  dependent upon one guy. That's part of
• 1:01:50
  the beauty of our system. It's also part
• 1:01:52
  of the shortcomings of our system. It's
• 1:01:54
  you don't create something. Somebody
• 1:01:57
  comes in and this happens in other
• 1:01:59
  societies as well. mostly in democracies
• 1:02:02
  where where a new person comes in, you
• 1:02:05
  don't have the stability that you would
• 1:02:06
  otherwise have with a I don't know a
• 1:02:09
  Vladimir Putin. And you can say a lot of
• 1:02:11
  things like there the fact that it's
• 1:02:13
  been stable uh for the most part in
• 1:02:16
  Russia uh and you can have a
• 1:02:21
  predictable
• 1:02:23
  result means that people can feel
• 1:02:26
  comfortable do making a decision that
• 1:02:28
  isn't going to be changed based on
• 1:02:30
  somebody else's activity or some other
• 1:02:33
  person coming into an election or bond
• 1:02:37
  rates in China I'm sorry in Japan and
• 1:02:40
  the the rate of interest going up which
• 1:02:43
  means that uh Japanese people are going
• 1:02:45
  to bring their money home when they
• 1:02:47
  haven't done so for 80 years because
• 1:02:50
  it's cheaper to borrow money there and
• 1:02:53
  uh invested in other places because of
• 1:02:56
  the low rates of borrowing which are
• 1:03:01
  changing and it had a big hit yesterday.
• 1:03:03
  So if you don't follow that stuff it's
• 1:03:05
  it's a it's an interesting topic to
• 1:03:08
  discuss. This is why the global order
• 1:03:11
  recently feels very unstable. Not
• 1:03:14
  because people are disagreeing about
• 1:03:17
  values or disagreeing about democracy
• 1:03:20
  versus
• 1:03:22
  socialism or whatever, but because
• 1:03:25
  multiple layers of infrastructure,
• 1:03:27
  physical infrastructure, financial and
• 1:03:31
  technological infrastructure are all
• 1:03:33
  under simultaneous stress everywhere. So
• 1:03:38
  the future isn't going to be decided by,
• 1:03:41
  you know, Davos conferences, you know,
• 1:03:43
  it's not going to be decided upon
• 1:03:46
  rhetoric of, geez, I'm taking Greenland
• 1:03:48
  and I already took Venezuela and they're
• 1:03:51
  going to get in line and their people
• 1:03:53
  are better to fall in line behind us and
• 1:03:56
  behind whoever we appoint because it's
• 1:03:59
  my country now.
• 1:04:02
  It's it's not going to be decided by
• 1:04:04
  that. That's going to be decided by who
• 1:04:06
  can build,
• 1:04:08
  protect,
• 1:04:10
  finance, and fund and maintain
• 1:04:14
  infrastructure
• 1:04:16
  reliably
• 1:04:17
  in a world where these sorts of things
• 1:04:21
  are increasingly
• 1:04:23
  targeted.
• 1:04:25
  And it's
• 1:04:27
  it's I I tell you what, I I believe it's
• 1:04:31
  time for uh folks to uh
• 1:04:35
  buckle in. It's going to be a bumpy ride
• 1:04:40
  is what I think over the next uh at
• 1:04:43
  least three years more if people don't
• 1:04:46
  pull their heads out of their rear ends.
• 1:04:48
  And I always say that uh uh America
• 1:04:52
  doesn't play well with others and it
• 1:04:56
  would be better in my opinion if we did
• 1:05:01
  or attempted to at least. And I don't
• 1:05:04
  think we do that very well. And I uh not
• 1:05:08
  not from a not necessarily from a
• 1:05:11
  militaristic or a military or a war
• 1:05:14
  point of view or anything like that.
• 1:05:16
  Although I'm definitely anti-regime
• 1:05:18
  change anywhere. I don't think that's
• 1:05:20
  our function. And it's not our job to
• 1:05:24
  change the leader of Iraq. Never has
• 1:05:27
  been. You know, it's not our job to
• 1:05:30
  change the leader in Venezuela. Whether
• 1:05:33
  you agree or disagree, it's not your job
• 1:05:36
  to take over that country. I I disagree
• 1:05:39
  fundamentally with that concept and and
• 1:05:42
  always have, by the way. So, it's it's
• 1:05:45
  not, you know, when I was in the
• 1:05:47
  military, had they sent me to Iraq,
• 1:05:50
  which I was in the army for both um
• 1:05:54
  desert storms, you know, one and two, I
• 1:05:56
  was in the military. And uh you know,
• 1:05:59
  what good's a Russian interpreter going
• 1:06:01
  to do over there? They didn't send me
• 1:06:02
  there. I was a diplomatic interpreter.
• 1:06:05
  Never went and uh but had they sent me,
• 1:06:08
  I would have done what, you know, I
• 1:06:10
  agreed to do when I signed the contract.
• 1:06:13
  But that doesn't mean I would have
• 1:06:17
  necessarily liked it. You know that that
• 1:06:20
  cuz I disagree fundamentally with uh
• 1:06:22
  regime change operations. And by the
• 1:06:25
  way, I didn't believe there were any
• 1:06:27
  mass weapons of mass destruction
• 1:06:29
  anywhere.
• 1:06:31
  I never did believe that.
• 1:06:35
  That sounds like a a a really good
• 1:06:38
  story, but I don't believe that.
• 1:06:40
  Alrighty. Well, I want to go to a few of
• 1:06:43
  the events of today that have come up as
• 1:06:46
  well. Um, we've had an announcement
• 1:06:50
  about um the uh tri next set of
• 1:06:56
  trilateral meetings later this week. Uh
• 1:07:00
  Dmitri Pescov announced today uh he's a
• 1:07:04
  Kremlin spokesman um that the next
• 1:07:07
  meeting between Russia, US and Ukraine
• 1:07:10
  will take place later this week on
• 1:07:12
  February 1st
• 1:07:14
  um is when it's going to take place. And
• 1:07:16
  speaking of reporters, Pescov said that
• 1:07:19
  the meeting will take place on Sunday,
• 1:07:21
  but noted that it's a rough estimate of
• 1:07:23
  the time frame, but that we're working
• 1:07:24
  with that for now. Previously, the date
• 1:07:28
  previously the date was subject to
• 1:07:30
  speculation by a bunch of different
• 1:07:32
  outlets. The first rounds, the three-way
• 1:07:35
  rounds, Moscow, Washington, and Kiev
• 1:07:37
  took place last week in Abu Dhabi. And
• 1:07:39
  this was the first time that all three
• 1:07:41
  sides sat down at the same table, and
• 1:07:43
  the talks lasted for two days.
• 1:07:48
  In part, some some people say they were
• 1:07:50
  productive, but not many specifics were
• 1:07:53
  made public. and negotiators noted
• 1:07:56
  there's a lot more work to be done and
• 1:07:57
  Zalinski immediately afterwards said
• 1:08:00
  there isn't going to be any territorial
• 1:08:02
  concessions by Ukraine again and so uh
• 1:08:04
  as I said earlier in the program I think
• 1:08:06
  it's u
• 1:08:09
  uh nut to think that it will be um by
• 1:08:13
  the start of 2026 uh the Ukraine
• 1:08:16
  conflict you know it's the same you know
• 1:08:19
  it's still it's still proceeding there's
• 1:08:22
  been a a year 2025 Five was a year of
• 1:08:25
  pretty intense um warfare,
• 1:08:28
  uh grinding battles for key logistics
• 1:08:31
  hubs and cities and uh the steady
• 1:08:36
  loss of uh Ukrainian reserves and uh
• 1:08:42
  people,
• 1:08:44
  you know, regular soldiers, uh
• 1:08:47
  equipment,
• 1:08:48
  destruction of uh of uh hardware,
• 1:08:54
  and certainly of the front line uh you
• 1:08:56
  know it's once again it's collapsing you
• 1:09:00
  know and but there is an operational uh
• 1:09:03
  kind of a I don't want to call it a
• 1:09:05
  pause but uh uh don't I don't want to
• 1:09:07
  call it any sort of deescalation
• 1:09:10
  uh periods of calm have consistently
• 1:09:12
  served as an interval for regrouping and
• 1:09:15
  I say they're also a time period when um
• 1:09:20
  uh
• 1:09:22
  when
• 1:09:24
  heavy missile and drone strikes and
• 1:09:26
  stuff like that is um are being
• 1:09:29
  conducted. You know this they're trying
• 1:09:31
  to and they're preparing for the next
• 1:09:34
  big moves. So a similar pattern came up
• 1:09:36
  last year around the same time. The
• 1:09:38
  fighting uh was lessened during winter
• 1:09:41
  months. It's very very cold. And in uh
• 1:09:43
  spring there was a large-scale Russian
• 1:09:46
  offensive that defined most of 2025.
• 1:09:50
  And uh that was concluded by the year's
• 1:09:52
  end. You know that what they did it's
• 1:09:54
  going to happen again. And uh so there's
• 1:09:58
  little reason to assume that the Russian
• 1:10:00
  general staff has uh abandoned this
• 1:10:03
  approach. On the contrary, the the
• 1:10:05
  current pause is less of an end point.
• 1:10:09
  It's it's this is not the end even
• 1:10:11
  though they are having negotiations. The
• 1:10:13
  three ways that I talked about um
• 1:10:16
  against this. The key question is not
• 1:10:19
  whether the front's going to heat up
• 1:10:20
  again, but where and how. The
• 1:10:24
  configuration of forces, the condition
• 1:10:26
  of Ukrainian defenses, or lack thereof,
• 1:10:29
  and the logic of Russian operational
• 1:10:31
  planning uh all point to several new
• 1:10:34
  axes of advance, each with their own uh
• 1:10:37
  strategic value. So, let's look first up
• 1:10:40
  at Sunumi. Now, Sumi is south of
• 1:10:43
  Belgraed and it's the northern part,
• 1:10:45
  northern province uh uh in Ukraine.
• 1:10:50
  Okay? And what Putin said a year ago was
• 1:10:54
  they're going to create they want to
• 1:10:55
  create a buffer zone that will make it
• 1:10:58
  much tougher for anybody to hit Moscow
• 1:11:02
  from either of those regions, right? Uh
• 1:11:07
  so there is a bit of a buffer zone now
• 1:11:10
  which it never would have happened
• 1:11:11
  without the Kursk offensive when the
• 1:11:14
  Ukrainians went into Kursk and and
• 1:11:17
  messed around in there wanted to go up
• 1:11:19
  to the Kursk nuclear power plant and
• 1:11:22
  take that over. Um, you know, there's a
• 1:11:25
  new front that has opened up in there in
• 1:11:28
  in a there's a large village called
• 1:11:30
  Graovkaya
• 1:11:32
  with there's hasn't been much huge
• 1:11:35
  fighting up there, just a steady advance
• 1:11:37
  of the Russians coming down there to
• 1:11:39
  create this buffer zone. So, Sunumi is
• 1:11:42
  probably going to continue to see some
• 1:11:45
  uh
• 1:11:47
  some action to create this buffer zone.
• 1:11:49
  Next to that there's a uh
• 1:11:54
  uh region called Harkov and that will
• 1:11:58
  also have a lot of uh you know that's
• 1:12:01
  going to they're pushing hard from uh uh
• 1:12:05
  the east the Russians are and I believe
• 1:12:08
  they they want to get all the way into
• 1:12:09
  Harkov which is south of Belgraed.
• 1:12:12
  They're tired of Belgared being uh being
• 1:12:15
  uh um pounded from the south and so I
• 1:12:21
  you know there's plenty of ways to go
• 1:12:23
  and I I told you about uh uh Sever
• 1:12:27
  Chasar Constantinovka and they're
• 1:12:30
  they're going towards Slavansk and
• 1:12:31
  Kromatursk and this is one of the active
• 1:12:33
  areas in January. So from Severk, the
• 1:12:36
  south group of forces is pushing west
• 1:12:38
  along uh Severki Det
• 1:12:41
  Slavansk and the key settlements you
• 1:12:44
  know like Zakotnaya have been captured
• 1:12:47
  and the major next objective is Ry
• 1:12:49
  Alexandraka
• 1:12:51
  and so fighting is also continuing in
• 1:12:53
  Constantinovka and the there's you know
• 1:12:57
  semi-enirclement again classic Russians
• 1:13:00
  create these things they like to call
• 1:13:02
  cauldrons and these are still ongoing.
• 1:13:05
  It means it's slow. But Kromatorsk and
• 1:13:08
  Slavansk and D uh Duskava and the big
• 1:13:13
  cities uh to the to the left of
• 1:13:15
  Constantinovka
• 1:13:17
  and and uh these are places in in
• 1:13:20
  eastern
• 1:13:22
  uh on the eastern front side that are
• 1:13:26
  the cauldron or this big pocket is being
• 1:13:30
  created and then Russia closes the
• 1:13:32
  pocket and then that you end up like
• 1:13:35
  what you had in uh a couple of in the
• 1:13:37
  Prosk and Mir Negrad regions and so now
• 1:13:41
  Prosk and Mir Negrad are completely
• 1:13:43
  under Russian control and you don't hear
• 1:13:45
  anything about it anymore and those are
• 1:13:47
  fairly large cities you know and I I
• 1:13:50
  always said like this is going to go all
• 1:13:53
  the way to the Neper River that's what I
• 1:13:56
  believe and Gula and Neper River are the
• 1:14:00
  last strongholds on the way to the city
• 1:14:03
  of uh Zaparisia right according to The
• 1:14:06
  Russian constitution, the whole region
• 1:14:08
  of Zaparisia and its capital which is
• 1:14:12
  city by the same name are occupied by
• 1:14:15
  Ukrainian forces and the advance of the
• 1:14:17
  eastern group of forces in Nepa, Petrosk
• 1:14:20
  and Zaparisia and the effective collapse
• 1:14:23
  of the Ukraine front near that area and
• 1:14:25
  the capture of the city at the end of
• 1:14:27
  last year have all created a solid
• 1:14:29
  foundation uh for them to continue to
• 1:14:33
  advance and take over the rest of Zapia.
• 1:14:36
  So at the same time the uh Nipper River
• 1:14:39
  is now active. All of the front lines
• 1:14:42
  are on the Nipper. And so the main
• 1:14:45
  Ukrainian stronghold on the way to
• 1:14:47
  Zaparisia is the city of Oreov which is
• 1:14:49
  the center of Ukrainian counteroffensive
• 1:14:51
  in 2023.
• 1:14:54
  And so approaching from the south is
• 1:14:56
  pretty challenging because there's uh uh
• 1:14:59
  you know plenty of forces up in there in
• 1:15:02
  Arav. They've already gone past the
• 1:15:06
  other parts in Zaparisia and they're
• 1:15:08
  they're doing the same sort of thing
• 1:15:10
  down there, creating these cauldrons.
• 1:15:12
  The only reason I bring all this up is
• 1:15:14
  because
• 1:15:16
  it appears to me that the cauldrons are
• 1:15:19
  forming in those two key pocket areas.
• 1:15:22
  And these are big
• 1:15:24
  uh cauldrons or encirclements.
• 1:15:27
  And Russia, it's been classic. I've
• 1:15:29
  watched this
• 1:15:32
  five, 10 times. Uh, as they get into
• 1:15:35
  cities, they basically surround the
• 1:15:37
  city, force the Ukrainians to uh, do
• 1:15:41
  something and most of the time the
• 1:15:42
  Ukrainians don't.
• 1:15:45
  They don't leave and they end up instead
• 1:15:47
  surrounded because Russia cuts off all
• 1:15:49
  supply to them. And then we argue about
• 1:15:52
  whether or not Russia really has control
• 1:15:54
  or doesn't have control. And a couple of
• 1:15:56
  months later, you just go, "Oh, yeah. uh
• 1:15:59
  you know Prosk and Mir Negrad those were
• 1:16:02
  taken by the Russians but you don't want
• 1:16:05
  they
• 1:16:07
  the whole time it's occurring nobody
• 1:16:09
  wants to admit that this is what's
• 1:16:11
  happening but right now they're clearly
• 1:16:14
  under Russian control and there was and
• 1:16:17
  when I started talking about it back in
• 1:16:19
  what was it October it was well Russia
• 1:16:22
  claims that they got uh some 10,000
• 1:16:25
  Ukrainian soldiers surrounded in there
• 1:16:27
  and they offered to let Western
• 1:16:29
  journalists come in and uh see what was
• 1:16:33
  going on and prove it. You know, you
• 1:16:34
  want to come see it, come on in. And
• 1:16:37
  they wouldn't let them. And then they
• 1:16:38
  had those fake videos that were posted
• 1:16:40
  on the Ukrainian side that were uh
• 1:16:42
  clearly AIDed where Zilinski was going
• 1:16:46
  to go stand in front of a, you know,
• 1:16:48
  like a central town part, but it was
• 1:16:50
  clear that it was done, you know, that
• 1:16:52
  it was an old old picture of it and it
• 1:16:55
  it wasn't done properly. So, uh I don't
• 1:16:57
  know. there's um this war is not going
• 1:17:00
  well and and you know
• 1:17:03
  I uh
• 1:17:07
  wanted to bring that up and let's see
• 1:17:12
  and I also wanted to talk a little bit
• 1:17:15
  about where is that story
• 1:17:19
  uh Hungary Hungary has launched a
• 1:17:24
  national petition
• 1:17:27
  Hungary
• 1:17:28
  to tell EU officials that they are not
• 1:17:32
  willing to foot the bill for funding
• 1:17:35
  Ukraine
• 1:17:36
  and are tired of the higher domestic
• 1:17:39
  costs caused by Kiev's conflicts with
• 1:17:42
  Moscow. So in a statement Monday, the
• 1:17:45
  Hungarian government said that the
• 1:17:47
  petition is intended to send a message
• 1:17:52
  to Brussels that Hungary will not pay
• 1:17:56
  for Ukraine's military expenses or prop
• 1:17:59
  up Kiev for the next decade while
• 1:18:03
  suffering higher utility bills at home
• 1:18:05
  because
• 1:18:07
  they used to get lowcost gas and oil
• 1:18:09
  through the pipeline that ran through
• 1:18:11
  Ukraine which they had funded. did with
• 1:18:13
  Russia. Now, it costs more because they
• 1:18:15
  have to go down through uh Turk stream
• 1:18:17
  through Turkey and or through the
• 1:18:20
  whatever the Greek the Greek uh route
• 1:18:22
  is, I forget that they have to come up
• 1:18:24
  through that way. And so this ballot,
• 1:18:27
  which is a kind of a referendum, offers
• 1:18:30
  a chance to uh vote on three items. Uh
• 1:18:34
  so a parliamentary state secretary for
• 1:18:37
  prime minister Victor Orbin accused the
• 1:18:40
  EU of pouring money into Ukraine without
• 1:18:43
  consulting any of the citizens of the
• 1:18:46
  block. He claimed that Russell Brussels
• 1:18:49
  has already spent $170 billion euro or
• 1:18:54
  $24 billion supporting Kiev. And now
• 1:18:58
  Brussels wants more. They want 800
• 1:19:01
  billion for Ukraine's state financing
• 1:19:04
  and another 700 billion to fund the
• 1:19:08
  conflict. And officials are warning that
• 1:19:10
  this funding uh is going to require
• 1:19:13
  further austerity for you know taxing
• 1:19:17
  your own citizens to fund citizens of
• 1:19:20
  another country and it's going to end up
• 1:19:23
  um forcing the citizens to pay higher
• 1:19:26
  household utility prices. and he said uh
• 1:19:30
  would be enforced
• 1:19:32
  because Hungary is just a you know a
• 1:19:34
  puppet Brussels compliant government
• 1:19:37
  comes to power if if Orbin doesn't stay
• 1:19:39
  in power. So Orbin's government has
• 1:19:41
  repeatedly clashed with the EU over
• 1:19:43
  support for Kiev since the escalation of
• 1:19:46
  Ukraine conflict in 2022 and they
• 1:19:49
  criticize sanctions on Russia as
• 1:19:51
  detrimental to the entire block and they
• 1:19:54
  refused to send weapons to Kiev.
• 1:19:56
  Budapest opposes Kiev's ambitions to
• 1:19:59
  join the EU and NATO and uh uh they say
• 1:20:04
  that uh this would drag the block into a
• 1:20:06
  direct conflict with Moscow which nobody
• 1:20:09
  sees as positive. Um, I saw something
• 1:20:13
  yesterday
• 1:20:15
  or late last night that said that uh uh
• 1:20:18
  there was uh discussions about um
• 1:20:23
  Russia threatening Poland, Lithuania,
• 1:20:26
  Latvia, Estonia, those four up in there
• 1:20:29
  that said, and there was some
• 1:20:31
  commentary. I went and listened to it,
• 1:20:32
  but it was most of it was these people
• 1:20:34
  are nuts. they're so rousophobic and
• 1:20:38
  everything they say is they're trying to
• 1:20:40
  get the rest of Europe all whipped up to
• 1:20:42
  uh to go after Russia and that a lot of
• 1:20:45
  these people end up in power in the EU
• 1:20:49
  um in the EU organization, you know,
• 1:20:53
  like Ursula Fanderline's puppets, you
• 1:20:55
  know, or henchmen. So, it's uh
• 1:21:00
  it's a strange old world we're living
• 1:21:02
  in. Let's see. There were a couple of
• 1:21:05
  opinion pieces um that I wanted to uh uh
• 1:21:11
  talk about and one of them was pretty
• 1:21:15
  funny how
• 1:21:17
  and I liked maybe I will I think I have
• 1:21:20
  enough time to share this uh because it
• 1:21:23
  was I read it actually and I think I'm
• 1:21:25
  going to share it with you. This is
• 1:21:27
  written by he's a literary critic uh a
• 1:21:30
  guy named Dimmitri Samoof
• 1:21:34
  and uh here's here's the article it's
• 1:21:37
  the article is called and it came out on
• 1:21:39
  the 24th
• 1:21:41
  of January several days ago and uh he
• 1:21:45
  goes here's the thing
• 1:21:48
  oh the article is called sex is gone why
• 1:21:52
  and he said here's the thing the world
• 1:21:54
  many of us grew up in has vanished. Not
• 1:21:57
  because of geopolitics, but because of
• 1:22:00
  sex. No, this is not a personal
• 1:22:03
  confession. It's an observation about
• 1:22:06
  culture. Sex, once treated as central to
• 1:22:09
  modern life, is quietly retreating. And
• 1:22:12
  the shift is so broad that it tells us
• 1:22:14
  something uncomfortable about where
• 1:22:17
  society has gone. And the guy writing
• 1:22:21
  the story, Dmitri, he says, "I came of
• 1:22:24
  age in the 90s when sex was everywhere,
• 1:22:27
  not just in private life, but in public
• 1:22:29
  space. Advertising ran on the formula
• 1:22:33
  that sex sells. Some products logically
• 1:22:37
  lent themselves to erotic imagery and
• 1:22:39
  others did not. Yet, a sexualized female
• 1:22:42
  body could be used to sell almost
• 1:22:44
  anything,
• 1:22:46
  including a glass of water. Newspapers,
• 1:22:49
  car magazines, even publications about
• 1:22:52
  the paranormal, carried nude or
• 1:22:55
  semi-nude photooots. Television, long
• 1:22:58
  before late night, included bedroom
• 1:23:00
  scenes as routine. Youth series revolved
• 1:23:03
  around the first sexual experiences.
• 1:23:06
  Schools distributed brochures about
• 1:23:09
  contraception. Words once whispered were
• 1:23:11
  now spoken on the air. Orgasm,
• 1:23:14
  masturbation, intercourse.
• 1:23:18
  Uh, that reminds me of a Monty Python
• 1:23:20
  skit. Um, which I won't share with you
• 1:23:23
  because I want to finish this article.
• 1:23:26
  The message was clear. Sex was not only
• 1:23:29
  normal, it was valuable, exciting, a
• 1:23:31
  permanent feature of modern life. 30
• 1:23:35
  years later, we are told almost casually
• 1:23:39
  that sex is overrated.
• 1:23:43
  This is not, excuse me, this is not
• 1:23:46
  anecdotal. Surveys do reflect a real
• 1:23:50
  shift. Research by the NAFI Analytical
• 1:23:54
  Center showed that 22% of people aged 18
• 1:23:59
  to 25 are not sexually active. More than
• 1:24:04
  half of respondents report problems in
• 1:24:07
  their intimate lives. 40% cannot discuss
• 1:24:11
  sexual issues with their partner. Large
• 1:24:15
  numbers report dissatisfaction, lack of
• 1:24:18
  desire, or pain. Among women, the
• 1:24:21
  figures are especially stark.
• 1:24:25
  More revealing still are value rankings
• 1:24:28
  among people in long-term
• 1:24:30
  relationshipships.
• 1:24:32
  Sex comes last on the list for what is
• 1:24:36
  necessary for well-being. For many young
• 1:24:39
  people, it does not appear as a value at
• 1:24:43
  all. health, money, status, travel, and
• 1:24:47
  peace of mind. These now dominate. Sex
• 1:24:51
  has slipped off of the agenda.
• 1:24:54
  Given how problematized the intimate
• 1:24:57
  sphere has become become, this is hardly
• 1:25:00
  surprising. Sex today competes with the
• 1:25:03
  entire digital universe.
• 1:25:07
  Short video, streaming platforms, games,
• 1:25:10
  endless online content. Why invest
• 1:25:14
  emotional and physical effort when
• 1:25:16
  easier form of stimulations are
• 1:25:19
  available on demand? Add to this
• 1:25:22
  anxiety. Choosing a partner now feels
• 1:25:25
  like navigating a field of red flags,
• 1:25:28
  fear of manipulation, abuse,
• 1:25:30
  psychological labels, then practical
• 1:25:32
  concerns. What if it leads to
• 1:25:35
  commitment, marriage, a mortgage? In
• 1:25:37
  such a climate, withdrawal looks
• 1:25:39
  rational. How did we get here?
• 1:25:44
  That's a good question. How did we get
• 1:25:46
  here? The period we remember as sexually
• 1:25:49
  liberated
• 1:25:50
  may have been a historical exception.
• 1:25:53
  Roughly from the 50s onward, a unique
• 1:25:56
  combination of factors aligned.
• 1:25:58
  Contraception was widespread. Living
• 1:26:01
  standards rose. Housing conditions
• 1:26:03
  improved. Education expanded. sexual
• 1:26:06
  behavior began to separate from
• 1:26:08
  reproduction and marriage. This was the
• 1:26:11
  so-called second demographic transition.
• 1:26:14
  Sex could exist for pleasure independent
• 1:26:18
  of family formation. For a few decades,
• 1:26:21
  sex was both accessible and culturally
• 1:26:24
  celebrated. We assumed this was a
• 1:26:27
  permanent achievement. But across most
• 1:26:29
  of human history, sex was not a sphere
• 1:26:32
  of self-expression. For the majority, it
• 1:26:35
  was tied to necessity, reproduction, and
• 1:26:38
  obligation. Hygiene, privacy, comfort,
• 1:26:42
  the conditions that make mutual pleasure
• 1:26:44
  possible were luxuries. Ideas like
• 1:26:47
  female orgasm or emotional compatibility
• 1:26:50
  were not central concerns for ordinary
• 1:26:52
  people.
• 1:26:54
  We like to point to ancient erotic arts
• 1:26:57
  and texts such as the Kama Sutra. Yet
• 1:27:00
  these represent elite or symbolic
• 1:27:02
  cultures, not the daily experience of
• 1:27:05
  most people. What the late 20th century
• 1:27:08
  did was briefly place sex at the center
• 1:27:11
  of mass culture. That moment appears to
• 1:27:14
  be passing. Now sex competes not only
• 1:27:18
  with digital entertainment but with
• 1:27:19
  broader ethos of individual
• 1:27:21
  optimization. Time is a resource. Energy
• 1:27:25
  is limited. People prioritize career,
• 1:27:28
  fitness, mental stability, travel,
• 1:27:30
  consumption. Sex with its uncertainties
• 1:27:32
  and vulnerabilities
• 1:27:34
  looks inefficient. The result is a
• 1:27:37
  paradoxical. A society saturated with
• 1:27:40
  sexual imagery in the recent past is
• 1:27:43
  producing generations less interested in
• 1:27:46
  sexual practice. The language of desire
• 1:27:50
  remains in advertising in media, but
• 1:27:52
  lived reality is shifting toward
• 1:27:54
  disengagement. Perhaps this is not
• 1:27:57
  decline, but rebalancing. Sex, having
• 1:28:00
  enjoyed a period of cultural
• 1:28:02
  overexposure,
• 1:28:04
  returns to being one element among many,
• 1:28:07
  no longer the organizing principle of
• 1:28:09
  youth culture. Yet, the contrast with
• 1:28:11
  the '9s is striking enough to feel like
• 1:28:13
  a rupture. That earlier era left a vast
• 1:28:17
  archive of film, novels, memories
• 1:28:19
  depicting a world in which sex was easy,
• 1:28:22
  central, almost guaranteed. We end up
• 1:28:25
  studying that period in a way we stutter
• 1:28:28
  study other brief cultural phases
• 1:28:30
  through art and nostalgia rather than
• 1:28:32
  personal experience. It turns out that
• 1:28:35
  the age when sex was treated as a
• 1:28:37
  universal value may have been an
• 1:28:39
  interlude, not a destination. and we are
• 1:28:43
  now living through the correction. This
• 1:28:46
  article was first published by the
• 1:28:48
  online newspaper gazetta.r
• 1:28:51
  Russia and was translated and edited
• 1:28:54
  here. Uh so I think that was uh uh
• 1:28:59
  pretty cool. Um at any rate I I wanted
• 1:29:02
  to share that with you and I actually
• 1:29:04
  managed to get it in before the end of
• 1:29:06
  the show. Uh this is international
• 1:29:09
  flavor. I'm very glad you were with me
• 1:29:11
  here today. You can join me every day
• 1:29:14
  from 7:30. Oh, today is the longest day
• 1:29:16
  on radio, isn't it? It's Wednesday,
• 1:29:19
  isn't it? All day today. And uh we have
• 1:29:22
  plenty of shows here. Coming up next is
• 1:29:24
  the damn swag. And uh JR will be later.
• 1:29:28
  I I don't even have the schedule in
• 1:29:29
  front of me, but you can see our
• 1:29:31
  schedule by going to
• 1:29:33
  damradio.com/scched.
• 1:29:36
  And you can listen to all the old
• 1:29:37
  podcasts by going to
• 1:29:39
  damradio.commpodcasts
• 1:29:41
  or go out to internationalflavor.com.
• 1:29:44
  I hope you have a wonderful day. See you
• 1:29:48
  tomorrow.