Our 2025 Geopolitical Power Draft

Jacob Shapiro: 00:00:03

Hello listeners.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:00:04

Welcome to another episode of Geopolitical Cousins.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:00:06

Marco and I are back at it.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:00:08

Uh, if you are looking for the geopolitical power draft, that is gonna

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happen in the backend of the podcast.

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We spend the first 40, 45 minutes or so talking about some things happening

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in the world, the Middle East, India, Pakistan, Russia, Ukraine, uh,

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and then in the latter half of the podcast we do a geopolitical draft.

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We're picking the most powerful countries in the world over the next 30 years.

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We need your input.

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We didn't finish the draft.

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We're probably gonna have, we'll complete the draft and have some, uh, some feedback

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on it and argue about different placements and things like that in the next one.

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So, um, if you have any questions, comments, concerns, you can email

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me at jacob@jacobshapiro.com.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:00:42

For now, we need to get a, an email address just for the podcast

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itself, but in the meantime, if you send an email there, it will get

Jacob Shapiro: 00:00:47

to both me and Marco, I promise.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:00:49

Um, otherwise.

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Uh, hope you are all staying well out there.

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Enjoy cousins.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:00:56

We'll see you soon.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:01:00

Alright, cousin, before we start, um, I think we have to start with the travesty

Jacob Shapiro: 00:01:05

that is geopolitical analysts being forced to fly commercial in this day and age.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:01:10

I think when we look back 50, 70 years from now, it would be like NBA players,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:01:14

you know, today they wouldn't fly commercial at all, but you know, they used

Jacob Shapiro: 00:01:16

to have to go on buses and things like that, all of which is a wind up to say why

Jacob Shapiro: 00:01:20

has the nation of gutter not provided an airplane for you and I to fly around the

Jacob Shapiro: 00:01:25

world and give our geopolitical briefings?

Jacob Shapiro: 00:01:27

I mean, like, I think we're just as important as President

Jacob Shapiro: 00:01:29

Trump, don't you think?

Marko: 00:01:31

I would, I would, I would say in many ways, perhaps we're more important.

Marko: 00:01:34

I mean, first of all, we both, uh, pride ourselves in our objectivity.

Marko: 00:01:38

I am a nihilist, bathed in aloof indifference and therefore if you want

Marko: 00:01:45

me to say nice things about you, you should provide me with a plane as well.

Marko: 00:01:48

Although I guess that would like.

Marko: 00:01:50

Take away that aloof indifference.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:01:53

Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:01:53

You see, I'm the opposite side of this.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:01:55

Like I'm a, I'm like a true Socratic student here, which is I will

Jacob Shapiro: 00:01:58

continue to say bad things about you.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:02:00

And because I say these bad things about you, I deserve all of the things

Jacob Shapiro: 00:02:03

that you're supposed to give me.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:02:04

So you Cutter should give me this plane because I will be a truth teller and

Jacob Shapiro: 00:02:08

tell you about how you're just a random,

Marko: 00:02:10

what's just another plane.

Marko: 00:02:11

Come on.

Marko: 00:02:12

You know, like you have, by the way, uh, no country in the world has

Marko: 00:02:16

more oversupply than Qatar, and I say that, uh, because they've built

Marko: 00:02:22

too many stadiums, too many office buildings, too much of l and g supply.

Marko: 00:02:26

There's literally too much of everything.

Marko: 00:02:28

So just give us an office building and an airplane, and I think

Marko: 00:02:32

that, you know, we'll, we'll bring the demand to the region.

Marko: 00:02:36

There you go.

Marko: 00:02:37

Yeah, exactly.

Marko: 00:02:38

By the way, can I, can I go off for a second?

Marko: 00:02:41

Can I go off?

Marko: 00:02:42

Please

Jacob Shapiro: 00:02:42

go.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:02:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:02:43

So that's why we have a podcast.

Marko: 00:02:45

That's right.

Marko: 00:02:45

Yeah.

Marko: 00:02:45

I'll link this whole hand wringing over, uh, the United States

Marko: 00:02:50

of America accepting a gift.

Marko: 00:02:51

Like, first and foremost, let's be very clear.

Marko: 00:02:55

Is it a gift to President Trump?

Marko: 00:02:58

I mean, no, it's not, it's not his personal plane.

Marko: 00:03:01

It's a gift to America.

Marko: 00:03:02

Well,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:03:03

it, it will be in four years.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:03:05

His personal plane.

Marko: 00:03:06

Will it?

Jacob Shapiro: 00:03:08

Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:03:08

It, it reverts to the Trump Foundation after Trump leaves office.

Marko: 00:03:11

Oh, okay.

Marko: 00:03:13

Well, I was about to go off and now I have nothing to, okay.

Marko: 00:03:15

Yeah.

Marko: 00:03:15

And,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:03:15

and prob probably the, probably the Trump Presidential Library

Jacob Shapiro: 00:03:18

will be built in Doha for all I know.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:03:20

It seems like a good place to put Zens.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:03:21

No,

Marko: 00:03:22

listen, uh, I mean, I agree.

Marko: 00:03:26

I agree.

Marko: 00:03:27

We are.

Marko: 00:03:29

The hay rigging is appropriate.

Marko: 00:03:31

Okay.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:03:33

I don't know.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:03:33

I, I I think it's still, uh, not inappropriate.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:03:36

I mean, it, it's, um, yeah, I'm, I'm just double checking myself,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:03:42

but what were you going to say?

Marko: 00:03:44

Well, I mean, I was gonna say like, you know, countries do

Marko: 00:03:47

accept gifts from other countries, and it's perfectly appropriate.

Marko: 00:03:51

I mean, it can be a favor, it can be a diplomatic favor, it

Marko: 00:03:54

can be a, a, a material gift.

Marko: 00:03:57

It's, it's not inappropriate for a country to try to curry favor

Marko: 00:04:00

with another one with a gift.

Marko: 00:04:02

That's perfectly fine.

Marko: 00:04:04

Uh, the United States of America has donated billions, hundreds of billions

Marko: 00:04:09

of dollars worth of weapons to its allies around the world through either vendor

Marko: 00:04:13

financing or simply through grants.

Marko: 00:04:16

Um, you know, there was like a helicopter, uh, gift to the Philippines,

Marko: 00:04:20

so they wouldn't buy, I think Russian ones like this does happen.

Marko: 00:04:24

So, uh, but if it's gonna revert to a President Trump's

Marko: 00:04:28

personal plane, then hmm.

Marko: 00:04:31

More difficult to defend.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:04:34

Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:04:34

So, so I, I, I'm glad I double check myself.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:04:36

So, a, b, C News, this is the original report and, you know, a, b, c News,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:04:39

who knows May, and they're, they're citing sources who have, uh, you

Jacob Shapiro: 00:04:42

know, a window into the agreement.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:04:44

But so the idea is that Trump, the Trump administration will accept the Boeing 7

Jacob Shapiro: 00:04:48

47 jumbo jet, which can be used in media as Air Force One until shortly before he

Jacob Shapiro: 00:04:52

leaves office, at which time ownership of the plane will be transferred to the

Jacob Shapiro: 00:04:55

Trump Presidential Library Foundation.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:04:57

Sources familiar with the proposed arrangement, told a, b, c news.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:05:01

Um, but I, I was gonna double down here.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:05:03

Like I, I'm, um, 'cause even, like even my, uh, my evil nemes twin nemesis, Ben

Jacob Shapiro: 00:05:10

Shapiro was out there being like, okay, president Trump, like this is not okay.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:05:13

And I don't get the pearl clutching like, okay, so grab him by the pussy.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:05:18

Didn't matter to you.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:05:19

And January 6th didn't matter to you.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:05:21

And all of the odious and gross and corrupt things

Jacob Shapiro: 00:05:24

that happen in all politics.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:05:25

I think Trump is just a little more open about it than most.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:05:27

But like all the gross things that happen, this is the one.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:05:31

This is the one where, oh my God, like this is absolutely unacceptable

Jacob Shapiro: 00:05:35

that you're accepting this plane to be used for a couple of years.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:05:37

Yeah, and Trump knows it.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:05:39

Like he has the measure of his base because his base is gonna look

Jacob Shapiro: 00:05:42

at this and be like, he's a boss.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:05:43

He got the Middle Eastern guys to give him a fucking plane.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:05:46

That's awesome.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:05:46

I also wanna play, and that was my initial reaction too, while the Democrats are

Jacob Shapiro: 00:05:49

like, aha, proof that he's truly evil, this will be the thing that convinces

Jacob Shapiro: 00:05:53

the US electorate that he's really bad.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:05:55

Like my God guys.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:05:56

Come on.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:05:57

Well,

Marko: 00:05:57

you know, first of all, I think we just have to get you and Ben on

Marko: 00:06:00

the show and call it the Shapiros.

Marko: 00:06:02

That's it.

Marko: 00:06:03

That's like, that's like, why are you here with me?

Marko: 00:06:05

I'm, I'm, I'm a nobody.

Marko: 00:06:06

You should be with Ben, first and foremost.

Marko: 00:06:08

That would be amazing.

Marko: 00:06:09

Second of all, I think what's interesting about this is that it reveals a level

Marko: 00:06:14

of discrimination, and quite frankly, not like racism, but Islamophobia.

Marko: 00:06:19

So it's basically okay if there's graft, but if it comes from Qatar,

Marko: 00:06:23

which you know, like supposedly supports terrorism, which it really doesn't.

Marko: 00:06:28

I mean, it's offered a forum for negotiations and for peace for a number

Marko: 00:06:33

of different, uh, you know, parties.

Marko: 00:06:36

It doesn't like, and by the way, who does the finance terrorism?

Marko: 00:06:38

Come on.

Marko: 00:06:39

Give him a break.

Marko: 00:06:40

But when it's cut, they're giving you a plane.

Marko: 00:06:41

Yeah, but

Jacob Shapiro: 00:06:42

like the head, they have the headquarters of Hama.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:06:44

I mean, you know, it's a little,

Marko: 00:06:46

you know,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:06:47

like, I, I get you, but on the spec, like it's a spectrum.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:06:49

Okay.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:06:50

It, it's a spectrum, but they're a little more, they're a little more on

Jacob Shapiro: 00:06:52

the terrorism spectrum than others.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:06:54

See, I, I just lost my plane privileges.

Marko: 00:06:56

You, you definitely lost your plane, but please note Doha.

Marko: 00:07:00

I still keep my plain privileges.

Marko: 00:07:03

Look, here's the point though.

Marko: 00:07:04

Like, I think what, what differentiates this from like, uh,

Marko: 00:07:09

the crypto coins or everything else?

Marko: 00:07:12

I think what differentiate is differentiates it is that in the mind

Marko: 00:07:15

of many Indian American public, it comes from a Middle Eastern country.

Marko: 00:07:19

Uh, that's on the spectrum of supporting or hosting.

Marko: 00:07:24

Some odious actors and I think that that's kind of, uh, interesting to me that that

Marko: 00:07:28

was what triggered the, uh, criticism from both the left and the right.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:07:34

Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:07:34

I mean, you know, also CENTCOM is like based in gutter, so it's like, uh, like

Jacob Shapiro: 00:07:40

the US military is also there, there too.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:07:41

Everybody's there together.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:07:43

Um, well we could go on for a long time here, but I think this is a good way

Jacob Shapiro: 00:07:46

maybe to back in Marco jokes aside to some serious stuff to talk about before

Jacob Shapiro: 00:07:49

we get into the main reason people are here, which is another geopolitical draft.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:07:53

Um, and I think there's a couple ways to skin this cat, but you know, I

Jacob Shapiro: 00:07:56

think we were prescient to talk about the Middle East and the last podcast

Jacob Shapiro: 00:07:59

and there has been some development there, um, in the past couple of days.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:08:03

Uh, prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from Israel, basically saying that

Jacob Shapiro: 00:08:06

Israel is willing to go alone to defend itself after the US Houthis deal.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:08:11

Um.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:08:12

Sources suggesting from the White House that President Trump is

Jacob Shapiro: 00:08:14

frustrated with Netanyahu, like, insert Biden into that sentence.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:08:18

And it could have been exactly the same.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:08:20

Um, and there's also, I, I've been very struck by, you know, the Trump visit and

Jacob Shapiro: 00:08:25

this huge visit to Saudi Arabia where you just were like, Sam Altman is there.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:08:30

And, um, CEO of Nvidia is there.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:08:33

The United States, um, just yesterday announced that it was getting

Jacob Shapiro: 00:08:36

rid of some export controls on AI chips and imposing completely new

Jacob Shapiro: 00:08:40

restrictions on Huawei's AI chips.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:08:43

You've got people telling local media aha, while investors are gonna

Jacob Shapiro: 00:08:46

have to choose between a Chinese led AI world and a US AI led world.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:08:50

And I was also just struck, like I saw a picture of Trump standing with

Jacob Shapiro: 00:08:53

all these world leaders and then all these Saudi shakes and all of these

Jacob Shapiro: 00:08:56

like tech bros and things like that.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:08:58

And I'm like.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:08:59

There is such cognitive dissonance for me because like who in geopolitics could have

Jacob Shapiro: 00:09:04

predicted in the year of our Lord 2025, that the most powerful people in the world

Jacob Shapiro: 00:09:09

would gather in the middle of the Arabian desert and pay homage to the Saudi Arabian

Jacob Shapiro: 00:09:14

King in order to make the decisions that will decide the future of technology and

Jacob Shapiro: 00:09:18

AI and all these other different things.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:09:20

Like it doesn't, like something does not compute there, seeing like the

Jacob Shapiro: 00:09:23

CEO of Nvidia, like, and Sam Altman like trying to like ingratiate

Jacob Shapiro: 00:09:28

themselves to Prince Mohammad bin Salman and Trump standing next to him.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:09:31

Like all that was missing was Toby Keith, uh, may he rest in peace coming

Jacob Shapiro: 00:09:35

back to like do a, a another con concert from the Dead for the audience.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:09:40

So take that whatever direction you want.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:09:42

But I, I have some dissonance this morning about all this.

Marko: 00:09:45

So first of all, I just wanna say that that was a really

Marko: 00:09:47

prescient, uh, podcast that you and I did together, right?

Marko: 00:09:52

So like, first of all, I think you called the American Pope.

Marko: 00:09:55

I think that was the same one right?

Jacob Shapiro: 00:09:57

That was, that was the previous one.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:09:58

So we're on a roll.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:09:59

Oh, my roll.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:09:59

We're like two, two.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:10:00

Oh, my bad.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:10:00

We're good.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:10:01

Yeah.

Marko: 00:10:01

Okay, cool.

Marko: 00:10:02

So you called, uh, the Ameri, uh, the American Pope, which was awesome.

Marko: 00:10:06

This is why you should be listening to this podcast.

Marko: 00:10:07

I mean, like, who else would've done that?

Marko: 00:10:09

And then the second thing is that in the other broadcast, uh, episode we talked

Marko: 00:10:13

about like, Bibi is playing with fire.

Marko: 00:10:17

Donald Trump is not pro-ISIS Israel.

Marko: 00:10:20

And what's beautiful about that statement is that I made everybody mad right now.

Marko: 00:10:24

Right?

Marko: 00:10:25

If you're on the right, you're like, no, he is, you know, he

Marko: 00:10:28

moved the capital to Jerusalem.

Marko: 00:10:30

I'm like, eh, like nobody cares about that.

Marko: 00:10:32

Guys.

Marko: 00:10:33

Like, uh, people who care about that don't matter.

Marko: 00:10:36

Lemme just put it that way on both sides.

Marko: 00:10:38

Sorry.

Marko: 00:10:39

And then the second thing is like, obviously if you're on the left and

Marko: 00:10:42

liberal, you're like, of course he does.

Marko: 00:10:43

He let Israel do whatever they want.

Marko: 00:10:45

And the truth is that Donald Trump is pro Donald Trump.

Marko: 00:10:49

I think if you support Donald Trump and you give him a lot of benefit of

Marko: 00:10:51

the doubt he's pro-America, if you are a little bit more nihilist than

Marko: 00:10:55

maybe objective, you're just saying like, look, he's pro Donald Trump.

Marko: 00:10:58

And the problem with Benjamin Netanyahu is that his domestic constraints are forcing

Marko: 00:11:03

him to be extremely aggressive against Palestinians, whether in GA and West Bank.

Marko: 00:11:07

And Donald Trump wants peace and equilibrium.

Marko: 00:11:11

And so, yeah, like this is what we talked about last podcast.

Marko: 00:11:14

I really don't have anything to add to that.

Marko: 00:11:16

Bibi is playing with fire if he thinks that, you know, uh, the Israel lobby

Marko: 00:11:23

in the United States of America.

Marko: 00:11:25

If he thinks that his relationship with Trump, if he thinks that some idiotic

Marko: 00:11:31

notion of American long-term strategic interests in backing Israel are going to

Marko: 00:11:35

save him and his relationship with the United States, he is absolutely wrong.

Marko: 00:11:41

And this could go sideways, very badly for Israel over the next 12 months.

Marko: 00:11:45

Uh, so that's the first thing I think.

Marko: 00:11:47

I mean, you don't wanna, you wanna pick a fight with the US president, like

Marko: 00:11:50

whoever you are, it's just, it's not something you want to do, but especially

Marko: 00:11:55

if you're a country of 10 million, you know, like why would you do that?

Jacob Shapiro: 00:11:59

Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:00

I I, before we move on to the Saudi Arabia stuff, 'cause I really do want to get your

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:03

take on that, 'cause you've been there and, and you've been ahead of this on

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:05

me and have a different view than I do.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:07

Um, I think you're right about, um, Netanyahu and I, I wanna make two points.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:10

The first is that I think Netanyahu was guilty of what a lot of foreign leaders

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:14

are, and even some policy makers in the United States, which is thinking

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:17

of President Trump as a useful idiot.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:20

And I think he's many things, but he's not gonna be your monkey.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:23

You're not gonna pull the strings.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:24

And I think it was in Trump's interest in the first term, and you also

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:27

had Kushner very deeply inside the administration to where, and you know,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:30

Trump had made promises about Iran.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:32

Israel was gonna be a partner there, like Israel was useful to

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:35

him and that was all useful to his base and he pushed it forward.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:37

And I think I. My hunch is that Netanyahu thought, oh, I have

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:41

this good standing relationship.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:42

I'm just gonna say nice things.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:44

I'm gonna be the one that's in his corner.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:45

You might remember Israel was like one of the first countries to say

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:48

zero tariffs, like, we're good.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:49

Like please no tariffs.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:50

And then the Israelis were shocked when they were on the penguin tariff

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:54

list because they thought that they had headed it off at the past.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:56

Um, so to your point, like President Trump cares for better and for worse

Jacob Shapiro: 00:12:59

about President Trump, and so he will do whatever is in his interest and

Jacob Shapiro: 00:13:02

he's not a moron as much as people may want to think he's a moron.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:13:05

Howard Lutnick, I think the discussion about whether he's a moron is

Jacob Shapiro: 00:13:08

actually a much more pertinent one.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:13:09

The second thing though, and I, and I want to tie this in before you take, take it.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:13:13

Before we get to Saudi Arabia, says, I wonder if there's a little bit of a

Jacob Shapiro: 00:13:17

metaphor here also on what's happened with India and Pakistan because

Jacob Shapiro: 00:13:21

the last time we spoke, India and Pakistan were going back and forth.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:13:24

Things were ratcheting up.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:13:25

You and I were both getting questions on Twitter.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:13:27

Thank you.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:13:27

Or X or whatever.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:13:28

Thank everyone for asking you.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:13:29

What do you guys think about this as an investment perspective?

Jacob Shapiro: 00:13:31

Is it World War II or things spiraling outta control and then we have a

Jacob Shapiro: 00:13:34

ceasefire, but we have the United States and President Trump in particular

Jacob Shapiro: 00:13:38

claiming credit for the ceasefire and not really taking a Proin Indian stance.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:13:43

Like Narendra.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:13:44

Modi's not happy about the way that the US has intervened here.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:13:47

He didn't even say that the US had done anything as part of the ceasefire

Jacob Shapiro: 00:13:50

in his official comments yesterday.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:13:52

And it, it was a lot of, what about is like, Trump's quote was basically

Jacob Shapiro: 00:13:55

like, stop trading bombs, trade the nice things that you make with each other.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:13:59

Can't you guys get along?

Jacob Shapiro: 00:14:00

Rather than being like, no, India has a right to defend itself against terrorism.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:14:04

India is the rightful holder of Kashmir.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:14:06

India is all the things that India wants to be.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:14:08

So I wonder like, you know, we can talk about Israel until we're blue in the face.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:14:11

It's honestly not that geopolitically important in the end.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:14:14

But I think the same thing just happened with India, which is India and Ra.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:14:17

Modi thought, Hey, Trump is in our corner, so if we have to go after Pakistan or

Jacob Shapiro: 00:14:22

Kashmir these other things, they're gonna support us a hundred percent.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:14:24

JD Vance was just here, probably told us something like that, and yet you get

Jacob Shapiro: 00:14:28

this little breakout of war and Trump is like, please stop bombing each other.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:14:31

I don't want any of this.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:14:32

I'm not gonna support you.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:14:33

I just want you guys to stop bombing each other and I wanna take

Jacob Shapiro: 00:14:35

credit for it 'cause I'm building my resume for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:14:38

Okay.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:14:38

Sorry, you go.

Marko: 00:14:41

I have nothing to add to what you said.

Marko: 00:14:43

I think that, uh, this goes back to the argument we had, not argument, but the,

Marko: 00:14:48

the point I made in the last, uh, episode where I said that, you know, you can,

Marko: 00:14:54

you can compare American geopolitical benevolence influence, uh, to QE to

Marko: 00:15:01

just want the liquidity in the markets, which creates distortions and libria.

Marko: 00:15:06

And the United States of America is withdrawing that benevolence.

Marko: 00:15:10

It's changing its outlook.

Marko: 00:15:12

It's acting like the most powerful country in a world, in a multipolar world.

Marko: 00:15:17

It's not acting as a provider of hegemonic stability.

Marko: 00:15:21

Um, and President Trump said something yesterday that quite frankly is the

Marko: 00:15:24

most profound statement by any American legislator legislature on foreign

Marko: 00:15:29

policy, maybe this entire century, if not even since World War ii.

Marko: 00:15:36

Um.

Marko: 00:15:38

Hillary Clinton famously said, America doesn't recognize fears

Marko: 00:15:41

of influence, which as I joke, is like a ridiculous statement.

Marko: 00:15:44

It's like, okay, cool.

Marko: 00:15:45

Um, what does that mean?

Marko: 00:15:47

You know?

Marko: 00:15:48

But what President Trump said is the diametrically opposite of that,

Marko: 00:15:51

which is, and I'm gonna quote it, is, it is God's job to sit in judgment.

Marko: 00:15:57

It is my job to defend America.

Marko: 00:16:01

I will never hesitate to wield American power to defend the United States.

Marko: 00:16:05

But the point is that it's actually a really like profound statement.

Marko: 00:16:12

Uh, the US is not going to judge.

Marko: 00:16:16

It's not going to be making moralistic, normative, moralistic,

Marko: 00:16:20

or normative calls or claims.

Marko: 00:16:23

It's not gonna pursue a moralistic or normative foreign policy.

Marko: 00:16:26

It's going to focus on the American interests.

Marko: 00:16:28

And I think that in a way that is far easier for the rest of the

Marko: 00:16:32

world to deal with because it's cleaner, it's more objective, and it

Marko: 00:16:35

doesn't change with who's in charge.

Marko: 00:16:38

You know, presumably, unless of course somebody replaces President

Marko: 00:16:41

Trump who says, no, no, no, actually we will sit in judgment.

Marko: 00:16:44

Um, so I thought that was very important in dovetail with everything you're saying.

Marko: 00:16:47

I mean, that is the change that's happened.

Marko: 00:16:50

And so that's why President Trump is open to making deals and being

Marko: 00:16:56

a peacemaker in an objective way.

Marko: 00:16:58

In a way.

Marko: 00:16:59

Um, so it's going to rankle.

Marko: 00:17:01

It's going to rankle and it's going to frustrate a lot of countries that thoughts

Marko: 00:17:06

that they were morally superior, that they were on the right side of history,

Marko: 00:17:09

that they were, uh, fighting with America against evil and tyranny around the world.

Marko: 00:17:14

You know, that's who's gonna rankle.

Marko: 00:17:16

But I think from a just purely.

Marko: 00:17:19

Objective perspective.

Marko: 00:17:20

It's also going to make it easier for the US to actually act as a peacemaker

Marko: 00:17:25

and create libria around the world.

Marko: 00:17:27

Not a popular take, especially with a lot of our listeners who

Marko: 00:17:30

lean more progressive and liberal.

Marko: 00:17:33

But in a multipolar world, I think it's very dangerous for the United

Marko: 00:17:36

States to pursue normative judgment calls because it doesn't have the

Marko: 00:17:41

wanton power to effectively prosecute.

Marko: 00:17:46

Moral judgment.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:17:49

Yeah, I, um, I, you, I wanna say that you're right about

Jacob Shapiro: 00:17:53

the macro, but wrong about the micro here, but, so this was something else

Jacob Shapiro: 00:17:56

I wanted to juxtapose the, the, the meetings in Saudi Arabia and all these

Jacob Shapiro: 00:18:00

pictures that have been creating this dissonance for me at the same time

Jacob Shapiro: 00:18:03

and much less covered, but covered.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:18:04

I'm not, I don't wanna say that nobody is covering this.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:18:07

Um, the, um, the Clac summit.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:18:09

So the community of Latin American, Caribbean states is

Jacob Shapiro: 00:18:11

happening in China right now.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:18:13

And, um.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:18:14

One of the things that Chinese President Xi Jinping said in his

Jacob Shapiro: 00:18:17

opening address to the Clac Summit was China's and the countries of

Jacob Shapiro: 00:18:20

Latin America and the Caribbean are important members of the global South.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:18:23

Independence is our glorious tradition.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:18:25

Development and revitalization, our natural right and fairness

Jacob Shapiro: 00:18:29

and justice are common pursuit.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:18:31

And as part of that, president Xi has opened up a new $66

Jacob Shapiro: 00:18:34

billion Yuan credit line.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:18:36

That's about $9 billion.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:18:39

Has talked about all the different sources of funding that he wants to do there.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:18:42

Uh, president Lula from Brazil had some very strong things to say

Jacob Shapiro: 00:18:47

about President Trump, basically lashing out at everybody else on

Jacob Shapiro: 00:18:50

planet Earth that China is the one.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:18:53

That has been treated like an enemy, except it's the one that is quote,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:18:56

behaving like an example of a country that is trying to do business with countries

Jacob Shapiro: 00:19:00

which have been forgotten by others.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:19:02

End quote.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:19:02

So like more shots fired at the United States.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:19:04

So while you have Trump and scent and the Nvidia CEO and all, and you know,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:19:09

Mohammad bin Salman sitting there in, in Saudi Arabia and announcing

Jacob Shapiro: 00:19:12

all these investments and plans and multipolarity and great deep things,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:19:16

you ironically have Xi Jinping taking up the mantle of, I won't call it

Jacob Shapiro: 00:19:20

liberalism, but using some of the vocabulary of lib liberalism, using China

Jacob Shapiro: 00:19:25

to say, we will be the force for good.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:19:27

We will be the force for development for a better future.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:19:30

And by the way, all these countries that are in America's backyard that

Jacob Shapiro: 00:19:33

America has ignored, they're off gallivanting around the Arabian desert.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:19:37

Uh, you, Brazil, you Chile, you Columbia.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:19:40

Come to China, take our yuan credit, swap lines, trade with us.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:19:44

We're interested in closer relations.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:19:46

The, the juxtaposition couldn't be sharper to me.

Marko: 00:19:48

Yeah.

Marko: 00:19:48

But I, I don't think that you're correct in that it's a moral normative play.

Marko: 00:19:54

It's merely saying like, we will help you with your economic development.

Marko: 00:19:57

So in other words, president Xi invited Latin American leaders to basically

Marko: 00:20:02

make the same pitch as President Trump is making in the Middle East, which

Marko: 00:20:06

is that look work with us and we will bring economic development to you.

Marko: 00:20:12

We're not gonna bring normative, moralistic, you know, policies.

Marko: 00:20:17

We're not going to give you a lecture.

Marko: 00:20:20

We will give you a loan.

Marko: 00:20:22

And I think that that's, so it kind of dovetails with what I'm saying.

Marko: 00:20:26

I think it's, China's always done what you just described, I think over the

Marko: 00:20:30

past 20 years at least, uh, with a belt and road initiative with, um, I.

Marko: 00:20:35

Rebuilding supply chains around the world.

Marko: 00:20:37

I think it's the US that's catching up to Chinese foreign policy.

Marko: 00:20:41

In other words, both sides are kind of pursuing the same thing.

Marko: 00:20:45

By the way, I apologize for my dog.

Marko: 00:20:46

I dunno what's going on, but you know, hopefully he's not

Marko: 00:20:49

gonna tear someone apart.

Marko: 00:20:50

I'm,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:20:51

I'm sure he's keeping you safe and I'm, I'm so glad

Jacob Shapiro: 00:20:53

to have a real disagreement with you because I think you're wrong.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:20:56

Um, I think that, um.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:20:59

China is, is not saying what you're saying, which is, yes, it's about economic

Jacob Shapiro: 00:21:02

development, but it's economic economic development that is driven by openness.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:21:07

They are making a normative claim that the way to growth is no trade barriers.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:21:11

The way to growth is China needs to be able to import commodities from Latin

Jacob Shapiro: 00:21:15

America for as cheaply as possible.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:21:18

And in return you get access to the Chinese market.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:21:20

And if you raise protections against these commodities, if you raise tariffs

Jacob Shapiro: 00:21:24

because the United States told you to do so, if you say bad things about

Jacob Shapiro: 00:21:28

China, or if you embrace Taiwan, uh, you know, some of these countries, the

Jacob Shapiro: 00:21:32

countries that are remaining in the world that still recognize Taiwan over the

Jacob Shapiro: 00:21:35

United States, most of them in, uh, uh, Latin America, really Central America.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:21:39

And those have been sort of falling by the wayside.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:21:41

So Xi Jinping is, he's saying, no, we are the country of openness.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:21:45

We want free trade.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:21:46

We want everything to go together, and we have these needs.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:21:49

And if you get these needs, like you'll get access to the Chinese market, you'll,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:21:52

you'll get your things going forward.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:21:53

And, and as for Trump, like, um.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:21:57

I don't know, like you're saying, like, I, I hear you in, in, in trying to make

Jacob Shapiro: 00:22:01

something out of that speech, and I, I saw, I saw that speech making the rounds

Jacob Shapiro: 00:22:05

and about defending, um, the United States, but it's a particular view of

Jacob Shapiro: 00:22:08

the United States, and it's about closing the United States off to some countries.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:22:11

I mean, he's picking a battle with China in the long term.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:22:14

There's something normative about picking China as this adversary, although of

Jacob Shapiro: 00:22:17

course tariffs have gone away now.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:22:19

So he's like sort of capitulated.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:22:20

I don't know, but I, I, the, the only thing I'm trying to say is I think

Jacob Shapiro: 00:22:23

there is something normative about China being the force for openness,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:22:27

trade openness, and the United States saying, no, it's a protectionist world.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:22:31

There are spheres of influence.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:22:32

If you, if you, if we don't like you, you don't get our ships.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:22:35

And if you're a company that does bad things, like we're gonna sanction you.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:22:38

Whereas China doesn't want any of that.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:22:39

But I think push back if you want.

Marko: 00:22:41

No, I, I mean, I would just say I think we need to wait like six,

Marko: 00:22:43

12 months to see where, uh, you know, the trade conflict settles, right?

Marko: 00:22:49

Because if it settles with America, basically just getting some deals and

Marko: 00:22:53

ultimately trade continuing, I think then.

Marko: 00:22:56

We're at the same, you know, nothing really changed.

Marko: 00:23:00

So I think we just need to see where it settles.

Marko: 00:23:02

Uh, but yeah, no, it's, it's very interesting and I think that, uh, uh,

Marko: 00:23:06

going back to your original point, you know about, you know, your shock,

Marko: 00:23:10

that like Saudi Arabia is at the epicenter of a lot of these things.

Marko: 00:23:13

What I would say is, so to, to take the other side of that, you know, I've been

Marko: 00:23:18

going to Saudi Arabia for 10 years.

Marko: 00:23:20

Uh, I grew up part of my life in the Middle East.

Marko: 00:23:22

And so, um, been on the ground in Saudi Arabia since probably

Marko: 00:23:26

2014, uh, once a year except for Covid and a subsequent couple of

Marko: 00:23:31

years when nobody really traveled.

Marko: 00:23:33

But, uh, no country has changed more on the planet than Saudi Arabia.

Marko: 00:23:39

And I compare what's going on there to the Maji restoration.

Marko: 00:23:42

Like that's how profound I think it is.

Marko: 00:23:45

Uh, I think Saudi Arabia has been beset by a lot of, uh, existential risks

Marko: 00:23:49

over the last five years, 10 years.

Marko: 00:23:51

I. And, uh, I think that their pivot is 180 degree turn.

Marko: 00:23:56

And the reason that they're able to do the 180 degree turn, and this is where I think

Marko: 00:24:00

Western analysts and just commentators, I think what they don't realize is

Marko: 00:24:05

how, uh, you know, how absolutely unnecessary, not, not unnecessary, but

Marko: 00:24:11

how arbitrary the conservative tilt in Saudi Arabia was in 1979, Saudi

Marko: 00:24:18

Arabia had very low state capacity.

Marko: 00:24:21

What does state capacity mean?

Marko: 00:24:22

It like ability to, like collect revenue, build an army, defend

Marko: 00:24:26

itself, pursue a foreign policy.

Marko: 00:24:28

In 1979, Saudi Arabia had really no state capacity.

Marko: 00:24:33

Um, it had existed as a modern state for like 15 years at

Marko: 00:24:37

that point, quite frankly.

Marko: 00:24:39

And so in 19 79, 2 things happened that really threatened the

Marko: 00:24:44

very existence of this country.

Marko: 00:24:46

One was the Islamic Revolution in neighboring Iran.

Marko: 00:24:50

It brought a dramatic shift to the region.

Marko: 00:24:52

And the other ones was the attack on the Grand Mosque in 1979 in Riyadh, um, which

Marko: 00:24:59

Saudi Arabia couldn't resolve by itself.

Marko: 00:25:02

It had to bring in French intelligence and French special

Marko: 00:25:05

forces to liberate the Grand Mosque.

Marko: 00:25:07

So these two things accelerated Saudi Arabia stern towards conservatism.

Marko: 00:25:13

This idea that there's some sort of a wahabi link with the origin of Saudi

Marko: 00:25:17

Arabia, that would be like saying Americans have a link with Puritanism.

Marko: 00:25:21

You know what I mean?

Marko: 00:25:22

Like relax, like the alliance between the wahabi in the bin South

Marko: 00:25:27

family is freaking 300 years old.

Marko: 00:25:30

What happened was in 1979, the leadership in Saudi Arabia had to

Marko: 00:25:34

fight against like this global threat, which suddenly shows up in Mecca.

Marko: 00:25:39

And so they make a decision, which ultimately was a wrong one, uh, to,

Marko: 00:25:45

you know, effectively make a deal with, uh, religious conservative.

Marko: 00:25:49

Part of society.

Marko: 00:25:50

Um, and, uh, they spend the next 30 years building state capacity thanks

Marko: 00:25:57

to massive oil wealth and material.

Marko: 00:26:00

Wealth is the foundation of geopolitical power.

Marko: 00:26:02

And nowhere can you really see that more than in Saudi Arabia.

Marko: 00:26:04

They become more competent in defending their interests abroad and at home.

Marko: 00:26:09

And I think that the turn in Saudi Arabia over the last five, uh,

Marko: 00:26:13

five, 10 years is really a product of that buildup of state capacity.

Marko: 00:26:16

Saudi Arabia does not have to have this alliance, uh, anymore with, uh,

Marko: 00:26:22

social and religious conservatives.

Marko: 00:26:23

And so it's discarded them massively.

Marko: 00:26:26

And I think that nobody understands just how thorough this discarding is.

Marko: 00:26:32

And also I think most people don't understand how arbitrary and non

Marko: 00:26:36

culturally correct or religiously correct the alliance was in the first place.

Marko: 00:26:41

Uh, so yeah, I will, I will say that Saudi Arabia by 2050.

Marko: 00:26:47

Will be more or as liberal as Israel in 2050.

Marko: 00:26:51

There's my profound and uh, controversial statement.

Marko: 00:26:55

I think this is an inexorable move and I think that, um, it's the reason why Saudi

Marko: 00:27:01

Arabia has become a factor of stability.

Marko: 00:27:03

I mean, you've got Iranian and Israeli cruise Miss cells flying over

Marko: 00:27:07

Saudi Arabia, and it hasn't impacted the country at all economically

Marko: 00:27:11

from an investment perspective.

Marko: 00:27:12

I mean, what's impacting the country more is price of oil as it always is, right?

Marko: 00:27:17

So this isn't, this isn't some argument you should go and buy Saudi stocks.

Marko: 00:27:21

That's not what I'm saying.

Marko: 00:27:22

I. I'm just saying that you should probably get on a plane and go to Saudi

Marko: 00:27:26

Arabia and see what I'm talking about.

Marko: 00:27:28

But even when people do that, the problem is that if they don't have the frame of

Marko: 00:27:31

reference or if they haven't been visiting Saudi Arabia, they don't have the data

Marko: 00:27:35

points in which to actually understand just how profound, uh, the changes happen.

Marko: 00:27:41

I.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:27:43

Yeah, there's two different things in, in what you're saying.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:27:45

And by the way, you might be right about that controversial take with Israel.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:27:47

'cause Israel's rapidly moving in a reactionary direction.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:27:50

So Saudi Arabia moves this way and Israel moves the opposite direction they

Jacob Shapiro: 00:27:53

might meet in the middle of somewhere.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:27:55

Such is life.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:27:56

Such is life.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:27:57

But, um, you know, there's the point on Saudi Arabia and then there's the

Jacob Shapiro: 00:28:00

larger point that even if you're right, and I, I'm not sure, like I'll take the

Jacob Shapiro: 00:28:03

opposite side of that, like the idea that they're gonna transform oil wealth

Jacob Shapiro: 00:28:06

into a glittering liberal democracy in the heart of the Middle East, or

Jacob Shapiro: 00:28:09

glittering liberal constitutional monarchy, whatever you wanna call it.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:28:13

I don't know, like, okay, Dutch disease is no longer real then if they were able to

Jacob Shapiro: 00:28:16

take the oil wealth and change centuries of entrenched interests and all these

Jacob Shapiro: 00:28:19

other things, I, I would take the other side of it, but fine, leave that aside.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:28:23

Um, it still doesn't make sense to me that the most powerful people in the

Jacob Shapiro: 00:28:27

world, or some of the most powerful people in the world are going to, to

Jacob Shapiro: 00:28:31

Saudi Arabia to make these decisions.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:28:33

That this is the epicenter of where things are happening.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:28:35

Because even if I grant everything that you just said.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:28:38

How is the future of like AI and things like that being announced

Jacob Shapiro: 00:28:41

in, in this country right now?

Jacob Shapiro: 00:28:42

Like, why is President, president Trump?

Jacob Shapiro: 00:28:44

Well, to be so drawn to it rather than some of the other places in the

Jacob Shapiro: 00:28:47

world that are more geographically and geopolitically significant?

Marko: 00:28:50

So actually, uh, the future of AI will definitely

Marko: 00:28:52

not be decided by Saudi Arabia.

Marko: 00:28:54

I mean, it's, I think, uh, the region is why they're all there, you know?

Marko: 00:28:58

And look, capital is important.

Marko: 00:29:01

Material wealth is the foundation of geopolitical power.

Marko: 00:29:04

It's not demographics, it's not geography.

Marko: 00:29:07

Oh my God, for god's sakes.

Marko: 00:29:09

You know, the United Kingdom, what's its population?

Marko: 00:29:12

Okay, what's its geography?

Marko: 00:29:13

What's its climate?

Marko: 00:29:14

What are their natural resources?

Marko: 00:29:16

None.

Marko: 00:29:16

None, none, none.

Marko: 00:29:17

And yet it conquered the entire planet.

Marko: 00:29:19

The empire ne the sun never sat on the British empire.

Marko: 00:29:23

So the reason I say this is because there's a concentration of wealth and

Marko: 00:29:27

capital, and there's a tabula rasa approach to innovation in these countries.

Marko: 00:29:33

UAE, Oman, Qatar.

Marko: 00:29:36

Uh, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the tabula rasa is very important.

Marko: 00:29:41

This idea that you can have like basically a blank slate.

Marko: 00:29:44

You have capital, let's do something with it.

Marko: 00:29:48

Now Saudi Arabia is actually not taking the tech approach.

Marko: 00:29:50

To be clear, you're not.

Marko: 00:29:53

This is the first time that I've actually really seen like emphasis on

Marko: 00:29:56

tech bros in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is doing, I think what's very intelligent.

Marko: 00:30:01

They basically fired order McKinsey consultants 'cause they realized

Marko: 00:30:05

that they're taking them for a ride.

Marko: 00:30:06

Well done and they've start done and they're called

Jacob Shapiro: 00:30:09

well done.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:30:10

And now, and now please call the geopolitical cousins and

Jacob Shapiro: 00:30:12

get us, get us the plane.

Marko: 00:30:14

We could do it.

Marko: 00:30:14

Yeah.

Marko: 00:30:15

Uh, otherwise Qatar will, and you know how that goes, like

Marko: 00:30:18

can you really be behind cut?

Marko: 00:30:19

Like yeah, let's make a pin war.

Marko: 00:30:21

Who's gonna give us a plane Watch when a plane gets delivered

Marko: 00:30:24

on my street in Santa Monica.

Marko: 00:30:26

Like that will be awkward.

Marko: 00:30:27

You know?

Marko: 00:30:28

Um, I. I'll get a ticket for sure.

Marko: 00:30:30

But look, what I'm trying to say is that Saudi Arabia's actually

Marko: 00:30:33

adopted industrialization.

Marko: 00:30:34

They're focusing on actually kind of dirty, like, you know, they're

Marko: 00:30:39

trying to employ 22 million Saudis.

Marko: 00:30:42

So they're much different from the other countries.

Marko: 00:30:45

They're actually a real country.

Marko: 00:30:46

Mm-hmm.

Marko: 00:30:46

With like social stratification.

Marko: 00:30:48

Not every Saudi is a millionaire, you know?

Marko: 00:30:51

Uh, and this is something a lot of people don't understand.

Marko: 00:30:53

It's a country that needs a service sector, industrial

Marko: 00:30:55

sector, and they're doing it very, very correctly, I would say.

Marko: 00:30:58

But yes.

Marko: 00:30:59

Are they gonna get de link from oil price?

Marko: 00:31:01

No, it's gonna take time.

Marko: 00:31:03

Or maybe never happen, but UAE.

Marko: 00:31:05

However, Jacob, I would say think about that country as a country that does have

Marko: 00:31:10

some advantages when it comes to ai.

Marko: 00:31:13

Okay.

Marko: 00:31:13

What are they, well, first of all, what's the biggest downside risk to ai?

Marko: 00:31:18

It's job losses.

Marko: 00:31:19

I mean, we all know this.

Marko: 00:31:21

Well, guess who doesn't care at all?

Jacob Shapiro: 00:31:23

I, I thought, wait.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:31:24

I thought the biggest risk of AI was that it would decide we're all

Jacob Shapiro: 00:31:26

stupid and take over and kill us.

Marko: 00:31:29

I mean, fine, fine, but in the process it would lead

Jacob Shapiro: 00:31:32

to job loss.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:31:33

We would lose jobs in that scenario too.

Marko: 00:31:36

Well, I mean, I think, I think, look, go it pretty clear,

Marko: 00:31:40

the biggest risk to AI is that its deployment will be slowed down by

Marko: 00:31:47

vent vested interests of unions.

Marko: 00:31:50

You know, like people say, look, oh no man, all the truckers will lose their job.

Marko: 00:31:53

Well, but will they, or will we say something like, trucks can be driverless,

Marko: 00:31:58

but there has to be human supervision so that 3 million American men who work

Marko: 00:32:03

in transportation don't lose their job.

Marko: 00:32:05

See, that's something that Saudi Arabia doesn't have.

Marko: 00:32:08

Uh, sorry, not Saudi Arabia.

Marko: 00:32:09

UAE does not have a problem with.

Marko: 00:32:11

One of the interesting advantages that United Arab Emirates has is that

Marko: 00:32:15

their biggest sort of social problem, socioeconomic problem, national

Marko: 00:32:19

security problem, is that they have to rely on expats for everything.

Marko: 00:32:22

From accountants to doctors, to nurses, to hotel staff, to

Marko: 00:32:27

Uber drivers to housekeepers.

Marko: 00:32:30

And wouldn't it be great if you didn't have to do that?

Marko: 00:32:33

And so what are the vested interests?

Marko: 00:32:35

What vested interests exist in UAE that will prevent the deployment of ai?

Marko: 00:32:41

And the answer is kind of fewer than exist in the rest of the world.

Marko: 00:32:45

And so I would say that there is an interesting link there.

Marko: 00:32:47

But overall all I would say is that I think that the Middle East

Marko: 00:32:51

is moving in the right direction.

Marko: 00:32:53

I think it's gonna become a financial capital for global south flows.

Marko: 00:32:56

So south to south connectivity, I think what Abu Dhabi is doing with financial

Marko: 00:33:01

like capital is really interesting.

Marko: 00:33:03

And I think what Saudi Arabia is doing with its industrialization

Marko: 00:33:06

is interesting too.

Marko: 00:33:07

Too many Westerners over index on the line nail 'em.

Marko: 00:33:11

Hero projects, you know, like Yeah, I think, I think that's

Jacob Shapiro: 00:33:17

the dis the, the dismemberment of Khashoggi.

Marko: 00:33:20

I mean, well, yeah, but that happened like how many years ago.

Marko: 00:33:24

And also, let's not forget the United States of it happened,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:33:27

it happened after 2014,

Marko: 00:33:29

but the United States of America killed a Jazeera journalists in Iraq.

Marko: 00:33:35

Okay,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:33:36

sure.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:33:36

I mean, I, I don't know that, but if you say that, sure.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:33:38

That doesn't to defeat the point.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:33:39

No, it's,

Marko: 00:33:39

it's a fact.

Marko: 00:33:40

United States of America shot a missile into Al Jazeera headquarters

Marko: 00:33:44

in Baghdad or somewhere in Iraq.

Marko: 00:33:46

Okay.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:33:47

If you say so, fine.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:33:47

The Saudi, the Saudis are still dismembering journalists, like in,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:33:51

in, during this time p period, that they've embraced liberalization.

Marko: 00:33:54

Well, the plural, the plural is, is awkward in that statement, right?

Marko: 00:34:01

Yeah.

Marko: 00:34:01

Number one, the plural is, is awkward.

Marko: 00:34:03

And the second thing is, you know, uh, Moham bins actually accepted.

Marko: 00:34:08

That that happens and that that was the fault of the state.

Marko: 00:34:14

Think about that for a second.

Marko: 00:34:15

When the United States of America killed several journalists for Al Jazeera during

Marko: 00:34:21

the Iraqi counterinsurgency, it was like, oops, sorry, like raw building.

Marko: 00:34:26

Like, oh, okay.

Marko: 00:34:27

All, all, all I would say is that, you know, uh, if the worst that Saudi Arabia

Marko: 00:34:33

has done is the death of one single journalist, I would say like, let's not

Marko: 00:34:37

start comparing the ledger on crimes against journalism of other countries.

Marko: 00:34:43

Yeah.

Marko: 00:34:44

We

Jacob Shapiro: 00:34:44

can also, we can also talk about the support, like the soft support

Jacob Shapiro: 00:34:47

of Jihadist Group, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:34:48

But yes, I, I'd say your point, but that

Marko: 00:34:50

Okay.

Marko: 00:34:50

But we should talk about that because I would say the transformation

Marko: 00:34:53

of Saudi Arabia is based on that.

Marko: 00:34:55

It is not the soft support, it's the hard support for SUNY Islamists mm-hmm.

Marko: 00:35:01

That caused what you would call an intelligence a, uh.

Marko: 00:35:07

Wait, I forgot the term backlash.

Marko: 00:35:11

Hmm.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:35:11

Yeah, that works.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:35:12

I think, I think that's what you're trying to say.

Marko: 00:35:13

Yeah, that's what, no, there's a, there's a different term though,

Marko: 00:35:15

but anyways, by brain thought.

Marko: 00:35:17

But yeah, that's exactly why they've transformed the country, because the

Marko: 00:35:20

country has clearly realized that they were the ones that were gonna

Marko: 00:35:24

actually hurt the most because of their support for Sunni Islamists.

Marko: 00:35:28

And I think that the moment when that really came home to roost

Marko: 00:35:30

to Saudi Arabia was when Baghdadi proclaimed the caliphate out of Mosul.

Marko: 00:35:35

Yeah.

Marko: 00:35:36

You know, because caliphate doesn't mean that you're gonna

Marko: 00:35:39

go to Rome or Paris or New York.

Marko: 00:35:42

It means you need Mecca.

Marko: 00:35:43

And I think that was the moment when Saudi Arabia, it was precisely because

Marko: 00:35:47

of its overt support for Sunni Islamism, that it has changed today so profound.

Marko: 00:35:54

So, and yes, it's not gonna be a smooth sailing, it's not gonna be a straight

Marko: 00:35:57

line, and you have all sorts of, you know, you are always gonna have empirical data

Marko: 00:36:01

points to prove that it isn't working or that there's like illiberalism.

Marko: 00:36:07

But I think that, again, you gotta go to Saudi Arabia physically,

Marko: 00:36:10

I think, to see the changes.

Marko: 00:36:12

Otherwise, you know, is just not gonna stick.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:36:17

Yeah, I, I'm reminded of, um, early House of Cards when

Jacob Shapiro: 00:36:21

House of Cards was actually good, where Remy is running around lobbying

Jacob Shapiro: 00:36:24

things like that, and Frank Underwood turns to the camera and is like,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:36:27

Remy mistakes money with power.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:36:29

Um, and I had that running through my head when you were

Jacob Shapiro: 00:36:30

talking about material wealth.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:36:31

And I also have the fact that due to low oil prices, Saudi Arabia's

Jacob Shapiro: 00:36:35

already hit its budget deficit target for the year and we're on, we're

Jacob Shapiro: 00:36:38

not even halfway through the year.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:36:39

Well, that's fine, fine.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:36:39

Now they have big coffers and all these other things.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:36:41

Like I get that they have material wealth, but it can't go there.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:36:43

But I think that, um, the, the points we were making about the UAE and the

Jacob Shapiro: 00:36:47

power of city states relative to big states, it actually plays very well

Jacob Shapiro: 00:36:52

into our power geopolitical draft.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:36:54

But before I hand over the mc duties to you, I think we should

Jacob Shapiro: 00:36:57

spend literally max two minutes, 30 seconds on what's going on.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:37:01

A little update on Russia, Ukraine.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:37:04

'cause there's supposed to be negotiations in Istanbul tomorrow.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:37:06

Will they happen?

Jacob Shapiro: 00:37:07

Won't they happen?

Jacob Shapiro: 00:37:08

Is there a ceasefire?

Jacob Shapiro: 00:37:09

Is there not a ceasefire?

Jacob Shapiro: 00:37:10

So give me your 60 seconds and maybe I'll do 60 seconds and

Jacob Shapiro: 00:37:13

then let's get to the fun part.

Marko: 00:37:16

Uh, well, I think that we're getting to a point where, I mean, it's

Marko: 00:37:19

pretty clear that just like Benjamin Netanyahu, uh, Vladimir Putin is

Marko: 00:37:25

risking drawing the ire of Donald Trump.

Marko: 00:37:29

You know, and again, this is where liberal critics of President Trump are gonna

Marko: 00:37:32

have to eat a lot of crow because he was supposed to be pro-Russian, you know?

Marko: 00:37:37

Well, mm. Doesn't look like it.

Marko: 00:37:40

And if Putin makes a mistake here, like if I was Putin's advisor, I'd be

Marko: 00:37:44

like, listen bro, you gotta cut your losses and proclaim victory ASAP.

Marko: 00:37:48

Now I know what the problem for Putin is.

Marko: 00:37:50

He hasn't conquered them yet, which is part of, right.

Marko: 00:37:53

So he needs to bring all of Donbas home or else a lot of right wing

Marko: 00:37:58

nationalist bloggers are gonna like, you know, go after him.

Marko: 00:38:02

He just needs to cut his losses, sharpen the bone, saw since you're obsessed

Marko: 00:38:08

with that point, and start putting some of those bloggers, uh, in jail.

Marko: 00:38:14

Because the truth is you're gonna have to swallow a deal.

Marko: 00:38:17

You're gonna have to swallow a deal, uh, that maybe some nationalist right

Marko: 00:38:21

wing lunatics in Russia don't like.

Marko: 00:38:23

But you know what, who cares about borders?

Marko: 00:38:25

Don, I'll tell you who, who does not give a fuck?

Jacob Shapiro: 00:38:30

Yeah, that nihilist, Jay Trump does not kill that.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:38:34

That.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:38:35

Nihilist Colon is really wafting today.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:38:37

The only thing I want to add to what you were saying is that I don't

Jacob Shapiro: 00:38:40

know if it was intentional or not.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:38:41

I don't have the receipts to prove it one way or another, but I did put myself

Jacob Shapiro: 00:38:44

out there when the Zelensky Oval Office incident happened and said, I think

Jacob Shapiro: 00:38:48

actually Zelensky got the better of that.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:38:49

I think he actually understood the moment better than anybody else.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:38:53

And I think that's true today because like what was the first things that

Jacob Shapiro: 00:38:56

Zelensky said when the US was talking about peace negotiations and Istanbul?

Jacob Shapiro: 00:39:00

He said, I'll be there as soon as Putin is there.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:39:02

Like he has been Yes sir. Every step of the way.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:39:04

And he's also gotten the Europeans squarely in his corner

Jacob Shapiro: 00:39:07

because they're afraid of the big Donald in the White House.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:39:10

'cause you've had Macron, Germany both come out and say, if Russia does not show

Jacob Shapiro: 00:39:14

up to the summit, additional sanctions for Russia, we're gonna get tougher.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:39:16

So I think Zelensky actually like pushed back against Trump a little bit.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:39:19

Got the Europeans on board.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:39:21

Looks like he's the one that's actually playing ball in the aftermath, whereas

Jacob Shapiro: 00:39:24

Putin is now the one sitting there.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:39:26

But he wasn't though, like not quite figuring it out.

Marko: 00:39:27

I think.

Marko: 00:39:28

I think you, you, yes, that's correct.

Marko: 00:39:30

But he wasn't playing ball and he was obsessed with normative value statements.

Marko: 00:39:35

Remember when Zelensky, I think, yeah,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:39:37

I think, I think that was for the cameras.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:39:39

I think that was all about, oh, if I position myself here correctly, if

Jacob Shapiro: 00:39:42

I show myself pushing back against Trump, I get support at home.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:39:45

I get support from the Europeans.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:39:46

I don't really care.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:39:47

I just wanna make sure that everybody's on my side.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:39:50

And you remember when Trump, you were the one who brought this up, that Trump turns

Jacob Shapiro: 00:39:53

to the TV and says, wasn't that good tv?

Jacob Shapiro: 00:39:55

I think Zelensky knew that was good TV too.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:39:57

And I think he used that net meeting to shore up some domestic support

Jacob Shapiro: 00:40:01

home, get the Europeans freaked out so that they would support him more.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:40:04

And now like he walked it back.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:40:06

So when negotiations got a little further down the road, he's the one

Jacob Shapiro: 00:40:10

that's meeting Trump in the back.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:40:11

Well, that's important.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:40:11

Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:40:11

He's the one who's saying, I will show up in Istanbul immediately.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:40:14

You tell me where, when, how high to jump, how many rare earth minerals Fine.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:40:18

And it's Putin is now the one that looks recalcitrant.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:40:20

I think he played it right.

Marko: 00:40:22

I mean, I don't think Zelensky played five D chess.

Marko: 00:40:25

I think I have a more of an Occam's raise view on this.

Marko: 00:40:28

You know, and it's fine.

Marko: 00:40:29

We, we disagree, but like, I think he walked in there intoxicated

Marko: 00:40:34

with the normative moralistic bullshit of the Biden administration

Marko: 00:40:38

that elevated him into a saint.

Marko: 00:40:40

And he was shocked, shocked by denialism of the Trump administration

Marko: 00:40:45

when Trump basically said, look, you're both the same to me.

Marko: 00:40:48

You know?

Marko: 00:40:49

And uh, but to his credit and where we do agree is that he is smart enough to know.

Marko: 00:40:57

Oh.

Marko: 00:40:57

Oh, okay.

Marko: 00:40:58

Oh, okay.

Marko: 00:40:59

So that's what you want.

Marko: 00:41:01

You want me to show?

Marko: 00:41:02

I'm willing to negotiate.

Marko: 00:41:04

Alright.

Marko: 00:41:06

Balls in Putin's court then.

Marko: 00:41:09

And look, I mean, again, I think that the big risk for both Netanyahu

Marko: 00:41:15

and Putin is to assume is to read New York Times, you know.

Marko: 00:41:21

Don't read mainstream media and become intoxicated with this view

Marko: 00:41:25

that Trump is somehow pro your side.

Marko: 00:41:27

You better start dancing when he plays the tune or else you're gonna feel

Marko: 00:41:32

the full wrath of the US And if us and Europe get on the same page and they

Marko: 00:41:37

get those secondary sanctions on, on, on Russia, I think that's kind of game over.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:41:43

Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:41:43

Alright.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:41:44

We have 45 minutes to do a geopolitical draft.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:41:46

Take the mic away, my friend.

Marko: 00:41:49

Alright, cool.

Marko: 00:41:49

So, uh, this is gonna be on the title of the podcast.

Marko: 00:41:53

So if you sort of, uh, expected this, uh, you know, you might have fast forwarded

Marko: 00:41:58

through the first 45 minutes or not, but what Jacob and I are gonna do is

Marko: 00:42:02

we're going to pick 10 countries each.

Marko: 00:42:05

So it's from one to 20, and we're gonna try to make a case for,

Marko: 00:42:09

you know, what are the 20 most powerful countries in the world.

Marko: 00:42:11

And of course, since our Lord and Savior is Bill Simmons

Marko: 00:42:17

of the, uh, bill Simmons podcast network.

Marko: 00:42:20

And the ringer.

Marko: 00:42:20

He has this thing for basketball, which is the, I think, trade value draft, right?

Marko: 00:42:25

Jacob

Jacob Shapiro: 00:42:26

trade value column.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:42:26

Yeah, it's a trade value column, but yes.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:42:28

Yeah.

Marko: 00:42:29

Yeah.

Marko: 00:42:29

So basically what what he does is, uh, he picks players not based of just their

Marko: 00:42:36

skill or their abilities today, but it's their progression in the future

Marko: 00:42:41

relative to how much they're paid.

Marko: 00:42:43

Right?

Marko: 00:42:43

So some rookie who looks like Victor Mbma, who is an absolute freak of

Marko: 00:42:49

nature in the San Antonio Spurs, he's obviously top two, right?

Marko: 00:42:53

Because he is seven foot 12 or whatever the hell he is.

Marko: 00:42:57

He's incredible.

Marko: 00:42:57

And he's on a rookie contract.

Marko: 00:42:59

So what we wanna do is we wanna do the same thing.

Marko: 00:43:01

We wanna think about the next, uh, I think 30 years.

Marko: 00:43:04

Jacob.

Marko: 00:43:04

Let's, let's look, look at, that's fine.

Marko: 00:43:06

Yeah.

Marko: 00:43:06

Like, so not a hundred year time horizon.

Marko: 00:43:08

'cause that's insane.

Marko: 00:43:09

We don't know what technologies are gonna be out there.

Marko: 00:43:11

We wanna really focus on the next 30 year time horizon.

Marko: 00:43:14

And we wanna think about countries that are, um, going to be, you know.

Marko: 00:43:19

The most powerful country geopolitically.

Marko: 00:43:22

Now, in terms of what, um, what sort of rubrics we're gonna use, what

Marko: 00:43:27

sort of, um, variables, what sort of attributes one would use for this?

Marko: 00:43:33

We're gonna probably have different views on this.

Marko: 00:43:36

So, uh, there's something called a National Capability Index.

Marko: 00:43:40

It was created by the Correlates of War Project in 1963.

Marko: 00:43:45

Um, this is an extremely outdated way to measure geopolitical power.

Marko: 00:43:50

It has things like military personnel, like how many men with weapons,

Marko: 00:43:54

you have iron and steel production.

Marko: 00:43:58

Um, it has, uh, although, you know, somebody like Donald Trump might

Marko: 00:44:01

be overindexed on this since he's obsessed about iron and steel, but

Marko: 00:44:05

it's a very Cold War era index.

Marko: 00:44:08

You can go and you can take a look at it.

Marko: 00:44:10

Um, the political scientist who created it back during the,

Marko: 00:44:14

uh, cold War was David Singer.

Marko: 00:44:16

He was the founder.

Marko: 00:44:17

He's a political scientist, university of Michigan.

Marko: 00:44:19

You can download it online.

Marko: 00:44:20

China's actually number one on this, and I think that it's because it's outdated.

Marko: 00:44:25

You know, it looks at demographics in a very one-to-one basis.

Marko: 00:44:28

Uh, in my own research, I've created something, um, that I

Marko: 00:44:31

call the Geopolitical Power Index.

Marko: 00:44:33

And it, uh, looks at, uh, a little bit of different four

Marko: 00:44:37

variables, uh, on population.

Marko: 00:44:40

Uh, I adapt the original population, me measure by penalizing countries with

Marko: 00:44:44

large dependency ratios, so old to youth.

Marko: 00:44:48

Um, and so, uh, I make make the argument that it's not just the

Marko: 00:44:52

size of your population, it's also the demographic, uh, pyramid.

Marko: 00:44:56

Uh, the second is global economic relevance.

Marko: 00:44:58

So the original index really failed to capture a relevance

Marko: 00:45:02

for the global economy.

Marko: 00:45:04

So there was no globalist future.

Marko: 00:45:07

So what I look at is contribution to the global final demand.

Marko: 00:45:11

The more an economy imports, I argue the greater its bargaining power in terms

Marko: 00:45:16

of trade vis-a-vis geopolitical rivals.

Marko: 00:45:19

So what matters to me is imports as percent of uh, GDP.

Marko: 00:45:23

And then for the military, I don't really look at things

Marko: 00:45:26

like, uh, maned wood weapons.

Marko: 00:45:28

I look at whether you have technological cap capacity.

Marko: 00:45:31

Uh, so I have this quantitative measure.

Marko: 00:45:33

There's a couple of other things as well, r and d. Um, I look at that as well.

Marko: 00:45:38

That's part of the index.

Marko: 00:45:40

I'm not actually going to use this index.

Marko: 00:45:41

I'm gonna deviate from it because we're thinking about the future.

Marko: 00:45:44

But I'm just saying that there's a quantitative basis for some of my picks.

Marko: 00:45:48

Did you wanna say anything before we start, Jacob?

Jacob Shapiro: 00:45:51

Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:45:51

Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:45:51

I do wanna say something about, uh, before we start, and by you and I,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:45:54

we haven't talked about this when I was still at GPF with George, we, uh,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:45:57

when we were trying to sell GPF for to institutions for subscriptions,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:01

we created the GPI, the Geopolitical Power Index, which I have not gone back

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:06

to since I left, uh, George in 2019.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:08

But we did a similar, uh, sort of exercise, so that's really funny.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:11

Um, I was actually, I, I, I'm actually reminded of something that, um,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:15

I, I don't know if Roger trained, trained you, Marco, but when I was

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:18

a, an intern at, at Stratford, Roger was the one who was like overseeing

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:22

Roger Baker development program.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:23

He's still

Marko: 00:46:24

a Stratford, I believe.

Marko: 00:46:25

Roger.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:25

Yep.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:26

He is.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:26

He is.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:27

Uh, don't take this the wrong way, Roger, queen of the ashes, if you will.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:30

Um.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:31

So, uh, a little Game of Thrones, denars, storm born reference there.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:35

So, but, um, he, I, I remember many of the things that Roger taught, and

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:39

Roger's been on my podcast too, so if you wanna know who Roger Baker is, he

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:42

doesn't have a big, um, he does not have a big following, I don't think.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:46

'cause he never really wanted that.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:47

But in some ways he like trained.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:48

He was the one actually training a lot of us in the brass tacks,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:51

but he always told me, geopolitics is not a science, it's an art.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:54

Agreed.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:54

It's more like agreed making pottery than it is about, you know, figuring out

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:57

statistics and quantitative measures.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:46:59

And I've always remembered that.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:47:00

It was always super helpful for me when going into really quantitative spaces

Jacob Shapiro: 00:47:04

and having the confidence to be like, okay, like, great, you have statistics.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:47:07

I also have statistics, like I have a very nice index here.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:47:09

I can make the index say whatever I want.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:47:11

I can find a chart or a piece of data that will support any viewpoint.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:47:14

In the end, the more important thing is to qualitatively say, what do I think?

Jacob Shapiro: 00:47:19

This is gonna happen.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:47:20

And so when I think about power, for me it boils down to really one key question.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:47:24

Can this country make you do something you don't wanna do?

Jacob Shapiro: 00:47:28

And to the extent that a country can do that to you, I will add

Jacob Shapiro: 00:47:31

checks in in the power basis.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:47:33

So it's not like I'm just throwing darts at the wall here.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:47:35

Then we have to think about things like, like you said, population.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:47:37

I think nuclear weapons is a really tough one here.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:47:40

And one I really struggled with, is it all the nuclear countries first

Jacob Shapiro: 00:47:43

and then non-nuclear countries?

Jacob Shapiro: 00:47:44

Below are are, if you're like a middling nuclear power, like in Israel or a

Jacob Shapiro: 00:47:49

Pakistan, okay, you have nukes, but does that mean you're more powerful than in

Jacob Shapiro: 00:47:52

Japan who doesn't technically have nukes but has all these other, like that was

Jacob Shapiro: 00:47:55

one thing that I really struggled with.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:47:57

But yeah, for me it's all about we can have all these indicators, we can

Jacob Shapiro: 00:48:00

look at all these different things, but comes back to the question, can

Jacob Shapiro: 00:48:03

this country make another country do something that it doesn't wanna

Jacob Shapiro: 00:48:06

do more than other countries?

Jacob Shapiro: 00:48:08

And that was my ultimate sort of rubric.

Marko: 00:48:10

Uh, brilliant.

Marko: 00:48:11

And I absolutely agree with you.

Marko: 00:48:13

It's not a science at all.

Marko: 00:48:14

So I wanna just start off by saying that yes, I have a quantitative index

Marko: 00:48:18

and I'm gonna deviate from it quite significantly, just to be clear.

Marko: 00:48:23

Um, yeah, that's it.

Marko: 00:48:25

Um, I, I

Jacob Shapiro: 00:48:26

do too, and I will, and I will deviate from it.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:48:27

Everybody has a quantitative index and chat.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:48:29

GPT probably has quantitative in disease better than any of ours.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:48:32

But the thing that will keep us relevant for the next 30 years

Jacob Shapiro: 00:48:34

is like, it's not that easy.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:48:35

Like, that's what keeps us in business.

Marko: 00:48:37

Well, yeah, and, and I think the point is like, let's, let's really

Marko: 00:48:39

think about some non-linearity here.

Marko: 00:48:42

Like, uh, given the technology and given where we're going, you know,

Marko: 00:48:46

what are some of the countries that I think are going to be, uh, interesting

Marko: 00:48:49

Now, nuclear power is interesting.

Marko: 00:48:51

I think it's absolutely critical.

Marko: 00:48:53

Um, I, I would answer that question to you, Jacob, by saying

Marko: 00:48:56

that there are countries out there that are nuclear powers.

Marko: 00:48:59

You know, like Japan, let's not joke here.

Marko: 00:49:01

If Japan wants a nuclear weapon, it's, it has one.

Marko: 00:49:04

Yeah.

Marko: 00:49:04

The other one that, that I think is interesting is population.

Marko: 00:49:07

Uh, I think that you will notice that I will, uh, completely and

Marko: 00:49:10

utterly dismiss demographics.

Marko: 00:49:14

I think that, I think that we are way too obsessed with it.

Marko: 00:49:18

Um, probably because anyone can download data from the UN and then be an expert.

Marko: 00:49:23

And the truth is that we're getting a ton of innovation in AI and automation

Marko: 00:49:30

that literally makes humans irrelevant.

Marko: 00:49:33

And so not irrelevant, but like I. Population size.

Marko: 00:49:37

And I still hear this nonsense about Russia not being able to feel the

Marko: 00:49:40

military 'cause his population is declining or China having a problem

Marko: 00:49:44

'cause it has not enough men.

Marko: 00:49:46

What are people talking about Jacob?

Marko: 00:49:48

We're not fighting wars with millions of men.

Marko: 00:49:50

Right?

Marko: 00:49:51

Like

Jacob Shapiro: 00:49:51

I'll, I'll be, I'll be less diplomatic than you are.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:49:53

Peter Zhan is talking about things on his YouTube channel in

Jacob Shapiro: 00:49:56

order to get clicks and listen.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:49:57

And also if you wanna talk about demographics, you can go read the fourth

Jacob Shapiro: 00:50:00

turning or whatever else, which I famously take shots at whenever I have the chance.

Marko: 00:50:04

And, and for good reason.

Marko: 00:50:05

I mean, look, India supposedly has great demographics.

Marko: 00:50:08

Really.

Marko: 00:50:09

I think I used this on this podcast before, like India, there was recently

Marko: 00:50:13

a Indian railways like job application.

Marko: 00:50:16

For like 900 a job openings, 2 million people applied.

Marko: 00:50:19

Like it's more difficult to get a job in Indian railways than to get

Marko: 00:50:23

into Harvard, uh, Northern Africa.

Marko: 00:50:26

The countries of Northern Africa that started Arab Spring had gorgeous

Marko: 00:50:30

population pyramids for God's sakes.

Marko: 00:50:32

You know, just having a lot of young people doesn't mean

Marko: 00:50:36

that you're gonna be fine.

Marko: 00:50:37

In fact, in many ways you're not gonna be fine because you have too many

Marko: 00:50:41

young people that you can't employ.

Marko: 00:50:42

So anyways,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:50:44

yeah, no, and thing I would just to make the point the

Jacob Shapiro: 00:50:46

most in India's gdp, d per capita, you'll see that in my, is just

Jacob Shapiro: 00:50:49

above that of the Republic of Congo.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:50:52

So like, population can be a curse if you have too much and you're not wealthy

Jacob Shapiro: 00:50:55

enough to spread the wealth around.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:50:56

Yes.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:50:56

Go on.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:50:56

Sorry.

Marko: 00:50:57

Yeah, yeah.

Marko: 00:50:58

No, so I'm just saying like, you will see that in my, uh, deviation.

Marko: 00:51:01

I, I think given technology and given that demographics is a, a double-edged sword.

Marko: 00:51:06

Think of it as a double-edged sword.

Marko: 00:51:08

Mm-hmm.

Marko: 00:51:08

It can cut both ways.

Marko: 00:51:09

Alright, so let's start, I'm gonna start this time around because, um, you

Marko: 00:51:13

know, I've spent a lot of this, uh, uh, podcast relationship with you, Jacob,

Marko: 00:51:16

uh, kind of bashing the idea of American, uh, unipolarity and hegemony and, uh,

Marko: 00:51:23

you know, I've been talking about the multipolar world longer than Xi Jinping

Marko: 00:51:27

and Vladimir Putin, for God's sakes.

Marko: 00:51:29

You know, so I'm gonna start off by picking the United

Marko: 00:51:31

States of America as number one.

Marko: 00:51:33

Of course.

Marko: 00:51:33

I think, you know, I think we all agree, um, and this is very important

Marko: 00:51:37

for those who listen to this.

Marko: 00:51:39

America is not a hegemon.

Marko: 00:51:40

It does not have preponderance of power.

Marko: 00:51:43

It cannot force you to do things with a phone call, as it did famously in

Marko: 00:51:47

the Sue crisis is 19 56, 57, I believe.

Marko: 00:51:51

Uh, but it's still the most powerful country in the world.

Marko: 00:51:54

And I wanna, this is about the next 30 years, and I just think that,

Marko: 00:51:58

um, I. Not to be glib, but in this particular case, I think it does

Marko: 00:52:03

help that geography is what it is.

Marko: 00:52:05

Uh, to give Peter Zion the point, you know, it is surrounded by two oceans.

Marko: 00:52:09

That is absolutely correct, and it's really far from everywhere.

Marko: 00:52:12

Um, technology is narrowing that geographical gap,

Marko: 00:52:16

cybersecurity, other issues.

Marko: 00:52:17

Obviously we all agree with that, but he has a lot of natural resources, and

Marko: 00:52:22

most importantly, even at its darkest moments, it does rediscover itself.

Marko: 00:52:27

That is kind of the beauty of the American Democratic experiment.

Marko: 00:52:31

Uh, many people who are losing their mind about Donald Trump today should

Marko: 00:52:34

just read more about 1971, honestly, and see how dark that period of time was.

Marko: 00:52:40

Or just watch some movies that were made in that period.

Marko: 00:52:43

I mean, they're all dark and rainy and depressed and everybody's sad and,

Marko: 00:52:48

you know, like doesn't wear deodorant and like, you know, just lots of like.

Marko: 00:52:52

Bad cars and dark, dark themes.

Marko: 00:52:56

And so what I would say is that, yeah, I would pick United States of America.

Marko: 00:52:59

I don't even think we'd really talk about it, but US is the most

Marko: 00:53:01

powerful country in the world.

Marko: 00:53:03

Uh, it's head and shoulders above everyone else.

Marko: 00:53:05

And as I always say, that doesn't make you a hegemon.

Marko: 00:53:07

To be a hegemon.

Marko: 00:53:08

To be unipolar, you have to be head, shoulder, torso, hips.

Marko: 00:53:13

That's not the case anymore.

Marko: 00:53:15

Yeah.

Marko: 00:53:15

But it may be in the future.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:53:16

Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:53:17

Yeah, I, I'm with you.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:53:18

I, I, it's not just that the United States can't do things, uh, make people

Jacob Shapiro: 00:53:21

do things with a phone call anymore.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:53:23

I mean, we talked about the Houthis at the very beginning.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:53:25

Apparently the Houthis shot down drones.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:53:27

They got close to shooting down an F 35, if you believe some of the reporting.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:53:30

So like part of the, the sea change in, in, you know, us, uh, posture

Jacob Shapiro: 00:53:34

towards the Houthis was about not even being able to do what, you know, the

Jacob Shapiro: 00:53:37

US did to the Houthis under, or excuse me, not to the Houthis, but to a, an

Jacob Shapiro: 00:53:41

Iranian threat to Persian Gulf shipping in the late 19, I believe it was.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:53:44

Was that Reagan or Bush?

Jacob Shapiro: 00:53:45

I can't remember which one it was, but the late Reagan 1980s.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:53:47

But to your point, operat, I als I also praying.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:53:50

Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:53:50

So sorry, praying Mantis.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:53:51

Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:53:51

But I also had the US number one, even, even though I say all the things that

Jacob Shapiro: 00:53:54

you do, um, and I, my guess is that our first two picks will be the same

Jacob Shapiro: 00:53:59

and then things might get interesting.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:54:01

Um, but my second pick is gonna be, um, I'll, I'll take

Jacob Shapiro: 00:54:04

China number two on the board.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:54:07

Um, I think that's also pretty clear.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:54:09

Um, and I think the greatest threat to our multipolar thesis, and I say

Jacob Shapiro: 00:54:12

that all the time, is that it we're really headed towards another bipolar

Jacob Shapiro: 00:54:15

world where it's the US on the one side and China on the other side.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:54:19

Um, China has huge problems.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:54:21

It has structural economic problems.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:54:22

It has hundreds of millions of, you know, impoverished peasants that

Jacob Shapiro: 00:54:25

need to enjoy enrichment that the coastal cities have enjoyed thus far.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:54:29

Um, it has resource constraints, so it, for the first time in Chinese history,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:54:33

it can't feed its own population.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:54:35

It has to go out and import, you know, food and energy and capital and technology

Jacob Shapiro: 00:54:40

and all these other different things.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:54:41

So there's lots of different challenges that China has, but, uh, you know,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:54:45

don't put me in the category of any of these people who have been, you

Jacob Shapiro: 00:54:48

know, your Gordon Changs or your Peter Hans who have been predicting the

Jacob Shapiro: 00:54:51

imminent collapse of China for decades.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:54:53

Which is to your point, like, you know, if you, if you're worried about the

Jacob Shapiro: 00:54:56

United States, go back, watch the 1970s, could say the same thing about China.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:54:59

Go back to like the um.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:55:01

The cultural revolution, or go back to the, the famines that Mao caused with

Jacob Shapiro: 00:55:05

some of his, uh, disastrous policies.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:55:07

Even go back to the demographic decline that people were predicting

Jacob Shapiro: 00:55:10

for China in the 1980s, 1990s.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:55:12

This is the country in the world that makes things.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:55:14

It's the manufacturing heart of the world.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:55:16

All of that expertise, all of that human capital.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:55:20

Um, it's positioned geographically like it's going to be here for the long haul.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:55:24

Uh, maybe it's not the Chinese Communist Party, like it could be a

Jacob Shapiro: 00:55:27

soft sort of revolution and some, some other sort of regime gets ushered in.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:55:30

Like, I'm not wedded to it being necessarily the current regime.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:55:33

I think it will be the current regime, but I'm not currently wedded to that.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:55:35

But I don't think we're gonna go back to like a warring states period where

Jacob Shapiro: 00:55:39

the different regions of China will be fighting each other and different

Jacob Shapiro: 00:55:42

regions around, or different countries around it will go take points.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:55:45

Like I think China is very clearly the number two and probably, you know, 30

Jacob Shapiro: 00:55:49

years from now, probably nipping on the heels of, of US power as, as being

Jacob Shapiro: 00:55:53

the first in that multipolar world.

Marko: 00:55:56

I think the technological innovation that's happening

Marko: 00:55:59

in China is endogenous today.

Marko: 00:56:02

It's not copied anymore.

Marko: 00:56:04

I think that was the nineties.

Marko: 00:56:05

That was the early two thousands.

Marko: 00:56:06

They are now creating new innovative things.

Marko: 00:56:09

And so, and you know, by the way, it's not just military dual use stuff.

Marko: 00:56:12

It's like stuff like payment systems here in America.

Marko: 00:56:16

I mean, I still write physical checks, you know, like, and, and I

Marko: 00:56:21

remember, uh, uh, my good friend who worked with me, um, at my previous

Marko: 00:56:25

job, he would always like joke.

Marko: 00:56:26

He was like, he had to write a check 'cause he lived here in Santa Monica.

Marko: 00:56:29

He was like, what is this?

Marko: 00:56:31

You guys don't have like instant payment solutions.

Marko: 00:56:34

Like, this is America, you know?

Marko: 00:56:35

So, uh, I agree with you.

Marko: 00:56:37

I think China is second.

Marko: 00:56:38

This is the one of those where demographics is real problem.

Marko: 00:56:41

You know, like, yes.

Marko: 00:56:43

Chinese demographics are not great.

Marko: 00:56:45

The problem is that it could stall their GDP per capita, but it could also actually

Marko: 00:56:50

help maintain some upward trajectory.

Marko: 00:56:54

If GDP continues to grow at even a three to 5% pace as the per capita part

Marko: 00:57:00

narrows, your wealth could actually Yeah,

Jacob Shapiro: 00:57:03

just to keep it And, and I'm glad you say that 'cause because I

Jacob Shapiro: 00:57:05

have two rejoinder to the demographic, uh, argument on China if you think

Jacob Shapiro: 00:57:08

the demographic argument is operative.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:57:10

Okay, but then Japan is gonna collapse first and so is South Korea and

Jacob Shapiro: 00:57:14

so are a bunch of European states.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:57:15

So it doesn't make sense to say China's got the bad demographics, but

Jacob Shapiro: 00:57:18

all these others are gonna be okay.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:57:19

No.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:57:19

Like these other countries are gonna hit the, the bug that are

Jacob Shapiro: 00:57:22

gonna hit the windshield first.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:57:23

The other thing is that China has hundreds of millions of people, I

Jacob Shapiro: 00:57:27

already referenced them, who are impoverished living in the interior.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:57:30

So most countries don't have hundreds of millions of people that they could

Jacob Shapiro: 00:57:33

bring into the middle class to increase consumption and things like that.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:57:36

So are you gonna get a baby boom in China over the next 10 years?

Jacob Shapiro: 00:57:39

No.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:57:39

But if you could redistribute income to those hundreds of millions of poor

Jacob Shapiro: 00:57:42

people and have them buying made in China, air conditioners and everything

Jacob Shapiro: 00:57:46

else, then you get the equivalent of that consumption boost as a result.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:57:50

So if they handle the macro correctly, it's not like Japan has an interior where

Jacob Shapiro: 00:57:54

it can go find 200 million poor people that it can get to consume things like

Jacob Shapiro: 00:57:58

most countries don't have that relevance.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:58:00

And the other thing I wanna say here is that demographics, you said

Jacob Shapiro: 00:58:02

it's a double-edged sword, it's also a static present indicator.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:58:06

Like, you know, we're fighting linearity.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:58:07

You have, we have no clue what decisions Chinese families are gonna

Jacob Shapiro: 00:58:11

make and how many babies they're gonna have 15 and 20 years from now.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:58:15

If the Chinese government comes out and says, there is now a three child policy.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:58:18

Maybe they'll have a huge demographic boom, 20 years from now, maybe

Jacob Shapiro: 00:58:22

the Chinese people will get more optimistic and start having more kids

Jacob Shapiro: 00:58:24

may, you know, there's a whole bunch of different opportunities there.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:58:27

So I think we can point to demographics as saying this is a big issue and it requires

Jacob Shapiro: 00:58:31

focusing on everything from robotics to internet of things, to enriching

Jacob Shapiro: 00:58:36

the interior of China, et cetera.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:58:38

But the idea that we're gonna project the decisions that a billion people

Jacob Shapiro: 00:58:42

are gonna make about how many children they're gonna have, like, I don't

Jacob Shapiro: 00:58:45

have the hubris to, to make that call.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:58:47

And I think we've seen that, you know, there are ways around it and

Jacob Shapiro: 00:58:49

more ways around it for China than there are for other countries.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:58:51

Okay.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:58:52

Sorry.

Marko: 00:58:53

No, it's all good.

Marko: 00:58:54

Okay, so, uh, I'm gonna do something now that's unfair.

Marko: 00:58:57

I'm gonna take basically 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5 countries off the board.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:59:07

I was wondering.

Jacob Shapiro: 00:59:07

Okay, go ahead.

Marko: 00:59:09

I'm gonna take the EMU five.

Marko: 00:59:11

So this is the top five countries in the European Monetary Union.

Marko: 00:59:16

Uh, just let's call it Western Europe.

Marko: 00:59:18

Uh, I don't wanna call it the EU 'cause it's not, uh, that will be also unfair.

Marko: 00:59:22

So I'm gonna take Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands.

Marko: 00:59:26

Off the board.

Marko: 00:59:27

We are talking about the next 30 years.

Marko: 00:59:29

I believe, I conviction view that Europe will become a

Marko: 00:59:32

confederation, not a federation.

Marko: 00:59:35

United States of Europe will never happen.

Marko: 00:59:37

If that is your mark of success, then you will disagree with me.

Marko: 00:59:41

But I do think there are alternatives to a federal union,

Marko: 00:59:44

and one of them is Switzerland.

Marko: 00:59:46

You know, it's, it's a confederation.

Marko: 00:59:48

Um, the first iteration of the United States of America, the

Marko: 00:59:52

articles of Confederation was going to be something similar.

Marko: 00:59:55

Uh, obviously the United States at the time was a very weak, weak

Marko: 00:59:59

country, afraid that the United Kingdom would come back, which it did.

Marko: 01:00:04

And so it needed a federal entity.

Marko: 01:00:06

Instead of a confederal.

Marko: 01:00:07

I don't think Europe needs that.

Marko: 01:00:09

Um, several things that are going for Europe.

Marko: 01:00:11

First demographics again.

Marko: 01:00:13

Everybody thinks Europe has terrible demographics.

Marko: 01:00:16

This is false, and no, not because of Syria.

Marko: 01:00:19

Asylum seekers, for God's sake, stop watching YouTube videos.

Marko: 01:00:23

Europe is fine because it has one of the greatest.

Marko: 01:00:26

Western Europe has one of the greatest heists in geopolitics.

Marko: 01:00:31

It's called the EU labor market.

Marko: 01:00:33

It allows somebody from Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, to move to any

Marko: 01:00:38

place in the EU and get a job, which means that Western Europe gets

Marko: 01:00:42

educated, ready to work families to just show up and start working.

Marko: 01:00:48

Now, the problem was that United Kingdom stole most of these immigrants

Marko: 01:00:51

because Eastern Europeans speak English.

Marko: 01:00:53

They don't speak French or German.

Marko: 01:00:55

But now that the UK has decided to pull out a revolver and shoot itself

Marko: 01:00:59

in the foot and depart the EU precisely because of this one advantage.

Marko: 01:01:04

Um, it can have fun trying to find immigrants somewhere else.

Marko: 01:01:08

Western Europe doesn't.

Marko: 01:01:10

It has ready-made, educated, hardworking eastern Europeans to suck

Marko: 01:01:16

like a vampire from Eastern Europe.

Marko: 01:01:17

So if you wanna pick Poland, if you wanna pick an Eastern European country,

Marko: 01:01:21

just beware that they are going to struggle to keep their demographics,

Marko: 01:01:26

which are already bad, stable.

Marko: 01:01:29

Uh, so that takes care of the usual reason people hate in

Marko: 01:01:33

Europe, which is demographics.

Marko: 01:01:34

The other one is technology.

Marko: 01:01:35

Yes, China is obviously challenging, uh, European manufacturing, but one

Marko: 01:01:40

of the things I would never discount is German ability to reinvent itself.

Marko: 01:01:43

Germany reinvented itself numerous times.

Marko: 01:01:45

It's not gonna de industrialize.

Marko: 01:01:47

Uh, there's a lot of mythological technological innovation that

Marko: 01:01:51

only Germany has and uh, so I'm gonna pick Western Europe.

Marko: 01:01:55

I think that the reason the world will remain multipolar.

Marko: 01:01:58

Is because what?

Marko: 01:01:59

Because Donald Trump has bestowed upon Europe and also Vladimir Putin,

Marko: 01:02:04

a reason to finally integrate.

Marko: 01:02:07

As we talked before, you know Jacob, I don't think

Marko: 01:02:09

countries are born out of love.

Marko: 01:02:12

I think countries are born out of fear.

Marko: 01:02:14

And finally, I think Europeans have sufficient fear to integrate further.

Marko: 01:02:19

So I'm picking Western Europe.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:02:22

I mean, you gotta have a little bit of both.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:02:23

You gotta have love of one's own, and you do have to have, uh, fear of what

Jacob Shapiro: 01:02:27

somebody else might do to your own.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:02:28

In some sense, fear might actually be the secondary because you're

Jacob Shapiro: 01:02:30

afraid of what somebody might do to the people that you truly do love.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:02:33

So I think I would take the more romantic, uh, sense there.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:02:36

I want you to know, uh, I was really struggling with what to do with

Jacob Shapiro: 01:02:39

Europe and I, I disciplined myself by saying I can't pick a block.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:02:42

I, I have to have a single country.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:02:43

And if, um, I would've had France as my number three.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:02:47

Oh, wow.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:02:48

My number three choice was France, just by itself.

Marko: 01:02:51

Wow.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:02:51

Trade value.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:02:52

So like,

Marko: 01:02:52

this is one of those you're buying low.

Marko: 01:02:54

Well done, well done.

Marko: 01:02:55

Okay.

Marko: 01:02:56

Well then well buying

Jacob Shapiro: 01:02:56

low, they've got nukes, they've got the military, they've got

Jacob Shapiro: 01:02:59

the, but you know, you, you've taken them.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:03:00

But I just want listeners to know, like, even, even without the other four Wow.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:03:04

Like I would've had France number three.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:03:05

Wow.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:03:05

Soft power and

Marko: 01:03:06

wow.

Marko: 01:03:07

I, I mean, I feel so much, listen, just to.

Marko: 01:03:09

Yes, I kind of cheated, but this is about the next 30 years and

Marko: 01:03:13

I have a high conviction view that I'm picking for the future.

Marko: 01:03:16

They will integrate further.

Marko: 01:03:17

And the other thing I would say is it makes it more fun.

Marko: 01:03:20

'cause like you pick France, I pick Germany, then we pick

Marko: 01:03:22

Spain in Italy at some point.

Marko: 01:03:23

Come on.

Marko: 01:03:24

Like me, you know, let's go.

Marko: 01:03:25

No, and it's right.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:03:28

No, and and cheating would've been taking

Jacob Shapiro: 01:03:29

the EU 27, which you didn't do.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:03:31

You took the EMU five and said, confederation.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:03:34

Strong word.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:03:34

It's this block that you're saying that it's, you're not like

Jacob Shapiro: 01:03:36

extrapolating linearly from here.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:03:38

So I think you're totally good.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:03:39

But I just wanted to say that if, if we had kept going just country

Jacob Shapiro: 01:03:41

basis, like I would've, France even by itself would've been my number

Jacob Shapiro: 01:03:45

three, which I think would've been a little controversial with those.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:03:47

Off the board though, this is where it starts to get really

Jacob Shapiro: 01:03:50

interesting, like beyond these blocks.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:03:52

Like, okay, what's next?

Jacob Shapiro: 01:03:53

And I know, is it nukes versus this thing?

Marko: 01:03:55

So you get the first pick of the non-obvious.

Marko: 01:03:58

I, although, I don't know, I think it's pretty obvious.

Marko: 01:03:59

And I, I know you Jacob, I think I know who you're gonna pick.

Marko: 01:04:02

But go ahead.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:04:03

You think you do?

Jacob Shapiro: 01:04:04

Okay.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:04:05

I, I'm taking Turkey.

Marko: 01:04:06

Oh, boom.

Marko: 01:04:08

Nevermind.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:04:09

It's nevermind.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:04:10

All right.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:04:11

Harrison,

Marko: 01:04:11

Nico Harrison.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:04:15

I don't think it's the Nico Harrison move of the draft at all.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:04:18

'cause precisely to your point, if Western Europe does unify a little bit

Jacob Shapiro: 01:04:22

more like that, if Russian power recedes over the next 30 years as I expect it to,

Jacob Shapiro: 01:04:26

if China and some of these other powers do have problems, Iran is gonna spend

Jacob Shapiro: 01:04:30

the next 30 years trying to catch up.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:04:32

Who is the country at the center of this Middle East that you're talking about?

Jacob Shapiro: 01:04:35

Who is the one who's gonna have the Navy that actually controls access to the

Jacob Shapiro: 01:04:39

Mediterranean and to the Persian Gulf?

Jacob Shapiro: 01:04:41

Who is the one that is already stealing market share from the

Jacob Shapiro: 01:04:43

Europeans on manufacturing?

Jacob Shapiro: 01:04:44

Who is going to dominate the Black Sea Basin and your

Jacob Shapiro: 01:04:47

Balkan homelands in the future?

Jacob Shapiro: 01:04:49

This is Turkey.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:04:50

This is not any other country.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:04:51

This is the rise of the Neo Ottoman Empire over the next 30 years.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:04:55

Probably the strongest military in NATO outside of the us.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:04:59

Like maybe France has something to say because of nukes, but if you're

Jacob Shapiro: 01:05:01

just thinking about military spending and capability and deployments and

Jacob Shapiro: 01:05:05

things like that, I'll take the new Ottoman Empire at the heart of the

Jacob Shapiro: 01:05:08

Mediterranean in this multipolar world.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:05:10

'cause this Mediterranean powers do very well when they're controlling these

Jacob Shapiro: 01:05:14

trading lanes at the center of the world.

Marko: 01:05:16

Yeah, I think one of the things, uh, that's a knock on Turkey is, uh,

Marko: 01:05:20

you know, complete and utter lack of, uh, endogenous energy production.

Marko: 01:05:23

But I think technological innovation is important.

Marko: 01:05:26

There's nuclear power, there's, uh, alternatives, there's

Marko: 01:05:29

all sorts of other things.

Marko: 01:05:30

Uh, it's also, uh, and

Jacob Shapiro: 01:05:32

there's a lot and, and there's an awful lot of gas offshore, and

Jacob Shapiro: 01:05:34

the Black Sea Basin is also open to them.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:05:36

So,

Marko: 01:05:36

and there's a awful lot of potential for Iraq to boost

Marko: 01:05:39

its oil consumption if somebody bestows it with stability, which

Marko: 01:05:43

is what you're getting at you.

Marko: 01:05:44

No, no, no.

Marko: 01:05:45

I, I think, but that's a knock.

Marko: 01:05:46

You know, that's a knock on Turkey.

Marko: 01:05:47

The other knock on Turkey was always like, domestic technological

Marko: 01:05:50

innovation is kind of terrible and trash, quite frankly, but not anymore.

Marko: 01:05:55

We know the turkeys, for example, world Leader in Drone Technology.

Marko: 01:05:58

Uh, everybody talks about Iran.

Marko: 01:06:00

No, no, it's Turkey.

Marko: 01:06:02

Russia just has access to the Iranian drones, but those are trash.

Marko: 01:06:06

Turkey has actually, um, you know, I follow military spending a lot

Marko: 01:06:09

'cause I think it's a great indicator.

Marko: 01:06:11

As I said, uh, it's, it's a sign of geopolitical power and Turkey, along

Marko: 01:06:15

with South Korea, is one of the world's largest, uh, movers up the, the chain.

Marko: 01:06:19

So I think this is a surprising pick, but it's about the next 30 years.

Marko: 01:06:23

And I think that, uh, you know, I respect this, I respect this pick.

Marko: 01:06:27

It's, it's got, I, I mean, how do I push back on it?

Marko: 01:06:31

I mean, you know, I don't really want to push back on it

Marko: 01:06:36

because I think it's, it's cool.

Marko: 01:06:37

It's a great pick.

Marko: 01:06:38

And by the way, we didn't get a chance to talk about PKK and the government.

Marko: 01:06:43

Mm-hmm.

Marko: 01:06:43

You know, uh, that's, that's a really positive development for Turkey from

Marko: 01:06:47

a domestic stability perspective.

Marko: 01:06:48

Yeah.

Marko: 01:06:48

Yeah.

Marko: 01:06:49

So, you know, it's

Jacob Shapiro: 01:06:50

like, yeah, and, and, and, and Syria too.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:06:52

Like it's the combo of the SDF basically agreeing to be part of the Syrian

Jacob Shapiro: 01:06:56

state, the PKK laying down its arms, and you've got Syria at this Riyadh

Jacob Shapiro: 01:06:59

summit or hanging out with Saudi Arabia like President Trump, basically

Jacob Shapiro: 01:07:02

accepting the Syrian government saying you need better ties with Israel.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:07:05

Like all of this is going a according to plan to Turkey.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:07:08

The less they can worry about the Kurds in their backyard, the more they can project

Jacob Shapiro: 01:07:11

power into the Black Sea, into North Africa, down the horn, into the Balkans.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:07:15

Like, I like the way the map looks for them.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:07:17

I think the biggest shot to the argument is, um, Erdogan's power base and what

Jacob Shapiro: 01:07:22

happens when Erdogan is no longer there.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:07:24

And does Turkish politics revert to this secular versus religious clash?

Jacob Shapiro: 01:07:28

And like, does it get mired in this own domestic politics inflation

Jacob Shapiro: 01:07:32

trap that hap that has happened to Turkey several times over the past 40

Marko: 01:07:35

years.

Marko: 01:07:35

But listen, listen, I think macroeconomics we're picking for the 30 years, you know,

Marko: 01:07:39

like eventually, eventually, macroeconomic policy tends to move towards, uh, sanity.

Marko: 01:07:44

Uh, it just does and part of the reason is that voters go, go ahead.

Marko: 01:07:49

Sorry.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:07:50

No, no, no, no.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:07:50

Sorry.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:07:51

You, you finish it up.

Marko: 01:07:52

No, just voters.

Marko: 01:07:53

Voters eventually learn what's stupid, you know?

Marko: 01:07:55

So, um, but yeah, go ahead

Jacob Shapiro: 01:07:58

and just to say, remember my ultimate indicator

Jacob Shapiro: 01:08:00

was can this country make other countries do what it wants them to do?

Jacob Shapiro: 01:08:04

And I think by that metric, Turkey can do lots of things, whether it's

Jacob Shapiro: 01:08:07

with migrants, whether it's with closing different sea lanes around

Jacob Shapiro: 01:08:10

it, whether controlling things in the Middle East, like I, I think that

Jacob Shapiro: 01:08:13

Turkey has, has a lot going for there.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:08:14

Okay.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:08:14

Your pick.

Marko: 01:08:16

Okay.

Marko: 01:08:16

So, uh, I mean, I wanna pick someone else, but I think we can't ignore this country.

Marko: 01:08:22

Um, I thought you were gonna pick this one because I always

Marko: 01:08:24

think of you as a Indian no file.

Marko: 01:08:28

Mm-hmm.

Marko: 01:08:28

Okay.

Marko: 01:08:29

So I don't wanna let it slip beyond top five.

Marko: 01:08:31

'cause first and foremost, we're gonna get so much hate mail.

Marko: 01:08:34

There's a lot of people in India and I. You know, they're gonna, they're

Marko: 01:08:37

gonna send us hate bail, and I just don't wanna deal with it, number one.

Marko: 01:08:40

Number two, it is like the largest population in the world,

Marko: 01:08:43

which is not like insignificant.

Marko: 01:08:45

And also, even if there's some sort of an economic crisis because of its

Marko: 01:08:49

demographics, which everybody just louds, is a positive, it is not a positive.

Marko: 01:08:54

Um, I think that ultimately policy in India will strive towards

Marko: 01:08:58

competence even if there's a crisis.

Marko: 01:09:00

Uh, I worry about AI replacing its service sector.

Marko: 01:09:04

I think AI is going to impact India extremely negatively.

Marko: 01:09:09

Um, a lot of its service sector is geared towards, um, the kind of technological

Marko: 01:09:14

services that AI could re replace.

Marko: 01:09:17

Uh, but what we're starting to see is manufacturing start to

Marko: 01:09:20

slowly, very slowly move to India.

Marko: 01:09:23

And I do think that it, it will be a country that can't really be ignored.

Marko: 01:09:27

Um, so I'm gonna take it as fifth.

Marko: 01:09:29

Now.

Marko: 01:09:29

Please note it has fallen to fifth.

Marko: 01:09:33

I think most people would've clearly thought it's top three.

Marko: 01:09:36

It's the best performing market over the last five years.

Marko: 01:09:39

I'm picking it because I think it cannot be ignored over the next 30, 30 years.

Marko: 01:09:43

I don't want us to be too controversial.

Marko: 01:09:46

I think I'm playing the role of Reow here saying you can't

Marko: 01:09:49

ignore size, you know, come on.

Marko: 01:09:52

Like, I think this is a seven foot five giant that can, uh, potentially

Marko: 01:09:56

develop a three point shot.

Marko: 01:09:58

And I just think we have to give it, you know, that

Jacob Shapiro: 01:10:01

Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:10:01

Quantity has a quality all of its own.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:10:03

But is it Victor Wema or is it Man Bowl?

Jacob Shapiro: 01:10:07

Like It could, it could be either one.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:10:08

There might be Rick.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:10:09

There's a large Delta it,

Marko: 01:10:10

listen, I think it might be Rick Smith, you know, and Rick

Marko: 01:10:13

Smiths took the Indiana Pacers to the finals and he lost the six games

Marko: 01:10:16

to one of the greatest teams ever.

Marko: 01:10:18

But like, so, you know, like I just think that we would get too

Marko: 01:10:22

fancy by dropping it below fifth.

Marko: 01:10:24

I have somebody I like more.

Marko: 01:10:26

Has a higher delta than India over the next five.

Marko: 01:10:29

Mm. But because you didn't take it, I had to take it, you know, I thought

Marko: 01:10:32

you would take it at four and I, and

Jacob Shapiro: 01:10:33

I had no, I had it at five.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:10:35

Like I was really hanging and hawing between India and, and Turkey.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:10:39

And, and I really, it came down to that question of will this country make

Jacob Shapiro: 01:10:42

other countries do what it wants to do?

Jacob Shapiro: 01:10:44

And I think this is the thing that India doesn't have, and you've seen

Jacob Shapiro: 01:10:46

this with this India, Pakistan war.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:10:48

It can't even get people on its side with Kashmir.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:10:51

Um, India has so many internal problems that it needs to flesh out.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:10:54

And it might start, it might take 30 years to do so, and in 30 year, like if

Jacob Shapiro: 01:10:57

this has been a 50 year time horizon, it might have been a different question.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:11:00

But if we're just thinking about 30 and all the things India has to fix

Jacob Shapiro: 01:11:04

that it hasn't fixed yet, and its ability to project power beyond the

Jacob Shapiro: 01:11:07

subcontinent, like all plus there's other things with climate change and

Jacob Shapiro: 01:11:11

wa like all that stuff sort of says to me, okay, like they're not gonna be

Jacob Shapiro: 01:11:14

able to force people, um, to do things.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:11:17

Um.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:11:18

This, I hate, I hate having to make this next pick.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:11:20

'cause you're sort of caught between the declining powers of

Jacob Shapiro: 01:11:23

like your Russias and your UKs.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:11:25

So they've got some of the fancy things that we would say are

Jacob Shapiro: 01:11:27

good indicators for power today.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:11:29

But will they really be there in 30 years?

Jacob Shapiro: 01:11:31

Will they even exist in their current form in 30 years?

Jacob Shapiro: 01:11:34

But then you've got like your Brazils, which okay, like Dugal said, or Dugal

Jacob Shapiro: 01:11:40

has reported to have said, I don't think he actually said it, that Brazil is the

Jacob Shapiro: 01:11:42

country of the future and always will be.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:11:43

Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:11:43

So I'll probably be picking Brazil 30 years from now for the exact same reasons.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:11:48

Um, and I, I even want, you know, Japan also in that declining power maybe,

Jacob Shapiro: 01:11:51

I don't know, is it sort of in there?

Jacob Shapiro: 01:11:53

Um, just to say I really struggled.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:11:56

And I think that ultimately if we go down to like forcing action, I,

Jacob Shapiro: 01:12:00

I think I, I don't like this pick, but I think I'm picking Russia.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:12:04

I think I have to have Russia there.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:12:06

Wow.

Marko: 01:12:06

I'm surprised by that.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:12:08

Yeah, I mean, I, I, I'm struggling, but I'm thinking

Jacob Shapiro: 01:12:10

about they're the second biggest nuclear power in the world.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:12:14

Um, they're gonna still be able to exert influence.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:12:16

I, I don't feel great about the pick, so please, uh, tell me why.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:12:19

I think that's more of a Nico pick than Turkey.

Marko: 01:12:22

No, uh, uh, I would not have picked it.

Marko: 01:12:24

I would've picked it in the top, uh, 10, maybe 15.

Marko: 01:12:27

But, uh, this is where I agree with, uh, our former colleague in Fi, Peter Zion.

Marko: 01:12:31

I think they have a lot of problems.

Marko: 01:12:33

Demographics is not necessarily one of them.

Marko: 01:12:35

Um, I think it's a very large country.

Marko: 01:12:37

I think that it needs to consolidate much, much more.

Marko: 01:12:41

I think that this is the one country where I do worry about, um, centrifugal forces.

Marko: 01:12:47

Right.

Marko: 01:12:48

Is that correct?

Marko: 01:12:48

Like, you know Yep.

Marko: 01:12:49

Kind of.

Marko: 01:12:50

Mm-hmm.

Marko: 01:12:50

Tearing the place apart.

Marko: 01:12:51

Without strong leadership, I think you're gonna have, um, problems in the future.

Marko: 01:12:56

I'm also, uh, concerned about technological innovation.

Marko: 01:13:00

I. Um, a lot of things that Russians are very good at, like military

Marko: 01:13:02

technology, other countries are starting to nip at their heels.

Marko: 01:13:06

Um, I think they need to have a period of peace and security so they can

Marko: 01:13:10

recenter on technological innovation, on education, things like that.

Marko: 01:13:14

And that hasn't happened.

Marko: 01:13:15

In fact, there's been a brain train outta Russia to places like Georgia

Marko: 01:13:19

or Serbia or Armenia, and that's a really big problem for the country and

Marko: 01:13:24

I don't like it for the next 30 years.

Marko: 01:13:26

Um, so this isn't a pure demographic play at all.

Marko: 01:13:29

Um, you know, we're willing to deviate from that, but yeah.

Marko: 01:13:33

Uh, I've got, I've got concerns about Russia.

Marko: 01:13:36

Um, so who am I gonna pick?

Marko: 01:13:38

Um, so actually the country that comes next on my list, I'm gonna skip it.

Marko: 01:13:43

This is the quantitative one.

Marko: 01:13:45

Mm-hmm.

Marko: 01:13:45

And I'm gonna pick South Korea.

Marko: 01:13:48

Hmm.

Marko: 01:13:49

So South Korea may have the

Jacob Shapiro: 01:13:50

interesting,

Marko: 01:13:51

yeah.

Marko: 01:13:51

South Korea may have the worst demographics in the world.

Marko: 01:13:54

Um.

Marko: 01:13:56

Facts.

Marko: 01:13:56

But what I like about South Korea is a couple of things.

Marko: 01:13:59

First of all, technological innovation is clearly there.

Marko: 01:14:02

Um, they are one of the world's leaders in things that matter,

Marko: 01:14:05

like chips, like semiconductors.

Marko: 01:14:07

Um, they also do have an endogenous military industry, and I've been noticing

Marko: 01:14:12

more and more countries rely on South Korea, specifically in Southeast Asia.

Marko: 01:14:16

Um, so that's something Japan doesn't really have, not to the same extent as

Marko: 01:14:20

South Korea, mainly for political reasons.

Marko: 01:14:23

Um, they're effectively a nuclear power.

Marko: 01:14:25

If they wanted to, boom, it's done.

Marko: 01:14:27

Like don't worry about it.

Marko: 01:14:28

Um, and I like the fact that they are, uh, fit.

Marko: 01:14:32

I think the problem, the difference between Japan and South Korea,

Marko: 01:14:34

obviously Japan has doubled the population, larger economy and so on.

Marko: 01:14:38

The thing is though, I think Japan's gotten a little bit lazy and I, I, I say

Marko: 01:14:42

that because I think that South Korea has been in much more of a, uh, antagonistic.

Marko: 01:14:48

I. National security environment, uh, and that's made them fitter.

Marko: 01:14:53

They've been preparing for a war a lot longer than Japan has.

Marko: 01:14:57

Um, I also find that it's, uh, you know, soft power is interesting.

Marko: 01:15:03

It's not part of my rubric at all, but I like it.

Marko: 01:15:06

I like when countries have the ability to make fun of themselves,

Marko: 01:15:10

to create art that crosses cultures.

Marko: 01:15:13

And no country has punched above South Korea's ability to do that.

Marko: 01:15:17

I mean, South Korea has absolutely like crushed soft power.

Marko: 01:15:21

So, um, on all of those, I, I really like South Korea.

Marko: 01:15:24

I think that innovation in robotics, automation and AI are going to allow

Marko: 01:15:29

them to overcome that demographic burden.

Marko: 01:15:33

And so, yeah, I absolutely love South Korea.

Marko: 01:15:35

I think that they're going to be, uh, one of the top 10 countries,

Marko: 01:15:39

uh, in terms of geopolitics.

Marko: 01:15:40

And so I actually picked them, uh, three spots above my quantitative, uh, number.

Marko: 01:15:44

They're actually 10 already.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:15:47

Amazing.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:15:47

I think the other thing that they have on a 30 year time horizon is the potential

Jacob Shapiro: 01:15:51

for reunification with the north.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:15:53

Oh, I talked about China demographics and hundreds of

Jacob Shapiro: 01:15:55

millions of people in the interior.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:15:56

Wow.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:15:56

Like, yeah.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:15:57

South Korea as it is today, can't compete with Japan.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:16:00

I'd take Japan today, but if you're thinking about, oh, you reunify with the

Jacob Shapiro: 01:16:03

north and and south on South Korea terms, and South Korea gets to use that labor

Jacob Shapiro: 01:16:07

base to do all these other sorts of, okay.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:16:09

Like now I'm, I'm listening.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:16:11

I think it's a speculative play.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:16:12

I think it, it's a, it's either a hundred or, or maybe a zero.

Marko: 01:16:15

Yeah.

Marko: 01:16:15

I mean, you're talking 80 million people at that point, so that's,

Marko: 01:16:18

that's a really good point.

Marko: 01:16:18

All right.

Marko: 01:16:19

Go ahead.

Marko: 01:16:19

Number eight.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:16:20

Alright.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:16:21

Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:16:21

'cause I have a hard stop in 11 minutes.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:16:23

So May, should we do top 10, Marco and do another 10, or should we

Jacob Shapiro: 01:16:26

blitz through, uh, this next?

Jacob Shapiro: 01:16:27

I think we can blitz through

Marko: 01:16:28

and then maybe we do, uh, take you think we can

Jacob Shapiro: 01:16:29

blitz through?

Marko: 01:16:30

I think so.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:16:31

Okay.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:16:31

Well, I'm not leaving Brazil off the board any longer, so I'll take Brazil here.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:16:35

I will project that Brazil replaces the United States as a low cost producer

Jacob Shapiro: 01:16:39

for a lot of the different agricultural exports that are out there in the world.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:16:42

I think from a food security basis, people will be looking towards Brazil.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:16:45

I think Brazil has, um, a lot of innovation.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:16:48

I mean, they're very early on in this, but green shoots of innovation,

Jacob Shapiro: 01:16:52

manufacturing capacity and also like the United States oceans away from

Jacob Shapiro: 01:16:55

enemies, has a, has a nice little hemispheric and maybe dominate and push

Jacob Shapiro: 01:16:59

back against the United States with, I'll, I'll take Brazil at this point.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:17:01

Off the board.

Marko: 01:17:03

Alright, so my, my controversial, uh, pick that I'll be accused of being a

Marko: 01:17:07

homer, uh, is gonna be number nine Canada.

Marko: 01:17:13

Oh, how nice.

Marko: 01:17:14

Yeah.

Marko: 01:17:15

I like Canada because it's uh, good

Jacob Shapiro: 01:17:16

for Canada.

Marko: 01:17:17

It's a hedge against the us quite frankly.

Marko: 01:17:19

Um, any hiccup by the US will be a benefit for Canada.

Marko: 01:17:24

From a brain, uh, drain perspective, innovation, technology, um, it has

Marko: 01:17:30

the most favorable actually geography, especially as climate change becomes more

Marko: 01:17:35

of an issue over the next th 30 years.

Marko: 01:17:37

If you believe in climate change, then it's also a hedge

Marko: 01:17:40

against that because its growing.

Marko: 01:17:41

Seasons are going to expand.

Marko: 01:17:43

Yes, forest fires will happen more, but you know, this is about big picture stuff.

Marko: 01:17:48

Um, also I think that the population growth is shocking.

Marko: 01:17:51

Immigration has been huge.

Marko: 01:17:53

Uh, now there's been a backlash against it.

Marko: 01:17:55

But, uh, as Canada builds out infrastructure, you know, it has

Marko: 01:17:58

an ability to basically accept an endless amount of human beings.

Marko: 01:18:03

This is a country with one of the largest freshwater basins.

Marko: 01:18:06

It can grow food for the entire planet if it wanted to.

Marko: 01:18:10

Um, and it has, you know, all the kind of governance issues, like, think of Canada

Marko: 01:18:16

as almost like a superpower with, you just have, it's a turnkey superpower.

Marko: 01:18:22

It has everything you need.

Marko: 01:18:24

From sort of the Western developer perspective, um, you

Marko: 01:18:28

just need to put humans into it.

Marko: 01:18:30

And so I think that Canada is going to be a top, top 10

Marko: 01:18:34

player over the next 10 years,

Jacob Shapiro: 01:18:37

was not in my top 20.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:18:39

So you can have them, uh, which says everything.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:18:41

Sorry, sorry.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:18:42

Canada.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:18:43

Um.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:18:44

Coming in at number 10, who I'll take off the board and

Jacob Shapiro: 01:18:46

I'm gonna get shipped for this.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:18:47

Uh, I will take Iran off the board now.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:18:49

Wow.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:18:50

Again, thinking on a 30 year time horizon, a country that basically already

Jacob Shapiro: 01:18:53

has nuclear weapons, uh, strategic access to the Persian Gulf, lots of

Jacob Shapiro: 01:18:58

different oil resources, uh, history of projecting power into Central Asia, into

Jacob Shapiro: 01:19:02

these other Shiite parts of the world.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:19:04

Um, like maybe not your typical power, but if we're thinking about a country

Jacob Shapiro: 01:19:08

that can make other countries do things like Iran has already shown, it can

Jacob Shapiro: 01:19:11

be a focal point of decision making even in its poultry state right now.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:19:15

What happens 30 years from now when there's a leadership transition,

Jacob Shapiro: 01:19:18

when Iran is welcomed into the family of nations once again,

Jacob Shapiro: 01:19:21

like, again, 30 year time horizon.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:19:22

I think I'll take Iran as a major player, um, in that part of the world.

Marko: 01:19:27

Alright, well, I think that, uh, what I'm gonna do now,

Marko: 01:19:29

that's a great pick by the way.

Marko: 01:19:30

I've, I've, I've always been very, uh, drawn to it as well, especially

Marko: 01:19:35

if it, uh, um, moves away from the current system of governance.

Marko: 01:19:39

I think, uh, you know.

Marko: 01:19:40

I think that's a fair point.

Marko: 01:19:42

I think it's gonna have to unleash the innovation and

Marko: 01:19:44

entrepreneurship of its people.

Marko: 01:19:46

And that requires it to discard its current system of government.

Marko: 01:19:50

And if that happens, honestly this is gonna be the best pick of the draft.

Marko: 01:19:53

Mm-hmm.

Marko: 01:19:54

So at 10 Iran, great pick.

Marko: 01:19:56

Um, the next one for me, uh, there's a symbiotic gravitational pull, you

Marko: 01:20:04

know, uh, and if you pick a Brazil, I think that I have to pick Argentina.

Marko: 01:20:10

I think that Brazil and Argentina are going to advance.

Marko: 01:20:14

I think what's happening in Argentina is a good example of your Iran analogy.

Marko: 01:20:18

Argentina, you can think of it as having discarded its status system of garment.

Marko: 01:20:25

Obviously I am projecting the current pace of Malay reforms

Marko: 01:20:30

as continuing and benefiting.

Marko: 01:20:32

And so I think that, uh, yeah, I think there will be innovation and

Marko: 01:20:35

I think that there will be reform in Argentina, so I'm gonna pick them.

Marko: 01:20:39

You'll love it.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:20:41

Okay, uh, we've got seven minutes to do the last nine here.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:20:45

I'm gonna get very controversial.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:20:46

It's my first city state.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:20:48

Um, I will take Singapore at number 12.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:20:51

I'm thinking about the Strait of Malacca.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:20:53

I'm thinking about material wealth.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:20:55

I'm thinking about the ability to project power with advances

Jacob Shapiro: 01:20:58

in AI and things like that.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:20:59

And there is no place in the world that is better suited to deploy AI

Jacob Shapiro: 01:21:03

and all these different fancy things at scale than a city state with the

Jacob Shapiro: 01:21:06

relative stability, material, wealth, and strategic location as Singapore.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:21:10

So if we're thinking about who can shape global trends and how

Jacob Shapiro: 01:21:12

they can use that power, I think in multipolar eras we'll see the

Jacob Shapiro: 01:21:15

return of very powerful city states.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:21:17

And I think Singapore is the top one.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:21:18

So I'm probably picking too high 'cause I wanted them, but I wanted them, I needed,

Jacob Shapiro: 01:21:23

I needed the crown jewel at number 12.

Marko: 01:21:25

Alright, so, uh, we'll definitely do a download of this in the next episode

Marko: 01:21:29

'cause we're gonna do this very quickly.

Marko: 01:21:30

Saudi Arabia is my 13 pick.

Marko: 01:21:32

Now I am including in this, first of all, Saudi Arabia is doing what Iran

Marko: 01:21:36

should have done just 10 years earlier.

Marko: 01:21:39

The second thing is I think that when I see Saudi Arabia, I do

Marko: 01:21:42

really mean the region as well.

Marko: 01:21:44

So, um, no offense to anyone, uh, but I think Saudi Arabia is going

Marko: 01:21:48

to harness the power of innovation, not just in Saudi Arabia, but also

Marko: 01:21:52

in neighboring countries as well.

Marko: 01:21:54

So I'm gonna pick that at 13.

Marko: 01:21:56

Uh, and that includes some of the city states that are around Saudi Arabia.

Marko: 01:22:00

Mm-hmm.

Marko: 01:22:00

You know, so that like, it's like Saudi Arabia plus like three

Marko: 01:22:04

Singapores, so I'm gonna take them 13.

Marko: 01:22:07

Exactly.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:22:09

It's probably a crime that we've left them to number 14.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:22:11

'cause I don't think Japan is gonna collapse anytime soon.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:22:13

So at this point I will bend the knee to Japan and say, sorry we left you off.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:22:17

Yes, you have lots of demographic issues and all these other things,

Jacob Shapiro: 01:22:20

but if there's any country that is gonna respond to the continued

Jacob Shapiro: 01:22:23

growth of China, it's gonna be Japan.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:22:25

And Japan is gonna be at the front lines of doing that.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:22:27

And they technologically all different sorts of ways.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:22:29

Like they know how to exist in this world.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:22:30

So I'll take them.

Marko: 01:22:32

Okay.

Marko: 01:22:32

So I'm gonna take Ukraine 15.

Marko: 01:22:35

Ooh, spicy.

Marko: 01:22:37

Yeah, so I think the Ukraine is going to become a garrison state.

Marko: 01:22:41

Garrison states do very well.

Marko: 01:22:43

Western Germany, Taiwan, uh, South Korea, Japan in some sense,

Marko: 01:22:50

Pakistan for a period of its time.

Marko: 01:22:52

Um, so I think, yeah, Ukraine's gonna be a garrison state.

Marko: 01:22:55

It's gonna be armed to the teeth.

Marko: 01:22:56

Your point that Russia is still six.

Marko: 01:22:58

Okay, cool.

Marko: 01:22:59

Well, the west is gonna have to stalk Ukraine with a lot of good

Marko: 01:23:02

governance, anti-corruption, money, innovation, and so on.

Marko: 01:23:07

So I, I like Ukraine and, and I almost feel like I took it way too low here.

Marko: 01:23:12

I think that it's a large country, it's in the West.

Marko: 01:23:14

It's got a lot of natural resources, not energy, but it's

Marko: 01:23:17

gonna have to work on that.

Marko: 01:23:19

Um, so yeah.

Marko: 01:23:20

Now look, we have four minutes and we have to do five.

Marko: 01:23:23

So here's what I'm gonna say.

Marko: 01:23:25

Let's do second part of this next week.

Marko: 01:23:28

Next, yeah.

Marko: 01:23:29

If you agree.

Marko: 01:23:30

That sounds good.

Marko: 01:23:31

Uh, we've got top 15, uh, we got five more and then maybe we can do some thoughts.

Marko: 01:23:35

You know, for example, uh, Russia didn't fall as much as it did.

Marko: 01:23:39

Japan seems to have fallen more than I think both of you and I. Like if I

Marko: 01:23:43

took South Korea seventh, like, you know, should Japan really be 14th?

Marko: 01:23:49

Like I think there's a lot of things here that, that maybe

Marko: 01:23:52

we can talk about next time.

Marko: 01:23:54

Um, but yeah, that, that can be part two of our trade value.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:24:00

I think that sounds great.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:24:01

And that also allows the listeners to send us feedback about the initial list.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:24:05

Like let's, so tell listeners, tell us either via email or via social media

Jacob Shapiro: 01:24:09

how you think the draft went so far to maybe some of your alternate picks.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:24:12

And then to your point, Marco, we can pick the last five and then sort of go

Jacob Shapiro: 01:24:15

through and whether this was actually a fruitful exercise or whether we

Jacob Shapiro: 01:24:18

were just picking out of our butts.

Marko: 01:24:21

Alright.

Marko: 01:24:21

Cool.

Marko: 01:24:21

Well thank you Jacob.

Marko: 01:24:22

Uh, I guess we'll do another one soon.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:24:26

We've got three minutes.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:24:27

Uh, anything you want quick 60 seconds of NBA thoughts?

Jacob Shapiro: 01:24:30

Uh, I don't think any expert out there had, uh, Knick's, Pacers as,

Jacob Shapiro: 01:24:34

uh, as the Eastern Conference Finals.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:24:36

I, my, my, uh, my Knick's, uh, Timberwolves, uh, uh, pick is starting

Jacob Shapiro: 01:24:41

to look a little, a little good looking.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:24:43

Okay.

Marko: 01:24:44

No.

Marko: 01:24:44

So, uh, my pick was timber rolls versus, uh,

Marko: 01:24:50

Boston.

Marko: 01:24:52

Yeah.

Marko: 01:24:53

Yeah.

Marko: 01:24:53

So I looked really stupid on the timber rolls, right?

Marko: 01:24:55

Like, I mean, that, that didn't look like it was gonna happen,

Marko: 01:24:57

but what I think would be cool was Timberwolves versus Nicks, you know?

Marko: 01:25:01

And I just think that that's like such a great finals, um, because Kat versus

Marko: 01:25:06

Randall, like who won the trade, yeah.

Marko: 01:25:09

I guess it's one of the first trades that actually really did work out

Marko: 01:25:12

for both teams, like massively.

Marko: 01:25:13

So, no, I, I, I think it's gonna be interesting.

Marko: 01:25:15

Uh, YOIC needs help last night's game where he just had a crazy stat line

Marko: 01:25:19

that three pointer or like just, I mean.

Marko: 01:25:22

It was just sad to see that.

Marko: 01:25:24

Uh, but, uh, but yeah, um, all I would say is like, uh, don't write

Marko: 01:25:29

off Denver yet, because it's gonna go back to game seven, I think in Okay.

Marko: 01:25:34

C and then maybe, um, you know, we'll see the youth versus

Marko: 01:25:39

experience that might work.

Marko: 01:25:40

Uh, other than that, uh, you ended up being right about Tatum, but I

Marko: 01:25:46

gotta say I don't feel good about it.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:25:48

Oh, I, I, I don't want to be right if I'm right, if I'm right

Jacob Shapiro: 01:25:51

this way, but I, I'm rooting for Yoic, but I think OKC, the, the smart money is

Jacob Shapiro: 01:25:55

KC and that OKC has agree, has a measure of everyone and that, and that probably

Jacob Shapiro: 01:25:58

going through the crucible of Denver has now made them ready for what they

Jacob Shapiro: 01:26:02

need to get the rest of the way, like Denver needed to give them that test.

Jacob Shapiro: 01:26:05

So,

Marko: 01:26:05

by the way, speaking of picking Canada too high mm-hmm.

Marko: 01:26:09

Nobody's mentioned this narrative, but that OKC nuggets, um, series

Marko: 01:26:14

is really Canada on full display.

Marko: 01:26:17

Like the two most important players on the Thunder are clearly obviously Canadian.

Marko: 01:26:21

It's not Williams who's playing terrible, it's Dot and Shea.

Marko: 01:26:25

And then of course, uh, Murray on Nuggets can be the difference maker.

Marko: 01:26:30

So I thought that was really interesting.

Marko: 01:26:31

Uh, but yeah.

Marko: 01:26:32

Cool.

Marko: 01:26:32

Alright.