Latest / UK Column Radio / How the US-China "Marriage" Went Sour | Einar Tangen

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How the US-China "Marriage" Went Sour | Einar Tangen · UK Column Radio

• 0:01
  Hello and welcome to another episode of the Silk and Steel
• 0:04
  Podcast. I'm your host, Carl Zah.
• 0:07
  Today we have a very special guest all the way from Beijing,
• 0:12
  Einar Tangen. For my audience, we may not be
• 0:16
  familiar with you, although I don't know why they wouldn't be.
• 0:19
  Could you please do a brief intro of who you are, what you
• 0:23
  do Einar? OK, well, I've done all the bad
• 0:26
  things, Carl. I'm an American citizen.
• 0:29
  That doesn't make me bad. It's actually the good.
• 0:31
  Lots of good people there, somebody likes to say.
• 0:36
  And I was a lawyer, investment banker, that politician, real
• 0:41
  estate developer, serial entrepreneur.
• 0:46
  So I did a lot of things in the USI moved to China about 20
• 0:49
  years ago, and it's not coming up to 21 years.
• 0:52
  And I didn't come here to make money.
• 0:56
  I just came here because I thought if there's going to be
• 0:59
  renaissance in my lifetime, it would be here.
• 1:01
  And so far, no disappointments. So I started a business that did
• 1:07
  interiors, architecture, things like that along with my partner.
• 1:13
  And then I've been transitioning for the last 15-16 years now to
• 1:19
  media. I'm a freelancer.
• 1:21
  I don't work for anybody in particular.
• 1:23
  I mainly because they won't have me, you know, and, and I, I've
• 1:28
  just kind of done it. It started off with one show on
• 1:32
  CGTN called Dialogue, and now I do.
• 1:37
  I don't know about 14 shows a week, including articles and
• 1:41
  radio shows and television, but it's I, it's unusual in the
• 1:45
  sense that I do it for any given year over 50 different
• 1:49
  television stations. So I I might not, I might not,
• 1:52
  might not be deep, but I'm very broad.
• 1:56
  Well, I, my audience, have made multiple requests for you.
• 2:00
  And then I remember, wait, I have idars.
• 2:03
  I have Einar's WeChat from two years ago when I met you on the
• 2:08
  Great Wall. Of China.
• 2:10
  So. You, you, your audience needs
• 2:12
  better taste. That's all I can say.
• 2:16
  But I I appreciate the compliment.
• 2:18
  The reason I, I invited you, Einar, is because I, I know you
• 2:22
  have your pulse on kind as AUS China relationship, particularly
• 2:28
  in the last 20 years, the time you lived in China and you kind
• 2:32
  of seen the up and up and down of the US China relationship in
• 2:37
  the last 20 years. So the first question I have for
• 2:41
  you is what happened? I mean, like, like there was a
• 2:46
  time I remembered there was a time there was optimistic
• 2:50
  engagement. You know, Obama had proposed G2.
• 2:55
  You know, there's this talk of Chi America, right?
• 2:58
  Chi America, the 22, the the beast that's intertwined.
• 3:02
  You'll never be separated. And certainly now it's all
• 3:05
  decoupling trade war and US. China is our number one
• 3:10
  competitor. We must be China in everything
• 3:13
  from AI to, I don't know, to, to, to, to space to space race.
• 3:18
  What happened? What would like like?
• 3:21
  Can you maybe walk us through what do you think happened?
• 3:25
  Well, you know, think of it as a marriage.
• 3:28
  You know, America went in kind of like the woman does and says,
• 3:32
  you know, I'm going to marry you for what I can make you into.
• 3:37
  I'm going to change all your bad habits, get rid of that filthy
• 3:40
  communism and get you back into the fold.
• 3:44
  You know, our marriage is going to be one that changes you.
• 3:47
  And, and China was like, oh, you know, they, they, they were in
• 3:51
  awe of the United States, especially the financial side.
• 3:54
  And they said, we, we can learn from you.
• 3:57
  And so it all starts off and really in 2001 before that, when
• 4:01
  they're negotiating China's entrance in the WTO.
• 4:06
  So, you know, at at the time there is this hoax now, but they
• 4:09
  were very, very different. OK.
• 4:11
  So, you know, you know, man marries a woman for who she is
• 4:15
  at that moment, and the woman marries the man in terms of what
• 4:18
  she's going to make him into. And and this was kind of that
• 4:22
  classic situation. The US thought that by
• 4:25
  introducing capitalism, you know, free market ideas and
• 4:29
  things like this, that democracy would soon follow, that the, you
• 4:34
  know, literally the communist government would either melt
• 4:36
  away or there'd be a revolution and they would be kicked out and
• 4:40
  things like that because there's only one solution in the world.
• 4:43
  And, you know, this is the the sense of American
• 4:47
  exceptionalism. American is exceptional because
• 4:50
  it believes in the tenants of, you know, liberal democracy.
• 4:54
  A ballot box and free speech are the only thing that counts in
• 4:59
  China. They have a slightly different
• 5:00
  view. They, they, they say, well, you
• 5:03
  know, it, it free speech doesn't get action, OK.
• 5:06
  And a ballot box doesn't create a good government.
• 5:09
  And as a result, they're saying, no, we have one party and we
• 5:16
  expected to move things forward. Well, if you look at, since
• 5:19
  2001, China's been able to do that.
• 5:23
  So that's why you have, in terms of China, very high approval
• 5:26
  rating by the people. They have not collapsed Chinese.
• 5:32
  The Communist Party is even more strongly in control now than it
• 5:36
  was in 2001. And it's not a control in the
• 5:41
  sense of, oh, you know, there's a machine gun.
• 5:43
  They had every door, things like that.
• 5:45
  If you come here, you'll understand that this is
• 5:48
  extremely open society. You can walk around safe.
• 5:52
  You can walk around at 4:00 AM in the morning.
• 5:55
  I see women don't ask me what I'm doing at 4:00 AM in the
• 5:58
  morning. It's all hot.
• 6:01
  No, don't ask. OK, I won't tell.
• 6:03
  But, you know, literally coming home late from a dinner or
• 6:07
  something like that, I see single women walking along the
• 6:09
  street confidently and there are men passing them by.
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  They don't like, you know, side to the side or something like
• 6:15
  that. They just keep walking.
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  It's very normal. I mean, that's, it's just
• 6:19
  something that I'm not used to in the United States and I've
• 6:21
  lived in different parts of it. And it's not that the US is bad.
• 6:25
  I'm just saying that there's different expectations.
• 6:28
  So in Chinese society, they expected everything to be safe.
• 6:32
  They want opportunity and they want growth.
• 6:35
  And so far, the the current government and its system has
• 6:40
  been able to deliver that. In the US, we insist that we
• 6:45
  have the right system. But right now, you know, things
• 6:48
  aren't great, Carl. I mean, I, I, I never thought
• 6:50
  I'd see the day when we have federal troops and National
• 6:55
  Guard, you know, in Campton cities across the United States,
• 6:59
  Democratic cities or they Republican things.
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  I don't care if it was a Democratic president and
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  Republican cities. This is wrong.
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  This is, this is not democracy. It is, I don't know what it is.
• 7:11
  It's in liberal democracy and we seem to be going the wrong
• 7:14
  direction. But we are convinced that, you
• 7:18
  know, whatever China's doing is bad.
• 7:19
  When it they succeeded, we start saying, oh, they cheated.
• 7:23
  Well, how did they cheat? Well, they stole jobs.
• 7:26
  Well, no, they weren't. My, my family was in business.
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  We built submarines in World War 2.
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  When I first came to China, every 3rd crane, you know, a
• 7:38
  tall high rise crane had the name of the company my great
• 7:42
  grandfather was involved with. And you know, it was they,
• 7:47
  they're, they're going great guns.
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  They, they've done all these things.
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  So they, they have progressed. And this idea that they stole
• 7:57
  jobs. No, it wasn't.
• 7:58
  There were opportunities in, in China.
• 8:00
  And quite frankly, it wasn't just the, the US they lost jobs
• 8:06
  is also Europe and why the big companies saw the opportunity to
• 8:11
  get lower costs. And, you know, then after a
• 8:15
  while they realized, well, geez, there's 1.4 billion people here.
• 8:19
  This is a market. So it started off with low cost
• 8:23
  manufacturing, then it became a market and jobs went there.
• 8:26
  And it wasn't really a choice. You know, if, if, if I as an
• 8:30
  American, I, I don't know any American company or any kind of
• 8:35
  guy I respect who said I just want to move jobs to China.
• 8:38
  That wasn't the goal. The goal was how are we going to
• 8:41
  stay in business? If I don't move, my competition
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  does. Guess what?
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  I'm out of business. All the people that I employ
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  will be out of a job. So in order to save the company,
• 8:52
  we're going to have to make some sacrifices.
• 8:54
  And part of those are going to China.
• 8:56
  Now it's not just going to China, it's going to Vietnam,
• 8:59
  India, Bangladesh, you name it, anywhere where they can produce
• 9:02
  more cheaply and keep up with the competition.
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  So you you have this situation of unmet expectations on the US
• 9:11
  side, they did feel that they were defeated.
• 9:13
  They wanted to cheat it. They they wanted to change China
• 9:17
  and it hasn't changed. In fact, it's gotten stronger
• 9:20
  and more powerful during the in the meantime.
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  And from China's side, they're just like, why are you trying to
• 9:28
  pressure us? What, what, what is it that we
• 9:30
  have done? We follow the playbook and we
• 9:33
  were just better at it. We we have all this planning.
• 9:36
  We do. We have five year plans and then
• 9:39
  every year we have a checklist. We have to have a report card.
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  What did we do last year? What are we promising to do next
• 9:46
  year? And then that has to be reviewed
• 9:48
  on a yearly basis. Can you imagine if Congress had
• 9:52
  any of these governments actually had to, you know, stand
• 9:55
  there and say, OK, last year you said you're going to do XY and
• 9:58
  Z. Did you do any of them?
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  Well, you know, I was in politics, you know, had to
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  sometimes write those speeches where it's kind of like, yeah,
• 10:09
  well, we promised that. But, you know, they're
• 10:10
  intervening circumstances in China.
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  There aren't. They don't stand for a lot of
• 10:14
  excuses. The people say you either did or
• 10:16
  you didn't. So there's a great expectation.
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  But that also creates a lot of pressure, you know, one party
• 10:23
  government, and there's no one to blame.
• 10:26
  You understand? I mean, in America, you can no
• 10:29
  matter how badly you do, you just say, oh, the other guy
• 10:32
  would have done worse, OK. Or it's not my fault or it's,
• 10:36
  you know, let let them take a chance.
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  And I'm sure that they will do worse than me and then I can get
• 10:41
  back in power because, you know, things so different very, very,
• 10:45
  very different systems, different expectations.
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  And that's a long way of saying that things just have been
• 10:53
  working out. Well, the for for the longest
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  time, you know, men, both sides have recognized this is one of
• 11:01
  the most important bilateral relationship in the world.
• 11:04
  And a lot of American companies, which I'm sure you are familiar
• 11:08
  with, are actually making a lot of money in China.
• 11:12
  You know, there's KFC on every street corner in China.
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  I I seen it, I eaten it. The Chinese KFC actually tastes
• 11:19
  better than American KFC. This.
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  Is the thing I can't explain to people.
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  It's not only KFC, but if you go to a Pizza Hut, Oh my God, it's
• 11:30
  like a middle class dining experience.
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  The the people are nice to you, the tables are clean, they give
• 11:36
  you the crusts are crispy, are really crispy.
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  They're really, really good And and McDonald's a different
• 11:43
  experience when you're in China and they're nice to you at the
• 11:47
  counter and they don't. Want the free tip that was a
• 11:51
  free endorsement for pizza and KFC?
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  Well, the. Young brands, you know, I threw
• 11:57
  in McDonald's to balance it you. Know what?
• 12:00
  Disclaimer, I owe no stocks in young brands.
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  But what happened then? What happened?
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  So like if American companies were making money in China, you
• 12:09
  know, like that they were profiting, why then this
• 12:13
  acrimonious turn in the relationship to continue this
• 12:16
  couple analogy that you use, you know, if if American companies
• 12:23
  are profiting in in China, what is driven this downturn in the
• 12:29
  relationship? Well.
• 12:31
  You know, Carl, you touch on a really good point there.
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  I mean, in, in America, you know, business used to have a
• 12:37
  big hand in politics, but it's less now.
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  And, and the reason is and, and the companies you haven't
• 12:46
  mentioned that are making money are the car companies.
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  It's not so much that they produce and sell in China, it's
• 12:51
  that they produce their, their parts all right.
• 12:54
  And it's a lot less expensive. And when they sell them in the
• 12:58
  US and around the world. But you also have, you know, all
• 13:01
  the companies that sell shampoo, Head and shoulders, all these
• 13:04
  things, Cheerios, Oreo cookies, you name it, It's all here.
• 13:09
  We're at Coca-Cola, Pepsi, you name it.
• 13:13
  We have all our brands here. And they've been, you know,
• 13:16
  pretty much widely embraced by the Chinese side.
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  So it's not that they're not making money here.
• 13:21
  In fact, they make a lot, tremendous amount of money in
• 13:24
  the hundreds of billions of dollars.
• 13:27
  But the problem is that in the United States, you go back to
• 13:30
  1971, 61 percent, 72, I'm sorry, 61% of the American population
• 13:40
  was middle class. And they had expectations.
• 13:44
  And then slowly over the years, that has gone away.
• 13:48
  Yeah, there was some some who made it up into what they call
• 13:52
  the upper middle class, but a lot more fell off the train.
• 13:56
  So you're now talking about society that was measured in
• 14:00
  2023 that said based on, you know, parity of what you could
• 14:06
  buy, basically only 40% of the population is there.
• 14:12
  So you, you know, and that's a, that's, you know, 50%, you know,
• 14:17
  we're, you know, we're talking huge numbers here of people.
• 14:22
  When you have America, when it has a large middle class, it, it
• 14:29
  does well because it's the number, if the number of voters,
• 14:33
  they First off, they, they feel attached to society.
• 14:36
  They're in the game, they have skin in the game.
• 14:38
  They don't want to see the country fail.
• 14:40
  They also have a sense that, you know, there are opportunities
• 14:44
  out there And, and listen, I'm doing OK.
• 14:46
  So it's, you know, I'm going to vote to do something for the
• 14:52
  future for my children and my grandchildren.
• 14:55
  But when you have 40% of the of the nation as middle class and
• 14:59
  they feel that they're struggling, you know, over 60%
• 15:03
  of Americans feel that they are living paycheck to paycheck.
• 15:08
  Yeah, they, they don't, they don't really feel that they have
• 15:11
  the luxury of saying, oh, let's vote for tomorrow.
• 15:13
  And he says, look, I, I have to have it now.
• 15:15
  I can't afford what I have. And I'm afraid that if anything
• 15:20
  goes wrong, I'll be, you know, pushed out the door.
• 15:22
  I'll perhaps it's my house, my car, my job.
• 15:26
  There's a lot of insecurity there.
• 15:28
  And you know, this is this isn't unlike what happened just at the
• 15:33
  COP 30 in Brazil. Everybody understands climate
• 15:38
  change is an issue except Donald Trump.
• 15:40
  But you know, the issue was you had all the oil producing
• 15:45
  countries just saying we can't give any more.
• 15:48
  We understand that there's a climate emergency.
• 15:50
  We're going to do some other things, but we're not going to
• 15:53
  get on this road to, you know, getting rid of fossil fuels.
• 15:57
  We, we, we just can't at this point.
• 16:00
  And it's, it's just kind of things.
• 16:02
  People are, you know, they're defensive.
• 16:04
  So they're voting for, you know, anybody who will say, yeah,
• 16:10
  I'll, I'll put a chicken in every pot and, you know, all
• 16:13
  this kind of stuff. So This is why you see the rise
• 16:16
  of populism, not only the United States, you see it across South
• 16:21
  America, Europe, also in Africa, around the world.
• 16:27
  People are making lots of promises that they can't
• 16:30
  possibly keep. People want to believe that
• 16:35
  they, you know, these simplistic solutions are going to, you
• 16:38
  know, make everything great. You know, like Mila in in
• 16:40
  Argentina, he talked a great game.
• 16:43
  It's simple. Everything's great now.
• 16:45
  Now you have a country that over 50% of the people are under the
• 16:49
  poverty line. So it wasn't easy.
• 16:52
  It wasn't wonderful. And, you know, the people are
• 16:56
  sucked, but unfortunately they just become more desperate and
• 17:00
  they're even more willing to listen to somebody else who
• 17:03
  says, yeah, yeah. No, no, I, I can solve it.
• 17:05
  The last guy was an idiot. I'm I'm smarter than he is,
• 17:08
  right. Well, unfortunately, it doesn't
• 17:11
  matter how smart or stupid you are, how the issue is the, the,
• 17:15
  the facts are or where they are. You know, the America, the debt,
• 17:21
  I mean, no one, we, we, we just listen to it going up and up $38
• 17:26
  trillion and rising and Donald Trump wants to add lots more.
• 17:31
  Is there isn't seem to be any, there's no, no plan by either
• 17:36
  party to address it. They say, oh, we'll, we'll take
• 17:40
  some of the money we took out of your pocket when we made you pay
• 17:43
  for tariffs because tariffs are paid by ordinary people who buy
• 17:48
  stuff. We're going to take that and
• 17:50
  reduce the debt. Well, that's just taxing
• 17:53
  basically poor people because they're the ones who get hit.
• 17:56
  If I'm making, you know, $1,000,000 a year, 2000 bucks,
• 18:01
  it doesn't kill me. But if I'm making, you know,
• 18:05
  50,000 and I have kids and a wife, 2000 bucks is really going
• 18:10
  to hurt me hard, especially since I am not making it the way
• 18:13
  I am. And you can see this in America
• 18:15
  in terms of people who are buying on pay now.
• 18:20
  All right, No, I mean, buy now, pay later for groceries.
• 18:26
  This means that they don't have a credit card any more.
• 18:28
  Credit card, you know, that either don't have credit cards
• 18:32
  or they don't have any access to any kind of, you know, credit
• 18:38
  allowance means they don't have any cash.
• 18:41
  This is really desperation because these people are going
• 18:45
  to pay more for those bananas and that that bag of rice or
• 18:49
  whatever that they bought because the, you know, whoever's
• 18:53
  advancing money is going to say, oh, we're going to have to
• 18:55
  figure that in and we're going to have to make a profit on
• 18:57
  that. So you, you have really, as I
• 19:02
  said in the beginning, you have very, very different
• 19:05
  expectations. Now.
• 19:06
  You have a a populace that wants to blame somebody, you know,
• 19:10
  who's at fault, who did this. Well, I don't think the, you
• 19:13
  know, the Democrats and Republicans are going to look in
• 19:16
  the mirror collectively and say, yeah, we screwed this up.
• 19:20
  We were, you know, we, we kept the dollar strong, which made
• 19:25
  our exports uncompetitive because we like spending money
• 19:31
  and we like borrowing it. And it was just so easy when the
• 19:34
  dollar was strong and, you know, everyone wanted to have whole
• 19:37
  treasuries. You know, we could just borrow
• 19:39
  money. It was, it was no big deal, but
• 19:42
  there's a cost to all that. And that, that cost has been
• 19:45
  that America's, you know, competitiveness has gone down.
• 19:49
  So rather than saying, oh, yeah, we, yeah, we probably screwed
• 19:53
  up, They're they're they're looking for somebody to think.
• 19:56
  So they blame each other, of course.
• 19:58
  And then when that gets tired, they start blaming others.
• 20:02
  And China's rise at the same time as the US is feeling that
• 20:07
  it's in decline. It's an easy scapegoat.
• 20:11
  We just say, oh, they, they did it.
• 20:12
  They, they, they took, they took our stuff.
• 20:16
  I always like this idea, you know, you know, Chinese coming
• 20:20
  over and stealing jobs in the middle of the night, exporting
• 20:23
  to, to China. How, how would that work
• 20:26
  exactly? Any event, It's I'm laughing,
• 20:30
  but you know, it's, it's, it's sad.
• 20:33
  You have a a world which is going in the wrong direction.
• 20:37
  If Donald Trump were really trying to do something, he would
• 20:40
  be in trying to increase trade, trying to increase figure out
• 20:44
  how US can use it. Advantages.
• 20:47
  I mean, we have so many advantages, Carl.
• 20:49
  I mean, you know, institutions of higher learning, basic
• 20:53
  research, science. We are able to attract people or
• 20:56
  used to be able to attract people from all over the world,
• 20:58
  The best and the brightest. They said, oh, go to America.
• 21:01
  There's a sense of opportunity. And now I don't know how many
• 21:06
  people. I mean, I, I talked to people as
• 21:09
  who used to say, well, my, my, you know, Chinese upper class
• 21:13
  people said I'm going to send my, my son, my daughter to
• 21:17
  America for education. Now they're saying they're not
• 21:21
  going to. It's just too dangerous.
• 21:24
  They don't feel welcome. And you know, it kind of wears
• 21:28
  on you when you you have a group of people just saying, you know,
• 21:30
  China's horrible and everything like that.
• 21:33
  Well, it's not the place you want to go and send your
• 21:35
  children. Yeah.
• 21:37
  So what I'm hearing is there's a distribution problem in the US
• 21:42
  and while the companies are actually profiting from
• 21:45
  globalization making tons of money like like Apple because of
• 21:50
  every like $500 or $1000 iPhone, whatever price is, you know,
• 21:57
  China actually only make a small fraction of that.
• 22:00
  I think the last data I think think China make about $10.00
• 22:03
  of. Well, it's actually about 45 if
• 22:06
  you include Hong Kong. OK.
• 22:09
  But out of 1000, you know less than 50 bucks.
• 22:12
  It's not exactly if you know. Yeah, the lion's share goes to
• 22:19
  Apple, but the problem that is that that lion's share of the
• 22:22
  profit goes to Apple shareholders, the Silicon Valley
• 22:27
  tech Bros. And you know, most of the
• 22:31
  average Americans who are actually losing job, of course,
• 22:34
  don't see any of that trickle down to them.
• 22:38
  And and as you say, politician looking for people to blame and
• 22:43
  China just happened to be a scapegoat.
• 22:45
  But this seems to be a vicious cycle though, because as China
• 22:49
  rise and the US going to decline, this kind of resorting
• 22:54
  to blame China is going to only going to intensify.
• 22:57
  I mean, that's what I've seen since 2000 O 8, the great
• 23:00
  financial crisis, I think. Is there any hope?
• 23:04
  Is there any light at the end of the tunnel for the US China
• 23:08
  relationship in this case? I, I, I actually, I, I am
• 23:13
  hopeful that at some point, I mean, America, if you look
• 23:15
  historically, we change when we're confronted by crisis.
• 23:20
  And I think Donald Trump is the crisis that's going to help us
• 23:23
  change. And what we need to change is
• 23:26
  not the other things we do. We, we do wonderful things.
• 23:29
  What we need to change is our attitude towards us, to the
• 23:32
  world that somehow if we create, if we start a war, we institute
• 23:37
  regime change or interfere in the politics of the country,
• 23:40
  that's OK. But if anybody tries to even
• 23:44
  whisper or get involved in our politics, No, no, it's the
• 23:48
  hypocrisy that's killing us. We we need to just suddenly say,
• 23:52
  OK, we, we do believe in the rule of law and institutions and
• 23:57
  we don't want the rule, you know, the law at the jungle,
• 24:00
  right? And then we have to stop doing
• 24:02
  it. We have to stop playing king of
• 24:04
  the hill, threatening to take over Canada and Greenland and
• 24:08
  you know, Gaza, Panama and now Venezuela.
• 24:13
  Stop bombing other countries, stop providing bombs.
• 24:16
  Stop, you know, start and stop doing these color revolutions.
• 24:21
  I mean, we always think it's going to turn out well.
• 24:24
  Well, guess what? You know, Arab Spring, we paid
• 24:26
  for it, but what did we get? And we got more problems.
• 24:31
  You know, more people turn towards terrorism, extremism and
• 24:35
  things like that because they feel that, you know, that the
• 24:38
  system is rigged against us and we're involved.
• 24:40
  So if we change our attitude and we just say, look, we're part of
• 24:44
  the world, it is in fact already multi polar, but we are a leader
• 24:49
  and we have assets and appetites that feed, you know, they're
• 24:53
  part of the world. I mean, American demand and it's
• 24:56
  less than 5% of the world's population, but we consume 20%.
• 25:00
  Take that away, it's going to have a serious effect, you know,
• 25:04
  and then with our educational institutions, I, I would have
• 25:06
  respected Donald Trump more if he had said, listen, we need to
• 25:10
  spot that moment, all right? We need to go into the future
• 25:14
  and the future is digital. We, we need to be on top of
• 25:21
  innovation, creating not only digital tools and products that
• 25:25
  are, that are that people need that also create productivity.
• 25:29
  I mean, because it's when you can do more with less, when you
• 25:34
  can only have 2% of your population producing more food
• 25:38
  than you can use. I mean, that's a productivity,
• 25:41
  Bruce. That means only 2% of your
• 25:42
  people have to, you know, provide the sustenance for an
• 25:46
  entire nation. If you can do that with other
• 25:48
  things, then the question becomes, you know, what do these
• 25:50
  other people do? I've always split things into,
• 25:55
  I'm not, you know, terribly smart.
• 25:57
  So I always think of things as well, what do I need to get by
• 26:00
  today? I need to eat.
• 26:02
  I need shelter. I need some clothing, especially
• 26:04
  that beautiful shirt you're wearing.
• 26:12
  And, and, you know, I need these basic things.
• 26:16
  And then I think, well, then there's a second economy.
• 26:18
  That's, that's my necessity. I, I can't get away from that.
• 26:21
  If I don't have that stuff, I'd die.
• 26:23
  Then the second part is how do we live together productively?
• 26:27
  And that economy is related to things like, you know, cities,
• 26:31
  the roads, sidewalks, all the things that allow us to to live
• 26:35
  together, sewer, water, communications.
• 26:39
  These are all very important because, you know, I get from my
• 26:41
  home to the factory and things like that.
• 26:44
  And that was only, you know, achieved through productivity.
• 26:47
  But then after that, all you have is choice.
• 26:51
  You know, whether I buy this tie or a different tie or have no
• 26:55
  tie, whether I go to a sports game or buy a video game.
• 26:59
  Whether I buy a T-shirt, a plain white one that costs a dollar in
• 27:03
  China and I buy it for $1.50, or I buy the same exact T-shirt,
• 27:08
  but it has, you know, a logo on it of a, you know, very
• 27:12
  expensive brand for $100. It's a choice.
• 27:15
  I don't, I don't really need either one.
• 27:17
  The first one would, you know, basically satisfy my, my, you
• 27:22
  know, absolute necessity. I need something to clothe
• 27:25
  myself with. But the second one is there.
• 27:27
  And that's what we're doing here.
• 27:30
  When you buy an Apple phone, it's not a necessity.
• 27:33
  You might think I have to have it, but if you didn't have it,
• 27:36
  you wouldn't die. You might not feel like I can
• 27:40
  hang out with my friends and no one respects me.
• 27:42
  Or you can make it into a big deal, but that's all in your
• 27:45
  head. So a large part of our economy
• 27:49
  today exists on this idea of choices.
• 27:54
  And I, I think that's probably going to continue and that a lot
• 27:57
  of this digital revolution, robots and the factories, things
• 28:00
  like that, though that is the future.
• 28:04
  And we will literally be able to satisfy our our personal
• 28:09
  necessities and the necessities of of living together, cities
• 28:14
  and roads and all that stuff, not using robots.
• 28:18
  And then it's, you know, the only economy that's left is this
• 28:21
  choice economy and how we do that.
• 28:24
  But Trump said, no, we're going to reindustrialize.
• 28:27
  Reindustrializing is not easy. It's really expensive.
• 28:31
  It takes years. It's not you don't create a
• 28:34
  factory in the middle of a cornfield and say, look, there
• 28:37
  are victory. That factory depends on the
• 28:40
  supply chain of stuff, you know, basic materials, added value
• 28:45
  materials, things like that. It's not going to produce
• 28:48
  everything in that cornfield. So as a result, you have to
• 28:51
  create centers and you know, the, the efficiency of the
• 28:56
  logistics and the supplies extremely important trying to
• 29:00
  discover this over time. They build these huge, these
• 29:05
  cities are based around industries.
• 29:08
  I remember going to a place called Kunshan in just outside
• 29:13
  of Shanghai. And this was 15 years ago, you
• 29:17
  know, and what was amazing to me is at that point, 2/3 of all of
• 29:23
  the laptops in the world were being made there.
• 29:26
  And I thought, wow, this is strange.
• 29:29
  Here we are in Shanghai. Yeah, it's near a river and
• 29:31
  everything like that. But, you know, I was expecting
• 29:34
  to do that. And then, you know, I, I, I
• 29:37
  walked around, I was writing a book about it.
• 29:39
  I was. I've been asked to examine why
• 29:42
  this particular county level city was so successful and what
• 29:48
  it came down to is if I wanted to build a new laptop completely
• 29:54
  from scratch, I could go to a guy and the plastics injection
• 29:57
  molding was across one St. the motherboard across the other
• 30:01
  street cameras, peripherals, everything that I needed
• 30:07
  monitors, including how to make a all the basic parts of
• 30:12
  monitoring all there. So I can literally walk around
• 30:15
  the neighborhood with two blocks and get everything that I
• 30:18
  possibly need. And it's really cheap because
• 30:20
  they're competing against other guys who are, you know, two
• 30:22
  blocks over. So you you can you can put
• 30:26
  together a prototype and really, really QuickTime and you can do
• 30:31
  it very cheaply and you're not spending extra money.
• 30:34
  I mean versus A roll. I mean, those guys, when I was
• 30:38
  chairman of the state's International Trade Council for
• 30:40
  the state of Wisconsin, they were down in Illinois, you know,
• 30:43
  and I, I remember I was asking about their, their times, but
• 30:47
  they would tell me, oh, yes, we can put a prototype together and
• 30:50
  wow, you know, 2-3 years, it'd be two or three months.
• 30:57
  No, that was an earlier time. Things like that.
• 31:00
  Motorola was at the top of its game at that point.
• 31:03
  I mean the Motorola phone, remember those big bricks?
• 31:06
  And then they made the star tech.
• 31:08
  I'm on my that's that star tech phone.
• 31:10
  I mean, that was the Apple phone of my generation.
• 31:13
  I mean, it was so small and you could just whip it out.
• 31:17
  You felt so cool having it. But you know, they were at the
• 31:20
  top of the game and then, and then they lost out.
• 31:23
  And the, and the reason is because, you know, these, they
• 31:26
  had other places where they could do it better.
• 31:28
  And you remember Apple wanted to put a factory in Texas and they,
• 31:34
  they, they thought they'll plop one down in the middle of Austin
• 31:38
  and they just had one supply chain disaster after another.
• 31:45
  I mean, everything they needed to build the phone had to be
• 31:48
  brought in from China just in time and it just didn't work
• 31:53
  out. So they closed it and wrote off,
• 31:54
  you know, millions of dollars because it just wasn't doable.
• 32:00
  It, you know, it sounded great. Well, we'll build a factory in
• 32:03
  Austin and people get employed and, you know, we can say it's
• 32:06
  American made and, and there's a desire to do that.
• 32:09
  It's not like they said, oh, we want to support China.
• 32:12
  Quite the opposite. You know, the people who make
• 32:14
  Apple phones are Americans and they designed them, well, not
• 32:17
  all Americans, but they're Americans by aspiration or
• 32:22
  Americans by by citizenship. But they were in this, in this
• 32:29
  position where they they just, it just wasn't feasible.
• 32:31
  How can we justify making a phone that costs three times as
• 32:34
  much in Austin as in China? It doesn't make sense.
• 32:38
  We can't, you know, all we have, all we do is erode our profit
• 32:43
  line, as you were saying earlier, and that that doesn't
• 32:45
  make the shareholders happy. They'll be kind of like, wait a
• 32:50
  SEC, explain this to me again. You're, you're producing a phone
• 32:55
  at my expense to say it's American.
• 33:01
  I didn't vote for that. I voted for profits.
• 33:03
  I invested in you because I thought you guys were smart and
• 33:06
  this doesn't sound very smart to me.
• 33:08
  So there's a lot of a lot of pushback on in terms of, you
• 33:12
  know, how the renter, the rentier class sees things.
• 33:16
  They want as much money as they possibly can as as quickly as
• 33:20
  they can and things like that. The the other part, and I think
• 33:23
  this is really important, is something called
• 33:25
  financialization. You know, we created a huge
• 33:31
  class of business graduates, You know, they went to B school.
• 33:37
  And the problem is that they, they really don't know much
• 33:39
  about the industries. For a while they they did very,
• 33:43
  very well. They would just go into a big
• 33:44
  company and they say, I have a great idea, take a line and just
• 33:49
  draw through the old spreadsheet.
• 33:51
  So everyone who was on that line, the spreadsheet is gone.
• 33:55
  And they say, oh, we're leaner and we're meaner and everything
• 33:58
  falls to the bottom line. Give me a big bonus.
• 34:01
  I'm a great guy. Look what I did for you, right?
• 34:05
  You, you, you idiots who think you know the business and have
• 34:07
  been working on it for, you know, 30 years.
• 34:10
  You just didn't understand that you all you had to do was take a
• 34:12
  pencil and run it through a line on a spreadsheet and you make
• 34:17
  profit. After a while, that got a little
• 34:20
  tough and these companies were not very competitive.
• 34:23
  They lost out on the people who actually understood the business
• 34:27
  and things didn't go well. So the next thing was, you know,
• 34:31
  this, this working stuff, you know, trying to understand the
• 34:36
  business and doing all this that's I don't know, I don't
• 34:40
  want to do that. How am I going to get rich doing
• 34:43
  that? You know, if I do this in 10
• 34:44
  years from now, maybe I'll get a decent bonus, but you know, it's
• 34:47
  going to take 10 years. I I want to be rich now.
• 34:51
  OK, So instead of betting, I'm putting money into companies and
• 34:57
  that and letting them grow, understanding them, letting them
• 35:00
  grow, grow markets, grow expertise, put money into
• 35:03
  research and development, things like that.
• 35:05
  So we're going to start betting on outcomes.
• 35:08
  So you know how how does this work?
• 35:11
  I OK, I think the Fed, the interest rate is going to go up,
• 35:15
  OK, And therefore I can make a bet, OK, based on that.
• 35:20
  And it's not only that I put up $10.00 of my own, What I do is I
• 35:24
  leverage it. So my $10 becomes $100 because I
• 35:28
  go out and borrow $90.00 from banks, right?
• 35:31
  Or whoever will give it to me. And then I make this big debt.
• 35:35
  And if it works out all right, I, I, I make a little bit of
• 35:39
  profit, but I'm based on a lot of money.
• 35:42
  OK, So all of a sudden, oh, oh, that big bonus, big bonus.
• 35:47
  And if it goes bad, well, you know what, we just make a bigger
• 35:51
  bet next time, right? It's like going in casino, you
• 35:54
  know, I'm going to play red black, all right?
• 35:57
  I'll play red, all right. And if I lose, I'll double down,
• 36:01
  OK. And I'll just keep doubling down
• 36:03
  until I win, right? And you know, what are the
• 36:06
  chances it's going to be, you know, a red for six times in a
• 36:10
  row, I mean, black for six times in a row.
• 36:12
  So it'll all work out. And then based on that, I get a
• 36:14
  big bonus because I covered all my losses.
• 36:18
  And I do it just by continually making bigger and bigger bets.
• 36:21
  But if you start looking at financialization, the amount of
• 36:24
  money that is now out there, it dwarfs the real economy.
• 36:29
  People are making these massive bets and at some point enough of
• 36:33
  them are going to go bad that they cannot be covered.
• 36:36
  Or the banks are in a situation where they they can't lend.
• 36:40
  And all of a sudden, you're going to see a rapid downturn.
• 36:44
  And, you know, the final phase of this, I mean, I was an
• 36:47
  investment banker prior to the financial crisis, 2008 nine, and
• 36:54
  this is in three or four. I thought, oh, my God, this is
• 36:57
  going in the wrong direction. Everyone's making fees, but no
• 37:01
  one's paying. It's, you know, the income
• 37:04
  hasn't caught up with Americans. They're just speculating.
• 37:08
  And at some point, you know, like tulips, they don't really
• 37:15
  it, it's not sustainable. And it did fall.
• 37:17
  And now we're in a in a similar situation where you have these,
• 37:25
  what is this stable coins, right?
• 37:27
  The the US government has a problem.
• 37:31
  Central banks other than Great Britain and Japan are reducing
• 37:35
  their holdings of U.S. Treasuries.
• 37:39
  And that's that's a problem because we, we're issuing more
• 37:43
  of them, we're issuing more debt and the existing debt, you know,
• 37:46
  people are selling well, that means that the interest rates
• 37:49
  are going to rise to attract people in.
• 37:51
  And that's what happens. So Besant and his crew has come
• 37:56
  up with this wildly great idea. We'll get stablecoins, so people
• 38:01
  will buy all right, U.S. Treasuries, right and then issue
• 38:06
  coins on them. So on the the day one, I started
• 38:09
  out with 100,000 or $100 million of and I buy treasuries and then
• 38:16
  I issue on the $100 million these stable coins.
• 38:19
  Well, what's the problem with that?
• 38:21
  I mean, all of a sudden people have bought the treasuries,
• 38:24
  right? And then they're using these
• 38:25
  coins. So you've increased the amount
• 38:27
  of money flowing around, right, 'cause they have the asset and
• 38:31
  then they issued it and then they're trading it.
• 38:33
  So this is great. It'll soak up a lot of things.
• 38:38
  But here's, here's the problem. U.S.
• 38:41
  Treasuries have been going down. They've lost about over 10% of
• 38:45
  their value since Donald Trump has been in office.
• 38:48
  And that's less than a year, OK. And his desire is to see those
• 38:54
  treasuries go down another 2030% because his feeling is, oh,
• 38:59
  look, if we devalue the dollar, then our exports are more
• 39:04
  competitive, right? I mean, it's simple.
• 39:07
  Any of you could do this, right? Well, it's not really that
• 39:10
  simple because the US dollar is the trade dollar.
• 39:13
  It's the trade dollar because it's supposed to be stable.
• 39:15
  It's not supposed to lose 2010 twenty 30% of its value.
• 39:20
  If it's going to do that, people are going to say, I don't want
• 39:23
  to hold it. Now, what happens on the things
• 39:26
  I buy the stable coins. I buy a, you know, $100,000
• 39:30
  worth of stable coins, but then the underlying asset, the
• 39:34
  treasuries go down by 2010 because I only have 8080
• 39:38
  thousand really. All right, I still have the same
• 39:41
  number of coins, but they're really only worth 80,000.
• 39:44
  And all of a sudden I might not like that.
• 39:46
  And then I want to cash them in. Then you have a run on the on
• 39:50
  the stable coins and then you know, there's going to be real
• 39:54
  difficulty. You know, the most of the
• 39:57
  treasuries in fact, are held by states, school boards, banks,
• 40:05
  people and their pension funds, insurance companies that a lot
• 40:09
  of them haven't taken the losses that are there already.
• 40:15
  And at some point they're going to have to realize those those
• 40:19
  losses. And if you know.
• 40:22
  God forbid one of these days somebody, you know, the, the rug
• 40:25
  pulls out and no one wants to buy our treasuries.
• 40:28
  What happens? That's going to be a real
• 40:31
  problem because it's, it's not, it's every part of society that
• 40:35
  would be affected to the tune of, you know, what is it, 38?
• 40:40
  So about $35 trillion. I don't know how we can take
• 40:45
  that hit. It's a good portion of our, of
• 40:49
  our GDP. Well, it's more than our GDP.
• 40:53
  So it's, you know, it's, it's boiling up into, to a problem.
• 40:57
  It's not something I'm jumping up and down about.
• 41:00
  It's just I don't understand why as we're running as fast as we
• 41:05
  can towards the Cliff, no one is saying stop.
• 41:08
  All right. The Cliff is not a good place.
• 41:11
  I don't think the rocks below are soft.
• 41:14
  OK, Great Britain did that with Brexit.
• 41:18
  Let's let's, let's jump over the Cliff.
• 41:20
  Maybe it's really nice down there.
• 41:22
  We don't know. Well, it's not working out very
• 41:25
  well for Great Britain. It looks like everybody's
• 41:29
  betting they can get extra pocket for money before that
• 41:33
  final jump. Everybody knows there's a final
• 41:35
  jump. Everybody's got to load up
• 41:38
  before the Cliff. Well, timing the market it it's
• 41:41
  it doesn't work well. This is how cynical though I've
• 41:45
  become. I have a very good friend that
• 41:47
  leading investment house and he said, well, I explained this to
• 41:53
  them and you know what the people said?
• 41:55
  They said, well, you know, we can make some money on this.
• 41:58
  We can go long in the dollar and then pay it back.
• 42:02
  You know, we can get these loans.
• 42:05
  We'll buy up the loans and then when the dollar defaults, all
• 42:08
  right, we'll pay it back and we'll make tons of money.
• 42:12
  It's kind of like the Titanic is sinking.
• 42:16
  Oh, good. Let's go Rob everybody.
• 42:19
  OK. Do you understand?
• 42:22
  The ship is going down in icy waters.
• 42:24
  We're all going to die. Let's forgiveness.
• 42:27
  Yeah. Yeah, we'll we'll figure that
• 42:28
  out later. Right now, I know there's gold
• 42:31
  and jewels all over there. A lot of rich people.
• 42:33
  Let's get the gold. You kind of, you know, you're
• 42:38
  looking at these guys going. Do you really understand?
• 42:41
  But it's exactly what you said, Carl.
• 42:43
  Everyone thinks that they can get with as much as they can and
• 42:48
  then hold up in New Zealand and wait for the world to collapse
• 42:53
  and then, you know, maybe come out and buy the rest and buy
• 42:56
  small countries to large yachts and, and, you know, be somebody.
• 43:01
  But I don't think they understand that you're really
• 43:04
  looking at a prolonged depression.
• 43:09
  We're having all that money unless it's in cans of soup and
• 43:14
  even Campbell's right now is having problems.
• 43:16
  I don't know if people want Campbell's soup in their in
• 43:19
  their larder, but you know, it's just, it's, it's not going to be
• 43:23
  the way they think. They think, Well, if I have a
• 43:24
  lot of gold or I have some real estate or something like that,
• 43:27
  it's all going to work out. I think it really comes down to,
• 43:30
  you know, food. Food is probably going to be the
• 43:34
  the gold of the future. You have food.
• 43:36
  Oh, well, what do you want? I have millions of dollars I
• 43:39
  could give you. No one else wants them.
• 43:42
  I I'll tell you, I'll give you $10 million for that whole case
• 43:46
  of baked beans. OK, well, you know, we laughed.
• 43:50
  But I mean, you know, we, we had situations like that in in post
• 43:55
  World War Germany and you know, tulips, you know, you look at
• 44:01
  what happened in the first, you know, big scam, you know, people
• 44:09
  traded their house for a few tulips and then after when the
• 44:13
  tulips or nothing, it's not like you can even eat them.
• 44:16
  So. Yeah, I think we have gone
• 44:19
  through a lot of structural problems the US is facing.
• 44:23
  I I think it would take, it might even take a generation to
• 44:27
  sort all those things out. But in the more immediate
• 44:31
  future, do you think there's now a temporary floor to the Sino
• 44:39
  American relationship in the aftermath of the recent XI Trump
• 44:45
  meeting in South Korea and then she Trump announced that he will
• 44:50
  visit China next year. Do you think this signals some
• 44:54
  sort of a reset or possible date town between US and China at
• 44:59
  this point? I'd, I'd love to think so, but
• 45:02
  I, I, I don't, I don't. And then the reason is because
• 45:05
  long term that nothing in Washington or the people that
• 45:08
  I've talked to, I'm on a lot of different talk shows.
• 45:12
  So I run into people who are, you know, they have Washington
• 45:15
  talk points and they still are, are, you know, dedicated to this
• 45:19
  idea that, that China needs to change that it, you know, it's
• 45:23
  the evil actor and things like that.
• 45:25
  So if I think you're evil, I'm not going to sit down and have
• 45:29
  dinner with you. I might say, OK, I'll be nice to
• 45:32
  him now, but I'm going to look for a weakness.
• 45:35
  And this is what exactly what you see.
• 45:36
  I mean, China has the US over a barrel because they didn't
• 45:41
  realize that, you know, rare earth elements were absolutely
• 45:46
  necessary for everything in in technology.
• 45:49
  Now, this is despite the fact that in 2008, the Pentagon did a
• 45:53
  white paper that said, hey, listen, we go, we go South with
• 45:57
  we go sideways with China. We can't build anything, OK,
• 46:00
  we're dead, we're done. OK.
• 46:02
  And then in 2010 to underline that, you know, Japan and also
• 46:08
  China get into it over at the territorial dispute.
• 46:11
  So that he said now use Akaku Islands and China doesn't
• 46:16
  announce it, but no rare earths are making it towards Japan.
• 46:20
  They finally figured it out. But after that it was a very
• 46:24
  cold piece. I mean, there has not been
• 46:27
  tremendous a lot of movement or good feeling between the two
• 46:30
  since that time. Now I I think that's exactly
• 46:33
  what's going to happen. Now you can see Trump saying,
• 46:36
  well, I can't afford to jettison my car industry, which would
• 46:40
  come to a stop without rare earth elements and certain types
• 46:43
  of metals, strategic metals that are necessary for a high tech
• 46:47
  products and things like this. And I, you know, I certainly
• 46:50
  don't want to jettison my military, which won't be able to
• 46:53
  to build anything. I mean, there was this great
• 46:55
  moment, Carl, you got it was just sitting there.
• 46:58
  He says when he announced the rare earth.
• 47:00
  And she says, OK, we're not going to Boeing is not going to
• 47:03
  sell you avionics. Avionics are all the things that
• 47:08
  go into an airplane that, you know, lets you control it.
• 47:12
  And the US is at the top of the game there.
• 47:14
  China has a nascent airplane company that they're developing
• 47:20
  and they they need to buy this. They don't have a, they can't
• 47:23
  replicate it at this point. I'm sure they will in the
• 47:26
  future, but they need it now. But here's the thing to build,
• 47:32
  for Boeing to build those avionics, they need rare earths.
• 47:37
  So in essence, he was saying I'm not going to sell you the stuff
• 47:41
  we can't make. How do you like that?
• 47:44
  Yeah. No.
• 47:45
  Now you're really sorry, you know?
• 47:47
  Yeah, I got you. I got you good, you know?
• 47:51
  Yeah. In Beijing, they're like
• 47:54
  scratching their head. I I don't understand this.
• 47:59
  Is this guy really saying that he's not going to sell us the
• 48:03
  stuff he can't make? OK, Duly noted.
• 48:10
  Oh, well, you know, I, I don't know what to say.
• 48:12
  You know, you kind of look at this thing they're going.
• 48:14
  Did he really say that? OK, well, but he also said he
• 48:18
  wanted, you know, thought putting bleach in your in your
• 48:20
  body would get rid of COVID-19 too.
• 48:23
  So I should no one is surprised, but really say so in terms of
• 48:28
  going back to it. I, I don't think really things
• 48:30
  change. There's a a kind of Mexican
• 48:33
  standoff as you well, that's going on.
• 48:38
  But I do, I mean, I'm not taking the pro China view here, but
• 48:42
  China isn't the one who's, you know, invading other countries,
• 48:45
  changing thanks doing all these things as saying it's going to
• 48:50
  take over some land. The only thing they're they're
• 48:52
  very touchy about is Taiwan and of course their borders and
• 48:56
  things like that. And and not, you know, they're
• 49:00
  very touchy about borders, but they're not, they're not
• 49:03
  thinking they're going to take over some land far, far away
• 49:06
  from China or anything like this.
• 49:08
  So I, I do think that it's China would be willing, I'd be very
• 49:13
  happy to sit down with the US who says, let's try to work this
• 49:17
  out, but not AG 2 here in China. The, the, you know, initial
• 49:23
  there were a few people said, oh, yeah, well, now we're
• 49:25
  serious guys. And I said, well, actually, this
• 49:29
  is just a thin ploy. What they're trying to do is cut
• 49:32
  out Russia. Fact is, we live in a multi
• 49:35
  polar world. This idea that you're just going
• 49:37
  to have two people, 2, two countries sit down and divide up
• 49:40
  the world. That's a fantasy that Donald
• 49:43
  Trump has, but it has nothing to do with China.
• 49:46
  China doesn't want anything from the world except peaceful trade.
• 49:49
  And you don't do that through AG two.
• 49:52
  You do that through, you know, multi polar entities.
• 49:56
  So where does China put its energy?
• 49:58
  Well, they put it into RCEP, the Regional Economic Comprehensive
• 50:04
  Partnership. This, this is the largest trade
• 50:08
  group outside the WTO, which is WTO is defunct because the US
• 50:12
  doesn't want to have it anymore. They put the money into bricks,
• 50:17
  right? And their time and effort and
• 50:19
  trying to having, you know, multilateral groups that are
• 50:22
  growing, SCO, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which
• 50:26
  concentrates on internal security for countries and trade
• 50:33
  that is growing rapidly. Those are where they're putting
• 50:36
  it. They're not, they're not
• 50:37
  clamoring. There was a point where they
• 50:39
  said, oh, a few, a few people said we should have AG2 sit
• 50:42
  down, you know, country to country.
• 50:44
  And they realized now that that was trap.
• 50:46
  They don't want to take on the mantle that the US had before.
• 50:50
  It's too expensive. And when the Berlin Wall falls,
• 50:54
  what happens? Unfortunately, the US gets all
• 50:58
  the problems and none of the benefits.
• 51:01
  And there was a kind of this expectation that, you know, we
• 51:05
  would be, you know, there could be a Victory Day parade
• 51:09
  everywhere and people would give us a lot of money and there'd be
• 51:11
  lots of business and all this kind of stuff.
• 51:14
  Actually, there wasn't. There's just a lot of problems,
• 51:16
  a lot of debts, a lot of issues to be done.
• 51:18
  And everyone was at the US store saying you got to help us.
• 51:21
  You're the most powerful nation. You're the richest nation.
• 51:24
  You have all the assets. We, we, we, we need you to, to
• 51:28
  help us. And unfortunately, you know,
• 51:31
  that didn't wear well with the US.
• 51:33
  And instead of being able to help them or help ourselves, we
• 51:37
  spent a lot of money in useless wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, you
• 51:41
  name it, Somalia, the list goes on and on and going.
• 51:44
  But I'll tell you child there, there is something that I think
• 51:47
  is hopeful and it it comes at a bad moment.
• 51:51
  You saw COP 30. Nothing was accomplished there
• 51:54
  except one thing. US didn't show up.
• 51:57
  So we don't believe it. It's a scam.
• 51:59
  Trump said it's a scam, a hoax. And I think there was a, a point
• 52:03
  where the global S realizes, look, the money they promised
• 52:09
  never ever comes. If it does come, it's in very
• 52:13
  small amounts. And the money is used basically
• 52:16
  to fund their corporations to do something for us.
• 52:19
  And it's not even clear that this is aimed at climate
• 52:23
  control. I mean climate action.
• 52:26
  I said at that some point global S realize resources are not a
• 52:31
  curse. The resources of 1 country can
• 52:35
  be a curse if they are exploited by others.
• 52:39
  But for instance, look at OPECOPEC decided in 73.
• 52:42
  No, no, no, no. They sent all their children
• 52:44
  prior to that to Harvard and Yale and they said, wait a
• 52:49
  second, we have the resource, they need the resource, we can
• 52:54
  determine the price. And that set off quite a
• 52:58
  kerfuffle that US gets off the gold standard, you know, the
• 53:03
  petrodollars things. But you can have the same thing
• 53:05
  whether you're trading in coffee or cinnamon.
• 53:09
  You know, look at the world today.
• 53:11
  There are four countries that produce 70% of the exported
• 53:14
  coffee in the world, yet the industry is controlled by 4
• 53:18
  companies that are either European or American.
• 53:22
  And when prices go up, guess what?
• 53:26
  Farmers get get shit on. And I hate to say that, but they
• 53:30
  do. They're forced to take less.
• 53:32
  They're barely subsistence. And now they're saying, Oh no,
• 53:36
  you have to take less because you know, we're under pressure.
• 53:38
  Well, what if things change? What if those four countries got
• 53:41
  together and said, look, we're going to create a coffee course
• 53:45
  and in this coffee pours, we're going to set the price.
• 53:47
  And the price is going to be that which allows our farmers to
• 53:51
  be paid a living wage and you know, one.
• 53:54
  And we're going to include money for our own development, and
• 53:57
  we're going to include money for climate action.
• 54:02
  We're not going to wait for empty promises anymore.
• 54:05
  We're going to simply just say, this is this is the way we're
• 54:08
  going to do it. We're going to copy a page from
• 54:10
  OPEC and we're going to control these resources and no longer be
• 54:13
  exploited. That would be a sea change.
• 54:16
  And it's not just in coffee or cinnamon or nutmeg or many other
• 54:20
  things. You get down to the metals.
• 54:23
  There's a few countries that are leading exporters of copper.
• 54:28
  You name it. If they come together and start
• 54:31
  creating these forces, it would effectively create a wealth
• 54:35
  transfer mechanism that had been going in one way towards the
• 54:38
  colonial powers and making it more even.
• 54:42
  You don't have to have coffee. If you don't want it, fine, OK.
• 54:45
  But if you want it, you're going to pay our price.
• 54:47
  And we're not going to line the pockets of the shareholders of
• 54:52
  these major companies. You know, somebody said to me,
• 54:55
  oh, you know, why are you saying that?
• 54:57
  You know, you, you, you, this, this would be terrible for
• 55:00
  China. I said no, it wouldn't because
• 55:03
  the fact is that China is a low cost producer of so many things,
• 55:07
  regardless of what the commodity price is.
• 55:09
  In fact, as prices go up, it's the most efficient manufacturer
• 55:13
  that does well because no one else says, well, I add more
• 55:17
  cost. Well, the cost is already too
• 55:19
  high. I want it, I want it cheaper.
• 55:22
  So I came under some criticism and said, well, you know why you
• 55:27
  saying that? And I said, well, this is good
• 55:29
  for everybody. It, it allows it.
• 55:32
  It might not be good for people who want to drink their, their,
• 55:35
  their mocha latte, you know, double cream, you know, whatever
• 55:39
  at Starbucks, they might have to pay 8 bucks.
• 55:43
  But at least it would start doing something for climate
• 55:47
  change, for global development, for the fact that we have a
• 55:51
  very, very only equal world out there.
• 55:54
  I mean, I I think it's horrible the way that, you know, the
• 55:58
  media will pit the people against their government.
• 56:02
  All right? Yeah.
• 56:05
  Those who are corrupt, sure, they, they need to be cleaned
• 56:07
  out. But, you know, this idea that,
• 56:10
  you know, the situation is going to change because you hold the
• 56:13
  sign and say I'm unhappy. No, I mean, the problems are are
• 56:18
  deep, structural. These countries have been
• 56:21
  exploited for generations for, you know, basically it's been
• 56:25
  the model for 600 years. It's time to change.
• 56:30
  And I'm, I was hoping and I'm still hopeful that COP 30 was a
• 56:35
  wake up call to these countries to say we, we cannot rely on the
• 56:39
  US or even Europe or anybody else.
• 56:42
  We're going to have to do things for ourselves.
• 56:45
  Because I, I think truthfully, that's the only way that you can
• 56:47
  have any progress in the world. And when that happens, I think
• 56:51
  the US realizes, OK, we're part of an ecosystem.
• 56:55
  We're not, not the one who, you know, preys on it.
• 56:59
  We're not a predator anymore. We, we are, you know, one with
• 57:03
  everybody else. We need to start acting like a
• 57:05
  responsible citizen instead of, you know, a hulking bully.
• 57:12
  You know, I could sit here and listen to you for hours, Einar.
• 57:15
  You know I can just geek out. On I can see you falling asleep
• 57:18
  already. I I, I tell you I can just
• 57:21
  bottle what I say into a pill. I could solve insomnia.
• 57:29
  For people who want to follow your work on whether on social
• 57:33
  media or elsewhere, where would they go, Einar?
• 57:38
  Somewhere else I have a sub stack Asian narratives and
• 57:45
  that's kind of where I, I do most of my stuff.
• 57:50
  It's, it's I, I, I don't know, I, I think there's a lot of
• 57:55
  smarter people, better people, better communicators like
• 57:58
  yourself out there. I just, I just put some
• 58:02
  anecdotal thoughts together once in a while and and put them down
• 58:05
  there. I'm obviously on television.
• 58:08
  If you are really bored and you can't sleep, you can go on to
• 58:12
  YouTube and there's zillions of minds.
• 58:14
  So tried to count them and says there's more than 5000 on there.
• 58:19
  I said oh gosh, sorry. For for my non American
• 58:24
  audiences, Einar has like the typical American self
• 58:28
  deprecating humor. So Einar is actually brilliant
• 58:33
  and articulate and this is reason why I have him on the
• 58:36
  show. And I hope to have you back
• 58:38
  because, you know, the US China story is like one of the most
• 58:43
  important bilateral relationship in the world.
• 58:46
  And this is a continually evolving story and you kind of
• 58:50
  being in deep in the weeds of it and with a lot of very funny
• 58:54
  anecdotal stories I'd like to hear.
• 58:57
  So I, I, I, I, I, I look forward to, to, to your, you coming back
• 59:02
  to the show after you are done with your jet setting ways, you
• 59:05
  know, to Doha. Oh, anytime.
• 59:07
  It's not. As I told you, I, you know, I go
• 59:10
  off for a speech twice a year. You just hit the 11 week.
• 59:14
  I actually could say, oh, I'm, I'm going there for a speech or
• 59:18
  something like that. No, I'm, I'm pretty available.
• 59:23
  This is this is all I do now is these, you know, the shows and
• 59:28
  things like that. And I do actually do quite a few
• 59:31
  speaking things, most mostly in in Asia, but a few in Europe and
• 59:35
  America. No, not in America, nothing in
• 59:38
  America, Little, little concerned.
• 59:42
  Did you see that thing where Hassam the, the social media
• 59:48
  guy? It was very interesting because
• 59:53
  here he is. They, they, this, the commentary
• 59:56
  went that when he was in Tiananmen, he had a, a group of
• 59:59
  people around him and you know, he was a foreigner and he was
• 1:00:03
  showing in Tiananmen. Tiananmen is very sensitive
• 1:00:05
  because they're concerned that somebody is going to go into
• 1:00:07
  Tiananmen and you know, you know.
• 1:00:10
  Light off a bomb or, or do something like that or, you
• 1:00:13
  know, do something on board. So they do have a police
• 1:00:16
  crawling it. And this is 24/7.
• 1:00:19
  So he got stopped for two minutes and, you know, he said,
• 1:00:23
  OK, what are you doing? OK, are you allowed to do this?
• 1:00:27
  You know, where, where are you coming from?
• 1:00:28
  All this type of stuff. And they made a huge deal out of
• 1:00:32
  this. And you know, they oh communist
• 1:00:36
  country, blah blah blah. Well, what they failed to
• 1:00:38
  mention is that when he went to the United States, he's AUS
• 1:00:41
  citizen of Turkish of half Turkish descent.
• 1:00:44
  He was actually stopped at the airport and held immigration for
• 1:00:50
  obviously his political movies. He's he's a socialist.
• 1:00:53
  I'm out socialist. He has a lot of left-leaning
• 1:00:56
  comments on this thing. But I was just kind of thinking
• 1:00:59
  2 minutes in Tiananmen, which is, you know, guarded and
• 1:01:03
  everybody knows it, versus I don't know how many hours he
• 1:01:06
  spent talking to ICE trying to explain to that he was not a
• 1:01:10
  terrorist simply because he's half Arabic.
• 1:01:15
  Yeah, no, it's it's sad. I wish, I wish things were a
• 1:01:19
  little bit better. Yeah, well, we are home for
• 1:01:25
  better days. But yeah, I mean, at least we're
• 1:01:28
  safely, it's gone from Asia, you know, away from the turmoil at
• 1:01:32
  home right now. I know, but I, you know, do you
• 1:01:36
  at all feel? Come on, Carl, don't you feel a
• 1:01:39
  little bit guilty? You know, I, I, I, you don't
• 1:01:44
  look like you feel guilty. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:01:48
  It's just, I, I sometimes wonder, I said, Oh my gosh, you
• 1:01:51
  know, I'm, I'm, I, I have a great life here.
• 1:01:53
  And you know, it's, I, I live in, it would be hard for me to
• 1:01:57
  leave because I'm so used to WeChat.
• 1:01:59
  I don't carry money anymore. I haven't carried it for years.
• 1:02:02
  Everything's so convenient. I got call a car, I pay for it
• 1:02:05
  and everything is just easy. If I want something, I, I, I
• 1:02:09
  call Taobao and you know, you know, 10 minutes later or a half
• 1:02:13
  hour later, it's on my doorstep. It's really hard to get away
• 1:02:17
  from that. But I do feel for my fellow
• 1:02:21
  Americans. I, I think they're in a
• 1:02:23
  difficult position. I mean, what's been happening,
• 1:02:28
  they, they feel desperate. They're not doing this because
• 1:02:30
  they're, they, they hate anybody.
• 1:02:32
  I think most Americans really decent people, but right now
• 1:02:38
  they feel pushed in a corner and unfortunately they're going the
• 1:02:41
  wrong way. It's like, you know, the I was
• 1:02:44
  watching in Iowa, I think it was Iowa farmer, a woman.
• 1:02:49
  She and her husband were contemplating going bankrupt and
• 1:02:55
  she was from an area that was voted for Trump.
• 1:02:58
  And she sent me and with my husband, we've always voted for
• 1:03:01
  Trump when he's when he's been running.
• 1:03:04
  I said. But I'm now realizing that we
• 1:03:06
  voted for a guy who promised that he was going to destroy our
• 1:03:10
  markets and also take away our ability to operate because we,
• 1:03:15
  yes, we did use workers who were probably undocumented.
• 1:03:21
  They know that because they all disappeared afterwards.
• 1:03:25
  So they said, yeah, I'm, I'm sitting here contemplating the
• 1:03:28
  fact that in say, contemplating, she says I'm getting used to the
• 1:03:31
  idea that I voted for a guy who's going to kill my business.
• 1:03:36
  But what is what is she going to do after this?
• 1:03:38
  Lose her farm? And she's this nice lady.
• 1:03:42
  I don't care if she voted for Trump.
• 1:03:43
  She's a decent, hard working person kind of person America
• 1:03:47
  should be proud of. Unfortunately, you know, why
• 1:03:51
  would she vote for somebody who, you know, he's, he's not the
• 1:03:54
  first person I'm thinking of. You know, 42 convictions, 6
• 1:03:58
  bankruptcies, you know, over 20 allegations for sexual
• 1:04:04
  harassment, very dubious friends.
• 1:04:07
  And who's enriching himself while America is having real
• 1:04:12
  problems? But I know it's not just Trump
• 1:04:15
  though, I mean Biden. Was just as bad.
• 1:04:18
  It's just as bad on a smaller scale.
• 1:04:21
  I mean Hunter only probably got a couple, you know, like 30-40
• 1:04:25
  million. I think the cash count for the
• 1:04:28
  Trump's is around 4 billion depending on the day and Bitcoin
• 1:04:35
  prices and things like this. No, but but think about it.
• 1:04:39
  And I was discussing this with my son today.
• 1:04:41
  I said the issue, don't you know, I didn't like Biden?
• 1:04:46
  I, I was disappointed by Obama. I think he's a fine man.
• 1:04:51
  He meant well and things like that.
• 1:04:53
  But he didn't do well. And all the rhetoric in the
• 1:04:55
  world didn't change things. But why is it that America is
• 1:05:01
  incapable of putting forward people who are, you know, going
• 1:05:06
  to change things, who can lead us into a better future?
• 1:05:11
  And I, you know, the one thing that I've come up with is what I
• 1:05:14
  call litmus test politics. That is if you want to be part
• 1:05:18
  of the, you know, if you want to get elected, you have to join a
• 1:05:22
  party. Then party will say, well, our
• 1:05:25
  position on this, this and this is this are are you do you check
• 1:05:29
  those boxes? And if you say no, they say,
• 1:05:32
  well, thank you, but we have another candidate, right?
• 1:05:35
  So you literally cannot pass. So at every level, when you go
• 1:05:40
  from the local to the state to the federal level, you have to
• 1:05:43
  pass these litmus tests in order to get the money that you need
• 1:05:46
  to, to run. But that's not how you create
• 1:05:49
  leaders. You don't create leaders by
• 1:05:51
  having people who are willing to check boxes.
• 1:05:54
  And you know, you, you see this in Congress.
• 1:05:56
  I mean, Jeffries and all these people, they're clueless,
• 1:06:01
  Absolutely no vision whatsoever. It's just, you know, party line,
• 1:06:05
  party line, party line. It's just how about the people?
• 1:06:09
  What a what a novel idea. Let's let's, let's think about
• 1:06:12
  the people. We could all come together, all
• 1:06:16
  right, Democrats and Republicans just say, OK, what would be good
• 1:06:21
  for America? And it's not about my issues or
• 1:06:24
  this or abortion or that. It's just, look, we need, we
• 1:06:27
  need to have a clean start. We need to figure out a way we
• 1:06:29
  can get back on track, be useful in the world, be competitive.
• 1:06:35
  I don't think that's controversial.
• 1:06:36
  At least, I hope it isn't. Yeah, but we got but the reality
• 1:06:43
  is we're ruled by the unit party, as you said, and and
• 1:06:46
  there's so many vested interests got their claws sinking into the
• 1:06:51
  system to make sure it doesn't change.
• 1:06:53
  And, and so that's why I I think US going to have to have some
• 1:07:00
  far reckoning in the coming years.
• 1:07:02
  I mean, China had its century of humiliation and hopefully the US
• 1:07:07
  doesn't need a century of humiliation.
• 1:07:10
  But I think there needs to be, I think American Society as a
• 1:07:17
  whole needs to go through the five stage graving process, you
• 1:07:21
  know, to realize, I think now most people already realize the
• 1:07:25
  problem, but they don't know how to solve it.
• 1:07:29
  You know, like Trump, Trump, whether Trump, Obama, they're
• 1:07:33
  all, all the attempts, manifestation of attempts by
• 1:07:37
  American electorate of trying to hope to get someone to clean the
• 1:07:42
  system to solve, to bring change and solve the problem.
• 1:07:45
  But so far that has not been successful.
• 1:07:47
  And I I don't know how what would it takes to actually make
• 1:07:52
  a successful change, but change is needed.
• 1:07:55
  If we don't fall, all all go over the Cliff.
• 1:07:59
  I I couldn't agree with you more, but the question is, where
• 1:08:02
  is that change going to come from?
• 1:08:03
  That's why my theory is that we have to hit rock bottom before
• 1:08:07
  we can go up. It's kind of like an addict, you
• 1:08:09
  know? You, you can.
• 1:08:11
  Yeah. It's, it's sad.
• 1:08:13
  There's going to be a lot of people who are hurt by this.
• 1:08:15
  And I, I, you know, you know, Carl, I, I somebody asked me, he
• 1:08:18
  says, you know, oh, they were talking about some situation.
• 1:08:22
  I said, look, don't, don't separate people in any way
• 1:08:25
  except one. They either have empathy or they
• 1:08:28
  don't. Now, there's obviously a rainbow
• 1:08:30
  of, you know, you can be quite different in terms of how much
• 1:08:35
  empathy you have or don't. But I mean, I don't think that
• 1:08:38
  Donald Trump has any empathy. You know, you, you've seen
• 1:08:41
  pictures of him when some guy falls on the floor and he's
• 1:08:44
  gasping for breath, kind of looking at him like he's looking
• 1:08:47
  at a, you know, bystander. There's no attempt to do it.
• 1:08:51
  But some friend of his fell off the stage and gashed his head.
• 1:08:55
  And he was just like moving away.
• 1:08:57
  He wasn't running. For he's a perfect politician.
• 1:09:01
  He's a perfect politician. You know I have no empathy and
• 1:09:04
  to be about. Carl I I I I was in politics.
• 1:09:08
  I I knew guys, I mean Clinton, I'll never forgive him for
• 1:09:12
  giving up Glass Steagall, but in the end he, he had an amazing
• 1:09:17
  trick. He could meet somebody 10 in in
• 1:09:21
  a crowd, right? And 10 years and spend maybe,
• 1:09:25
  you know, 1520 seconds talking to him and then ten years later
• 1:09:30
  he'd look at the guy and say, oh, I saw you in Philadelphia.
• 1:09:34
  Yeah, that's right. You now you told me you were
• 1:09:37
  involved in, you know, such and such.
• 1:09:39
  Now, how did that work out? And the people be blown away,
• 1:09:42
  right. The the former ambassador of
• 1:09:45
  Terry Bradstad, who was the former longest running governor,
• 1:09:49
  I think of Iowa ever, that's Xi Jinping, etcetera.
• 1:09:52
  He had that ability, had an incredible memory for people's
• 1:09:55
  names. And they say Tommy Thompson as
• 1:09:57
  well. And these these it's it's it's
• 1:10:01
  kind of different. But did they actually care?
• 1:10:03
  Yes, they did. Clinton cared, but unfortunately
• 1:10:08
  he let his ego and his desire to, you know, it got the best of
• 1:10:15
  him. Did Tommy Thompson care?
• 1:10:17
  Yes, but he also the ego, and this is the problem with
• 1:10:20
  politics I saw so many times it was regardless of how good or
• 1:10:25
  bad they were, it was the ego that forward.
• 1:10:30
  And I guess that's what's required because if you're going
• 1:10:33
  to get into politics, I can tell you it's a dirty, nasty game.
• 1:10:37
  I ran that political race. It's not for money, simply
• 1:10:40
  because I I wanted to create some change or keep people in
• 1:10:45
  that I thought were good. And Oh my goodness, the things
• 1:10:49
  you have to do when you talk about special interests, it
• 1:10:51
  doesn't just exist at the national level.
• 1:10:53
  It exists at every single level of politics and you have to make
• 1:10:57
  decision on going to go for the Realtors or I'm going to go for
• 1:11:01
  the the plumbers union or something like that, or the
• 1:11:03
  police and fire guys. Where am I going to go to
• 1:11:06
  teachers and things like this. It's all all baked in.
• 1:11:11
  And you by the time you arrive in office, you owe so many
• 1:11:14
  people. And if you expect to get re
• 1:11:16
  elected, you have to perform. If you don't perform, they say,
• 1:11:21
  oh, this guy's no good, let's go find another one.
• 1:11:23
  So special interests at every single stage.
• 1:11:27
  And you know, The thing is they're not quote bad people,
• 1:11:31
  but the people they elect to head the union and negotiate
• 1:11:34
  with you, They're not, they're not caring people.
• 1:11:38
  They're politicians. It's about their ego and what
• 1:11:41
  they can bring back, what kind of red meat I can bring back to
• 1:11:45
  the boys and girls, right? And they push deals and, you
• 1:11:50
  know, they, they push the process to an absurd level.
• 1:11:55
  And you, you have, you know, just really bad things
• 1:11:59
  happening. And if you talk to them and say,
• 1:12:01
  hey, listen, you know, this isn't working out.
• 1:12:03
  It says, well, it's not my problem.
• 1:12:05
  You know, I'm, I'm here as his head of this union.
• 1:12:07
  And, you know, we got to get ours.
• 1:12:10
  All right, that's it. I mean, you remember the, there
• 1:12:15
  was the head of the union who was, you know, put together
• 1:12:18
  those series of strikes with the all the auto unions about what,
• 1:12:21
  334 years ago before COVID Anyways, yeah.
• 1:12:27
  So they asked him. He said, I want, he said, I want
• 1:12:29
  a 40% increase. And then the basis was that the,
• 1:12:33
  the, the fat guys in in the city when they when they had problems
• 1:12:38
  back during the global meltdown, you know, management said, it
• 1:12:44
  says, hey, guys, we're all in this together.
• 1:12:46
  All right, you got to take something for the team.
• 1:12:49
  We're going to cut back your benefits.
• 1:12:50
  We're going to cut back your pay and things like that.
• 1:12:52
  But as soon as things turn around, we'll, we'll, we'll make
• 1:12:56
  it up to you. Well, those guys were stuffing
• 1:13:00
  their pockets full of bonuses when the car things are around.
• 1:13:04
  Nothing happened to the union guys.
• 1:13:06
  So these guys said, OK, they got theirs time, we got ours.
• 1:13:10
  I want 40%. I think they agreed at 30%.
• 1:13:12
  But here's the problem. They're adding 30% to an
• 1:13:16
  industry, to the labor cost of that car that is not doing well.
• 1:13:22
  It doesn't have a global market. It's not competitive as it is.
• 1:13:27
  And they asked them, they said, don't you have some concerns
• 1:13:30
  about the future, are that you might in essence be killing the
• 1:13:34
  golden goose that lays the eggs. And he says, well, that may be
• 1:13:38
  the case, But the fact is we have to get ours now before it's
• 1:13:42
  gone. So this, I mean, was he a bad
• 1:13:46
  guy? No, I don't think he was a bad
• 1:13:48
  guy. I think he, he thought he was
• 1:13:49
  doing the best he could for his union workers who had been
• 1:13:52
  shafted by management. Yeah.
• 1:13:55
  But at the end of it, we're all going to suffer.
• 1:13:58
  It would be really terrible to have an America without a a car
• 1:14:03
  industry. You know, we, we really
• 1:14:05
  pioneered it. To go from the the model T4 to
• 1:14:10
  to 0 would be a a big mistake. But we have to do that.
• 1:14:14
  We have to turn around and start being competitive.
• 1:14:19
  I've talked to your ear off Carl.
• 1:14:21
  I can see you're about the snooze.
• 1:14:23
  Now you, I'm like, why did you leave politics?
• 1:14:26
  I know we need you. We need you back in the office.
• 1:14:30
  No, when they, when somebody, somebody suggested I run for
• 1:14:33
  mayor of the city I was in and I said, I looked at him and I
• 1:14:37
  said, what did I do to you? I mean, the idea of jumping in
• 1:14:43
  the, in the, I mean, it was bad enough I was doing what I was
• 1:14:47
  doing the idea of and I thought, oh, I'll have to kill off a
• 1:14:52
  bunch of people who are really bad, they're corrupt or they're
• 1:14:55
  incompetent and put my own people in.
• 1:14:57
  And then I'm more like a mafia boss than a politician.
• 1:15:03
  I thought, no, I, I, I, I'm sorry.
• 1:15:05
  I, I dedicated 10 years of my life to doing public service
• 1:15:10
  unpaid. And a couple of times they gave
• 1:15:13
  me very little bit of money, but not, not, I was a full time job,
• 1:15:17
  but I was doing quite a bit of stuff.
• 1:15:19
  And I, I just, I said, well, I think I've done as much as I can
• 1:15:23
  here and I wanted to experience life somewhere else.
• 1:15:27
  So that's, that's where China came into play.
• 1:15:29
  I really was fascinated by the fact that China created cities.
• 1:15:35
  You know, in America, we manage cities.
• 1:15:36
  It's just there. You just try to figure out how
• 1:15:39
  to, you know, keep keep it from, you know, deteriorating and
• 1:15:42
  making it a little bit better and things like that.
• 1:15:44
  But China being able to make a city fascinated me.
• 1:15:48
  And I wanted to come here and watch that and understand how
• 1:15:51
  they were able to do that because I thought, wow, I mean,
• 1:15:56
  to engineer a successful city like that, right?
• 1:16:01
  Having been involved in the guts of the city, everything from
• 1:16:04
  zoning to, you know, the, the finances and, and running at a
• 1:16:09
  district in the city. I just said this, this is, I
• 1:16:12
  have to understand this. So that was the real draw for
• 1:16:15
  me. People wanted to learn in China
• 1:16:17
  and I wanted to learn from China and see how they were doing
• 1:16:20
  this. I I already have the idea for
• 1:16:24
  our next show, Inar's Journey to China from.
• 1:16:29
  America to China. Let's talk about how that
• 1:16:31
  happened. I want.
• 1:16:32
  To know, OK, just just tell everyone to get get a blanket
• 1:16:37
  and you know, it's a hot cup of, of cocoa so they can, you know,
• 1:16:42
  nod off. I'm sure it will be great.
• 1:16:47
  I already take. It more appreciate you having
• 1:16:50
  me. Sorry I gassed on so much but.
• 1:16:52
  No, no, it's great. It's great content for, for for
• 1:16:56
  me, but I I really appreciate you taking the time to make it
• 1:16:59
  happen. So when you do come back.
• 1:17:01
  On the show, it's been too long. It's been too long.
• 1:17:04
  Last time we talked was two years ago on the Great Wall, so
• 1:17:08
  hopefully it will take less than that when you come back from
• 1:17:12
  Doha. We're going to do that episode
• 1:17:14
  on Einar's trip from America to China.
• 1:17:17
  I'm only in Doha for two days, so it's not like, oh, I'm not
• 1:17:21
  from Doha. It's not like the old days where
• 1:17:24
  I get on a ship and six months later I'll pop.
• 1:17:30
  All right, really a pleasure. All the best to you and all the
• 1:17:33
  best to your listeners and I hope this is some of this is
• 1:17:36
  useful. Thank you, INR and for people
• 1:17:39
  listening, thank you for tuning in.
• 1:17:42
  Until next time, bye bye.