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Why Chinese AI Terrifies Silicon Valley | Silk and Steel · UK Column Radio

0:01
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Silk and
0:05
Speaker 1: Steel Podcast. I'm your host Carl Za to there, I
0:08
Speaker 1: walk on back the crowd favorite doctor Warwick Power from Australia.
0:12
Speaker 1: Uh Warwick, welcome back to the show. We have a
0:17
Speaker 1: lot to talk about.
0:19
Speaker 2: Great to be with you again and great to be
0:21
Speaker 2: with your viewers and the community at large.
0:26
Speaker 1: So, as you have heard now, there's quite a disturbance
0:32
Speaker 1: in the in the in the US talking space because
0:37
Speaker 1: China has released a couple AI models, first a Supo,
0:42
Speaker 1: the the rebranded z a I, and now the Chinese
0:47
Speaker 1: Chinese delivery app made one release their own AI model,
0:53
Speaker 1: which is actually quite impressive. And this has created quite
0:58
Speaker 1: a panic in the US, particularly the financial industry, because
1:03
Speaker 1: there's so much money now is going into building this
1:08
Speaker 1: AI bubble in the US, which with this premise is
1:11
Speaker 1: looking incredbly wildly with all these incredibly cheap, open source
1:17
Speaker 1: Chinese AI coming out. What's your take on that.
1:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, I think the proprietary American AI business model
1:28
Speaker 2: is put mortem, but it's dead. The fundamental assumptions that
1:34
Speaker 2: underpinned the ways in which the technology was conceptualized and
1:39
Speaker 2: how it was going to create incredibly difficult to overcome
1:42
Speaker 2: motes which would support high revenue streams has collapsed in
1:47
Speaker 2: a screaming heap, not only on the back of the
1:50
Speaker 2: deep Seek moment, but it just seems that every month
1:55
Speaker 2: or two there is a new development within the sector
1:59
Speaker 2: which demonstrates that everything about the AI model of the
2:05
Speaker 2: American technical oligarchy complex is actually being undermined. And as
2:15
Speaker 2: you mentioned, you know, we've had two things in the
2:17
Speaker 2: last what two weeks three weeks or so from China
2:22
Speaker 2: that has really thrown another big rock in the pond.
2:26
Speaker 2: So we have the driple model that you mentioned from
2:30
Speaker 2: Zai or Zai this is the Australian thing, right Zai.
2:36
Speaker 2: And that came literally on the same day or the
2:42
Speaker 2: announcement came on the same day that Anthropic commented on
2:49
Speaker 2: the restrictions that the American government had placed on its models. Right.
2:55
Speaker 2: So on the back of those restrictions, Drupail comes out
2:59
Speaker 2: and says, as well, we're going to make our latest
3:03
Speaker 2: model fully open source. Problem number one, right, because that
3:08
Speaker 2: really reinforces this idea that in fact, the American AI
3:13
Speaker 2: model is an expensive, exclusive model, whereas the Chinese mentality
3:19
Speaker 2: and the infrastructure that's being developed around. It is really
3:21
Speaker 2: about popularization, so that's see. And then in the last
3:26
Speaker 2: twenty four hours also we've seen reports now of a
3:31
Speaker 2: delivery company, and of course everyone talks about these delivery
3:34
Speaker 2: companies and looks down on them because they're amongst the
3:38
Speaker 2: hardest workers who arguably lead some of the more precarious
3:43
Speaker 2: labor market existences in China. So that's also the bad point.
3:47
Speaker 2: But put that aside for a moment. You know, all
3:49
Speaker 2: those people in the yellow vests and things, that's the
3:52
Speaker 2: image that we have of Chinese delivery, and here they
3:56
Speaker 2: are launching an incredible model, reportedly fully developed on Huawei chips.
4:04
Speaker 2: So that's just second second thing. And I think at
4:09
Speaker 2: about the same time, I mean the last four hours
4:12
Speaker 2: or twenty four hours, we've had a confirmation that Claud's
4:17
Speaker 2: code base has actually written into it a whole bunch
4:21
Speaker 2: of spywave in the attempt to identify the locations and
4:27
Speaker 2: the national attribute of users. Right, So this is all
4:31
Speaker 2: about this idea of prohibiting basically Chinese people from accessing
4:38
Speaker 2: and using American AI. So what do you say about
4:42
Speaker 2: all of this, Well, I think you've got to sort
4:44
Speaker 2: of put into that big context which is what is
4:47
Speaker 2: the American economy in twenty twenty six right now? If
4:52
Speaker 2: it wasn't for AI, if it wasn't for the bubble
4:57
Speaker 2: that's been pumped up around AI, if it was for
5:00
Speaker 2: the capital expenditure pouring into data centers being built everywhere,
5:05
Speaker 2: what is the American economy? What is the American stock market?
5:09
Speaker 2: If it wasn't for AI stocks right, Well, cut a
5:16
Speaker 2: long story short, there wouldn't be much to it. And
5:19
Speaker 2: so the apoplexy that I think is emerging now in
5:24
Speaker 2: the American political economy landscape around all of this is
5:28
Speaker 2: just intensifying. Makes it all worse, of course, is that
5:32
Speaker 2: they can't win a war in Iran, and I think
5:36
Speaker 2: that there is a broad sense of Western displacement anxiety
5:42
Speaker 2: really bubbling to the surface, because on top of that,
5:44
Speaker 2: on the other side of the Atlantic, we've got folk
5:47
Speaker 2: in Brussels hyperventilating about Chinese manufacturing somehow, you know, it's
5:53
Speaker 2: being the death knell of European industry, whilst at the
5:57
Speaker 2: same time consumers in Europe are lapping up Chinese made
6:02
Speaker 2: air conditioners in the face of a heat wave. Right,
6:06
Speaker 2: you know, we live in incredibly crazy times, really Kyle.
6:09
Speaker 2: But there are times that I think are characterized right
6:13
Speaker 2: now by an intensified sense of Western displacement anxiety.
6:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, indeed in fact, and now they're they're projecting, and
6:26
Speaker 1: they're they're trying gas lighting China's accomplishment. I just saw
6:31
Speaker 1: a Financial Foreign Affair article which says China's industrialization precluded
6:39
Speaker 1: or even de industrialized the countries in the Global South.
6:43
Speaker 1: So it's not that the develop economy of the West, Europe,
6:46
Speaker 1: America is suffering, but the global South is suffering because
6:51
Speaker 1: China has industrialized. What do you say say about that?
6:56
Speaker 2: That's the f PA pace, isn't it the foreign policy place. Look,
7:00
Speaker 2: it's even worse than that car because it actually talks
7:02
Speaker 2: about the projected losses, right, So these aren't actually realized
7:07
Speaker 2: the industrialization or non industrialization of the Global South. This
7:11
Speaker 2: is the projection that China's industrialization is precluding the future
7:17
Speaker 2: industrialization of the Global South. So here we are. We've
7:20
Speaker 2: got American think tank analysts and you know, blob writers
7:25
Speaker 2: now not only talking, you know, ignoring the historical record,
7:30
Speaker 2: which of course is American and Western imperial expansion and
7:35
Speaker 2: colonialization and extraction. And now they're blaming China for what
7:39
Speaker 2: may happen in the future. We're not even talking about
7:42
Speaker 2: what's happened now or recently, it's what might happen in
7:46
Speaker 2: the future. I mean, give us a break, Give us
7:49
Speaker 2: a break. This is coming from a bunch of people
7:51
Speaker 2: who I think are still struggling with the idea that
7:53
Speaker 2: America's track record is one of perpetual warfare and destruction. Right.
7:59
Speaker 2: The Cost of War Project at Brown University has been
8:04
Speaker 2: estimating how much damage and the costs of America's wars
8:10
Speaker 2: in human terms and financial terms, in opportunity cost terms,
8:15
Speaker 2: in the damage to the fabric of American society. These
8:20
Speaker 2: are real things that are happening, and yet we've got,
8:23
Speaker 2: you know, the principal mouthpieces of the American foreign policy
8:27
Speaker 2: establishment bloviating about some imagined future r what's the reality. Well,
8:32
Speaker 2: the reality is is that as China's industrialized, it's also
8:38
Speaker 2: made available, at costs unknown heretofore to global South economies
8:45
Speaker 2: capital equipment and intermediate input materials necessary for their own industrialization.
8:52
Speaker 2: One of the reasons why China's exports have boomed in
8:56
Speaker 2: the last eighteen months to two years is because China
9:00
Speaker 2: is exporting not cheap plastic toys, right, it's exporting capital equipment, machinery, electronics,
9:11
Speaker 2: evs right, soular power panels, wind turbines, batteries and all
9:19
Speaker 2: of these things actually contribute to the industrialization possibilities of
9:24
Speaker 2: the global South. So whatever it is that FP and
9:29
Speaker 2: its editorial border are smoking, they need to just back
9:34
Speaker 2: off a little bit, because this amount of imagineering is
9:38
Speaker 2: really doing themselves no favors. It exposes them once again,
9:43
Speaker 2: I think, to letting their own anxieties get in the
9:46
Speaker 2: road of sensible analysis and commentary. It certainly deludes Americans counterproductively,
9:54
Speaker 2: and it makes the American establishment look desperate.
10:00
Speaker 1: Yeah. I want to go back to the AI development
10:03
Speaker 1: for a second, because the cheap chief architect of US
10:08
Speaker 1: chip sanction on China, the former Google CEO Eric Schmidt,
10:12
Speaker 1: have recently admitted the Chip sanction has stopped working because
10:18
Speaker 1: the whole reason for the chip sanction was to slow
10:21
Speaker 1: down China's AI development to make sure Huawei do not
10:26
Speaker 1: get their hands on the equipment from ASML to manufacture
10:31
Speaker 1: the most advanced semiconductors to power China's AI development. Whereas
10:37
Speaker 1: United States, with this unlimited resources, unlimited money throwing at
10:41
Speaker 1: the AI bubble will brute force a solution by building
10:46
Speaker 1: thousands of data centers and through the brood compute power
10:51
Speaker 1: will leap ahead and then chief artificial intelligence. But now
10:55
Speaker 1: it looks like China is quietly catching up at all
11:00
Speaker 1: layers of the tech stacks, you know, from both like
11:03
Speaker 1: the application layer, the model layer, and even at the
11:07
Speaker 1: hardware layer, where Huawei is now figuring it out way
11:12
Speaker 1: to UH get the most juice out of the old
11:16
Speaker 1: way of manufacturing chips and and as as we have seen,
11:20
Speaker 1: you know, like the latest UH Chinese open source AI
11:24
Speaker 1: AI has all been trained, you know, built using Huawei
11:30
Speaker 1: chips and and Eric Schmidts, you know, he has to
11:33
Speaker 1: say the chips sanction was working until recently he stopped
11:38
Speaker 1: and he admitted now the gap UH. A year ago
11:42
Speaker 1: he said the gap between American AI and Chinese AI
11:45
Speaker 1: about one to two years. And now he says the
11:48
Speaker 1: gap between the American frontier model like clawd anthropics and
11:54
Speaker 1: or open AI UH and the Chinese model are probably
11:59
Speaker 1: you know, four to six months. But but but for
12:04
Speaker 1: most of the businesses, they look at the cost of
12:08
Speaker 1: deploying the AI and the open source AI from China
12:12
Speaker 1: is just so much significantly cheaper. And I saw the
12:16
Speaker 1: data from a month ago. He says eighty percent of
12:19
Speaker 1: the American startups have switched to using Chinese open source AI,
12:24
Speaker 1: and that that that percentage a lot higher today because
12:29
Speaker 1: it just it just makes economic sense when you don't
12:34
Speaker 1: you don't next, you know, like for that that that
12:36
Speaker 1: difference between like three four six month gap even if
12:40
Speaker 1: that exists, that that when when it's like magnitude cheaper
12:47
Speaker 1: to use open source AI, you will be financially irresponsible,
12:51
Speaker 1: you know, to to to to to use open AI
12:53
Speaker 1: or anthropics products. And I think this is what really
12:59
Speaker 1: uh sits a panic because they don't really have a
13:02
Speaker 1: good answer for it. You know, like that before the
13:04
Speaker 1: the Eric Schmidt's idea was, you know, like to replicate
13:11
Speaker 1: the semiconductor in supply chain will be to rebuild the
13:15
Speaker 1: whole human civilization. It'd be so complex, China will not
13:18
Speaker 1: be able to do it, and that will allow enough
13:21
Speaker 1: time for the United States to reach AGI first, and
13:25
Speaker 1: then you will be game over because you will be
13:27
Speaker 1: like American, like you have ten equivalent of ten ten
13:32
Speaker 1: thousands of PhDs that don't need to sleep and and
13:36
Speaker 1: poop and training new PhDs, and and then you know,
13:41
Speaker 1: China and the rest of the world will never catch up,
13:44
Speaker 1: and you will ensure the American dominance for the next
13:47
Speaker 1: century or millennium. But that that looks increasingly unlikely today.
13:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, I look their pipe friends, aren't they? Then their
13:55
Speaker 2: fantasies and you know that that issue of cost of
14:00
Speaker 2: diferential is the killer, right, That's the manifestation of how
14:04
Speaker 2: two entirely different approaches to this question of artificial intelligence,
14:09
Speaker 2: which is really electricity, right, electricity and hardware is manifesting itself.
14:16
Speaker 2: And we can see how China's advantages in terms of
14:21
Speaker 2: abundant electricity and low cost electricity is underpinning its advantages
14:26
Speaker 2: in AI. Overall, it's delivering much cheaper computational outcomes on
14:32
Speaker 2: a computation to computation basis. I was just having a
14:36
Speaker 2: look to try to find some data on price differentials
14:39
Speaker 2: that a colleague of mine in the industry sent me,
14:41
Speaker 2: and it's something in the order of, you know, price
14:44
Speaker 2: differentials of ten to one now in terms of tokens,
14:49
Speaker 2: And he just said to me, well, what do you
14:52
Speaker 2: expect is going to happen? It's ten times cheaper to
14:57
Speaker 2: deploy and run these Chinese open source models compared to
15:03
Speaker 2: these American proprietary ones. So in that sense, it's already
15:06
Speaker 2: game over, right because other than a very small number
15:10
Speaker 2: of leading edge applications that may require the absolute cutting
15:16
Speaker 2: edge models, just about every other use case doesn't require it. Right,
15:21
Speaker 2: So we're going to see a proliferation of incredibly low
15:27
Speaker 2: cost Chinese open source models. And there are other benefits too.
15:32
Speaker 2: So if you've got models which are now running code
15:36
Speaker 2: to try to determine whether you're Chinese or not, essentially
15:41
Speaker 2: a security backdoor aims to spy on you, Well, what
15:46
Speaker 2: are you going to do? Well, you're actually going to
15:49
Speaker 2: implement and deploy locally Chinese open source models, right, That's
15:54
Speaker 2: part of your protective maneuver. The last thing you're going
15:57
Speaker 2: to do is to leave yourself intellectual property and your
16:01
Speaker 2: data exposed to American proprietary AI. On top of that,
16:09
Speaker 2: we've got a couple of other I think developments you
16:12
Speaker 2: mentioned the hardware developments. Right, As that gap closes and
16:16
Speaker 2: as that catch up takes place, whatever advantage there was
16:21
Speaker 2: in the American AI stack that came from that, well
16:23
Speaker 2: that disappears, and I think we know from the pattern
16:28
Speaker 2: of Chinese economic and commercial and technology development what will
16:32
Speaker 2: likely unfold after that, because once that threshold is reached,
16:36
Speaker 2: it will then scale at an order of magnitude and
16:38
Speaker 2: at an acceleration rate that very very few in the
16:42
Speaker 2: West will be able to cope with, and that will
16:44
Speaker 2: then push another round of Chinese open source AI proliferation
16:50
Speaker 2: in the use case end. On top of that, the
16:53
Speaker 2: United States is confronting its own challenges, which is actually
16:57
Speaker 2: all about its electricity systems. There is simply insufficient electricity
17:02
Speaker 2: available within the network to satisfy the needs of it's
17:05
Speaker 2: rapidly growing AI infrastructure, and that's having very very direct results,
17:11
Speaker 2: not only in terms of the cost of running these
17:13
Speaker 2: models themselves, but it's slowing down some AI data center
17:18
Speaker 2: projects because there's not enough electricity. But it's actually having
17:23
Speaker 2: another layer of effect on the American economic and social system,
17:27
Speaker 2: which is it's driving up electricity prices for everyone else.
17:30
Speaker 2: So we talk about Dutch disease as an economic phenomenon
17:35
Speaker 2: where a boom in one sector essentially put it up
17:38
Speaker 2: prices for everything, sucks in all these resources and undermines
17:42
Speaker 2: every other sector that used to have access to these
17:44
Speaker 2: other resources. So manufacturing that was electricity intensive is being
17:49
Speaker 2: hit by our electricity prices. Households are having their affordability
17:54
Speaker 2: severely hampered by increased electricity prices. So these are the
17:58
Speaker 2: second round effects now that beginning to unfold. None of
18:02
Speaker 2: this points to a stable, viable social system at the
18:07
Speaker 2: moment in the US, you know, more people are going
18:09
Speaker 2: to come under household budget pressures than ever before, or
18:13
Speaker 2: because somewhere within their neighborhood we've got these windowless buildings
18:23
Speaker 2: literally sucking the electricity out of the grid and to
18:27
Speaker 2: deliver overpriced, high cost per token outputs, overly governed by
18:34
Speaker 2: the American government spying on a whole bunch of people.
18:38
Speaker 2: When you've got the opportunity now to download and run
18:43
Speaker 2: Chinese developed open source AI at one tenth of the cost,
18:47
Speaker 2: well you can bet it's pretty hard to beat free.
18:50
Speaker 2: And this is why I said at the outset that
18:52
Speaker 2: the American AI business model is cup put. This is
18:57
Speaker 2: a problem, of course, because I think you might have
18:59
Speaker 2: also seen a Financial Times chart which showed the steep
19:06
Speaker 2: curve of investment growth in publicly this today eye projects
19:11
Speaker 2: compared to previous bubbles. Whether it was the dot com
19:16
Speaker 2: boom or the property booms and all of that, and boy,
19:20
Speaker 2: this is precipitous up. It's almost vertical, this rise. And
19:25
Speaker 2: when you've got all of these other problems in the
19:28
Speaker 2: fundamentals of the business model, at some point in time,
19:31
Speaker 2: these two worlds are not going to be able to align, right,
19:36
Speaker 2: And what holds up that price? What's going to hold
19:39
Speaker 2: it up? Well, government contracts and government restrictions is where
19:43
Speaker 2: they're going to. So when you've got oligarchs who taken on,
19:49
Speaker 2: you know, risks associated with the business model based on
19:51
Speaker 2: some assumptions that are now falling apart, what do they
19:54
Speaker 2: do well, I mean, as you'd expect, they seek protective
19:58
Speaker 2: cover from government. Uh, but there's a double edged sword.
20:03
Speaker 2: So they seek protective government from government. But when protective
20:06
Speaker 2: come from government comes, it causes problems in terms of
20:13
Speaker 2: proliferation of the of the AI models themselves, which undermines
20:17
Speaker 2: the business model. The US is the host of the
20:19
Speaker 2: soccer World Cup or the Football World Cup at the moment,
20:22
Speaker 2: and it just in my mind, I just see owned
20:24
Speaker 2: goals everywhere, right, this is just this is just a
20:28
Speaker 2: season of own goals.
20:32
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, even when with all this money going
20:36
Speaker 1: to building data center in the United States. But to
20:39
Speaker 1: build the infrastructure to support that, including expanding the power
20:45
Speaker 1: grid and and and to supply the electricity, are the equipment,
20:50
Speaker 1: the transformers and and and all the associated equipment have
20:56
Speaker 1: to come from China. China makes everything that that need
21:01
Speaker 1: that's needed to power the excessive capacity in order to
21:07
Speaker 1: support these new data centers. So for some reason they
21:10
Speaker 1: think that they will be able to compete Chia, choke
21:13
Speaker 1: off China's growth while be like one hundred percent dependent
21:18
Speaker 1: on the Chinese supply chain. This is just it's kind
21:22
Speaker 1: of mind boggling.
21:25
Speaker 2: It explodes a swift Carl, doesn't it, which is that
21:28
Speaker 2: in fact American success and Chinese success are actually tightly
21:33
Speaker 2: coupled with each other. So if the United States wants
21:37
Speaker 2: to realize it's ambitions in artificial intelligence development, its ability
21:42
Speaker 2: to do that is dependent upon China actually also being successful.
21:46
Speaker 2: And there's a really important lesson in all of this,
21:48
Speaker 2: and that is that zero is some thinking is not
21:52
Speaker 2: always and in fact really is the best way to
21:56
Speaker 2: think about complicated economic inter relationships. And this AI situation
22:02
Speaker 2: and the electricity situation, amongst many other things, is a
22:05
Speaker 2: great case in point, And you know, I hope that
22:09
Speaker 2: this actually delivers a powerful lesson to people, maybe not
22:14
Speaker 2: the older generation who are suffering the anxieties that we've
22:18
Speaker 2: talked about, who've grown up during a period when American
22:23
Speaker 2: dominance economically was essentially built into their DNA, their mental DNA,
22:29
Speaker 2: but a younger generation who have actually lived through a
22:33
Speaker 2: world in which China has risen and grown quickly, and
22:37
Speaker 2: they're watching all of these things going on around the place,
22:40
Speaker 2: most of whom also don't carry too much Cold War baggage.
22:44
Speaker 2: They're likely to, I hope, actually understand that the development
22:50
Speaker 2: of American society can and will necessarily involve the development
22:56
Speaker 2: of Chinese society as well. They are inter time with
23:00
Speaker 2: each other, and you can't achieve one without raising the other.
23:05
Speaker 2: And the sooner that they get to understand that, the better.
23:08
Speaker 2: Great examples what's happening in Europe right, I mean, Europe's
23:11
Speaker 2: had this heat wave, We've got all of this anxiety
23:14
Speaker 2: about Chinese exports. You know, everyone bloviating about the trade
23:18
Speaker 2: balance question put aside the fact that Germany's a trade
23:23
Speaker 2: a surplus trader was just about everyone else. You know,
23:27
Speaker 2: that's okay, hush, don't talk about that. But it's this
23:30
Speaker 2: Chinese deficit that's a problem. But it's a money deficit, right,
23:34
Speaker 2: because on the flip side of things is actually a
23:36
Speaker 2: capital account surplus that's accounting. But let's not worry about
23:40
Speaker 2: that either. Let's just focus on what's going on in
23:42
Speaker 2: the real world. But the real world is is that
23:46
Speaker 2: China manufactures air conditioning systems at incredibly low price, at
23:50
Speaker 2: high volumes. And right now, what are we seeing, Well,
23:54
Speaker 2: we're seeing Chinese air conditioning manufacturers running double shift to
23:58
Speaker 2: help the European economy out. They help the European society out. Well,
24:03
Speaker 2: that's a good thing, right, it's a good thing. The
24:07
Speaker 2: idea that somehow, you know, this should be resisted because
24:11
Speaker 2: this is going to exacerbate a money side imbalance when
24:16
Speaker 2: it's improving the quality of life of people. It's actually
24:19
Speaker 2: reducing the risk of people dying from the heat wave, right,
24:24
Speaker 2: people dying from the heat wave. And yet you have
24:27
Speaker 2: people who worry about this money balance. Right, It's like
24:33
Speaker 2: it's like that that's sort of forgotten what the priorities
24:36
Speaker 2: are and what the purposes of of economies are. Right.
24:40
Speaker 2: They think an economy is about the money balance. Forgive
24:45
Speaker 2: me if I think that an economic system is actually
24:48
Speaker 2: about it providing people with good food on their table,
24:52
Speaker 2: an ambient environment that is tolerable and is enjoyable, and
24:56
Speaker 2: opportunities to be creative human be things, and to enjoy
25:01
Speaker 2: other people's company and to you know, enjoy the rich
25:05
Speaker 2: experiences that the world provides. Maybe that's what an economy
25:08
Speaker 2: actually should be about. But no, it's the trade imbalance,
25:15
Speaker 2: right ja Come on, fellas, let's get some priorities strike.
25:20
Speaker 1: He well, I don't think that European politicians are necessarily stupid.
25:26
Speaker 1: I think they know what's going on, but they also
25:29
Speaker 1: know that they have done incredibly destructive uh things to
25:35
Speaker 1: the European economy by cutting it off on cheap source
25:38
Speaker 1: of energy. And now they're they're they're getting double whammy
25:42
Speaker 1: from the Strada or Moose crisis. They're just they're just
25:45
Speaker 1: trying to shift blames, and China is a very convenient scapegoat,
25:50
Speaker 1: which also UH converged with their kind of geopolitical alignment
25:55
Speaker 1: with the United States. You know it's by by by
25:58
Speaker 1: acting tough on Trey, we China just helps them to
26:01
Speaker 1: cozy up with the Trump adminituation. You hope that US
26:06
Speaker 1: will throw them a ball, maybe, you know, give them
26:08
Speaker 1: better deals in the in the tariffter negotiations or something.
26:13
Speaker 1: I think that has been the European strategy for the
26:15
Speaker 1: past few years. What do you say to that, Well.
26:20
Speaker 2: Look, there's plenty of hopium obviously when it comes to
26:24
Speaker 2: Brussels expectations and hopes from Washington, and I don't think
26:29
Speaker 2: any of that historic hope in recent times has actually
26:31
Speaker 2: delivered materially for them, other than during the Biden administration.
26:38
Speaker 2: You know, they got the armaments and support for a
26:41
Speaker 2: European priority or a Brussels priority, which is, you know,
26:45
Speaker 2: the war against Russia. But but you're right, it's it's
26:51
Speaker 2: it's a it's a political setup that has dug itself
26:57
Speaker 2: into a whole politician, of course, find it very very
27:01
Speaker 2: difficult to admit fault. I get that. I've been in
27:05
Speaker 2: the system in the past myself, and it's one of
27:07
Speaker 2: the last things you want to do because it leaves
27:09
Speaker 2: you vulnerable in lots of ways. Having said that, though,
27:12
Speaker 2: one of the most successful politicians that I ever knew
27:14
Speaker 2: in Australia was one who knew how to say sorry
27:17
Speaker 2: and apologize for things not working, and then promise to
27:20
Speaker 2: fix them up now. He was very successful in that
27:23
Speaker 2: because he also had someone to blame, even if it
27:26
Speaker 2: was someone on his own side, right, just a younger
27:29
Speaker 2: person with less experience. But it's a learning experience. And
27:31
Speaker 2: don't worry, I'll come and fix it up now. Blaming
27:36
Speaker 2: people and holding people to account, I guess, or at
27:39
Speaker 2: least blame shifting is part and parcel of the game.
27:42
Speaker 2: But in the end, it's got to deliver a result.
27:44
Speaker 2: Otherwise you just keep shifting the goalpost, don't you. Blaming
27:48
Speaker 2: that person doesn't work. You've got to find someone else.
27:49
Speaker 2: You've got to find someone else. At some point, a
27:53
Speaker 2: cold hard look at responsibility and the causes of crisis
28:00
Speaker 2: is necessary. And this is a reckoning that you can
28:03
Speaker 2: push off for quite some time, actually, but somebody at
28:08
Speaker 2: some point in time can't avoid the reckoning. A lot
28:12
Speaker 2: of times, people in political leadership positions simply kick it
28:16
Speaker 2: down the road and just hope that at someone else's problem.
28:19
Speaker 1: Right.
28:21
Speaker 2: The longer you can kick it down the road, of course,
28:23
Speaker 2: the easier it is in the short term. But often
28:25
Speaker 2: it becomes even more difficult down the track. And I
28:29
Speaker 2: would do wonder about whether or not the wider population
28:33
Speaker 2: across the member states of the European Union are falling
28:38
Speaker 2: for any of this anymore. Now, the fact that they're
28:40
Speaker 2: buying Chinese made air conditioners in droves, the fact that
28:43
Speaker 2: they're buying Chinese made evs in droves in large partter
28:49
Speaker 2: response to the increased cost of oil and petrol and
28:52
Speaker 2: diesel caused by America's war against Iran. But all of
28:56
Speaker 2: this tells me that normal people right see through this
29:04
Speaker 2: geopolitical stuff, see through the conceits and concerns of elites,
29:10
Speaker 2: and are focused on the things that matter to them
29:12
Speaker 2: in their lives. Low cost, accessible, available, right. They don't
29:19
Speaker 2: care where it's made. They just want what they need
29:25
Speaker 2: to lead the lives that they're trying to lead. And
29:30
Speaker 2: if those things come from a factory in chung Qing
29:35
Speaker 2: or from a factory in dong Guan or wherever, or
29:38
Speaker 2: if those things come from a factory in Spain that
29:42
Speaker 2: is now making this stuff because they're sourcing components from
29:47
Speaker 2: a factory in chung Qing or a factory in doung Guan,
29:50
Speaker 2: then so be it. Because it's having access to these
29:54
Speaker 2: things at a price point that makes life affordable and possible,
30:00
Speaker 2: and the sooner the European elite actually understand that, the
30:03
Speaker 2: sooner they might actually do something useful for their own populations,
30:06
Speaker 2: because otherwise they're not going to last. We saw this
30:09
Speaker 2: in the UK, right, the you know, the Starmer and
30:16
Speaker 2: we touched on this last time is for one hundred years.
30:21
Speaker 2: Right here is the shortest stay labor prime minister for
30:26
Speaker 2: one hundred years. Right. And why is that Well, because
30:31
Speaker 2: it's singularly failed on all the important things that a
30:33
Speaker 2: labor government well one promised to do, which of course
30:36
Speaker 2: it abandoned, but a singularly failed to deliver and improvement
30:39
Speaker 2: in living standards for the majority of ordinary people. Not
30:45
Speaker 2: hard to think that through. And we see this in
30:48
Speaker 2: all sorts of other nations in the European Union too,
30:53
Speaker 2: which is creating, of course the groundswell for populous you know,
31:00
Speaker 2: political reactions. But and the answers that they're providing it
31:04
Speaker 2: are not really going to go anywhere because those answers
31:06
Speaker 2: are not economic answers, they're not economic structural responses. Those
31:10
Speaker 2: answers are actually cultural and identity based as well, right, immigration,
31:16
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera, right, that may deliver some kind
31:20
Speaker 2: of affective reaction, But again that's question for her to blame.
31:27
Speaker 2: It's easy to blame people that look different to you,
31:29
Speaker 2: but it's much harder to blame the people sitting in
31:32
Speaker 2: boardrooms making decisions that benefit stockholders and not ordinary people
31:37
Speaker 2: because they don't look any different. So that's where we're at.
31:41
Speaker 1: You know, do you do you think there will be
31:44
Speaker 1: a chance to avoid the incoming What do you think
31:51
Speaker 1: of the prospect of this incoming huge China trade ward
31:57
Speaker 1: to be resolved in an amicable matter.
32:01
Speaker 2: Look, I think that there are some prospects to resolve
32:03
Speaker 2: it in a sensible way. A dialogue mechanism has been agreed,
32:08
Speaker 2: which I think is a is an administrative and political
32:13
Speaker 2: step that provides the room necessary for the parties to
32:19
Speaker 2: to devent, if you will, but in a way that
32:23
Speaker 2: addresses the issues. Right. You know, trade issues are not
32:30
Speaker 2: conducive to megaphone diplomacy. When you actually start going through
32:38
Speaker 2: trade negotiations, you've actually got a big spreadsheet with line
32:44
Speaker 2: items of things, you know, down to five digit codes.
32:49
Speaker 2: We're talking about nails and screws and nuts and bolts,
32:53
Speaker 2: and this stuff is detailed boring stuff, if you will,
33:00
Speaker 2: and it can only be dealt with when people commit
33:03
Speaker 2: time and effort in a format that isn't being combusted
33:11
Speaker 2: with political heat, either seeking a politically palatable outcome that
33:16
Speaker 2: you can sell or seeking to rush an outcome because
33:20
Speaker 2: you've got some timetable issue an election or something. It's
33:25
Speaker 2: one where you literally have got to say, we just
33:28
Speaker 2: need to roll our sleeves up and tackle the issues
33:32
Speaker 2: on their merits, one at a time, recognizing what the
33:34
Speaker 2: concerns are. We know that there are concerns amongst certain
33:42
Speaker 2: parts of the European political establishment and economic establishment that
33:48
Speaker 2: some industries that have been leading lights in the European
33:52
Speaker 2: economy over the thirty forty years, whether it's petrochemicals or
33:56
Speaker 2: high end manufacturing, facing intense competitive pressure from Chinese enterprises.
34:02
Speaker 2: So we know that we saw news that VDA secret
34:07
Speaker 2: internal memo it's contemplating shutting four factories with one hundred
34:11
Speaker 2: thousand jobs at stake. So you can understand why there
34:15
Speaker 2: are anxieties. So the question is is what do we
34:20
Speaker 2: do about them? Well, we can try and protect these
34:23
Speaker 2: industries and hope that they can fix themselves. The historical
34:28
Speaker 2: lesson of that kind of approach seems to me anyway,
34:30
Speaker 2: particularly based on the experiences that I've had here in
34:33
Speaker 2: Australia around protecting industries, is that companies become actually incredibly complacent,
34:39
Speaker 2: aren't particularly grateful for the protection given to them, and
34:43
Speaker 2: exploit that to deliver windfall gains to stockholders without necessarily
34:47
Speaker 2: driving innovation, new product development, et cetera, et cetera. And
34:52
Speaker 2: this can go on for decades because you end up
34:55
Speaker 2: with a symbiotic relationship between the recipients of subsidies and
34:59
Speaker 2: protection and the politicians who benefit from it. So the
35:04
Speaker 2: real challenge is, if that is a downside risk of protection,
35:09
Speaker 2: how do you nonetheless bring new life to these industries
35:12
Speaker 2: and these companies and create pathways for sustained employment as
35:18
Speaker 2: these industries experience change. I think of a report I
35:25
Speaker 2: think again in the last week where one of the
35:28
Speaker 2: Chinese delivery companies spoke quite it might have been Make Mine,
35:32
Speaker 2: actually spoke explicitly about the fact that they expect that
35:37
Speaker 2: some seventy thousand delivery drivers or might have been even
35:41
Speaker 2: more than that, will end up becoming replaced by robotics
35:47
Speaker 2: and drained delivery right personalless delivery systems. Now that got
35:53
Speaker 2: the headline in a lot of the Western press, but
35:56
Speaker 2: that comment about these jobs disappearing actually was made as
36:00
Speaker 2: part of a wider speech by the company's leader that
36:03
Speaker 2: they are committing to a massive employee retraining program and
36:10
Speaker 2: they've done deals with dozens of universities and technical training
36:13
Speaker 2: colleges across China so that these people as personaliss transport
36:20
Speaker 2: delivery systems replace what someone once did, actually have a
36:25
Speaker 2: future with a company doing other things, whether it's in
36:29
Speaker 2: AI systems maintenance or maintaining and repairing and keeping all
36:34
Speaker 2: of these devices on the road or in the air.
36:36
Speaker 2: So there needs to be a big push around skills
36:41
Speaker 2: development so that people actually are able to do the
36:43
Speaker 2: jobs of the future. Now, that's got to be part
36:46
Speaker 2: of this discussion around trade. So it's not really a
36:48
Speaker 2: question about trade, Carl, It's going to be a question
36:51
Speaker 2: around investment. And this is where I think the Europeans
36:56
Speaker 2: would do well to dust off the comprehensive investment agreement
37:01
Speaker 2: that was on the table in twenty twenty, negotiated for
37:07
Speaker 2: years painstakingly at a bureaucratic level to create a framework
37:12
Speaker 2: for Chinese investments into Europe and vice versa. It got
37:17
Speaker 2: killed at the European Union when a whole bunch of
37:21
Speaker 2: your usual you know, human rights narratives, confected stuff came
37:25
Speaker 2: to the fore. And you know, I can't have these
37:28
Speaker 2: investment agreements with China because of you insert whatever the
37:32
Speaker 2: favorite human rights narrative is. Well, an investment framework is
37:38
Speaker 2: desperately needed now by the European Union so that Chinese
37:42
Speaker 2: capital and I don't just mean money capital, but know
37:45
Speaker 2: how equipment, technology, science, et cetera, et cetera. In other words,
37:50
Speaker 2: the supply chains and the ecosystems can actually play a
37:55
Speaker 2: meaningful role in the transformation of European industry. You're not
38:00
Speaker 2: going to protect these industries as if you can protect
38:04
Speaker 2: the internal combustion engine. This is the same if you
38:08
Speaker 2: were thinking one hundred years ago when the internal combustion
38:10
Speaker 2: engine was coming onto the scene, saying we've got to
38:13
Speaker 2: have a way of protecting the horse and buggy. Right,
38:19
Speaker 2: it's a nonsense. Right, Barriers lost their jobs, blacksmiths lost
38:25
Speaker 2: their jobs, will rights lost their jobs. Right, these industries
38:30
Speaker 2: changed and we got the automotive industry in its place,
38:35
Speaker 2: and we're going to need to see the same again.
38:38
Speaker 2: If I was a European politician and I'm not, but
38:40
Speaker 2: if I was one, I'd be thinking about what the
38:44
Speaker 2: jobs of the future looks like and how it is
38:47
Speaker 2: that we can build bridges between the jobs of today
38:50
Speaker 2: and the jobs of the future by working with the
38:52
Speaker 2: people who are actually creating the jobs of the future today.
38:56
Speaker 2: And that's an investment question, not a trade barrier's question.
39:01
Speaker 1: Well, but the Chinese company, I imagine they would need
39:04
Speaker 1: reassurances that their investment in Europe won't be seized arbitrarily
39:09
Speaker 1: on national security ground, as is the case of Nesperia
39:14
Speaker 1: in Netherlands, right, I mean like that that's really set
39:18
Speaker 1: up a very bad presidence for any future Chinese investment
39:22
Speaker 1: in Europe, because you know, like this government can just,
39:27
Speaker 1: you know, for whatever reason, maybe just to kiss up
39:30
Speaker 1: to Washington, will take over the billions of dollars you
39:35
Speaker 1: have already invested and say sorry, we got to take
39:38
Speaker 1: it away from you because the national security reasons, and
39:42
Speaker 1: now you have to fight fight over at lengthy core
39:44
Speaker 1: process try to get it back, and and you know, like.
39:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, not only that, I think it's critical this issue
39:54
Speaker 2: of confidence in the security. If these fixed capital investments,
39:58
Speaker 2: you know, you can't just of pick up and a
40:02
Speaker 2: factory and movement. Right. This is the myth that often
40:05
Speaker 2: exists when people talk about economics that somehow you flip
40:08
Speaker 2: a switch and you just move something. These commitments are
40:12
Speaker 2: actually once made a difficult to unwind, but they can
40:16
Speaker 2: certainly be all access to that equipment can be taken
40:19
Speaker 2: away from you, as you've mentioned, which means you need
40:22
Speaker 2: some certainty around all of that. Here's the upside. The
40:26
Speaker 2: upside is is that for the last five or six years,
40:29
Speaker 2: notwithstanding the Kai boshing of the Comprehensive Investment Framework at
40:37
Speaker 2: the beginning of the decade, Chinese investment into Europe has
40:41
Speaker 2: been rising, and in fact record levels into Germany last year.
40:45
Speaker 2: So there remains a certain level of confidence in the
40:50
Speaker 2: stability and security of the framework generally speaking. So one
40:56
Speaker 2: example I don't think is necessarily enough to rock the
41:00
Speaker 2: boat and destroy confidence, but you don't want that to
41:03
Speaker 2: become repeated. It's something that needs to be resolved, and
41:07
Speaker 2: once resolved, trust building can resume, and you can do
41:11
Speaker 2: that with concrete initiatives. Trust must be built not through
41:15
Speaker 2: words but through deeds, and I think that that remains possible.
41:22
Speaker 2: The situation isn't that out of hand yet. The second
41:25
Speaker 2: thing though, that I think actually begins to put a
41:29
Speaker 2: challenge onto the European leadership but nonetheless creates an opening,
41:35
Speaker 2: is to protect the European China commercial relationship from third
41:41
Speaker 2: party interference. And you do that by creating alternative accounting rails,
41:50
Speaker 2: which means that transactions between Chinese firms in China and
41:57
Speaker 2: Chinese joint ventures or whatever it is in Europe and
42:00
Speaker 2: European firms and others in China need to be tracked
42:05
Speaker 2: and administered on digital rails that are not susceptible to
42:10
Speaker 2: the interference of certain pace. So this leads to the
42:15
Speaker 2: role of the European Central Bank digital currencies that they're
42:19
Speaker 2: creating payment rails and systems that can be integrated with
42:23
Speaker 2: China's own CIPS, networks, etc. Et cetera. And if they
42:29
Speaker 2: were serious about delivering confidence to the investor side, the
42:35
Speaker 2: China side, then that would be one of the biggest
42:37
Speaker 2: steps they could take. Because other than confiscation of assets
42:43
Speaker 2: or prohibition of access to physical assets, you know, stopping
42:46
Speaker 2: people getting into buildings and all of that, the next
42:49
Speaker 2: greatest commercial risk is actually the freezing or the or
42:53
Speaker 2: having digitally accounted assets ceased, and you've got to be
42:59
Speaker 2: able to mitigate that. Is now, we know that European
43:03
Speaker 2: institutions are able to freeze third party assets. We've seen
43:08
Speaker 2: that in the Ukraine Russia situation. But I don't think
43:13
Speaker 2: China would anticipate that, even though that's a possibility that
43:16
Speaker 2: the European Central Bank or Euroclear all those sorts of
43:19
Speaker 2: institutions are going to do that to Chinese enterprises and organizations. However,
43:25
Speaker 2: they will be concerned that the Europeans might be pressured
43:28
Speaker 2: by the Americans to do it, or that the Americans
43:30
Speaker 2: themselves will do it if all of these transactions were
43:33
Speaker 2: tracked on swift or communicated vice swift and tracked on
43:37
Speaker 2: track with US dollars where the FED ultimately administers the ledgers.
43:46
Speaker 2: So get an investment agreement framework back on the table, right.
43:51
Speaker 2: Have that framework focus on upgrading and transitioning workforces. This
43:58
Speaker 2: is key. It's all about upgrading. It's not about protecting
44:02
Speaker 2: and somehow cacurning things and hoping that the world doesn't change.
44:06
Speaker 2: An investment agreement has got to focus on upgrading technical
44:10
Speaker 2: capability and human resource capabilities. Trade is trade right if
44:15
Speaker 2: you don't have what you need, either in quantity or
44:17
Speaker 2: in quality, then you need to be able to get
44:19
Speaker 2: it from somewhere else. And let's not beat around the bush.
44:22
Speaker 2: Cal China makes everything in the world right. If you
44:26
Speaker 2: can't get it from somewhere else, you know you'll find
44:29
Speaker 2: a factory somewhere in China that will give you something
44:31
Speaker 2: akin to what you're looking for. So trade needs to
44:35
Speaker 2: remain as open as you possibly can. Investment needs to
44:39
Speaker 2: be focused upon technical upgrading and human skills upgrading, and
44:44
Speaker 2: payment rails need to be rendered autonomous and bilateral so
44:49
Speaker 2: as to protect the participating parties from third party interference.
44:53
Speaker 2: If they've got the political capability to do that, then
44:57
Speaker 2: Europe can undertake a significant reset of its institutional architecture
45:03
Speaker 2: that recognizes the realities of today's competitive landscape. If it
45:08
Speaker 2: can't do that, then it will go down to protectionists
45:11
Speaker 2: path and hope that the Americans will come to the
45:13
Speaker 2: party and help them out and throw them a bone.
45:15
Speaker 3: As you say, yeah, of, is there any other area
45:25
Speaker 3: of interest you like to talk about?
45:28
Speaker 2: Look, I think I'm gonna give a bit of a
45:31
Speaker 2: club to your show that you do with Daniel Done
45:35
Speaker 2: roll for me It's a very entertaining but sharp critique
45:47
Speaker 2: of the social media landscape and the sort of chatter
45:54
Speaker 2: and bloviating that you get in social media land on
45:59
Speaker 2: questions of China and what seems. And I guess one
46:03
Speaker 2: of my observations from that, and people should watch the
46:05
Speaker 2: show is because it covers so much so quickly. So
46:09
Speaker 2: if you don't want to sit there, you know, doom
46:11
Speaker 2: scrolling yourself trying to find some of these gems and
46:14
Speaker 2: you know, just just watch you and Daniel go through it.
46:18
Speaker 2: But there is it really drew my attention or honed
46:25
Speaker 2: in on this deep sense of anxiety that seems to
46:30
Speaker 2: be coursing its way through the sort of Western body politic.
46:36
Speaker 2: And I'm cautious in that I know that social media
46:40
Speaker 2: tends to amplify. That's part of the nature of it,
46:45
Speaker 2: the way that the algorithm is actually designed to attention seek.
46:49
Speaker 2: This is what it does, right, and it incentivizes a
46:52
Speaker 2: level of incendiary and provocative commentary right. In fact, you know,
46:59
Speaker 2: I admit that when I engage on those particular platforms,
47:04
Speaker 2: you know, I succumb to the incentive structure as well.
47:09
Speaker 2: But there is an anxiety, and the anxiety I think
47:14
Speaker 2: are not only speaks to the moment the changes that
47:18
Speaker 2: are happening, that sort of loss of a sense of
47:21
Speaker 2: control and domination and you know, all things that were
47:24
Speaker 2: once normal are no longer normal. I think it actually
47:27
Speaker 2: speaks to some risks that we all face. And the
47:32
Speaker 2: anxiety is something that you know, at a certain level
47:36
Speaker 2: I chuckle about. You know, it's almost there is a
47:39
Speaker 2: sense of well, you know, come up and does do
47:42
Speaker 2: this right? But you've got to get over this. Come
47:46
Speaker 2: up and come up and spit reasonably quickly because the
47:50
Speaker 2: anxieties that we see evident also lead to I think
47:55
Speaker 2: some mutually damaging thought processes and pathways. So this protectionist
48:02
Speaker 2: pathway from the Europeans, I think it's damaging to the Europeans.
48:07
Speaker 2: It's another own goal, but it also undermines opportunities for
48:15
Speaker 2: people across the European or the Eurasian continent. Generally speaking,
48:20
Speaker 2: it's not helpful to Chinese companies if so and so
48:25
Speaker 2: in Europe doesn't buy or won't buy or can't buy something, right,
48:29
Speaker 2: So there's nothing helpful in any of this, especially if
48:31
Speaker 2: you think of the global economic system as a system
48:35
Speaker 2: that has to be constantly calibrated in ways that hopefully
48:39
Speaker 2: delivers meaningful livelihoods and reasonable and rising standards of living
48:44
Speaker 2: for people around the world, not just a small number
48:47
Speaker 2: of people, but the anxiety can lead to, I think,
48:50
Speaker 2: some very dangerous things. We see this in the United States,
48:53
Speaker 2: where this sense that China is the cause of all
48:58
Speaker 2: of America's problems today just intensifies with each passing week.
49:06
Speaker 2: So we can talk both this passionately and sometimes you know, jovially,
49:12
Speaker 2: about how Chinese AI is destroying the American AI business model. Well,
49:18
Speaker 2: I think that that's true. I think that that's a
49:20
Speaker 2: statement of fact. It's what happens after that that becomes
49:25
Speaker 2: concerning what does America do, What does the political elite
49:29
Speaker 2: and the commercial elite do when that reality settles in
49:34
Speaker 2: what we start to see some of that already we
49:36
Speaker 2: see things like spyware in the Clawed code, and that
49:43
Speaker 2: won't be the only case. We'll see other kinds of
49:48
Speaker 2: policing interventions on populations because the paranoil levels around people
49:55
Speaker 2: with certain skin colors or particular facial attributes or what
50:02
Speaker 2: have you, become sources of anxieties themselves. And we know
50:07
Speaker 2: that this can happen because it's happened before. People have
50:12
Speaker 2: been rounded up before purely because of you know, where
50:16
Speaker 2: they were born or where their parents were born, or
50:19
Speaker 2: for how they look, or for the language that they
50:22
Speaker 2: might speak. People have been consciously excluded from things by
50:29
Speaker 2: virtue of these sorts of attributes. So these are dangerous times, Karl,
50:36
Speaker 2: I think because of the changes that we're going through,
50:41
Speaker 2: the Empire may be getting a bit of a battering
50:46
Speaker 2: in certain aspects. But it's a resourceful empire, or elements
50:52
Speaker 2: of the empire, and the bits and pieces that benefit
50:56
Speaker 2: from the Empire at large resourceful, and they will pursue
51:02
Speaker 2: things that are certainly viewed by them to be in
51:06
Speaker 2: their own interests protective things often but which are not
51:10
Speaker 2: in the wider public interest. And people around the world,
51:15
Speaker 2: and people in countries that I think are being affected
51:17
Speaker 2: by all of this, actually need to get a little
51:20
Speaker 2: bit more switched on to the fact that their enemies,
51:25
Speaker 2: if you will, are actually not people in other countries.
51:31
Speaker 2: The greatest threats to their quality of life, to the
51:35
Speaker 2: lifestyles that they either lead or that they wish to lead,
51:39
Speaker 2: or that they've been promised to have, the greatest threats
51:42
Speaker 2: to all of those are actually coming from the institutionalized,
51:47
Speaker 2: economic and political a lead of their own countries who
51:52
Speaker 2: are unable and unwilling to recognize that the world is
51:58
Speaker 2: changing contribute to these changes in a positive way where
52:04
Speaker 2: they can continue to benefit because of their accumulated history
52:09
Speaker 2: of resources and wealth and all the things that they've got,
52:13
Speaker 2: but in which the benefits of what's happening can be
52:18
Speaker 2: shared more widely. So, you know, people watching this, I
52:22
Speaker 2: think need to think deeply about, you know, who it
52:28
Speaker 2: is they really should be concerned about. Is it a
52:30
Speaker 2: group of people in another country that are seeking to
52:33
Speaker 2: improve their own lives or is it a group of
52:35
Speaker 2: people in their own country seeking to deny other people
52:38
Speaker 2: the opportunity? And I would suggest that it's the latter,
52:41
Speaker 2: And if we can get our minds focused on that,
52:44
Speaker 2: then domestic politics might actually be able to diffuse some
52:52
Speaker 2: of the downside consequences of all of this, and by
52:55
Speaker 2: doing that also hopefully reduce some of the anxiety levels
52:59
Speaker 2: that are driving. So that's that's what I get from
53:04
Speaker 2: watching you and Daniel laugh about all these clowns on
53:06
Speaker 2: social media. I'm not sure whether anyone else would get that,
53:09
Speaker 2: but that's what I get out of it.
53:12
Speaker 1: Well, I'm that hopeful. Note, I think we can wrap
53:16
Speaker 1: up for people who wish to follow you, Professor Power.
53:21
Speaker 1: Where would they go?
53:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, substack first and foremost Worrick Cale dot substack dot com.
53:27
Speaker 2: And of course I'll put in a plug for my
53:31
Speaker 2: recent book, Thermoeconomics in a Time of Monsters, which is
53:34
Speaker 2: available on Amazon. I think it's a reasonablely good read,
53:39
Speaker 2: even though when I go back to look at it,
53:41
Speaker 2: I struggle with some of it as well, thinking oh
53:43
Speaker 2: my goodness, where on earth did those ideas come from?
53:45
Speaker 2: But anyway, I think it's it certainly will provoke some thinking,
53:49
Speaker 2: and if it can do that, that's great. I hope
53:51
Speaker 2: people enjoy it and find it for provoking.
53:55
Speaker 1: Thank you for making the time to speak to us
53:58
Speaker 1: at doctor Pow and everyone listening please make sure you
54:01
Speaker 1: go follow uh doctor pull at his substack or check
54:05
Speaker 1: out his book, and thanks for listening. Until next time,
54:10
Speaker 1: Bye bye yeah