Latest / International Flavor: Where the Truth Tastes Better / Factories, Fearmongers, Fantasies, and Fiscal Folly: Europe’s Self-Sabotage, Strategic Stupidity, and the Slow Suicide of Sanity

Transcript

Factories, Fearmongers, Fantasies, and Fiscal Folly: Europe’s Self-Sabotage, Strategic Stupidity, and the Slow Suicide of Sanity · International Flavor: Where the Truth Tastes Better

• 0:00
  Hello, good morning, welcome.
• 0:04
  I am Samuel Trapp.
• 0:05
  This is International Flavor.
• 0:07
  You are listening to DAM Radio.
• 0:11
  Coming to you live today from the Lake
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  Ozark real estate of the art studio.
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  You may call in 5 7 3 7
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  4 6 8 0 2 0 or send
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  me emails I rarely read at live at
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  damradio.com.
• 0:25
  Samuel T at internationalflavor.com is a good
• 0:28
  email address.
• 0:30
  Samuel T at civicoutlaws is another one.
• 0:34
  If you choose to talk to me about
• 0:36
  government overreach by email, that's the way to
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  do it.
• 0:39
  If you're looking to join the legal ecosystem,
• 0:43
  you go to modern law ecosystem or modernlaweco
• 0:49
  .com.
• 0:50
  Either one of those will get you there
• 0:52
  and you can send me interesting information about
• 0:57
  government overreach because I'm all about tearing that
• 1:00
  crap down.
• 1:03
  Lots of news last couple of days.
• 1:05
  Lots of craziness in the world.
• 1:07
  It is a mixed up, muddled up, shook
• 1:12
  up world except for Lola and good old
• 1:16
  Lola.
• 1:17
  She never calls me either.
• 1:18
  You know that?
• 1:19
  Can't get a date from Lola.
• 1:21
  It's depressing.
• 1:22
  How many years have I waited?
• 1:25
  What's that old Steve Martin one?
• 1:27
  I shouldn't say that.
• 1:28
  It's rude on the air, but you remember
• 1:30
  you remember what his joke?
• 1:32
  He goes, remember this is ages, ages ago.
• 1:36
  I'm not gonna do it because it's just
• 1:37
  it's ages.
• 1:39
  It will reflect how old I really am
• 1:41
  or that I was paying attention in the
• 1:43
  70s when Steve Martin was doing stand-up
• 1:46
  and he said, he would go, Farrah Fawcett
• 1:50
  Majors is such a bitch.
• 1:56
  She hasn't phoned me once.
• 2:00
  And then he would say, well it's bad,
• 2:04
  but he'd say, and after all the time
• 2:06
  I spent holding her poster up with one
• 2:08
  hand.
• 2:11
  That's horrible.
• 2:12
  I can't believe I repeated a Steve Martin
• 2:14
  line from ages and ages ago, but it's
• 2:17
  not me being lewd people.
• 2:19
  It was Steve Martin.
• 2:21
  All I'm doing is sharing it with you.
• 2:23
  Horror stories are going on everywhere.
• 2:26
  Volkswagen.
• 2:27
  What is it?
• 2:28
  88 years old?
• 2:29
  90?
• 2:30
  Volkswagen is shutting down.
• 2:33
  Volkswagen is shutting down a plant in Dresden,
• 2:38
  Germany.
• 2:39
  So is this a symbol of things to
• 2:42
  come?
• 2:43
  Is it a signal?
• 2:44
  Is it some sort of regrouping or sacrifice?
• 2:50
  Is it AI related?
• 2:52
  Is it sanctions related?
• 2:54
  Is it Russian oil related or Russian cheap
• 2:58
  energy related?
• 3:00
  A Volkswagen decision to shut down that production
• 3:04
  at Dresden probably represents more than the closure
• 3:08
  of a single factory.
• 3:10
  It's probably the first, well it is, the
• 3:12
  first permanent shutdown of a Volkswagen production site
• 3:17
  inside of Germany in the company's 88 year
• 3:22
  history.
• 3:23
  Now this is enormous symbolically, psychologically.
• 3:27
  Dresden was never the largest facility, but it
• 3:30
  is a flagship or was.
• 3:32
  It's an architectural showcase, a demonstration of precision
• 3:36
  manufacturing and a statement that German cars should
• 3:41
  be built in Germany.
• 3:43
  And the closure of that plant signals that
• 3:46
  this assumption no longer holds.
• 3:48
  They're gonna go to cheaper places.
• 3:50
  They're gonna focus on different areas.
• 3:53
  There's several perspectives I listened to when checking
• 3:56
  this out.
• 3:57
  From one perspective, this is the evidence of
• 4:01
  a structural industrial decline in Germany.
• 4:05
  Germany's auto industry is squeezed by high energy
• 4:10
  prices because they don't want to import anything
• 4:15
  from Germany.
• 4:17
  I mean, I'm sorry, from Russia.
• 4:18
  Weakened European demand, shrinking margins in China, and
• 4:23
  aggressive competition from Chinese electrical vehicles, electric vehicles.
• 4:30
  The EV transition has been slower, costlier, you
• 4:36
  know, than anybody thought.
• 4:38
  And it forced Volkswagen to invest heavily in
• 4:42
  new platforms, new places that are doing EV,
• 4:46
  while still maintaining, you know, combustion technology.
• 4:51
  Or trying to.
• 4:53
  But Dresden is a low volume, lower volume,
• 4:57
  and higher cost site was the first expendable
• 5:01
  in the system that, you know, prioritizes cash
• 5:05
  preservation over symbolism.
• 5:06
  Now, I read that they still, Volkswagen, still
• 5:11
  plans to invest and has cash on hand
• 5:15
  of a hundred and sixty billion dollars, okay?
• 5:20
  And they still plan, but they had planned
• 5:22
  to invest two hundred billion, so I suppose
• 5:26
  the loss of forty billion over the last
• 5:28
  couple of years is, you know, I'm not
• 5:31
  sitting in any boardrooms or anything, but having
• 5:34
  cash on hand is, you know, a great
• 5:38
  thing.
• 5:39
  And if you go from two hundred to
• 5:41
  forty, or two hundred and sixty, I mean,
• 5:44
  billion, losing forty billion dollars, or spending, you
• 5:49
  know, not losing, they're still profitable even.
• 5:53
  And so they're doing the German thing, and
• 5:56
  trying to stay profitable.
• 5:59
  So an opposing view is that this is
• 6:01
  corporate realism, no sort of collapse, Volkswagen is
• 6:07
  profitable, globally competitive, and management is arguing that
• 6:11
  failing to cut underperforming assets would endanger the
• 6:16
  company's long-term health.
• 6:18
  But this is the first time in 88
• 6:20
  years, you know.
• 6:21
  So I think those arguments are ringing somewhat
• 6:26
  weak, you know.
• 6:27
  From this perspective, the shutdown is an abandonment
• 6:30
  of Germany, but, you know, oh gee, with
• 6:34
  rational portfolio managers, you know, in a much
• 6:39
  more competitive and fragmented global market, what unites
• 6:44
  both interpretations of this, you know, whether it's
• 6:49
  decline, or whether it's smart, you know, to
• 6:51
  do so, is the recognition that Germany is
• 6:54
  no longer the default place to manufacture German
• 6:58
  cars.
• 6:59
  You know, there's a Volkswagen plant, what is
• 7:02
  it in Tennessee?
• 7:03
  Volkswagen has a plant in Tennessee, and probably
• 7:06
  cheaper than the one in Germany, but energy
• 7:08
  costs, regulatory pressure, geopolitical uncertainty, all of these
• 7:12
  things alter the cost-benefit equation of remaining
• 7:15
  in Germany.
• 7:16
  Whether Dresden is remembered as an isolated sacrifice,
• 7:20
  or it's just the beginning of a deindustrialization
• 7:24
  is going to depend on what happens next.
• 7:29
  So history is not very kind to one
• 7:35
  -off closures that aren't really one-off, but
• 7:40
  are a bunch.
• 7:41
  And kind of on that thread, you know,
• 7:45
  three, four hours ago, here's what it is,
• 7:48
  Ursula von der Leyen has given her speech
• 7:52
  in front of the EC, so the EC
• 7:54
  was having a meeting, and she's talking about
• 7:58
  some of this in front of the EU
• 8:01
  Parliament, all non-elected, all appointed a-holes,
• 8:06
  right?
• 8:06
  These people aren't elected by anybody, but they
• 8:10
  control the EU.
• 8:12
  So check this out, and here's Ursula, she's
• 8:15
  warmongering, and it's only five minutes, eh, four
• 8:20
  minutes long, so we're gonna listen to it
• 8:22
  all, okay?
• 8:23
  It'll be fun.
• 8:24
  But here's Ursula, and pay attention to her,
• 8:26
  she's, you know, I argue that she's not
• 8:29
  that bright.
• 8:29
  I argue that she's not somebody worthy of
• 8:33
  a lot of consideration, because she's so extreme.
• 8:37
  But the fear-mongering is definitely there, and
• 8:41
  so listen to this, there's nothing positive in
• 8:44
  her speech.
• 8:46
  It's all decline, you know, and it's nuts
• 8:50
  to me, but we're gonna listen to it,
• 8:52
  maybe you disagree, and let's put her out
• 8:55
  there, see if I can get this correctly
• 8:57
  from the, from the, wherever, the bank of
• 9:04
  knobs that I have to learn how to
• 9:05
  control.
• 9:06
  But here we go, here she comes.
• 9:10
  Metzola, dear Roberta, Minister Vieira, honourable members, this
• 9:18
  week's European Council is about facing the reality
• 9:21
  of the moment.
• 9:23
  The reality of a world that has become
• 9:26
  dangerous and transactional, a world of wars, a
• 9:31
  world of predators.
• 9:34
  The reality of this world means we Europeans
• 9:36
  must defend ourselves, and we must depend on
• 9:40
  ourselves.
• 9:42
  We have been living in this world for
• 9:43
  some time, even before the biggest wake-up
• 9:47
  call of all, that was Russia's illegal invasion
• 9:50
  in Ukraine in February 2022.
• 9:54
  Yesterday's peace is gone.
• 9:56
  We have no time to indulge in nostalgia.
• 10:01
  What matters is how we confront today.
• 10:06
  We cannot afford to let the world views
• 10:08
  of others define us.
• 10:12
  None of us should be shocked by what
• 10:15
  others say about Europe.
• 10:17
  But let me say this, it would not
• 10:20
  be the first time that assumptions about Europe
• 10:23
  were shown to be outdated.
• 10:26
  It would not be the first realisation that
• 10:30
  the post-war world order is changing beyond
• 10:33
  recognition.
• 10:35
  The national security strategy is right to say,
• 10:40
  and I quote, Europe has been losing share
• 10:44
  of global GDP down from 25% in
• 10:48
  1990 to 14% today, end of quote.
• 10:54
  But what is not written is that the
• 10:58
  figures for the United States are on the
• 11:00
  same path.
• 11:02
  The United States has been losing share of
• 11:04
  global GDP from 22% in 1990 down
• 11:09
  to 14% today.
• 11:13
  So this is not a story of an
• 11:16
  economy on one side of the Atlantic or
• 11:18
  the other.
• 11:20
  This is the story of the shift in
• 11:22
  the world economy.
• 11:24
  If you take China alone, their share of
• 11:27
  global GDP went up from 4% in
• 11:31
  1990 to 20% today.
• 11:35
  This is why the United States has been
• 11:37
  clear for some time about its shifting strategic
• 11:40
  interests and priorities as China rises.
• 11:45
  The point I am making is this strategy
• 11:49
  is not the cause of the disruption that
• 11:52
  Europe is facing in the world.
• 11:54
  It is a symptom of the reality of
• 11:58
  today's world.
• 11:59
  So our task at this week's summit is
• 12:03
  to show that we are focused on our
• 12:06
  own strategy and our own interests and our
• 12:09
  own priorities.
• 12:17
  And this is why I want to repeat
• 12:18
  from this very place where I said it
• 12:20
  in the State of the Union, this is
• 12:23
  Europe's independence moment.
• 12:26
  Ever since we started using this term, independence,
• 12:31
  many have been skeptical about what that entails.
• 12:34
  Is it even realistic?
• 12:37
  Well, just look at what we have already
• 12:40
  done.
• 12:41
  From defence to energy, we have made the
• 12:46
  impossible possible as part of our new reality.
• 12:51
  And we are ready to do more.
• 12:53
  Because in our independence, we make ourselves stronger.
• 12:58
  A stronger Europe is a stronger partner, not
• 13:01
  just to promote but to guarantee a safer
• 13:04
  world.
• 13:05
  And let us look at the progress we
• 13:08
  have made.
• 13:09
  We are entering a new era, and that
• 13:13
  is Europe's energy independence from Russian fossil fuels.
• 13:19
  And this House has been a leader on
• 13:21
  this from day one on, and I thank
• 13:23
  you for that.
• 13:24
  Your efforts have paid off.
• 13:31
  Your efforts have paid off because thanks to
• 13:33
  Repower EU, Russian gas imports, so LNG and
• 13:38
  pipeline, are down from 45% at the
• 13:41
  beginning of the world.
• 13:45
  So that's the end of that nonsense.
• 13:50
  She, you know, that's happening, that's going on
• 13:54
  now.
• 13:54
  They're having the, what do you call it,
• 13:56
  the EU summit this week.
• 14:00
  And this is the opening round of it
• 14:02
  that's been going on.
• 14:04
  And so she's certainly out there pushing global
• 14:14
  defence.
• 14:16
  We want there to be, according to her,
• 14:20
  you have to prepare.
• 14:24
  And they talked about a serious problem, you
• 14:27
  know, what is the global GDP.
• 14:30
  And so the energy policy that they are
• 14:33
  talking about, she was very proud of, you
• 14:35
  know, that we're cutting off Russian, you know,
• 14:38
  dependence on Russian this or that, right.
• 14:42
  And the story of China and the amount
• 14:48
  of GDP that China represents now, it's 20,
• 14:52
  and it was far lower, you know, before
• 14:56
  that.
• 14:57
  It's crazy, crazy, crazy.
• 15:01
  The world is definitely changing now.
• 15:03
  So people are finally starting to realize it.
• 15:05
  And she's talking about Trump saying that Europe
• 15:08
  is declining.
• 15:09
  Well, they are.
• 15:09
  She turned around and said, well, the U
• 15:11
  .S. is declining too as a share of
• 15:13
  global GDP.
• 15:14
  And both of them, you know, kind of
• 15:17
  missed the point.
• 15:18
  She was talking about the security strategy, the
• 15:21
  national security strategy, the document that Trump wrote.
• 15:24
  Everybody's still talking about that and how the
• 15:26
  U.S. Why is it important for Europe
• 15:29
  to jump up and say, here's the national
• 15:31
  security strategy?
• 15:33
  And she doesn't talk about security.
• 15:35
  She talks about GDP.
• 15:40
  That's it.
• 15:41
  GDP.
• 15:44
  That's what it is that she talked about.
• 15:47
  And attacked Trump instead.
• 15:49
  You know, Trump says Europe is declining.
• 15:51
  Well, she says, well, America's declining too.
• 15:55
  That's your issue?
• 15:57
  You know, and we got to beat up
• 15:58
  on Russia because America's declining, but China is
• 16:01
  rising.
• 16:02
  Where's the logic in all of that?
• 16:05
  Where does China, being now at 20 percent,
• 16:09
  where does that go?
• 16:14
  You know, how is that?
• 16:15
  And I don't know.
• 16:18
  Let's talk about Germany's energy policy because Germany's
• 16:21
  energy predicament, and she's not representing Germany.
• 16:27
  She was representing the EU, right?
• 16:29
  This is the EU summit.
• 16:31
  But Germany's energy predicament, because they have one,
• 16:34
  is not a crisis imposed from the outside.
• 16:39
  You know, it's not Russia's fault they have
• 16:41
  an energy problem.
• 16:43
  It's not the U.S.'s fault they got
• 16:44
  an energy problem.
• 16:46
  It's an idiot problem on the inside.
• 16:49
  It's deliberate strategic choice.
• 16:52
  Now, think of this.
• 16:53
  When the U.S. tried to pressure India
• 16:56
  to stop buying Russian energy products and China
• 17:02
  to stop buying Russian energy products, they both
• 17:06
  said, what are you, nuts?
• 17:09
  You have your own energy, U.S. You
• 17:12
  can do your own.
• 17:13
  It's easy for you to say no to
• 17:15
  Russia, but what are we going to do?
• 17:17
  Import from you at twice the price?
• 17:19
  Or are we going to stay with the
• 17:20
  cheaper version of Russian energy, which is abundant,
• 17:25
  cheap, and easy to get?
• 17:28
  So, here's Germany in the same scenario saying,
• 17:34
  we need to prepare for war because Russia
• 17:37
  has cheap resources, because America's declining, and they
• 17:44
  won't protect us anymore.
• 17:45
  We have to protect ourselves.
• 17:47
  Where did this defense posture come from?
• 17:50
  I mean, it's nuts, but by severing their
• 17:52
  own access to Russian pipeline gas, Berlin and
• 17:57
  the whole EU has accepted higher energy costs
• 18:01
  in exchange for moral, they claim, moral position,
• 18:06
  right?
• 18:06
  That poor Ukraine is the victim here.
• 18:09
  It wasn't U.S. and European globalists pushing
• 18:14
  NATO to the Russian border and arming Ukraine
• 18:18
  to the teeth that caused this war.
• 18:22
  It's an illegal, illegal action of Russia, right?
• 18:27
  That's it.
• 18:28
  So, but what's unfolding now is the collision
• 18:30
  between strategy and physics.
• 18:34
  Industrial systems need large volumes.
• 18:38
  Volkswagen needs large volumes of cheap, stable energy,
• 18:42
  and instead, they're losing, you know?
• 18:45
  The substitutes are slow, more expensive than they
• 18:49
  ever thought.
• 18:50
  Critics say that Germany committed policy malpractice, like
• 18:55
  me.
• 18:57
  By treating energy, by treating your basic needs
• 19:01
  as an ethical instrument rather than a production
• 19:04
  input or a need, chemical plants, steel mills,
• 19:08
  auto factories, like Volkswagen, cannot survive indefinitely on
• 19:14
  virtue, on symbolism.
• 19:16
  Can't do it.
• 19:17
  Once electricity prices go over a certain threshold,
• 19:21
  entire value chains are uncompetitive.
• 19:26
  The resulting closure and production shifts, they're not
• 19:29
  temporary disruptions.
• 19:31
  They're structural relocations.
• 19:33
  How much you want to bet India receives
• 19:36
  a Volkswagen factory?
• 19:39
  I mean, how much you want to bet
• 19:42
  capital, once it leaves, doesn't return?
• 19:46
  How many American auto plants are located in
• 19:49
  Mexico?
• 19:51
  Ask yourself that question.
• 19:53
  The result of NAFTA in, you know, when
• 19:56
  90s and 2000s are starting, what happened?
• 19:59
  And they opened up the borders for NAFTA,
• 20:02
  free trade agreement, and they started trading freely,
• 20:05
  and everybody's like, jeez, if we don't have
• 20:08
  any import to pay from Canada or from
• 20:10
  Mexico, it's a hell of a lot cheaper
• 20:12
  to open there, and they open there, and
• 20:15
  they're not coming back.
• 20:16
  You know, Trump claims they're going to come
• 20:19
  back, and people are talking big right now,
• 20:22
  but it's easy to talk big.
• 20:23
  He'll only be around for three more years.
• 20:27
  Right?
• 20:27
  You're not going to have a new plant
• 20:29
  built in three years anywhere.
• 20:31
  And that may be not true.
• 20:33
  You know, I don't mean to beat up
• 20:34
  on us.
• 20:35
  I'm beating up on Europe for being idiots,
• 20:39
  and this is terrible for them to lose
• 20:42
  a Volkswagen plant.
• 20:44
  It's nuts.
• 20:45
  So, you know, people that, you know, also
• 20:51
  say that energy independence, you know, that's not
• 20:54
  optional.
• 20:55
  You know, reliance on Russian gas, they say,
• 20:59
  represents a long-term vulnerability that would be
• 21:03
  untenable regardless of Ukraine, you know, that Russia
• 21:06
  could cut them off at any time.
• 21:08
  And, well, they never have before.
• 21:12
  You know, they were getting it during the
• 21:15
  Soviet Union times, for God's sake.
• 21:17
  Short-term industrial pain from this point of
• 21:20
  view, you know, plants closing at Volkswagen are
• 21:23
  unavoidable cost of strategic autonomy.
• 21:26
  Now, you could say the inward-looking, right?
• 21:29
  But people like the U.S., we can
• 21:32
  look inward because everything we need, we have
• 21:35
  here in this abundant, beautiful, wonderful country, right?
• 21:39
  We have it.
• 21:40
  Europe doesn't.
• 21:41
  You know, Europe doesn't have the things that
• 21:43
  they need.
• 21:45
  Cheap energy, chief among them.
• 21:48
  Renewable capacity, LNG diversification, and grid modernization are
• 21:53
  presented as solutions, not just, you know, morally.
• 22:01
  They're saying, you know, we need to produce
• 22:03
  this and do something for ourselves, but these
• 22:06
  are not immediate.
• 22:08
  It's going to take them a while to
• 22:09
  get to this energy sort of independence.
• 22:11
  There's going to be a lot of nuclear.
• 22:13
  You know, there's going to have to be.
• 22:15
  I mean, where are you going to get
• 22:15
  it?
• 22:16
  Or different types of energy so that renewables
• 22:19
  aren't happening.
• 22:21
  The unresolvable problem is timing.
• 22:24
  Industrial firms operate on quarterly balance sheets.
• 22:28
  You know, Volkswagen, they knew this was coming.
• 22:31
  Energy transition takes decades.
• 22:34
  Switching to EV is a long-term thing.
• 22:38
  You can't just force it.
• 22:40
  And, you know, by 2030, you know, Germany
• 22:44
  attempted to compress decades into years while simultaneously
• 22:49
  escalating its own geopolitical risk.
• 22:52
  The result is a widening gap between, you
• 22:56
  know, political timelines that you set because, you
• 22:59
  know, you want to appear forward-thinking and
• 23:03
  the economic survival of a country.
• 23:07
  So what makes this reckoning dangerous is the
• 23:10
  feedback loop as industry contracts, as Volkswagen plants
• 23:14
  shut down, tax revenue goes down, public support
• 23:19
  erodes, public costs go up.
• 23:23
  How many people are going to be out
• 23:24
  of jobs because of that one plant?
• 23:28
  Because, trust me, it goes down.
• 23:30
  It's not just one plant.
• 23:31
  It's all the support of that plant that
• 23:34
  has gone, too.
• 23:35
  And political legitimacy continues to weaken.
• 23:38
  And in Europe, it's already weak, right?
• 23:41
  So these long-term investments are hard.
• 23:44
  You know, again, they're much harder now, not
• 23:46
  easier.
• 23:47
  Germany is discovering that while energy policy can
• 23:50
  be changed by, you know, mandate, by a
• 23:54
  decree, industrial ecosystems cannot.
• 23:58
  They obey thermodynamics.
• 24:00
  You know, they obey structure, not press conferences
• 24:05
  that say what you need to do.
• 24:07
  And Europe's aggressive push toward electric vehicles was
• 24:12
  conceived as an environmental necessity and industrial opportunity
• 24:19
  several years ago.
• 24:21
  Governments put timelines, automakers retooled factories, including Volkswagen,
• 24:26
  and internal combustion engines were declared, at least
• 24:31
  politically, obsolete.
• 24:33
  What followed wasn't a smooth transition, but a
• 24:37
  collision between regulation, regulatory ambition, and consumer reality.
• 24:44
  EV adoption has gone up, but it's certainly
• 24:47
  not even and not as projected, far more
• 24:51
  slowly, in fact, than policymakers projected it to
• 24:55
  be.
• 24:56
  And that's, you know, one school of thought
• 24:59
  says that Europe mistook mandates for a market,
• 25:04
  saying, well, we have to, so therefore the
• 25:06
  market will show up.
• 25:08
  We have to change because the politicians said
• 25:11
  so, therefore the market will show up.
• 25:15
  The demand is going to be there, but
• 25:17
  the demand's not there.
• 25:19
  You know, consumers are sensitive to the upfront
• 25:22
  cost, charging infrastructure, you know, how reliable is
• 25:26
  that?
• 25:27
  Cold weather performance.
• 25:29
  It's pretty cold in Germany.
• 25:31
  And resale value.
• 25:33
  And also, Chinese manufacturers have exploited this gap,
• 25:38
  especially in Europe, and their EVs are competitively
• 25:43
  priced, and they undercut severely any European brands.
• 25:48
  And by the way, they're very nice.
• 25:50
  I've seen them in Russia and Europe, and
• 25:53
  the Chinese versions are quite nice.
• 25:57
  And as a result, European automakers are facing
• 26:01
  the compression of their margins from both sides.
• 26:05
  They have higher production costs at home and
• 26:07
  cheaper imports abroad from China.
• 26:10
  They want to deal, they're trying to say,
• 26:12
  hey, somebody deal with China, you know, deal
• 26:14
  with China, because as she just said, Ursula
• 26:18
  von der Leyen said that, you know, China's
• 26:22
  up over 20% of GDP, and in
• 26:24
  1990, they were at 4 or 5.
• 26:26
  And that Europe has gone from 26 to
• 26:30
  14 or something like that, and the U
• 26:32
  .S. is 20 to 14.
• 26:35
  So the positions are reversing quickly.
• 26:40
  And the GDP of India has swapped as
• 26:44
  well where's that number, I forgot, I looked
• 26:46
  it up, but you know what, I deleted
• 26:47
  the damn page, and I don't have time
• 26:49
  to go type it again.
• 26:51
  I will at some point.
• 26:52
  But India is just going up, you know,
• 26:55
  commensurately, similarly, it's going up.
• 26:58
  And India and China are on the rise,
• 27:01
  you know, big time.
• 27:02
  And Russia is down from the Soviet Union
• 27:07
  times, by the way.
• 27:09
  They were at about 10% of global
• 27:11
  GDP at the height of the Soviet Union.
• 27:14
  Or at the end of the Soviet Union,
• 27:16
  1990.
• 27:17
  And they're down to about 4% of
• 27:21
  global GDP or something like that right now.
• 27:24
  But they're going up.
• 27:26
  They were lower, you know, immediately after the
• 27:28
  90s, all the cutthroat and the stealing and
• 27:32
  the robbing, and the USSR included other countries
• 27:35
  too.
• 27:36
  And Ukraine was a big source of that.
• 27:38
  So I don't mean to apologize for it,
• 27:40
  but there are a lot of things that
• 27:41
  happened.
• 27:42
  Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, all of the Stans, Georgia,
• 27:47
  all of those countries, you know, were part
• 27:49
  of the Soviet system.
• 27:51
  And now they're not.
• 27:52
  Now it's just Russia.
• 27:53
  So when it's comfortable, they take all of
• 27:57
  the Soviet Union and say it's just Russia.
• 27:59
  But it included Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, you know,
• 28:02
  those, you know, there were other places in
• 28:06
  the bloc, you know, that were there.
• 28:08
  And Belarus, you know, places like that.
• 28:12
  So, you know, let's see.
• 28:19
  EV-only plants in Germany have already seen
• 28:22
  their own production pauses.
• 28:25
  Volkswagen, in fact, had an EV plant and
• 28:28
  they shut it down, I believe it was
• 28:30
  two full weeks.
• 28:31
  They do it a week at a time
• 28:32
  because there's just no demand and they don't
• 28:34
  want to have too many finished machines sitting
• 28:38
  in inventory when they're not being sold.
• 28:40
  So they've reduced shifts.
• 28:42
  They've idled their own capacity and had production
• 28:45
  pauses at these sort of plants.
• 28:47
  And I don't see it changing.
• 28:49
  An opposing perspective says that these disruptions are
• 28:52
  normal transition.
• 28:55
  Technological revolution, you know, always is uneven, right?
• 29:01
  Infrastructure lags, adoption of policies, prices fall only
• 29:06
  after a good scale is achieved.
• 29:09
  This is all normal.
• 29:11
  Nothing to see here.
• 29:12
  You know, from this view, abandoning EV transition
• 29:16
  now is more damaging than enduring the short
• 29:19
  term instability.
• 29:20
  There's something to be said for that, by
• 29:23
  the way, you know, because EV, you know,
• 29:26
  it is the future.
• 29:27
  I mean, I don't think, well, hopefully, I
• 29:31
  prefer the combustion engine.
• 29:33
  But then again, I've been in some of
• 29:35
  these EVs that are very nice and they
• 29:40
  got some giddy up and get up and
• 29:42
  go.
• 29:43
  But the deeper issue is that industrial transitions
• 29:45
  cannot be forced faster than consumer trust.
• 29:50
  If consumers don't trust it, they're not going
• 29:52
  to buy it.
• 29:53
  And you got to get me convinced that
• 29:55
  I would like to have one that I'm
• 29:57
  not going to have problems driving in winter.
• 30:00
  You know, regulation can shape the supply, but
• 30:04
  demand is voluntary.
• 30:06
  Most of them, I mean, nobody's going to
• 30:08
  force you to buy an EV until the
• 30:11
  gas combustion is gone.
• 30:13
  European automakers are caught in the strategic bind.
• 30:18
  Retreat risks political backlash and sunken costs and
• 30:23
  loss of profits while acceleration risks financial overreach.
• 30:28
  And maybe that's what happened to this combustion
• 30:31
  engine plant in Dresden.
• 30:34
  But this tension is a broad lesson for
• 30:36
  all of us.
• 30:37
  Industrial revolutions succeed when policy, technology and consumer
• 30:42
  behavior align.
• 30:44
  And Europe's attempting to synchronize them by force,
• 30:47
  by decree, by saying, well, no, this is
• 30:50
  what you got to do.
• 30:51
  The Ursa Fonda lines of the world get
• 30:53
  to stand up and say, I see this
• 30:55
  beautiful future.
• 30:56
  But, you know, now there are too many
• 30:59
  effects.
• 30:59
  Donald Trump is telling you that you're on
• 31:02
  the serious decline.
• 31:04
  Why in the world are we worried about
• 31:05
  these yahoos?
• 31:06
  Why should we be?
• 31:07
  They're on the decline.
• 31:09
  And, you know, here goes India and China
• 31:11
  and they're pushing.
• 31:13
  Global South is pushing.
• 31:16
  So markets just respond by reminding regulators that
• 31:19
  you can't legislate enthusiasm.
• 31:23
  You just can't.
• 31:24
  You can't legislate enthusiasm for EVs.
• 31:27
  You can convince me.
• 31:29
  But you can't force me.
• 31:33
  So Germany's postwar economic model, you know, wasn't
• 31:37
  accidental.
• 31:38
  It rested on precise alignment of conditions.
• 31:41
  Abundant energy, cheap, export oriented manufacturing, political stability,
• 31:49
  which they don't have at all now, and
• 31:51
  open access to global markets.
• 31:54
  For decades, this model delivered prosperity and social
• 31:58
  cohesion.
• 31:59
  Today, all four of those pillars, all of
• 32:02
  them, are under strain at the same time.
• 32:07
  Cheap energy, not.
• 32:09
  Export oriented manufacturing, nope.
• 32:13
  They're importing more.
• 32:15
  Political stability, that's a joke, certainly in Europe.
• 32:19
  You know, there's a lot of right wing,
• 32:22
  they call them, you know, people saying the
• 32:24
  same thing.
• 32:25
  We want to focus inward.
• 32:31
  And access to global markets is shrinking all
• 32:34
  over Europe.
• 32:34
  So, but that's, you know, all four pillars
• 32:38
  are no longer there.
• 32:41
  This is a question, you know, of whether
• 32:43
  Germany is experiencing a minor downturn or is
• 32:47
  at the end of an era.
• 32:49
  I don't know.
• 32:50
  But from a pessimistic perspective, the model is
• 32:53
  obsolete.
• 32:54
  That model is obsolete structurally.
• 32:56
  Energy costs are not competitive at all.
• 32:58
  Globalization, dominance of the, you know, the globalists,
• 33:06
  that's definitely fragmented.
• 33:10
  And security concerns override economic efficiency.
• 33:15
  They'd rather prep for war against Russia at
• 33:20
  any cost than, you know, work together in
• 33:25
  a global market.
• 33:26
  Sanctions, trade barriers, militarization.
• 33:30
  They have reintroduced friction into a system that
• 33:33
  was built for decades on openness.
• 33:37
  Manufacturing led growth, once Germany's greatest strength, is
• 33:41
  now a vulnerability.
• 33:43
  They're, you know, they're not going to have
• 33:45
  it.
• 33:46
  More optimistic view says that Germany is entering
• 33:48
  a painful but necessary reinvention.
• 33:53
  Defense production is going to go up.
• 33:55
  Advanced engineering, automation, and AI services are cited
• 34:01
  as future growth sectors.
• 34:03
  According to this line of thought, contraction in
• 34:07
  traditional industry is the price of adaptation.
• 34:10
  You know, car markets, BMW, people not buying
• 34:13
  as many Mercedes.
• 34:15
  You know, the danger lies in the transition
• 34:17
  gap.
• 34:18
  Economic models collapse faster than replacement emerges.
• 34:24
  Workers displaced from manufacturing, they're not instantly going
• 34:28
  to become a software engineer or a defense
• 34:30
  analyst.
• 34:32
  You know, regions built around factories don't pivot
• 34:35
  overnight.
• 34:37
  You know, go up to Pittsburgh.
• 34:38
  You ever been to Pittsburgh downtown?
• 34:40
  I've been to Pittsburgh twice.
• 34:43
  Once in like the early 80s, and again
• 34:47
  about 20 years later in 2005 or something
• 34:52
  like that.
• 34:53
  And Pittsburgh downtown was a shit show in
• 34:57
  the 80s.
• 34:58
  Oh my God, it was nasty.
• 35:00
  It was frightening.
• 35:01
  It was scary.
• 35:02
  They turned it into a financial thing, but
• 35:04
  it took 20 years.
• 35:06
  I mean, it's a beautiful downtown, and you
• 35:09
  know, it's nice.
• 35:10
  At least it was last time I went.
• 35:12
  Here I am 20 years more.
• 35:14
  Maybe it's not anymore.
• 35:15
  But it was certainly on the rise in
• 35:17
  the early 2000s.
• 35:19
  Germany's challenge isn't the vision of what they
• 35:23
  want to do.
• 35:23
  It's sequencing.
• 35:24
  If decline is outpacing reinvention, political and social
• 35:28
  instability will continue.
• 35:30
  You know, it's going to continue.
• 35:32
  The post-war model worked because it matched
• 35:35
  the world that existed at the time.
• 35:38
  And the next model has to match the
• 35:40
  world as it is, not as Ursula von
• 35:42
  der Leyen wants it to be.
• 35:44
  And so, you know, I'm going to pivot
• 35:48
  here a little bit because twice in the
• 35:51
  last couple of months, once yesterday, here's the
• 35:55
  British military.
• 35:57
  Britain is talking about these things, and Italy
• 36:00
  is as well.
• 36:02
  No, I'm sorry, France.
• 36:03
  I got that wrong.
• 36:04
  But Italy has said things similar before.
• 36:07
  But France and England, listen to this, how
• 36:09
  this thing folds out.
• 36:11
  There's a recent statement by a senior British
• 36:13
  military and security guy marking a notable shift
• 36:17
  in tone.
• 36:18
  The public isn't being told any longer to
• 36:22
  support Ukraine, you know, support Ukraine.
• 36:25
  But they're being told to prepare for sacrifice,
• 36:30
  service, and potential direct conflict with Russia.
• 36:34
  This is Britain saying this.
• 36:37
  The language is explicit.
• 36:39
  You know, historical concepts of national duty, laws,
• 36:43
  send your sons and daughters.
• 36:45
  This is what they're talking about.
• 36:46
  Get ready to lose your family members to,
• 36:52
  you know, Russian aggression.
• 36:54
  One interpretation says this is a dangerous escalation
• 36:57
  of rhetoric.
• 36:58
  I say this.
• 36:59
  I think it's BS.
• 37:00
  Guy in France said the same thing.
• 37:02
  Two military generals said this.
• 37:04
  You need to prepare to lose your family
• 37:06
  members.
• 37:07
  There's going to be sacrifice.
• 37:09
  You know, you're going to have to do
• 37:10
  this.
• 37:10
  Isn't that nonsense?
• 37:11
  But history shows many examples where leaders talked
• 37:15
  wars into existence before realizing the consequences.
• 37:20
  This is what's going on all over Europe.
• 37:24
  Russia's going to attack.
• 37:25
  Russia's going to attack.
• 37:26
  Russia's going to attack.
• 37:27
  Pretty soon, they'll attack so that Russia doesn't
• 37:31
  attack.
• 37:33
  I mean, who starts the war then?
• 37:35
  I mean, you can talk something into being,
• 37:38
  you know.
• 37:38
  This normalizing of sacrifice, you know, potentially lowers
• 37:43
  the psychological barrier to military engagements, don't you
• 37:47
  think?
• 37:48
  Start talking about it now.
• 37:49
  Start talking about war as if it's occurring.
• 37:52
  And when it occurs, everybody will say, well,
• 37:54
  gee, they were right.
• 37:55
  But there's also a self-fulfilling prophecy mode
• 37:58
  here, especially when the public isn't been asked
• 38:02
  to formally consent to any of it.
• 38:04
  You know, an opposing view says this rhetoric
• 38:07
  is necessary honesty.
• 38:10
  Russia really is coming to get us.
• 38:12
  Big bad bear shielding citizens from geopolitical risk.
• 38:16
  They say breeds complacency and undermines democratic resilience.
• 38:22
  So only democracies are resilient.
• 38:24
  Right.
• 38:25
  In an era of hybrid warfare, you know,
• 38:29
  drone attacks and blurred front lines, societies have
• 38:32
  to be mentally prepared for hardship, they say,
• 38:36
  including these two generals.
• 38:38
  Isn't that nuts?
• 38:40
  What makes this moment important is the language
• 38:43
  that they're using, which arrives before any clear
• 38:48
  strategic objective is set.
• 38:51
  Any exit conditions are met or any public
• 38:55
  debate by anybody.
• 38:57
  This is all politics and preparation without any
• 39:01
  sort of clarity.
• 39:02
  So this is a conditioning of the public.
• 39:06
  This is what that is.
• 39:07
  It's not transparency.
• 39:09
  This is conditioning.
• 39:11
  The British public is being told to brace
• 39:13
  for losses without being told why, how, for
• 39:18
  how long.
• 39:19
  You know, that gap is important.
• 39:21
  Democracies endure sacrifice.
• 39:24
  Right.
• 39:24
  But they do it best when somebody tells
• 39:27
  you that it's clearly justified and openly debated.
• 39:31
  It hasn't been, you know, nobody knows when
• 39:34
  sacrifice is introduced rhetorically.
• 39:39
  Before any problem even really exists or before
• 39:43
  the consent of the governed arrives, there is
• 39:47
  no trust.
• 39:48
  Trust is gone.
• 39:50
  Trust as eroded and trust, not firepower, is
• 39:54
  what sustains a country in war and society
• 39:58
  under pressure.
• 40:00
  You're not getting any support, you know, from
• 40:03
  the public in Ukraine because all the oligarchs
• 40:06
  are running away with all kinds of money.
• 40:09
  And the sacrifice, the necessary sacrifice is being
• 40:14
  borne by ordinary people, people like us.
• 40:17
  People like, you know, well, not the billionaires
• 40:23
  that have stolen U.S. money.
• 40:26
  So, you know, in the days following this
• 40:29
  explicit sacrifice language, you know, and prepare for
• 40:34
  war rhetoric, French leadership and NATO officials, you
• 40:39
  know, said the same things.
• 40:41
  What stands out isn't the content of these
• 40:44
  statements but the coordination of them, the repetition
• 40:48
  of them everywhere.
• 40:50
  Just like in America, the Democrats always say,
• 40:56
  you know, geez, it's like they have the
• 40:58
  same playbook, the same talking points, you know,
• 41:04
  in a letter that are passed out or
• 41:06
  sent out by a group e-mail and
• 41:09
  everybody goes out and puppets the same words,
• 41:12
  you know, parrots the same thing that was
• 41:14
  just saying.
• 41:15
  This is a narrative shift in Europe and
• 41:18
  not isolated remarks.
• 41:20
  They're preparing for war by 2030 against Russia.
• 41:26
  That's what they're doing.
• 41:27
  Europe isn't speaking the language of contingency.
• 41:31
  It's speaking the language of expectation.
• 41:33
  We don't need to be a part of
• 41:35
  this, folks.
• 41:36
  We need to be outside of this for
• 41:39
  sure.
• 41:40
  And we don't need to be big brother
• 41:42
  to these European a-holes and idiots.
• 41:44
  So from a critical standpoint, this rhetorical convergence
• 41:48
  shows a normalization of war as policy and
• 41:53
  by invoking sacrifice of the people and readiness
• 41:56
  across multiple capitals, Paris, Berlin, London, leaders gradually
• 42:03
  desensitize the public everywhere to the idea of
• 42:06
  this eventual escalation.
• 42:09
  History shows that when war language is routine,
• 42:13
  political resistance to it weakens.
• 42:16
  So you need to start now.
• 42:17
  If you plan a war by 2030, if
• 42:19
  you're upping your GDP input into the military
• 42:23
  -industrial complex, you need to make sure that
• 42:26
  you can continue manufacturing weapons.
• 42:28
  And how do you do that?
• 42:29
  Use them.
• 42:31
  And how do you do that?
• 42:32
  You start a war.
• 42:33
  That's what's going to happen.
• 42:34
  Citizens assume inevitability rather than question the necessity.
• 42:39
  Instead of talking about why are we going
• 42:41
  to war like I am, they go, well,
• 42:43
  you know, war's coming.
• 42:44
  We better get ready.
• 42:46
  War's coming.
• 42:47
  We better move to India.
• 42:50
  We better move to Sri Lanka, go to
• 42:53
  another beautiful country in South America.
• 42:57
  But war's coming there, too.
• 42:59
  Hell, we're pushing that end.
• 43:00
  Different topic, different day.
• 43:02
  We'll come back to that another time.
• 43:04
  But critics say that this is dangerous in
• 43:07
  Europe particularly because military capability, industrial capacity, and
• 43:14
  demographic resilience are far weaker than these idiots
• 43:20
  like Ursula von der Leyen want you to
• 43:22
  think or these generals that are talking in
• 43:25
  France and London.
• 43:29
  They don't have the industrial capacity, the demographics,
• 43:34
  or the military capabilities that they used to
• 43:37
  have.
• 43:37
  And you don't just recreate that, you know.
• 43:40
  You just don't snap your fingers and there
• 43:44
  it is.
• 43:45
  Supporters of this sort of language say that
• 43:47
  deterrence requires clarity.
• 43:49
  And we're being clear.
• 43:51
  We're being clear.
• 43:52
  We're deterring Russia.
• 43:54
  Russia has no intention of coming after you.
• 43:57
  You moron is what you need to tell
• 43:59
  these people.
• 44:00
  And if you're ambiguous, if you're speaking with
• 44:04
  ambiguity, you could miscalculate.
• 44:08
  You could perhaps not have enough GDP thrown
• 44:11
  into your military industrial complex, right?
• 44:13
  So speaking openly about the cost of confrontation,
• 44:18
  especially if it's inevitable, European leaders show their
• 44:23
  resolve against Moscow and cohesion within NATO.
• 44:27
  From this point of view, silence is interpreted
• 44:30
  as a weakness, not a restraint, like if
• 44:33
  they don't talk about this.
• 44:34
  But the unresolved problem is what?
• 44:36
  Rhetorical calculation.
• 44:38
  A rhetorical escalation certainly outpaces any strategic explanation,
• 44:44
  which they never give.
• 44:45
  They never tell you what is your strategy?
• 44:48
  What's your end game here?
• 44:50
  Do you want to rebuild the Berlin Wall
• 44:52
  but make it on the other side of
• 44:54
  Europe, of Germany at least?
• 44:58
  Put it on Poland?
• 45:00
  Start building the wall from Norway on down?
• 45:03
  Why don't we do that?
• 45:04
  From Finland, you can start up where the
• 45:07
  Finnish border connects and you can go through
• 45:09
  the Baltic states.
• 45:12
  You have to decide whether Belarus would be
• 45:15
  on one side of the wall or on
• 45:17
  the other.
• 45:18
  Hmm.
• 45:19
  I don't know.
• 45:22
  European publics are being told to prepare for
• 45:25
  sacrifice with no clear articulation of any sort
• 45:28
  of objective, no sort of threshold, and no
• 45:32
  exit strategy.
• 45:34
  What is the success?
• 45:36
  How do we avoid this war that you
• 45:39
  say is coming?
• 45:41
  What defines failure?
• 45:43
  These questions are conspicuously unanswered.
• 45:49
  They don't even ask them.
• 45:50
  This matters because European history is shaped by
• 45:55
  wars that began with confident language and ended
• 45:58
  in ruin.
• 46:00
  And when political elites like Ursula are very
• 46:05
  comfortable speaking about sacrifice, or these generals, while
• 46:09
  they themselves are insulated from it and from
• 46:12
  any consequence, skepticism does nothing but get bigger
• 46:17
  and bigger as we go.
• 46:19
  It grows all the time.
• 46:21
  Words once spoken have an effect.
• 46:24
  Europe is relearning that you cannot rehearse for
• 46:27
  war with rhetoric, especially without increasing the risk
• 46:32
  of it actually happening.
• 46:35
  So they're conditioning the public.
• 46:37
  That's what I say.
• 46:38
  So the evolution of this messaging on Ukraine
• 46:42
  reveals a distinct trajectory.
• 46:47
  Early narratives was moral clarity.
• 46:50
  Russia's a big bad wolf.
• 46:52
  Russia's attacking.
• 46:53
  Financial aid.
• 46:55
  We have to give money to Ukraine because
• 46:58
  of this.
• 46:59
  And the rhetoric was all about the attack.
• 47:02
  You never heard anything about 2014 or anything
• 47:05
  like that.
• 47:07
  Money was supplied and this gave way to
• 47:11
  weapon transfers, training missions, intelligence sharing.
• 47:16
  But now the language has shifted toward personal
• 47:19
  sacrifice and national endurance.
• 47:23
  These people don't believe the war in Ukraine
• 47:25
  is ever going to end and they've been
• 47:27
  doing all they can to keep it going.
• 47:31
  And the US needs no part of this.
• 47:32
  This isn't a subtle change.
• 47:34
  It's a recognition that the conflict costs aren't
• 47:38
  abstract anymore.
• 47:40
  Why are they being so harsh, so demanding,
• 47:44
  trying to figure out this theft of Russian
• 47:50
  money?
• 47:51
  How do we take Russia's billions?
• 47:53
  How do we take them?
• 47:55
  Because we need them.
• 47:56
  We've got to fight Russia with their own
• 47:58
  money.
• 47:59
  So anyway, critics argue this psychological conditioning that
• 48:04
  is being used other than persuasion of a
• 48:07
  democracy by gradually escalating expectations of loss, of
• 48:14
  sacrifice.
• 48:15
  Governments are reducing the shock of future decisions
• 48:18
  and avoid a direct, uncomfortable debate about the
• 48:22
  risk of this sort of rhetoric.
• 48:23
  The public isn't asked whether escalation is desirable
• 48:27
  or even necessary.
• 48:30
  It's prepared for it as though it were
• 48:32
  inevitable.
• 48:34
  And that's what they've been doing in Europe
• 48:35
  ever since 2014.
• 48:39
  First they thought they could just push on
• 48:41
  Russia and they would collapse.
• 48:43
  But Russia isn't collapsing and I got the
• 48:44
  feeling that if people did push, you'd get
• 48:47
  some serious pushback.
• 48:50
  World War with several billion on one side
• 48:55
  because China would go there.
• 48:57
  India would try to stay out because that's
• 48:59
  the type of people they are.
• 49:01
  But skeptics say this democratic consent is being
• 49:05
  undermined by turning citizens into recipients of policy
• 49:09
  rather than participants in creating that policy.
• 49:14
  So they say this is responsible leadership.
• 49:18
  Wars don't stay distant forever.
• 49:21
  Well, and pretending that they do is dishonest.
• 49:24
  Yeah, but creating them is also dishonest, is
• 49:26
  it not?
• 49:28
  Conditioning the public is not manipulation but preparation,
• 49:31
  a way to ensure social cohesion if circumstances
• 49:35
  deteriorate.
• 49:36
  The tension is in this intent versus the
• 49:40
  effect.
• 49:40
  Even if preparation is well-intentioned, you know,
• 49:44
  let's get ready for war.
• 49:45
  It's better to be prepared and not need
• 49:48
  it than need it and not be prepared,
• 49:51
  right?
• 49:51
  Like the Boy Scout model.
• 49:53
  It alters the political environment though.
• 49:55
  Once loss is normal and you create a
• 49:57
  normalization of the fact that this is going
• 50:00
  to happen, there's no resistance when they finally
• 50:03
  say, well, sorry, we're going to war.
• 50:05
  You know, there's no resistance because, oh, well,
• 50:08
  they've been telling us forever that we're going
• 50:10
  to war, right?
• 50:12
  So the burden of proof, you know, to
• 50:15
  speak in legal terms, is subtly shifted from
• 50:18
  why do we have to do this to
• 50:20
  why aren't we doing enough?
• 50:23
  Nobody ever talked about why we have to
• 50:25
  be in Ukraine.
• 50:27
  Why aren't we giving more to the billions
• 50:30
  of oligarchs that are robbing us?
• 50:32
  You know, why aren't they getting it?
• 50:33
  And European societies are quite sensitive to this
• 50:37
  dynamic.
• 50:38
  Their post-war identity is built upon the
• 50:41
  rejection of militarism and mass sacrifice.
• 50:45
  They went through a period of time where,
• 50:47
  you know, geez, what, one in three was
• 50:50
  killed?
• 50:51
  I mean, it was huge losses on both
• 50:54
  sides.
• 50:55
  Reintroducing this language of war without broad consent
• 50:58
  is open, you know, opens historic wounds.
• 51:02
  People talk about it.
• 51:04
  They create enemies that don't exist, right?
• 51:07
  Conditioning may succeed in the short term, but
• 51:10
  it has a long-term cost in trust,
• 51:13
  and trust is always the first casualty in
• 51:17
  a prolonged conflict, especially if you don't trust
• 51:20
  why you're doing it.
• 51:22
  So the assumed American backdrop, you heard Ursula
• 51:26
  von der Leyen talking about the Americans, you
• 51:29
  know, and the security plan that Trump has
• 51:33
  released taking a different seat.
• 51:36
  Why are we involved in Europe, and why
• 51:39
  are we the ones funding Europe?
• 51:41
  We can't afford it, nor should we.
• 51:44
  So European strategic behavior rests more and more
• 51:48
  on an unspoken assumption that the U.S.
• 51:51
  will intervene decisively if escalation goes too far.
• 51:57
  I'm not so sure that's true anymore, but
• 51:59
  this belief shapes rhetoric, planning, risk.
• 52:03
  It allows European leaders to adopt assertive postures.
• 52:07
  It gets them to say, well, you know,
• 52:10
  I'm going to punch you in the face,
• 52:11
  and if you do anything about it, you
• 52:13
  know, to a kid bigger than you, my
• 52:14
  big brother will come and take you out,
• 52:17
  right?
• 52:17
  I can bully you because I have big
• 52:19
  brothers in my pocket.
• 52:21
  That's what Europe is doing and has done
• 52:24
  for years.
• 52:25
  The U.S. is going to be there
• 52:27
  if ultimately the responsibility for this war that
• 52:32
  they create is going to be transferred to
• 52:35
  us.
• 52:35
  Why am I talking about this this morning?
• 52:38
  Because it's important.
• 52:39
  You can't transfer a war across the Atlantic,
• 52:43
  you know.
• 52:44
  We tried in World War I to stay
• 52:47
  out, and, you know, we ultimately entered in.
• 52:50
  But what if we as a public don't
• 52:54
  want to be involved in this horse pucky,
• 52:57
  this nonsense?
• 52:59
  You know, if this deteriorates, the Europeans are
• 53:02
  banking on us coming back and being on
• 53:05
  only their side.
• 53:07
  This is a strategic dependency masquerading as a
• 53:11
  partnership.
• 53:12
  Europe's military capacity, ammunition stockpiles, logistics, command and
• 53:18
  control remain heavily reliant on the United States.
• 53:22
  Without American intelligence, airlifts, deterrence, European forces would
• 53:28
  struggle.
• 53:29
  You know, what?
• 53:31
  The Army of England has 77,000 guys.
• 53:36
  Yeah, they're going to go against Russia's million
• 53:39
  -man army, right?
• 53:42
  77,000?
• 53:43
  I mean, where are you going to get
• 53:45
  them?
• 53:46
  And so European forces would struggle to sustain
• 53:49
  any high-intensity conflict.
• 53:52
  The burden is supposed to be carried by
• 53:55
  us, right?
• 53:56
  But the Europeans are acting boldly under these
• 53:59
  conditions, you know, as less courage than a
• 54:03
  moral hazard.
• 54:03
  This isn't courage.
• 54:05
  This is, you know, a big-time hazard
• 54:08
  because I'm not so sure that Americans would
• 54:11
  want to do this.
• 54:12
  But supporters say that alliances exist precisely for
• 54:16
  this reason, that the U.S. and NATO
• 54:19
  is an alliance that, you know, we will
• 54:23
  join.
• 54:24
  You know, Article 5 will force us to
• 54:26
  join.
• 54:27
  NATO is built upon mutual defense, and expecting
• 54:31
  American involvement isn't entitlement.
• 54:34
  It's how the system was designed.
• 54:37
  And so the U.S. will jump in,
• 54:40
  period, right, they say.
• 54:42
  Something needs to be done about that because
• 54:44
  they're over there talking war.
• 54:46
  They're trying to create it.
• 54:49
  They want to escalate Ukraine.
• 54:52
  European states have increased their own defense spending
• 54:55
  and deployments, you know, because Trump is making
• 54:58
  them.
• 54:59
  And they're saying this demonstrates their seriousness rather
• 55:02
  than continuing to be freeloaders in the NATO
• 55:05
  -slash-U.S. system.
• 55:08
  But the underlying risk is always misaligned expectation.
• 55:14
  U.S. domestic politics are pretty volatile, and
• 55:17
  American strategic priorities are shifting.
• 55:21
  They're shifting toward the Pacific.
• 55:23
  They're shifting toward the South America, an assumption
• 55:27
  that Washington will always absorb Europe's risk may
• 55:33
  prove incorrect at the worst possible moment.
• 55:37
  History suggests that alliances fail not when commitments
• 55:42
  are clear, but when they are assumed.
• 55:46
  And Europe's challenge is not to abandon the
• 55:49
  U.S. backstop, but to recognize the conditional
• 55:53
  nature of it.
• 55:55
  Alliances are strongest when all parties understand their
• 55:58
  own limits, and they are weakest when those
• 56:03
  limits are ignored.
• 56:06
  NATO expansion, security guarantees, at the center of
• 56:10
  Europe's security debate is this continual paradox.
• 56:15
  The promise of deterrence with no means to
• 56:19
  enforce it.
• 56:21
  NATO-style security guarantees are being discussed for
• 56:25
  Ukraine with no NATO membership.
• 56:28
  This is a framework that is rich in
• 56:32
  language but always will be ambiguous.
• 56:36
  I argue that this is inherently unstable, unworkable,
• 56:41
  impossible.
• 56:43
  Article 5 works because it is backed by
• 56:45
  institutional clarity, historical precedent, and overwhelming force.
• 56:52
  I'm not sure any one of those exist
• 56:54
  anymore.
• 56:55
  Remove membership, and the guarantee is an interpretation
• 56:59
  rather than an automatic kicking in set of
• 57:03
  language or paragraph.
• 57:06
  Ambiguity, rather than deterring conflict, may invite testing
• 57:12
  of the concepts, right?
• 57:16
  This arrangement is very creative diplomatically.
• 57:23
  This is a creation that they're trying to
• 57:25
  make happen.
• 57:26
  It wants to bridge this irreconcilable position.
• 57:30
  Ukraine gets some kind of reassurance.
• 57:33
  Russia avoids NATO expansion any further than it's
• 57:36
  already gone, and Europe avoids immediate escalation, but
• 57:40
  they're prepared for it anyway because they want
• 57:42
  it to escalate.
• 57:43
  That's what they are doing.
• 57:45
  That's what the language says.
• 57:47
  The flaw, as always, is in credibility.
• 57:51
  You can't believe any of these a-holes,
• 57:53
  right?
• 57:54
  Deterrence works only if the adversary believes enforcement
• 57:57
  is unavoidable.
• 57:59
  Half-measures fail because they tempt.
• 58:02
  You know, a guarantee that depends on a
• 58:04
  political will at the moment of a crisis
• 58:06
  isn't a guarantee.
• 58:07
  It's a gamble.
• 58:08
  And Europe is attempting to design security architecture
• 58:12
  without confronting its own enforcement capacity.
• 58:15
  They don't have it.
• 58:16
  They got no capacity.
• 58:18
  Until the gap is closed between reality and
• 58:23
  words, guarantees risk symbolic gestures that satisfy a
• 58:29
  diplomat but would alarm the people receiving the
• 58:33
  guarantee.
• 58:34
  You know, this isn't coming.
• 58:36
  I don't think there's going to be any
• 58:38
  real sort of security guarantee that doesn't involve
• 58:42
  capitulation.
• 58:45
  You know, they need to capitulate.
• 58:47
  So the most troubling pattern isn't the militarization
• 58:51
  itself, but how quietly it's going on.
• 58:54
  Defense spending is rising dramatically.
• 58:57
  Deployment is expanding.
• 58:59
  Rhetoric is hardening.
• 59:00
  You know, they're talking about war as an
• 59:02
  inevitable.
• 59:03
  No formal mandate, no referenda, no parliamentary debate.
• 59:08
  Decisions of historic consequence are being framed as
• 59:13
  technical necessity rather than a political choice.
• 59:17
  It's a choice.
• 59:18
  You know, this is a shift.
• 59:21
  Urgency is used to bypass consent.
• 59:24
  We don't have any money, so it's okay
• 59:27
  to steal Russia's.
• 59:29
  We can't fund Ukraine anymore.
• 59:31
  The U.S. isn't giving away $100 billion
• 59:34
  more each year, so we have to steal
• 59:37
  it from somewhere.
• 59:39
  So, you know, this is urgency is bypassing
• 59:42
  rules, the law.
• 59:45
  Citizens are informed after the fact, not consulted
• 59:48
  beforehand.
• 59:49
  And over time, this legitimacy, you know, any
• 59:53
  legitimacy is gone, and you get increased polarization.
• 59:57
  You get increased people fighting and pushing back.
• 1:00:00
  Supporters argue that modern security threats evolve too
• 1:00:04
  quickly for, you know, deliberation.
• 1:00:09
  Leadership requires decisiveness, right?
• 1:00:15
  But can a democracy survive a crisis when
• 1:00:18
  consent is absent?
• 1:00:21
  That's an important question.
• 1:00:24
  Is it really democracy if there's no consent?
• 1:00:27
  When citizens feel managed rather than represented, or
• 1:00:33
  used in our case, unity is gone.
• 1:00:38
  There is no unity.
• 1:00:39
  Europe is discovering that lesson now.
• 1:00:43
  You know, sacrifice, you know, sacrifice can't be
• 1:00:51
  legitimized by politics.
• 1:00:53
  You know, you just can't do it.
• 1:00:55
  So the Berlin talks that went on, so
• 1:00:59
  the claim emerging from those talks are that
• 1:01:03
  we 90% agreed.
• 1:01:05
  It's close, people are saying, all over Europe,
• 1:01:08
  here in the U.S., Ukraine.
• 1:01:10
  Oh, 90% is there.
• 1:01:12
  It's a misleading, you know, another misleading commentary
• 1:01:17
  from the current diplomatic cycles.
• 1:01:21
  On its face, this 90% shows some
• 1:01:24
  sort of momentum, compromise, or near resolution.
• 1:01:27
  But in reality, that 10% is bigger.
• 1:01:32
  That 10%, you know, is expanding.
• 1:01:35
  You know, it's not there.
• 1:01:37
  Territory, security guarantees, NATO status, frozen assets, every
• 1:01:44
  issue is capable of restarting any war, even
• 1:01:49
  if it is resolved.
• 1:01:51
  So a ceasefire isn't going to get us
• 1:01:53
  there.
• 1:01:53
  This agreed upon 90% is largely the
• 1:01:57
  procedural language.
• 1:02:00
  Well, if we can have some kind of
• 1:02:02
  multinational force led by the U.S., if
• 1:02:06
  we can have, those are big freaking ifs,
• 1:02:09
  friends and neighbors.
• 1:02:10
  So, you know, how does it work?
• 1:02:13
  This framing is diplomatic theater, like we talked
• 1:02:16
  about yesterday.
• 1:02:17
  This is just another stage for Zelensky to
• 1:02:21
  perform on.
• 1:02:22
  And it's designed to project progress, but avoid
• 1:02:26
  accountability for continued failure.
• 1:02:29
  It's continued failure, and it ain't going to
• 1:02:30
  get any different.
• 1:02:32
  By emphasizing this percentage rather than any substance,
• 1:02:36
  we agreed upon these points, these points, and
• 1:02:38
  these points.
• 1:02:39
  They just say, well, we're 90% there.
• 1:02:42
  What does that mean?
• 1:02:44
  My estimation, you know, maybe it's wishful thinking,
• 1:02:49
  right?
• 1:02:50
  Negotiators have created the impression, you know, that,
• 1:02:53
  oh, gee, we'll get somewhere.
• 1:02:55
  But they haven't resolved any core dispute at
• 1:02:58
  all, not one.
• 1:02:59
  And so, you know, there's no comfort by
• 1:03:01
  these discussions.
• 1:03:02
  Wars don't end, you know, when the secondary
• 1:03:05
  clauses are finalized.
• 1:03:07
  They end when, you know, these questions, all
• 1:03:10
  of them are settled.
• 1:03:11
  So defenders of this process say complex peace
• 1:03:15
  agreements have to begin somewhere.
• 1:03:17
  Yeah, but quit lying about it.
• 1:03:18
  Quit telling me it's 90% when you
• 1:03:22
  know you don't have 50.
• 1:03:23
  You got nothing if the 10% is
• 1:03:26
  Zelensky saying we won't give up any territory.
• 1:03:30
  If you've agreed on 9 out of 10
• 1:03:33
  points and the 10th point that you don't
• 1:03:36
  agree upon is, yeah, but we're never going
• 1:03:39
  to give up any territory.
• 1:03:40
  Russia has to go back to its 1991
• 1:03:42
  borders.
• 1:03:43
  We want Crimea.
• 1:03:45
  Well, you're not getting it.
• 1:03:47
  And so, therefore, 90% means absolutely nothing
• 1:03:51
  even if you agreed on 9 out of
• 1:03:53
  10.
• 1:03:53
  So, you know, this optimistic discussion on unresolved
• 1:03:59
  issues, you know, these are identity defining.
• 1:04:05
  Territory determines sovereignty, right?
• 1:04:08
  Security guarantees determine survival, allegedly, of Ukraine.
• 1:04:13
  NATO status isn't going to happen.
• 1:04:17
  Frozen assets determine post-war balance.
• 1:04:19
  None of these are eased into existence through
• 1:04:22
  some kind of discussion about percentages.
• 1:04:25
  The danger of this 90% BS is
• 1:04:27
  that it encourages false expectation.
• 1:04:30
  So, you know, I don't think that's happening.
• 1:04:33
  The non-negotiable core is territory.
• 1:04:36
  Territory is the immovable object at the center
• 1:04:39
  of the conflict.
• 1:04:40
  Donbass, Crimea, broader Novorossiya are treated by Moscow
• 1:04:44
  as settled facts because they've seized them.
• 1:04:47
  They have them through war, referendum, and historical
• 1:04:51
  claims.
• 1:04:51
  For Kiev, giving up territory is a national
• 1:04:54
  dismemberment and a political suicide.
• 1:04:57
  No amount of diplomatic language has bridged this
• 1:05:00
  gap for them.
• 1:05:02
  One set of folks argue that realism, that's
• 1:05:05
  me, is important.
• 1:05:07
  Territory lost in war is not recovered at
• 1:05:09
  the negotiating table.
• 1:05:11
  From this point of view, Ukraine's insistence on
• 1:05:14
  full restoration of territories ignores battlefield reality, and
• 1:05:19
  it's going to continue the destruction on a
• 1:05:22
  prolonged nature, right?
• 1:05:24
  Accepting the loss as it is at present,
• 1:05:27
  as painful as that is, could preserve what
• 1:05:31
  remains.
• 1:05:32
  Or you're going to continue to lose a
• 1:05:34
  lot more.
• 1:05:35
  And I'm not alone in saying that.
• 1:05:37
  Anybody with half a brain knows this is
• 1:05:40
  what's happening.
• 1:05:41
  And now I wonder whether Zelensky has even
• 1:05:45
  half a brain.
• 1:05:46
  If he's the God-gifted person that he
• 1:05:53
  is, and he still has 60% support
• 1:05:57
  in Ukraine, if that's a real number and
• 1:06:00
  not just a prop put out, then he
• 1:06:07
  should be able to convince or outline to
• 1:06:12
  the people of Ukraine that we need to
• 1:06:16
  save lives.
• 1:06:19
  We don't have any more lives to spend.
• 1:06:21
  They're all gone.
• 1:06:23
  What are we going to do?
• 1:06:26
  I think a decent politician could figure it
• 1:06:30
  out, right?
• 1:06:32
  So the other view talks about accepting territorial
• 1:06:37
  loss under pressure.
• 1:06:38
  Pressure.
• 1:06:39
  It's under war.
• 1:06:40
  It legitimizes conquest and invites future aggression, right?
• 1:06:44
  Not just in Ukraine, but globally.
• 1:06:47
  Borders must not be redrawn by force.
• 1:06:50
  Yeah, but Russia argues that these are redrawn
• 1:06:53
  by referendum.
• 1:06:55
  And the U.S. and the West and
• 1:06:58
  the globalists are all about referenda when they
• 1:07:02
  support the West, but they're never about those
• 1:07:07
  sort of things if somebody else benefits from
• 1:07:11
  a referendum.
• 1:07:12
  Look at all the places where this has
• 1:07:14
  happened in the past.
• 1:07:16
  And the arguments fail when you talk about
• 1:07:19
  that.
• 1:07:19
  But what complicates matters is that both sides,
• 1:07:24
  both matters are internally consistent.
• 1:07:30
  Realism prioritizes survival.
• 1:07:34
  Principle prioritizes deterrence.
• 1:07:36
  Diplomacy is failing because both sides are correct
• 1:07:39
  within their own frameworks.
• 1:07:42
  So if both sides are correct, you have
• 1:07:45
  nowhere to go.
• 1:07:46
  The only answer is shut up and finish
• 1:07:49
  fighting.
• 1:07:50
  You know, shut up and finish the fight.
• 1:07:53
  The Berlin talks reveal that territory isn't even
• 1:07:56
  a bargaining chip.
• 1:07:57
  It's a foundation upon which anything else rests.
• 1:08:01
  Security guarantees, reconstruction, normalization only can take effect
• 1:08:08
  after the borders are set.
• 1:08:11
  Without agreement on the land issue, everything else
• 1:08:14
  is, you know, I don't know, false.
• 1:08:18
  A scaffold, you know, that's it.
• 1:08:21
  No building.
• 1:08:23
  You just put a scaffold in the middle
• 1:08:24
  of somewhere and that's what you got.
• 1:08:27
  Territory isn't just geography.
• 1:08:29
  It's population.
• 1:08:31
  Which population controls, you know, in Crimea?
• 1:08:34
  It's Russia.
• 1:08:36
  And, in fact, anything east of Donetsk or
• 1:08:39
  the river, you know, Dnepropetrovsk, all those places
• 1:08:44
  east of there, that's far, far, far, far
• 1:08:48
  greater number of Russians than Ukrainian speakers, you
• 1:08:52
  know, certainly.
• 1:08:53
  And all Ukrainians speak Russian anyway.
• 1:08:56
  You know, so without an agreement on land,
• 1:09:00
  you know, they're not going to get anywhere.
• 1:09:03
  It's resources.
• 1:09:04
  It's memory.
• 1:09:05
  It's legitimacy.
• 1:09:07
  It's history.
• 1:09:07
  It's culture of those areas.
• 1:09:09
  That is why no amount of creative phrasing
• 1:09:12
  can soften the positions.
• 1:09:14
  We don't need to be involved should be
• 1:09:19
  something that everybody in Europe is saying, you
• 1:09:22
  know, because these wars in that area have
• 1:09:25
  gone on for centuries.
• 1:09:28
  For centuries.
• 1:09:30
  The Polish made it all the way to
• 1:09:32
  Moscow at some point ages ago.
• 1:09:35
  The reverse.
• 1:09:36
  Russians were all the way to Berlin.
• 1:09:38
  Remember that?
• 1:09:39
  And then the people coming up from the
• 1:09:42
  south, the Turks and the Ottoman Empire, I
• 1:09:46
  mean, that place has always been overrun.
• 1:09:49
  So, you know, one of the most prominent
• 1:09:52
  proposals emerging out of these Berlin talks is
• 1:09:55
  these security guarantees that resemble Article 5, right?
• 1:10:01
  But, you know, Ukraine is not a member.
• 1:10:03
  The idea is to provide reassurances without provoking
• 1:10:07
  an escalation.
• 1:10:09
  So, in theory, this offers a compromise.
• 1:10:11
  In practice, it's just more ambiguity that I
• 1:10:15
  don't think will work.
• 1:10:16
  But that's me.
• 1:10:18
  I think that such guarantees are, you know,
• 1:10:21
  hollow structurally.
• 1:10:23
  You know, what are you going to do?
• 1:10:24
  Article 5 works because it is automatic.
• 1:10:27
  And, you know, if you strip away the
• 1:10:30
  membership, the guarantee, you know, people are going,
• 1:10:34
  wait a minute.
• 1:10:35
  What if I'm a NATO member but I
• 1:10:39
  don't agree with that?
• 1:10:40
  You know, will it be unanimous anymore?
• 1:10:44
  Can you invoke Article 5 for a non
• 1:10:46
  -member?
• 1:10:47
  A lot of members will say no.
• 1:10:49
  So, those are problems.
• 1:10:52
  You know, supporters say that, you know, this
• 1:10:55
  is perfect.
• 1:10:56
  We could give guarantees in there, you know,
• 1:10:59
  guarantees, perfect guarantees.
• 1:11:01
  You know, we can't give but we can
• 1:11:03
  still give a guarantee.
• 1:11:05
  NATO expansion is unacceptable to Russia.
• 1:11:09
  Abandonment is unacceptable to Ukraine.
• 1:11:11
  Hybrid guarantees are the only path, they say.
• 1:11:15
  From this point of view, ambiguity is a
• 1:11:18
  feature, not a bug.
• 1:11:19
  It buys time.
• 1:11:20
  It buys time.
• 1:11:21
  The problem with buying time, though, is that's
• 1:11:25
  exactly what Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 did.
• 1:11:29
  And all it did was help to rebuild
• 1:11:32
  Ukraine armed forces so they could start all
• 1:11:37
  over again.
• 1:11:39
  And, you know, history in Europe says that
• 1:11:42
  the only way this works is by conquest.
• 1:11:47
  That's how it's always been.
• 1:11:48
  Europe's struggle is a deeper issue.
• 1:11:52
  Security commitments are being designed faster than enforcement
• 1:11:57
  capacity.
• 1:11:58
  Europe can't provide enforcement capacity.
• 1:12:02
  They're weak.
• 1:12:04
  They're dependent on us completely.
• 1:12:06
  And if we don't want to be there,
• 1:12:09
  you know, military burden, not ours, you know,
• 1:12:13
  Trump says.
• 1:12:14
  I agree, by the way.
• 1:12:15
  History suggests security fails, you know, when you
• 1:12:18
  don't talk about who's going to be in
• 1:12:23
  charge of them.
• 1:12:24
  Now on to the Russian assets portion, because
• 1:12:29
  the question of these assets looms over Berlin
• 1:12:33
  like a minefield.
• 1:12:35
  Tens of billions in assets remain immobilized in
• 1:12:38
  the West, and they want to seize them.
• 1:12:41
  You know, this is a historic breach of
• 1:12:44
  financial norms.
• 1:12:45
  You know, the deeper concern from my point
• 1:12:48
  of view is systemic trust.
• 1:12:50
  You know, global finance, you know, they have
• 1:12:53
  to be predictable, and they're not.
• 1:12:56
  Ukraine is negotiated about and not with.
• 1:13:00
  You know, Ukraine doesn't have any sovereignty right
• 1:13:02
  now.
• 1:13:03
  They're being told what to do.
• 1:13:05
  And this is the revealing feature of the
• 1:13:08
  Berlin talks isn't what's said, but who is
• 1:13:10
  speaking.
• 1:13:12
  Ukraine's future is discussed by U.S., European,
• 1:13:15
  Russian officials in advance and then presented to
• 1:13:18
  Kiev.
• 1:13:19
  Ukraine participates, but they don't lead their own
• 1:13:22
  desires, and this is subtle erosion, you know.
• 1:13:28
  They still got their flag.
• 1:13:30
  Elections are promised.
• 1:13:31
  But strategic autonomy, where'd that go?
• 1:13:34
  They don't have any because they don't have
• 1:13:37
  any money.
• 1:13:37
  There's nothing there, you know.
• 1:13:39
  So I don't know.
• 1:13:41
  Ukraine is exhausted demographically.
• 1:13:45
  The war is way beyond the battlefield, you
• 1:13:49
  know.
• 1:13:50
  It's demography, war casualties, mass immigration, declining birth
• 1:13:55
  rate, and this prolonged uncertainty have hollowed out
• 1:14:00
  the country's human capabilities, human capital.
• 1:14:06
  Millions of Ukrainians, mostly women, children, and skilled
• 1:14:11
  workers have left and built new lives anywhere
• 1:14:14
  else.
• 1:14:15
  Those who remain are older, poorer, and heavily
• 1:14:17
  burdened by the conflict.
• 1:14:20
  From a realistic perspective, demography represents the war
• 1:14:25
  after the war.
• 1:14:27
  If the fighting stopped tomorrow, how long would
• 1:14:31
  it take to rebuild?
• 1:14:33
  Workers, taxpayers, families, engineers, teachers, everyone that's left.
• 1:14:39
  Population loss isn't easily reversible.
• 1:14:43
  The refugees aren't going to return home from
• 1:14:45
  anywhere.
• 1:14:45
  They're not going to go to an unstable
• 1:14:48
  or economically stagnant environment.
• 1:14:50
  They don't bounce back from losing a generation,
• 1:14:54
  and in this case, far more than that.
• 1:14:57
  But other people say, oh gee, post-war
• 1:14:59
  return's possible.
• 1:15:01
  Reconstruction funds, America's going to put up the
• 1:15:04
  money.
• 1:15:04
  We're going to steal it from Russia and
• 1:15:06
  people will come back.
• 1:15:07
  Who's going to come back?
• 1:15:10
  Who?
• 1:15:11
  Big money, big pharma, big chemical plants.
• 1:15:16
  You know, people like that, and they'll import
• 1:15:17
  other people.
• 1:15:19
  But, you know, it'll be what?
• 1:15:21
  America lite?
• 1:15:22
  What's it going to be?
• 1:15:24
  And is Russia going to put up, you
• 1:15:26
  know, is Russia going to stop?
• 1:15:29
  The demography at the end is important, right?
• 1:15:32
  So this returning migration depends upon stability, jobs,
• 1:15:36
  housing, confidence, none of which are present, nor
• 1:15:39
  will they be.
• 1:15:40
  Ukraine has to sustain some sort of government,
• 1:15:43
  and they won't.
• 1:15:44
  It'll be just as corrupt as it's always
• 1:15:46
  been.
• 1:15:47
  They won't have any military readiness.
• 1:15:49
  They won't have any basic services even and
• 1:15:53
  a shrinking base of funding.
• 1:15:55
  They're going to be funded third world forever
• 1:15:58
  unless somebody takes them.
• 1:16:01
  That's why they've lost their autonomy.
• 1:16:04
  What's the military payroll?
• 1:16:06
  Maintaining a large modern military is among the
• 1:16:08
  most expensive undertakings, and Ukraine's armed forces, you
• 1:16:13
  know, at the beginning of this were nearly
• 1:16:15
  a million.
• 1:16:16
  They had salaries, equipment, training, logistics, pension, medical
• 1:16:22
  care.
• 1:16:23
  You know, the annual military payroll and sustainment
• 1:16:26
  cost is far beyond Ukraine's economic capacity just
• 1:16:31
  for that.
• 1:16:32
  How do they take anything else?
• 1:16:34
  Critics argue this reveals a fundamental structural contradiction.
• 1:16:38
  Ukraine military exists at its current scale only
• 1:16:41
  because external actors funded it.
• 1:16:44
  Well, yeah, who produced a million-man army
• 1:16:47
  in Ukraine?
• 1:16:48
  NATO, the U.S., we did.
• 1:16:52
  You know, we, you know, globalist types of
• 1:16:56
  we did so we could expand and create
• 1:16:58
  this war.
• 1:16:59
  Take out Russia, and they made a huge
• 1:17:03
  mistake, you know, when they did that.
• 1:17:07
  So Zelensky is somewhere in between, you know.
• 1:17:12
  He's between a necessary leadership role and a
• 1:17:18
  big liability, and the liability is all the
• 1:17:22
  corruption that he oversees.
• 1:17:24
  So he used to be a wartime symbol
• 1:17:28
  they could parade around.
• 1:17:30
  Now he's a bottleneck.
• 1:17:32
  Early in the conflict, centralized leadership gave some
• 1:17:38
  kind of cohesion.
• 1:17:39
  Now he's a dictator, you know.
• 1:17:41
  Over time, the personalization of power, you know,
• 1:17:45
  and his political survival and national necessity means
• 1:17:51
  he ain't going anywhere.
• 1:17:54
  Supporters argue that continuity is essential, that he
• 1:17:57
  has to be there.
• 1:18:00
  He's got to be decisive.
• 1:18:02
  But personalized power narrows any option, and legitimacy,
• 1:18:08
  you know, it's all gone.
• 1:18:10
  So, you know, how do you control the
• 1:18:13
  escalation?
• 1:18:15
  Well, you can't because Zelensky wants to see
• 1:18:18
  it go up.
• 1:18:18
  These grinding, churning, front line, continuing
• 1:18:28
  west in favor of Russia is a fact,
• 1:18:33
  and it ain't going away.
• 1:18:36
  Well, I tell you what, folks.
• 1:18:39
  I think that these are, you know, somewhat
• 1:18:45
  dark times when you talk about stuff like
• 1:18:48
  that.
• 1:18:49
  I don't want them to be.
• 1:18:51
  You know, it's nonsense.
• 1:18:53
  You know, Trump now is accusing Venezuela of
• 1:18:55
  stealing U.S. oil, right?
• 1:18:58
  And that was an interesting story.
• 1:19:00
  Maybe I'll share that with you.
• 1:19:03
  He says, and he's created a blockade, the
• 1:19:08
  largest, you know, American naval blockade in the
• 1:19:12
  Caribbean.
• 1:19:12
  It's supposed to be for narco-terrorists and
• 1:19:17
  intercepting sanctioned tankers, right?
• 1:19:21
  Trump's announcement, and he put it in, again,
• 1:19:23
  through True Social, this is how you do
• 1:19:25
  it.
• 1:19:26
  This is how you govern.
• 1:19:27
  He says, it's a total and complete blockade
• 1:19:30
  of all sanctioned oil tankers going into and
• 1:19:32
  out of Venezuela.
• 1:19:33
  Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada
• 1:19:37
  ever assembled in the history of South America.
• 1:19:39
  It will only get bigger, and the shock
• 1:19:41
  to them will be like nothing they have
• 1:19:43
  seen before.
• 1:19:44
  Until such time as they return to the
• 1:19:46
  United States, all of the oil and assets
• 1:19:50
  they stole from us.
• 1:19:52
  Washington will not allow a hostile regime to
• 1:19:56
  take our oil, land, or any other assets.
• 1:20:01
  Okay?
• 1:20:01
  I need some definition on this.
• 1:20:04
  And so I want more.
• 1:20:08
  You know, where is, how do we know
• 1:20:11
  this is U.S. oil if it's located
• 1:20:15
  on Venezuela?
• 1:20:17
  Does that mean Chevron or what are some
• 1:20:22
  of the other ones, BP, that's British, or
• 1:20:26
  any of them, Shell Oil, any big ones?
• 1:20:30
  What, did they buy a lease down there?
• 1:20:35
  And so that turns it into U.S.
• 1:20:37
  oil?
• 1:20:38
  It's private oil.
• 1:20:40
  It's not U.S. oil.
• 1:20:42
  It's private.
• 1:20:43
  And if a country takes it back, so
• 1:20:45
  if you had an oil lease here in
• 1:20:50
  America by British Petroleum, is it British oil
• 1:20:54
  that's under the ground?
• 1:20:55
  Or is it a private agency, private organization,
• 1:20:59
  a company's oil under the ground?
• 1:21:02
  Is it?
• 1:21:03
  So this is about the oil.
• 1:21:05
  Here we go again, Iraq.
• 1:21:08
  Welcome to Iraq.
• 1:21:10
  You know, we need this.
• 1:21:12
  And so we turn it into something huge
• 1:21:20
  for that purpose.
• 1:21:21
  I don't like this rhetoric.
• 1:21:23
  I don't like it.
• 1:21:25
  Venezuela, for its response, they denounce President Trump
• 1:21:31
  saying his country is interventionalist and colonialist and
• 1:21:37
  says that proves Washington's longstanding plan to seize
• 1:21:42
  Venezuelan natural resources.
• 1:21:46
  Trump announced, you know, this is his blockade.
• 1:21:50
  And in his official statement released late yesterday,
• 1:21:54
  Venezuelan Vice President, Delsi Rodriguez, said, Trump's remarks
• 1:22:00
  reveal the true intention of the United States
• 1:22:03
  to take over the oil, land, and minerals
• 1:22:07
  of Venezuela.
• 1:22:09
  The government rejects Trump's claim that Venezuela had
• 1:22:14
  stolen assets from Washington and denounces this as
• 1:22:18
  interventionist, colonialist.
• 1:22:20
  A statement accused the president of violating international
• 1:22:24
  law, free trade, and freedom of navigation by
• 1:22:27
  ordering U.S. naval forces in the Caribbean
• 1:22:30
  to prevent sanctioned tankers from entering or leaving
• 1:22:35
  Venezuelan waters.
• 1:22:37
  Here's the quote.
• 1:22:39
  Through his social media statements, the president of
• 1:22:43
  the United States assumes that Venezuela's oil, land,
• 1:22:47
  and mineral wealth belong to him, the statement
• 1:22:51
  said.
• 1:22:51
  On that basis, he seeks to impose a
• 1:22:55
  naval military blockade with the objective of robbing
• 1:22:59
  the riches that belong to our homeland.
• 1:23:03
  Rodriguez said Washington's actions were part of a
• 1:23:07
  gigantic campaign of lies and manipulation aimed at
• 1:23:11
  justifying the appropriation of Venezuela's natural resources.
• 1:23:16
  She added that the U.S. had always
• 1:23:19
  sought to dominate the Venezuelan economy and politics
• 1:23:25
  regardless of changes in administration.
• 1:23:29
  The government said Venezuela would exercise its rights
• 1:23:33
  under international law, its constitution, and the U
• 1:23:36
  .N. charter.
• 1:23:37
  Nobody pays attention to that if it's a
• 1:23:40
  globalist or if it's from, you know, rules
• 1:23:44
  for thee, not for me.
• 1:23:47
  And they would reaffirm their own sovereignty over
• 1:23:50
  their own natural resources and the right to
• 1:23:53
  freely navigate and engage in commerce both in
• 1:23:57
  the Caribbean and beyond.
• 1:24:00
  Venezuela will never again be a colony of
• 1:24:04
  an empire or any foreign power, the statement
• 1:24:08
  said.
• 1:24:09
  Since September, the U.S. has killed more
• 1:24:12
  than 80 people in attacks on alleged cartel
• 1:24:16
  boats, and Trump claims they are being used
• 1:24:19
  by the government to flood America with narcotics.
• 1:24:22
  Venezuela denies any involvement in drug trafficking and
• 1:24:26
  said the strikes were part of regime change
• 1:24:28
  plot to plunder exactly what Trump is saying
• 1:24:32
  they're going to plunder, the country's natural resources.
• 1:24:37
  And so he says the oil in Ukraine,
• 1:24:41
  I'm sorry, in Venezuela is ours.
• 1:24:46
  Isn't that terrible?
• 1:24:49
  Oh, gee.
• 1:24:54
  I want to cover one more thing because
• 1:24:56
  this is continual.
• 1:24:59
  Oh, by the way, there was a rather
• 1:25:00
  large article.
• 1:25:04
  It's called The Oligarch, War, Corruption, and the
• 1:25:08
  Makings of Today's Ukraine.
• 1:25:13
  And that's interesting.
• 1:25:15
  I read part one this morning, talks about
• 1:25:17
  Kolomoisky, the guy who owned private bank, and
• 1:25:24
  there's some scary stories about that guy.
• 1:25:28
  But he's the guy who put Zelensky in
• 1:25:31
  power.
• 1:25:31
  He's jailed now by Zelensky, of course.
• 1:25:36
  But that's there.
• 1:25:37
  There's also plenty of talk about the corruption
• 1:25:42
  going on over there and a lot more
• 1:25:44
  that we'll get into.
• 1:25:45
  Today is the biggest day in radio on
• 1:25:49
  damn radio.
• 1:25:50
  Today's it.
• 1:25:53
  Before I tell you the schedule and whatnot,
• 1:25:56
  I think I can get through this story
• 1:25:58
  real quick.
• 1:26:00
  Russian President Putin dismissed Western claims of all
• 1:26:06
  this growth of militarization that I was discussing
• 1:26:10
  earlier in the program, about imminent attack, Moscow's
• 1:26:15
  coming, the Russians are coming.
• 1:26:18
  He dismissed it as lies and nonsense.
• 1:26:23
  And these statements are meant to raise the
• 1:26:28
  level of hysteria in Europe.
• 1:26:31
  He was speaking at the Defense Ministry Board
• 1:26:35
  on Wednesday, today.
• 1:26:38
  And he said it's tense, critical in some
• 1:26:46
  regions.
• 1:26:46
  He accuses NATO countries of preparing for a
• 1:26:50
  major war while brainwashing their population with claims
• 1:26:56
  of an inevitable clash with Russia.
• 1:26:59
  I have repeatedly stated that this is a
• 1:27:02
  lie, nonsense, pure nonsense.
• 1:27:06
  That word is chepukha, about some imaginary Russian
• 1:27:10
  threat to European countries.
• 1:27:12
  But this is being done quite deliberately, Putin
• 1:27:15
  said.
• 1:27:17
  Adding that EU officials have forgotten their own
• 1:27:20
  responsibility and are being guided by political interests.
• 1:27:26
  He went on to say that throughout history,
• 1:27:30
  even the most difficult circumstances, Russia has always
• 1:27:34
  strived to find diplomatic solutions to conflicts.
• 1:27:38
  So long as there was a chance of
• 1:27:40
  doing so.
• 1:27:41
  The responsibility for not seizing these opportunities lies
• 1:27:46
  entirely with those who believe they could speak
• 1:27:49
  to us through force, he said.
• 1:27:52
  He said that Russia supports mutually beneficial and
• 1:27:56
  equal cooperation with the US and European states.
• 1:28:00
  Unfortunately, this cannot be said about current leadership
• 1:28:08
  in most European countries.
• 1:28:10
  He said that Moscow recognizes that any international
• 1:28:14
  situation, the armed forces remain the key guarantor
• 1:28:18
  of Russia's sovereignty, independence, security, future, and strategic
• 1:28:23
  parity.
• 1:28:24
  I think that's important.
• 1:28:26
  Today is the biggest day in radio, on
• 1:28:31
  damn radio.
• 1:28:33
  And I encourage you to listen in all
• 1:28:38
  day.
• 1:28:38
  Coming up after me is the damn schwag.
• 1:28:43
  There is no Gabby Hayes show today.
• 1:28:45
  That's depressing.
• 1:28:46
  He's funny.
• 1:28:47
  I like listening to him.
• 1:28:48
  Then comes a really big show and the
• 1:28:51
  search for solutions and Ike Skelton.
• 1:28:53
  I am here every day, Monday through Friday,
• 1:28:58
  from 730 to 9.
• 1:29:03
  And I like being here, so I'm glad
• 1:29:06
  you're here with me.
• 1:29:07
  And please continue to join here.
• 1:29:10
  You can listen to all the prior shows
• 1:29:12
  at internationalflavor.com.
• 1:29:16
  You can also listen to all the damn
• 1:29:22
  radio hosts at damnradio.com forward slash podcasts.
• 1:29:29
  JR does a good job of putting them
• 1:29:31
  out there and making sure that you can
• 1:29:34
  relive these hilarious moments in the privacy of
• 1:29:37
  your own sitting room where it's fun and
• 1:29:42
  quite entertaining.
• 1:29:43
  So we hope that you continue to listen
• 1:29:46
  to us.
• 1:29:47
  Have a very nice day.
• 1:29:50
  I'm saying goodbye to you from the Lake
• 1:29:53
  Ozark Real Estate of the Art Studio.
• 1:29:57
  See ya!