Episode 18

The  Trade Value Leader Index

Jacob Shapiro and Marko Papic debut a provocative “Trade Value Index” - ranking the top 30 global leaders by geopolitical and economic value, modeled after Bill Simmons’ NBA Trade Value framework. They debate each pick based on leadership effectiveness, economic performance, future potential, and strategic skill. Categories include “products of the system,” “flawed but effective,” and “miracle workers.” The episode mixes deep geopolitical analysis with irreverent commentary and playful competitiveness, offering both serious insight and tongue-in-cheek takes on today’s most powerful politicians. Part two will feature a full debate on their final lists.

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Timestamps:

(00:00) - Introduction

(00:40) - Concept of Trade Value in Politics

(03:56) - Ranking Criteria and Methodology

(10:22) - Initial Rankings: 26-30

(13:30) - Discussion on Initial Rankings

(21:08) - Flawed but Effective Leaders

(29:53) - Unproven Gems

(38:13) - Competent but Boring Leaders

(41:51) - Diamonds Under Pressure

(44:52) - Lula and Bolsonaro: The Biden Comparison

(45:10) - Victor Orban: The Smart Tactician

(45:54) - Benjamin Netanyahu: The Politician's Politician

(46:55) - Javier Millet: Crypto Ron Paul Meets Steve Jobs

(48:01) - Narendra Modi: The Twilight of a Career

(52:40) - Diamonds Under Pressure: Eddie Rama and Cyril Osa

(53:16) - Naive Bukele: The Perfect Man for the Era

(58:52) - Shigeru Ishiba: The Tragic Hero of Japan

(01:02:25) - Top Leaders: From Pedro Sanchez to Georgia Maloney

(01:19:12) - Final Thoughts

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Geopolitical Cousins is produced and edited by Audiographies LLC. More information at audiographies.com

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Jacob Shapiro is a speaker, consultant, author, and researcher covering global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture. He speaks to audiences of all sizes around the world, helps global multinationals make strategic decisions about political risks and opportunities, and works directly with investors to grow and protect their assets in today’s volatile global environment. His insights help audiences across industries like finance, agriculture, and energy make sense of the world.

Jacob Shapiro Site: jacobshapiro.com

Jacob Shapiro LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jacob-l-s-a9337416

Jacob Twitter: x.com/JacobShap

Jacob Shapiro Substack: jashap.substack.com/subscribe

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Marko Papic is a macro and geopolitical expert at BCA Research, a global investment research firm. He provides in-depth analysis that combines geopolitics and markets in a framework called GeoMacro. He is also the author of Geopolitical Alpha: An Investment Framework for Predicting the Future.

Marko’s Book & Newsletter: www.geopoliticalalpha.com/marko-papic

Marko’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marko-papic-geopolitics/

Marko’s Twitter: https://x.com/Geo_papic

Marko’s Macro & Geopolitical Research at BCA: https://www.bcaresearch.com/marketing/geomacro

Transcript
Jacob Shapiro:

Hello listeners.

Jacob Shapiro:

Welcome back to Geopolitical Cousins.

Jacob Shapiro:

This is part one of the Trade Value Leader Index column,

Jacob Shapiro:

whatever you want to call it.

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, Marco and I bring our top 30 leaders.

Jacob Shapiro:

We go back and forth.

Jacob Shapiro:

Part two will be digesting the list and arguing about

Jacob Shapiro:

whether we were right or wrong.

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, please, we want your feedback.

Jacob Shapiro:

Email me at jacob@jacobshapiro.com or uh, marco@geopoliticalalpha.com.

Jacob Shapiro:

Or you can, you know, if you just do me, I'll also make sure that Marco is CC'd.

Jacob Shapiro:

We want your feedback on this list.

Jacob Shapiro:

It'll be controversial.

Jacob Shapiro:

We want the controversy.

Jacob Shapiro:

It's great.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, take care of the people you love.

Jacob Shapiro:

Cheers and see you out there.

Marko Papic:

Finally, after, uh, a long delay due to well life reality,

Marko Papic:

Israel, Iran, all that stuff.

Marko Papic:

Uh, we are finally going to do a trade value, um, list for.

Marko Papic:

Basically global leaders, so this is based on as many things of our

Marko Papic:

podcast are on the, uh, bill Simmons podcast and he does this NBA trade

Marko Papic:

value list where he basically looks at the top 50 players in the NBA and

Marko Papic:

tries to establish their trade value.

Marko Papic:

This is, this doesn't mean who's the best player in the world, it's just

Marko Papic:

that who would you trade for who?

Marko Papic:

So the player that's number one on this list would be UNT Tradeable.

Marko Papic:

Effectively, if any team called you and said, Hey, we want.

Marko Papic:

This guy, you would say?

Marko Papic:

No.

Marko Papic:

Um, now that's a combination of age of salary and skill because of course,

Marko Papic:

somebody who's like, let's say 39 years old and extremely good, but paid a bunch

Marko Papic:

of money, may not be that UNT tradable.

Marko Papic:

Uh, similarly, somebody who's ranked 10th on this list, it would mean

Marko Papic:

that everybody ranked one to nine.

Marko Papic:

You would absolutely trade that player, uh, for those top nine.

Marko Papic:

So in the context of politics, it means that, let's say that the prime

Marko Papic:

minister of your country that you live in is ranked 23rd on our list.

Marko Papic:

You would absolutely.

Marko Papic:

Drive your prime Minister to the airport, pack your bag and ship

Marko Papic:

them for anyone above, right?

Marko Papic:

So that's, that's kind of what we're doing here.

Marko Papic:

Um, now a couple of things I wanna say, uh, before we start as an introduction.

Marko Papic:

First of all, I'm a big believer in the Warren Buffet quote.

Marko Papic:

Uh, I try to invest in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can

Marko Papic:

run them sooner or later, one will.

Marko Papic:

And so, um, I think both you and I, Jacob, I think we agree that fundamentally

Marko Papic:

our framework for thinking about geopolitics is that we try to invest

Marko Papic:

in countries that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them because sooner

Marko Papic:

or later one will so replace company with country and, and you get, uh, a

Marko Papic:

little bit of a taste of what we do.

Marko Papic:

So this is kind of unnatural in a way because I think that our, um.

Marko Papic:

You know, you and I both kind of have a bias to maybe de-emphasize leadership.

Marko Papic:

Me maybe more than you, doesn't matter.

Marko Papic:

The point is, we're doing this for fun.

Marko Papic:

Okay.

Marko Papic:

This is cool.

Marko Papic:

It's fun.

Marko Papic:

We're gonna get to rank politicians around the world.

Marko Papic:

I mean, that's kind of cool.

Marko Papic:

The other thing I wanna say is that this is not necessarily

Marko Papic:

just about current performance, I think it's also about the future.

Marko Papic:

So we're, we're projecting and that's what the trade value that

Marko Papic:

Bill Simmons does with basketball players is also about the future.

Marko Papic:

That's why he will often rank younger players higher than those

Marko Papic:

who are already mature and have already sort of been priced in.

Jacob Shapiro:

Yeah, that was actually, I thought that was the hardest part of

Jacob Shapiro:

developing my own list was thinking about like, the future of different leaders.

Jacob Shapiro:

'cause if it's just like you're trading one for today, it's like

Jacob Shapiro:

that's a different conversation than sort of, uh, the future.

Jacob Shapiro:

So I'm, I'm curious to see where we land on that.

Marko Papic:

Okay.

Marko Papic:

A couple of more things that I wanna say.

Marko Papic:

Four points I wanna make before we start just to orient ourselves.

Marko Papic:

Uh, first of all, we are trying to.

Marko Papic:

Rank policymakers across different countries.

Marko Papic:

Right.

Marko Papic:

And so when I kind of floated this idea to a bunch of my friends I respect,

Marko Papic:

they say, well, that's impossible.

Marko Papic:

You know, running Greece is such an incredibly different job from

Marko Papic:

running the United States of America.

Marko Papic:

So how can you possibly compare, um, prime Minister Mitsa with,

Marko Papic:

you know, president Trump?

Marko Papic:

What we're assuming here is that there is something inherent about

Marko Papic:

leadership, something truly universal.

Marko Papic:

And of course, Machiavelli wrote the Prince specifically to elucidate

Marko Papic:

some of those universal qualities.

Marko Papic:

It wasn't just about how to be a good prince in Italy, in an Italian city state,

Marko Papic:

although he did have chapters at the end, kind of tucked in later about that.

Marko Papic:

Mm-hmm.

Marko Papic:

It was really about something that's inherent to being a leader

Marko Papic:

of other men and women in a country.

Marko Papic:

So our primary definition here of a successful policymaker is

Marko Papic:

somebody who takes on the material constraints of their context and

Marko Papic:

sees to successfully overcome them.

Marko Papic:

So this is about bending time space altering reality.

Marko Papic:

And this is very unnatural to me, Jacob, because I'm such a hard nosed believer

Marko Papic:

that ultimately material constraints matter so much more than anything else.

Marko Papic:

And I'm basically arguing here.

Marko Papic:

I wanna pick those leaders who, uh, take those material

Marko Papic:

constraints and overcome them.

Marko Papic:

Second, it also means that small country policy makers may have an advantage here.

Marko Papic:

They will often be the ones that have more, obviously,

Marko Papic:

overcome their disadvantages.

Marko Papic:

And you'll see that certainly in my list.

Marko Papic:

I dunno if that was the case with yours.

Marko Papic:

Um, I don't know if you, you potentially found that as well.

Marko Papic:

And by the way, we don't know each other's list, so this is probably

Marko Papic:

going to be a complete shit show.

Marko Papic:

Just to be clear.

Marko Papic:

Like I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm guessing we will have no alignment, at least, at

Marko Papic:

least Bill Simmons is using statistics, you know, when he says this basketball

Marko Papic:

player averages this or that he knows how much the contracts are and so on

Jacob Shapiro:

third, well, no, but I, I listened to your prompt.

Jacob Shapiro:

You had a couple of things that I needed to keep in mind, so I bet

Jacob Shapiro:

We'll, I bet we'll land closer than you think, but I mean, I,

Marko Papic:

I hope so.

Marko Papic:

I hope so.

Marko Papic:

So let's go through that prompt.

Marko Papic:

Uh, we have a loose hierarchy of how we measure one's performance.

Marko Papic:

So this is like statistics for a basketball player,

Marko Papic:

uh, that Bill Simmons uses.

Marko Papic:

Here's what we're using, first approval rating by the public.

Marko Papic:

It's kind of like po uh, points per game.

Marko Papic:

It's, it's a little bit of an empty calorie stat.

Marko Papic:

You know, you can, you can have good stats on a bad team.

Marko Papic:

Um, populists obviously have great.

Marko Papic:

Popularity early in their term because they're giving candy to the people.

Marko Papic:

Nonetheless, we all believe that on some level, uh, the median voter is

Marko Papic:

wise and, uh, well, at least I do.

Marko Papic:

I know Jacob less so, uh,

Jacob Shapiro:

yes.

Jacob Shapiro:

I think the median voter is a moron.

Jacob Shapiro:

I I'll take that position against you every time.

Marko Papic:

Such a, that's maybe the only thing where you are

Marko Papic:

more elitist than I am, you know, so, uh, but that's interesting.

Marko Papic:

The second is, come at be

Jacob Shapiro:

median voters.

Jacob Shapiro:

I think you're all idiots.

Jacob Shapiro:

I will take the house against all of you.

Marko Papic:

We need the median voter to reach escape velocity on this podcast.

Marko Papic:

Economic performance.

Marko Papic:

Economic performance of the country is the next, I mean, you know, it's objective.

Marko Papic:

We can measure it again, it can be juiced up by populace, but we're

Marko Papic:

trying to do our best, uh, especially relative to the peers by the way.

Marko Papic:

That's where it matters.

Marko Papic:

Geopolitical performance in terms of building alliances, projecting power,

Marko Papic:

navigating a complicated neighborhood, staying sidestepping, landmines that are

Marko Papic:

out there, choosing China versus America, trying to balance them, that's important.

Marko Papic:

Finally, military performance could be in there too.

Marko Papic:

Uh, that could be critical for some leaders like Bibi and Zelensky.

Marko Papic:

However, I think it's very diff difficult to personalize that.

Marko Papic:

I'm not sure to what extent they're actually doing anything on the front

Marko Papic:

lines, so just keep that in mind.

Marko Papic:

Uh, finally, I just wanna remind everyone, the whole point of this is very simple.

Marko Papic:

Would you trade this leader for somebody else?

Marko Papic:

That's, that's the point.

Marko Papic:

Uh, if you are in a particular country, who would you trade?

Marko Papic:

The person who leads your country for someone else.

Marko Papic:

Now, finally, uh, last setup before we go into it, we have, um, I think it's, uh,

Marko Papic:

well, 30, we're gonna do a list of 30, and we have several categories, uh, that

Marko Papic:

we're gonna try to smush our leaders in.

Marko Papic:

Uh, first of all, the bottom rank.

Marko Papic:

And by the way, if you're in the top 30, you're good.

Marko Papic:

So I don't wanna hear anyone complaining like, oh, you made so and so number 28.

Marko Papic:

Yeah, there's like 190 sovereign countries in the world, right?

Marko Papic:

Like, if you are on our list, you're not doing poorly.

Marko Papic:

So the, the bottom part of our list, we call it product of a system or a

Marko Papic:

situation, you know, is this somebody who's just like, I mean, clearly

Marko Papic:

the, the, the country's doing well.

Marko Papic:

But we're not sure if we should really give them the credit.

Marko Papic:

So that's why they are in this bottom line.

Marko Papic:

Then we go to flawed, but effective, I felt like we should have a category

Marko Papic:

for those leaders who have some problems with their track record, like

Marko Papic:

human rights, you know, like, ugh, this is one of those like, ugh, like

Marko Papic:

sections, but they're still effective.

Marko Papic:

So that's, that's that one.

Marko Papic:

Then we have some unproven gems that wanted a category.

Marko Papic:

This is where like, you know, they're, they, they look like they're really

Marko Papic:

good, but it's too early to tell, uh, that diamonds under pressure,

Marko Papic:

miracle workers, these are leaders that are really taking their country and

Marko Papic:

massively outperforming expectations.

Marko Papic:

Uh, then UNT tradable unless, right, so these are leaders that you would

Marko Papic:

not trade unless somebody called you from the top five or top six or

Marko Papic:

however many you have, which is, I. I'm hanging up the phone right now.

Marko Papic:

That's the last category.

Marko Papic:

That means that if you had a chance to trade these and somebody

Marko Papic:

calls you and says, Hey, can we take this number one policymaker?

Marko Papic:

Uh, you would say No.

Marko Papic:

Hanging up the phone.

Marko Papic:

Okay.

Marko Papic:

Jacob.

Marko Papic:

I think that's, that's it, right?

Jacob Shapiro:

I think you did a great job.

Jacob Shapiro:

We we're also gonna do some honorable mentions, uh, too, right?

Jacob Shapiro:

To start people that were on the, on the bubble, but didn't quite make the list.

Marko Papic:

Well, let's do that at the end.

Marko Papic:

Oh,

Jacob Shapiro:

you wanna do it at the end?

Jacob Shapiro:

Okay.

Jacob Shapiro:

I thought we would go bottomed up, but we can do it at the end too.

Jacob Shapiro:

That's fine.

Jacob Shapiro:

Yeah,

Marko Papic:

yeah.

Marko Papic:

Just, just because, you know, then you get a chance to explain why

Marko Papic:

some of those honorable mentions didn't make it on the list, right?

Jacob Shapiro:

Yeah, yeah, you're right.

Jacob Shapiro:

And that, that way we don't give away, uh, some that are not gonna be on the list.

Jacob Shapiro:

So, I'm with you.

Jacob Shapiro:

I'm with you.

Marko Papic:

Alright, cool.

Marko Papic:

So first I'm gonna start off with this, uh, with my, I actually, uh, so Jacob,

Marko Papic:

uh, in these categories, I ended up doing just five each, you know, so

Marko Papic:

there's six categories, five each.

Marko Papic:

Uh, but if you didn't, that's co totally cool.

Marko Papic:

Uh, we're gonna start off with products of a system in a situation.

Marko Papic:

Um, first I wanna shout out to Finland and Switzerland.

Marko Papic:

Uh, they're well run places that don't really seem to

Marko Papic:

need anybody to be in charge.

Marko Papic:

Uh, I would've loved to put the president of the Swiss configuration onto this

Marko Papic:

list, but they change it every year, and so it doesn't really matter.

Marko Papic:

Switzerland just chucks along and perhaps because Switzerland is such a

Marko Papic:

well run place, and yet nobody really knows who's in charge of it, perhaps.

Marko Papic:

That more than anything illustrates the complete vacuous of this effort.

Marko Papic:

You know, Switzerland has solved the problem by not needing anybody to lead it.

Marko Papic:

But anyways, uh, the 26 to 30 in no particular order, but I'm gonna start

Marko Papic:

from the last Donald task of Poland.

Marko Papic:

Luca Doche at 29 of Slovenia.

Marko Papic:

Oh, I'm sorry, I, sorry, my bad.

Marko Papic:

Robert Goup of Slovenia at 29.

Marko Papic:

Lawrence Wong of Singapore at 28, although he could have also been in the

Marko Papic:

two new, two fresh, uh, to know too soon to tell category, uh, OLF Christen of

Marko Papic:

Sweden and met f Fredrickson of Denmark.

Marko Papic:

So as you can see, a lot of advanced OECD sort of wealthy

Marko Papic:

places that are just well run.

Marko Papic:

I can't tell if it's the leadership or not the case for Donald Tusk.

Marko Papic:

Cover of the Economist, probably k Poland's kind of riding high.

Marko Papic:

You know, there's a lot of Poland hype out there.

Marko Papic:

Um, I think I have a gut feeling he's a Superior Commission president,

Marko Papic:

then president of Poland, uh, then Prime Minister of Poland.

Marko Papic:

Um, but that's just me.

Marko Papic:

Why did I put Slovenia here?

Marko Papic:

Just crushing it.

Marko Papic:

Goop came out of nowhere.

Marko Papic:

Um, new movement, kind of the Emmanuel Macron of Slovenia has done really well.

Marko Papic:

Popularity is down a little bit, but, uh, generally the economy

Marko Papic:

and Slovenia are doing extremely well in their neighborhood.

Marko Papic:

Lauren Swang, uh, you know, has been in power really since

Marko Papic:

May 20, 24, so not that new.

Marko Papic:

His speech after April 2nd, uh, tariff announcement was probably the best

Marko Papic:

pushback and you would not have expected that to come from Singapore, which

Marko Papic:

usually tries to have a low profile.

Marko Papic:

Um.

Marko Papic:

Speech against those tariffs was really, really impassioned

Marko Papic:

and, and excellent wolf.

Marko Papic:

Christen, why is the Swedish Prime Minister here?

Marko Papic:

Well, a very complicated coalition actually with Swedish Democrats that

Marko Papic:

they've navigated extremely smoothly.

Marko Papic:

So this is the far right populist party, obviously NATO membership, um, you know,

Marko Papic:

lots of things going on Generally, uh.

Marko Papic:

I think that's very impressive.

Marko Papic:

And then finally met the f fredrickson handling of Trump, number one.

Marko Papic:

Uh, I think that this whole Greenland thing didn't take the bait.

Marko Papic:

She's done great.

Marko Papic:

And I think that was a, a really good performance.

Marko Papic:

So those are my 26 to 30 in reverse order.

Jacob Shapiro:

I. Gotcha.

Jacob Shapiro:

All right.

Jacob Shapiro:

Mine was, mine was 25 through 30, so I put, I put an additional

Jacob Shapiro:

person in this category, so mine weren't five per category.

Jacob Shapiro:

I moved things around a little bit and I really struggled with the

Jacob Shapiro:

system thing 'cause I could put too many people in the system thing.

Jacob Shapiro:

So I sort of like, this is my all flawed but serviceable, almost category,

Jacob Shapiro:

all smooshed because I couldn't, I couldn't figure out how to make the

Jacob Shapiro:

system thing work with the rest of the list, which is probably my own thing.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, it's interesting too, by the way, I'll tell you that Lawrence Wong will

Jacob Shapiro:

make an appearance much higher on my list.

Jacob Shapiro:

I think you're under indexing future potential in that pick.

Jacob Shapiro:

This is somebody who years down the road, like, I like him and he is

Jacob Shapiro:

already done some other stuff, not just as, uh, as, as, uh, president, like,

Jacob Shapiro:

you know, he was the one who helped design some of Singapore's pandemic

Jacob Shapiro:

policy sort of behind fiscal policy.

Jacob Shapiro:

He's.

Jacob Shapiro:

Calm, he's globally fluent.

Jacob Shapiro:

I asked Chad GPT to give me a scouting report on him based on a basketball

Jacob Shapiro:

player and it's spit back at me.

Jacob Shapiro:

High efficiency governance in a clean package, like a

Jacob Shapiro:

macro economic Kyle Corver.

Jacob Shapiro:

I'm happy to get Kyle Corver with the thir, with the, you know, with that.

Jacob Shapiro:

So anyway, he's much further on my list, but here, here here's where I'll

Jacob Shapiro:

go from 30, um, up to 25 at 30, I'm gonna put in Abby Ahmed in Ethiopia.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, he's actually made a ton of missteps and the civil war with the

Jacob Shapiro:

Tigray has been very, uh, destructive.

Jacob Shapiro:

I think before that though, Ethiopia was a darling of emerging markets

Jacob Shapiro:

and I think he is trying to forge.

Jacob Shapiro:

A, an Ethiopian national identity.

Jacob Shapiro:

So in terms of like, like scale of, uh, not like a degree of difficulty, uh, I

Jacob Shapiro:

think he's had a really, really hard thing and he is trying to do something that

Jacob Shapiro:

is unprecedented in Ethiopian history and maybe even in African history.

Jacob Shapiro:

So I put him on the list for there.

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, 29 we get Paul Kagame and Rwanda.

Jacob Shapiro:

Hmm.

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, he almost dropped off the list because getting kind of old and, you know,

Jacob Shapiro:

there's some other things happening now.

Jacob Shapiro:

It sort of seems like we're doing another version of the Congo Wars.

Jacob Shapiro:

Is he really gonna have the stamina?

Jacob Shapiro:

But think about where Rwanda was before Paul Kagame and think about

Jacob Shapiro:

where, where it is right now.

Jacob Shapiro:

He's on the list for me.

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, at 28, I had Emmanuel Macron, he would've been much higher,

Jacob Shapiro:

except that he's a lame duck.

Jacob Shapiro:

He won't be here for much longer.

Jacob Shapiro:

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Shapiro:

So if this were 2017, probably would've put him higher up.

Jacob Shapiro:

He's got lots of problems.

Jacob Shapiro:

He wears thin domestically.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, nobody actually likes him, so he like, thinks strategically

Jacob Shapiro:

and tries to do lots of things.

Jacob Shapiro:

And I appreciate how he tried to go against Francis.

Jacob Shapiro:

Constraints failed in a lot of different ways, but hey, you get points for

Jacob Shapiro:

trying, but he's low on the list because not that much time left for him.

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, right next to him at 27.

Jacob Shapiro:

I'll throw in Friedrich Mers.

Jacob Shapiro:

I can't, I'm not really sure what to make of him quite yet.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like, uh, his first, like, steps out of the gate were not great, like, didn't

Jacob Shapiro:

get the chancellorship on the first vote.

Jacob Shapiro:

Those were like basic blocking and tackling errors that made me skeptical.

Jacob Shapiro:

So I've thrown him in there.

Jacob Shapiro:

He, he made it to the top of Germany.

Jacob Shapiro:

But timing, like lots of different things.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um.

Jacob Shapiro:

To say there, and then rounding out my top two for this category at 26,

Jacob Shapiro:

I've got Abdul Fata LSI in Egypt.

Jacob Shapiro:

Dictator strongman probably doesn't transport to a lot of different

Jacob Shapiro:

geographies well, but as a military strongman has done a remarkable job in

Jacob Shapiro:

a sort of powder keg of a country with 120 million plus people, which was on the

Jacob Shapiro:

verge of going to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, and at 25, I'll throw in Ilham Aliev in Azerbaijan.

Jacob Shapiro:

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, Azerbaijan has gone from strength to strength.

Jacob Shapiro:

They won the Nur Carrabba war.

Jacob Shapiro:

They're punching significantly above their weight from economic

Jacob Shapiro:

performance doing extremely well.

Jacob Shapiro:

He's this far down in the list because he's ultimately a resource autocrat.

Jacob Shapiro:

So I'm not sure that Ali's game travels very much, but

Jacob Shapiro:

it's perfect for Azerbaijan.

Jacob Shapiro:

And Azerbaijan has done so well compared to, say, its neighbor Armenia

Jacob Shapiro:

or some others, uh, in the South caucuses that I think he warrants,

Jacob Shapiro:

uh, inclusion in this category.

Jacob Shapiro:

So there, there's my, my 30 through 25.

Marko Papic:

So what, who, so Ethiopia 30 Rwanda, 29 France 28.

Marko Papic:

Uh, 27.

Marko Papic:

I missed, sorry.

Marko Papic:

Uh, I didn't put it down.

Marko Papic:

Friedrich

Jacob Shapiro:

Mers, Germany.

Jacob Shapiro:

Oh, yeah.

Jacob Shapiro:

Germany.

Jacob Shapiro:

Germany.

Marko Papic:

Germany.

Marko Papic:

Interesting.

Marko Papic:

Uh, you have, yeah.

Marko Papic:

Okay.

Marko Papic:

Uh, I struggled.

Marko Papic:

Um, I struggled myself, uh, with, uh, Ali.

Marko Papic:

I, I thought of adding him as well, and I think that's an interesting one.

Marko Papic:

The other ones do, uh, make a appearance for me as well, except for e Egypt's, uh,

Marko Papic:

cc he doesn't, uh, just that, uh, I don't know what to make of it yet, you know?

Marko Papic:

Uh, mm-hmm.

Marko Papic:

Uh, obviously navigating post Arab spring is, is a big deal, so maybe I, I

Marko Papic:

feel bad now that he's not on my list.

Jacob Shapiro:

Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro:

I mean, I think it's easy to forget how chaotic things

Jacob Shapiro:

were in age of 20 13, 20 14.

Jacob Shapiro:

But like Mohammed Morsey was there, the Muslim Brotherhood was

Jacob Shapiro:

ascendant, like Mubarak, and the military had been discredited.

Jacob Shapiro:

And then like, boom, this guy just comes in goodbye.

Jacob Shapiro:

Muslim Brotherhood, goodbye like Arab Spring.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like we're just going back to military dictatorship again.

Jacob Shapiro:

That doesn't travel particularly well.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like Abdul fatal.

Jacob Shapiro:

He's not winning any Democratic elections.

Jacob Shapiro:

That's why he's like, but in, just in terms of like, would you want him

Jacob Shapiro:

in charge of the machinery of state?

Jacob Shapiro:

Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro:

He has shown himself to be a stable hand, at least when it comes to that.

Marko Papic:

Okay, good.

Marko Papic:

Um, yeah.

Marko Papic:

Uh, the other thing that I would say is that product of a system,

Marko Papic:

I think you chose a lot of people that actually I have higher.

Marko Papic:

Mm-hmm.

Marko Papic:

Um, because I'm not sure that anyone can be really a product

Marko Papic:

of Ethiopia or Ze Bijan.

Marko Papic:

Those are very difficult places to rule.

Marko Papic:

So the fact that you have them this slow is interesting.

Marko Papic:

You know, I chose leaders who it's difficult for me to assess

Marko Papic:

whether they are performing well or whether they're just running.

Marko Papic:

Really well run countries.

Marko Papic:

And so that's where, you know, like that's where Lawrence Wong or met the f

Marko Papic:

Fredrickson, I mean, met the Fredrickson has done a, a, a really admirable job,

Marko Papic:

uh, in Denmark on many different fronts.

Marko Papic:

Um, but particularly with the ascendancy of Donald Trump, the

Marko Papic:

way that they've handled that.

Marko Papic:

On the other hand, Frederickson is running Denmark, you know,

Marko Papic:

how difficult is really that?

Marko Papic:

So that's where Well,

Jacob Shapiro:

yeah, and I think this is one of the most difficult

Jacob Shapiro:

things in this exercise is to try and compare across things.

Jacob Shapiro:

'cause I had her much higher too, like both sh Oh, interesting.

Jacob Shapiro:

Both, both.

Jacob Shapiro:

She and Lawrence Wong, for me are in the, I'm hanging up in 30

Jacob Shapiro:

seconds, so I'll think about it.

Jacob Shapiro:

I, you know, but I, for me, they're high functioning technocrats or elite

Jacob Shapiro:

lieutenants, like the sorts that I would sort of trust, like if you put met to

Jacob Shapiro:

Frederickson in charge of Ethiopia.

Jacob Shapiro:

She might do some really interesting things.

Jacob Shapiro:

And I think when you, I think the other thing about democracies is I think we

Jacob Shapiro:

don't wanna underestimate how mm-hmm.

Jacob Shapiro:

Difficult it is to get to the top echelons of democratic power.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, it's a different skill set than say, you know, a Paul

Jacob Shapiro:

Kagame or something like that.

Jacob Shapiro:

But like somebody who's gotten to the top of Denmark and is crushing it like

Jacob Shapiro:

that to me, like has, and if you get to the top of the Singapore system,

Jacob Shapiro:

like that to me is telling me that you have some political credentials,

Jacob Shapiro:

uh, credentials that could follow.

Jacob Shapiro:

Whereas some of the others in this category, like I think they are

Jacob Shapiro:

flawed, but serviceable statesmen and states, women, they have a low ceiling.

Jacob Shapiro:

But if you just plugged them in, uh, yeah, they would give you some stability.

Jacob Shapiro:

So like, if you're in.

Jacob Shapiro:

I dunno, let's think of a really screwed up country.

Jacob Shapiro:

If you're in like, uh, Kazakhstan is maybe a bad example, but if, if you're

Jacob Shapiro:

in a country, uh, let's talk Vietnam, like Vietnam has been in the midst of

Jacob Shapiro:

a power transition back and forth for a couple of years right now, and you

Jacob Shapiro:

came and said, here, I'll trade you.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like met to Frederickson, you'd be like, yeah, I'll take met to Fredericks.

Jacob Shapiro:

That, that sounds great to me.

Jacob Shapiro:

So

Marko Papic:

cool.

Marko Papic:

Okay.

Marko Papic:

Well I'm glad that you didn't think that my list was overly

Marko Papic:

indexed to Europe, because you have at least FedEx in there too.

Jacob Shapiro:

I do.

Jacob Shapiro:

Although I did not have Donald Tusk and, uh, Slovenia's not on my list.

Jacob Shapiro:

Just 'cause I, I'm not up to date on Slovenia, sorry guys, but Donald Tusk

Jacob Shapiro:

and of Christensen, like I considered them, but they did not make my list over.

Marko Papic:

Okay, good.

Marko Papic:

But I'm glad you considered them.

Marko Papic:

At least that's, um, I struggled really with this category at the end.

Marko Papic:

It was sort of like, you know, you could have gone a lot of different ways.

Marko Papic:

I thought about Ethiopia, myself in Egypt.

Marko Papic:

So, uh, good.

Marko Papic:

So far, so good.

Marko Papic:

Nothing, nothing that we really disagree with.

Marko Papic:

Right.

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, no, I, the only thing is like, I think, yeah, Lawrence Wong

Jacob Shapiro:

for me is much, much higher on my list.

Jacob Shapiro:

Okay.

Jacob Shapiro:

But everything else, I'm, I'm with you.

Marko Papic:

Alright, cool.

Marko Papic:

Okay, well let's go to the next one, which is flawed, but effective.

Marko Papic:

And, and I felt it, uh, several of your picks really

Marko Papic:

for me fit into this category.

Marko Papic:

In fact, I have two, I have two that you picked a little bit higher because, uh, I

Marko Papic:

see them as flawed, but quite effective.

Marko Papic:

So I start off at 25.

Marko Papic:

Uh, for me, 25 obviously.

Marko Papic:

Uh, you picked six, I picked five.

Marko Papic:

I started off with Erdogan.

Marko Papic:

Mm. So I have him, uh, on my list pretty low.

Marko Papic:

I suspect we might have some disagreement on this because I know of course that

Marko Papic:

you have, uh, you hold Turkey and it's geopolitical potential in high regard.

Marko Papic:

But I'm almost penalizing Reep type Erdogan because of that, because I feel

Marko Papic:

that he should have done much better with what he has working for him.

Marko Papic:

I don't feel that Turkey has really moved, I mean, uh, to expand its

Marko Papic:

sphere of influence and yes, I, I understand that you've been pointing

Marko Papic:

out its gains in the Middle East.

Marko Papic:

However, the true, I think, sphere of influence that Turkey should be

Marko Papic:

crushing is as it always has been between the Danube and the E gn.

Marko Papic:

That is where Turkey should be projecting power.

Marko Papic:

The other issue is that economy has been mismanaged.

Marko Papic:

It just absolutely has been.

Marko Papic:

Now there's been incredible improvement over the last two years, but that's

Marko Papic:

because it started off with a low base.

Marko Papic:

And unlike Javier Malay, who you can reward for the last 12 months of Orthodox

Marko Papic:

policies, you can't really reward Erdogan for shifting towards more orthodoxy when

Marko Papic:

he was the one that implement implemented unorthodox policies to in the first place.

Marko Papic:

So I have him pretty low on, on this list.

Marko Papic:

I'll, I'll fly through my other four really quickly and.

Marko Papic:

Uh, I got Azerbaijan Ilham Ali of 24.

Marko Papic:

Yep.

Marko Papic:

Uh, pretty much for all the reasons that you said.

Marko Papic:

So I don't wanna, uh, kind of waste, uh, time on that.

Marko Papic:

I think the one thing that maybe you didn't mention is, uh, maneuvering

Marko Papic:

between Turkey, Russia, and Europe.

Marko Papic:

Uh, the fact that somehow magically Azerbaijan has been able to tra

Marko Papic:

transit Russian natural acid to Europe and not get into trouble for it.

Marko Papic:

Well done.

Marko Papic:

Slow clap for, uh, Aliyah.

Marko Papic:

Very well done.

Marko Papic:

And, and

Jacob Shapiro:

decent relations with Iran.

Jacob Shapiro:

Decent relations with Israel, like really, like some upper level statesmanship.

Marko Papic:

By the way, we've lost all our Armenian friends.

Marko Papic:

I will not be allowed back into Glendale or, or my adopted hometown of Montreal.

Marko Papic:

So I apologize to my, all my immediate friends who are listening to, but

Marko Papic:

if you are honest with yourself.

Marko Papic:

You'll concede, you'll bow, bow down your head in silent moment of despair and

Marko Papic:

agree that Azerbaijan has been blessed with relatively effective leadership.

Marko Papic:

Although, yes, as you pointed out, Jacob, we have to note that of

Marko Papic:

course, it's easy to run a country whose wealth is greased by commodity,

Jacob Shapiro:

uh, exports.

Jacob Shapiro:

So that's Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro:

But, but, but they're in a difficult neighborhood to, to our Armenian

Jacob Shapiro:

friends, like I think any of you would trade your leadership for the

Jacob Shapiro:

leadership of, of the Aliya family.

Jacob Shapiro:

I think

Marko Papic:

that's Well, and, and by the way, if you disagree, tell us.

Marko Papic:

Tell us if, if you would, but, uh, from speaking to my Iranian friends and from

Marko Papic:

observing Armenia, like the leadership, uh, vacuum has been pretty significant.

Marko Papic:

So I agree with you.

Marko Papic:

Uh, 23rd on my list.

Marko Papic:

Anwar Ibrahim.

Marko Papic:

Hmm.

Marko Papic:

Good one.

Marko Papic:

Shut.

Marko Papic:

Yeah.

Marko Papic:

Malaysia.

Marko Papic:

Uh, first of all, uh, if there is one person on this list who has adopted, just

Marko Papic:

like that ability to resurrect themselves, reinvent themselves, God bless Ibrahim.

Marko Papic:

He has, uh, he's a survivor.

Marko Papic:

Clearly.

Marko Papic:

He is, uh, been in and out of court.

Marko Papic:

He's been, uh, attacked by the elites in Malaysia.

Marko Papic:

He's done a lot of different things.

Marko Papic:

I also think that he has handled Malaysian geopolitics excellence since 2022,

Marko Papic:

and also during the financial crisis.

Marko Papic:

Uh, remember he was in charge and Malaysia did escape most of that East

Marko Papic:

Asian crisis back now, 30 years ago.

Marko Papic:

So he's, he's done really well.

Marko Papic:

Um, I. Iman Macron is on this list for me.

Marko Papic:

Flawed, but effective.

Marko Papic:

Again, it's different.

Marko Papic:

It's difficult because I, I feel like most of our French listeners will just

Marko Papic:

say like, you guys are smoking crack.

Marko Papic:

Um, nobody likes him, as you said.

Marko Papic:

But look, here's the case for Macron.

Marko Papic:

Um, he's managed to build a centrist coalition out of nothing.

Marko Papic:

He's stayed in power a long time.

Marko Papic:

Uh, and I think he's fallen short of a lot of the things

Marko Papic:

that he's done, uh, domestically.

Marko Papic:

But generally speaking, I think the fact that he asserted the two party

Marko Papic:

system in France, like with his bare hands is, uh, is impressive.

Marko Papic:

And finally, I have Paul Kagame, right?

Marko Papic:

Flawed, flawed, but effective.

Marko Papic:

Now you have Paul Kagame 29th.

Marko Papic:

I have him 21st.

Marko Papic:

Uh, astonishing economic development in Rhonda.

Marko Papic:

I think we all agree with that.

Marko Papic:

Um, I think the focus on healthcare and education.

Marko Papic:

Wow.

Marko Papic:

Like right.

Marko Papic:

Yeah, this is, this is the Singapore economic model just,

Marko Papic:

just imported into Rwanda.

Marko Papic:

Like well done, obviously, um, on and off supporting insurgent in Congo.

Marko Papic:

Not sure what the, what the winner gets, but Sure.

Marko Papic:

And obviously troubled domestic track records.

Marko Papic:

One of those domestic track records were like, you may not be able to

Marko Papic:

retire, if you know what I mean.

Marko Papic:

And that's not sure that that was necessary.

Marko Papic:

Um.

Marko Papic:

That's it.

Jacob Shapiro:

Yeah, no, I, like, I, I think he belongs on the list.

Jacob Shapiro:

If he were 10 years younger, he'd be higher on my list.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like my interesting, including him at 29 is just about an age thing.

Jacob Shapiro:

And he's been around for a long time and eventually things are, are gonna run out.

Jacob Shapiro:

But I think you're right.

Jacob Shapiro:

And I think he's actually, he's been masterful in the

Jacob Shapiro:

way he interfered with Congo.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like, I mean, when you think about where Rwanda was in the mid nineties and how he,

Jacob Shapiro:

you know, strategically positioned Rwanda into a real force to be reckoned with

Jacob Shapiro:

against much larger countries around it.

Jacob Shapiro:

I think he deserves it.

Jacob Shapiro:

I think we should spend just a second.

Jacob Shapiro:

I should have had Anwar Ibrahim on this list and I, I don't have him on the list.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, that's a mistake on my part though.

Jacob Shapiro:

I needed to make room for him and I didn't.

Jacob Shapiro:

So I take your point there.

Jacob Shapiro:

Erdowan is not that much higher for me.

Jacob Shapiro:

I'll give away that.

Jacob Shapiro:

He was number 16 on my list.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, again, here though, this is more about his age, like.

Jacob Shapiro:

Erdogan is at the end of his career, sort of like a hall of Famer on their last leg.

Jacob Shapiro:

So he's still dangerous.

Jacob Shapiro:

He's still got some punches to throw, but there's not a whole

Jacob Shapiro:

lot left, I think of Erdogan.

Jacob Shapiro:

I think your shorts No, no, go ahead.

Marko Papic:

No, no, please, please go ahead.

Jacob Shapiro:

Just I think you're short selling a little bit of his,

Jacob Shapiro:

of his accomplishment because his main accomplishment is to take when,

Jacob Shapiro:

you know, when he became mayor of Istanbul, um, in, what was that late.

Jacob Shapiro:

Late nineties, I forget the exact year.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, Turkey was truly a divided country where you had the liberal

Jacob Shapiro:

secular, you know, cosmopolitan.

Jacob Shapiro:

We're gonna drink rocky and sit on the bosphorous and eat fish crowd versus

Jacob Shapiro:

the central anatol, conservative heartland, you know, looked down upon

Jacob Shapiro:

by the cosmopolitans in Istanbul.

Jacob Shapiro:

And Erdogan has forged a coherent country out of both of these.

Jacob Shapiro:

He put the Anatolian conservatives not completely in power.

Jacob Shapiro:

It's not like he's completely dismantled the cosmopolitanism of Istanbul

Jacob Shapiro:

and all the things that have made whoever controls the Bosporus and

Jacob Shapiro:

incredibly important trading partner and all these other things, but he's

Jacob Shapiro:

integrated them into the economy and he's shown an incredible amount of

Jacob Shapiro:

economic flexibility in doing so.

Jacob Shapiro:

Remember, this is the guy who was giving me all the IMF reforms in the late two

Jacob Shapiro:

thousands, into the early 2010s, like doing all the things by the book, but

Jacob Shapiro:

then when he needed to grease the wheels.

Jacob Shapiro:

And to secure arrangements with all of these different parts of society.

Jacob Shapiro:

Sure.

Jacob Shapiro:

Let's do a little state led, you know, Archy and like, you know, let's

Jacob Shapiro:

make sure that the right people were in control of the right industries.

Jacob Shapiro:

And if that means I have unorthodox monetary policy, so be it.

Jacob Shapiro:

I'll just call up my friends in Saudi Arabia and I know that they'll bail me out

Jacob Shapiro:

because they don't want me as an enemy.

Jacob Shapiro:

I'm worse to them as an enemy, as as anything else.

Jacob Shapiro:

So I think he's reaching the end of his rope.

Jacob Shapiro:

I think you can see that, you know, in, uh, in arresting and imprisoning Ima mlu,

Jacob Shapiro:

like, I don't think that's gonna age well.

Jacob Shapiro:

You can see he's trying to maybe position sons or sons inlaws or like

Jacob Shapiro:

other fa like all these things I think are not gonna go well for him.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, but I think he's, I think Turkey is in a much more powerful and economically

Jacob Shapiro:

prosperous situation than it was before.

Jacob Shapiro:

And I think he really threaded the needle on a country that very easily could have

Jacob Shapiro:

gone, you know, in a different look at other countries in the Middle East and how

Jacob Shapiro:

they dealt with conservative, more Islamic aspects of society and the way he was able

Jacob Shapiro:

to forge something coherent out of that.

Jacob Shapiro:

I mean, let's not invoke add a Turk, but hey, he's at

Jacob Shapiro:

least doing a good impression.

Marko Papic:

Okay.

Marko Papic:

So,

Jacob Shapiro:

um, I think I, I, my entire first six were all flawed but serviceable.

Jacob Shapiro:

So I think what you should do next is you should read your next category

Jacob Shapiro:

and then I'll do my next category.

Jacob Shapiro:

'cause I don't, I don't want to get in front of your

Jacob Shapiro:

categories, if that makes sense.

Marko Papic:

Sense.

Marko Papic:

Oh, okay.

Marko Papic:

But, uh, do you wanna restate, uh, your next five or,

Jacob Shapiro:

I think you should state your next and

Jacob Shapiro:

then I'll follow on behind you.

Jacob Shapiro:

I think that's Got it.

Jacob Shapiro:

If, if we're, if we're keeping up with categories, that's

Jacob Shapiro:

what's gonna line up best.

Marko Papic:

Okay.

Marko Papic:

Okay, cool.

Marko Papic:

So the next one is unproven gems.

Marko Papic:

Correct?

Jacob Shapiro:

Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro:

So though I, this wasn't make the G 20 photo or is this unproven gems?

Marko Papic:

Uh, this is the unproven gems.

Jacob Shapiro:

Oh, okay.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, I had make the, the G 20 photo, but that's fine.

Jacob Shapiro:

It's all, that's fine.

Jacob Shapiro:

It's all still good.

Jacob Shapiro:

Okay, so,

Marko Papic:

so I, I stopped at 21.

Marko Papic:

And by the way, uh, so my last one was Paul Kme.

Marko Papic:

I'm, you know, a lot about frontier markets, um, that I don't really

Marko Papic:

follow very closely, so I'm very glad that you've kind of confirmed

Marko Papic:

that that was a good pick.

Marko Papic:

I, I'm, I'm glad we're aligned on that.

Marko Papic:

Alright.

Marko Papic:

Unproven gems.

Marko Papic:

Unproven gems for me are basically kind of like, um, you know,

Marko Papic:

lots of potential out there.

Marko Papic:

I start off with Anthony Albanese in Australia.

Marko Papic:

Done, well so far, very difficult situation.

Marko Papic:

Um, a more isolationist to the United States.

Marko Papic:

There's the cus review.

Marko Papic:

Uh, he's trying to, uh, he's trying to pivot Australia away from

Marko Papic:

what was, uh, extremely unipolar.

Marko Papic:

Uh, basically worldview.

Marko Papic:

It was really the only country, I think on the planet that just

Marko Papic:

decided like, world is bipolar.

Marko Papic:

China US is gonna go into a cold war.

Marko Papic:

Uh, he's saying like, wait a minute.

Marko Papic:

That doesn't seem like what's happening, so maybe I should adjust

Marko Papic:

the foreign policy of Australia.

Marko Papic:

And I think that's correct.

Marko Papic:

Number 19,

Marko Papic:

unproven Gem.

Marko Papic:

Leo 14th, the Vatican.

Jacob Shapiro:

Nice.

Jacob Shapiro:

I knew you would like that.

Jacob Shapiro:

Not on my list.

Marko Papic:

Not on your list.

Marko Papic:

Oh, not on

Jacob Shapiro:

my list.

Jacob Shapiro:

There we go.

Jacob Shapiro:

Not on my list.

Marko Papic:

Number 18, Friedrich Mez.

Marko Papic:

Um, quite frankly, Friedrich Mez, I mean, he's, uh, on your list as

Marko Papic:

27, just because you don't know.

Marko Papic:

Um, I put him at 18.

Marko Papic:

Quite frankly, I think we will both be proven, uh, to have

Marko Papic:

not picked him high enough.

Marko Papic:

I think, uh, so far what I've seen is, uh, quite frankly, really, really impressive.

Marko Papic:

Number 17, Mark Carney.

Marko Papic:

Uh mm-hmm.

Marko Papic:

He gets a nod over Mertz just because I think it's more

Marko Papic:

difficult for him than for Mertz.

Marko Papic:

Uh, but, uh, doing very well.

Marko Papic:

We talked a couple of, uh, episodes before about structural

Marko Papic:

reforms going on in Canada.

Marko Papic:

He has just submitted the one Canada bill legislation that is going to

Marko Papic:

break down barriers between provinces.

Marko Papic:

And I do believe that is going to pass.

Marko Papic:

And I think that Canada will finally be like all other countries

Marko Papic:

on the planet, a federal entity, which it hasn't been thus far.

Marko Papic:

So that is actually enormous.

Marko Papic:

I mean, some studies show that if they actually get that through, creating

Marko Papic:

an economy will benefit massively.

Marko Papic:

Like it will grow like a whole percent higher, um, because of those reforms.

Marko Papic:

Mm-hmm.

Marko Papic:

And then finally, this is gonna be maybe a controversial, uh, pick, maybe not.

Marko Papic:

Ahmed Al.

Jacob Shapiro:

Aha.

Jacob Shapiro:

I uh, that's a great pick.

Jacob Shapiro:

I left him off.

Jacob Shapiro:

He was in my honorable mentions.

Jacob Shapiro:

'cause um, I think he's very speculative.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like you, you might have found Nicola Yoic or you might have found, uh, I don't know,

Jacob Shapiro:

insert some other European player that didn't make it, that got drafted that way.

Jacob Shapiro:

But what he's done so far is very, very impressive.

Marko Papic:

Well, what's impressive is this is the former al

Marko Papic:

basically Al-Qaeda aligned leader.

Marko Papic:

Not basically

Jacob Shapiro:

like, like yes, he was Al-Qaeda.

Marko Papic:

He was Al Al-Qaeda.

Marko Papic:

Yes.

Marko Papic:

Uh, what's interesting though about him and his family and what

Marko Papic:

makes me pause here is that he's actually extremely well educated

Marko Papic:

person from a very educated family.

Marko Papic:

Uh, so he is, uh, I think he went to school, uh, for medicine.

Marko Papic:

Um, and he is married to somebody who comes from a very prominent

Marko Papic:

political family that has very deep roots in Syria, in the elites.

Marko Papic:

So, um, his father was also a, a prominent, uh, I think

Marko Papic:

member of previous governments.

Marko Papic:

Uh, so this is not somebody that just picked up an AK 47 off

Marko Papic:

like a farm and joined Alqaeda.

Marko Papic:

This is somebody who was frustrated with what was going on in his

Marko Papic:

country, very well educated and, uh, fought against the side.

Marko Papic:

And of course, the easiest way to get resources and weapons at

Marko Papic:

the time was to join Alqaeda, um, or join its various offshoots.

Marko Papic:

So thus far, uh, just an incredible savvy understanding of PR and marketing.

Marko Papic:

I mean, he scored an interview with, uh, you know, AUR on CNN.

Marko Papic:

Uh, he looks great in a suit.

Marko Papic:

He is hedging a lot of different risks.

Marko Papic:

Sharia law, this, that, uh, Israel, Iran, the only country in the entire

Marko Papic:

region that was very quiet about it.

Marko Papic:

Um, and I think that.

Marko Papic:

It's been very impressive, uh, performance.

Marko Papic:

Of course, the problems are what has been released over the last couple of days.

Marko Papic:

There's now evidence of, you know, sectarian violence against the alloys.

Marko Papic:

I mean, he needs to crush that ASAP if he's going to remain on this list.

Marko Papic:

But I've got him at 16

Jacob Shapiro:

or he just needs to crush all the alloys.

Jacob Shapiro:

I'm not sure the alloys have long to go in Syria based.

Jacob Shapiro:

I mean, they had their time in the sun led by a pretty brutal series of dictators.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, yeah, Leo the 14th, not on my list.

Jacob Shapiro:

I don't think anyone would trade, uh, a White Sox fan for, uh, any

Jacob Shapiro:

of these other leaders going on

Marko Papic:

here.

Marko Papic:

Oh, wow.

Jacob Shapiro:

Oh, shots fired.

Marko Papic:

That was the problem.

Marko Papic:

Not these baseball dancing age or, you know, like I listen if you can, if you

Marko Papic:

can survive the conclave of the cardinals and the backstabbing that happens there.

Marko Papic:

You know what I mean?

Marko Papic:

Like you're good.

Marko Papic:

And I dunno, we'll see, but I threw him in there because you and I have

Marko Papic:

a great affinity to talk about, uh, in, in inner workings of the Vaticans.

Marko Papic:

So I figured why not?

Jacob Shapiro:

Yeah, yeah.

Jacob Shapiro:

Why not?

Jacob Shapiro:

Merz Mers would've been hired for me, except that, you know, that

Jacob Shapiro:

thing where he didn't get elected chancellor on the first vote.

Jacob Shapiro:

That was sort of like JR Smith calling Time out in game one of that, uh, you

Jacob Shapiro:

know, know how many timeouts you have, man, that's like a basic, fundamental task

Jacob Shapiro:

of how you're gonna do these things if you can't do like, so maybe he'll be great.

Jacob Shapiro:

And I appreciate that he's working against constraints here,

Jacob Shapiro:

but he got penalized for me.

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, Bo both Albanese and Carney are higher up on this list.

Jacob Shapiro:

Well,

Marko Papic:

well I'm glad I was worried.

Marko Papic:

I was very, very self-conscious about putting Alban here.

Marko Papic:

Uh, because I thought you were gonna make fun of me, and I also expected, I also

Marko Papic:

expected you to really shit all over my Mark Carney pick and call me a homer.

Marko Papic:

So, uh, I may have even brought him lower just because I was self-conscious

Marko Papic:

and afraid of being made fun of.

Jacob Shapiro:

No, I, I think Carney's okay.

Jacob Shapiro:

I think he's got a tough job ahead of him.

Jacob Shapiro:

I think that caving on that digital services tax shows you just, that Canada

Jacob Shapiro:

doesn't have a lot of options and that his job is gonna be to, you know, make

Jacob Shapiro:

the best deal possible he can with Donald Trump in the United States without

Jacob Shapiro:

completely bending over backwards.

Jacob Shapiro:

So he's got a high degree of difficulty.

Jacob Shapiro:

But, um, you know, if you're thinking about would you trade your current leader

Jacob Shapiro:

for somebody like Mark Carney, like, he's gonna, like, he's higher up for me

Jacob Shapiro:

because I think you can, if you start thinking about it that way, I think

Jacob Shapiro:

there are a lot of countries in the world would be like, yeah, I'll take that guy.

Jacob Shapiro:

He seems let's pretty smart.

Jacob Shapiro:

Good, let's good like hand on the wheel.

Marko Papic:

So let's explain what we mean by that.

Marko Papic:

I mean, uh, essential bankers come and go, right?

Marko Papic:

But having a smooth, sophisticated, and yet comfortable

Marko Papic:

with being in a small town.

Marko Papic:

Central banker, there is only one of one.

Marko Papic:

Mario Drag may be the best dressed person on the planet.

Marko Papic:

Uh, Mario Draghi may be the highest IQ person on the planet, but I don't

Marko Papic:

think that Mario Drag would've been as comfortable in a small Canadian town

Marko Papic:

discussing junior hockey as Mark Carney.

Marko Papic:

And that's because he actually was born in Northwestern

Marko Papic:

territories, not even a province.

Marko Papic:

It's pretty much like Iraqis as far as you're concerned, or hot

Marko Papic:

more appropriately climatically.

Marko Papic:

And so he does have small town appeal and uh, ability to actually

Marko Papic:

seem genuine, um, and authentic.

Marko Papic:

And that's really a difficult combination to both be a macroeconomics nerd.

Marko Papic:

And have that authenticity

Jacob Shapiro:

well, and really understands the anglosphere,

Jacob Shapiro:

like, understands Canada deeply, understands the UK deeply, I think

Jacob Shapiro:

understands the United States deeply.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like he's, you know, in that sense, he has a deep knowledge of where he

Jacob Shapiro:

comes from and is able to balance some of these pressures against each other.

Jacob Shapiro:

So yeah, I'm, I'm not, I have no problems with Kearney whatsoever.

Jacob Shapiro:

I still think he's not governing a future superpower, but we can, we don't have to

Jacob Shapiro:

take you through the, the coals for that.

Jacob Shapiro:

Alright, well my next, my next category goes from 24 to 21.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, and I didn't really have it as unproven gems.

Jacob Shapiro:

This is really just another grab bag of leaders that I

Jacob Shapiro:

thought sort of belong together.

Jacob Shapiro:

That's okay.

Jacob Shapiro:

Okay.

Jacob Shapiro:

Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, but, you know, um, but anyway, so at 24, I have pro Bwo in Indonesia.

Jacob Shapiro:

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, this is a guy who has changed his stripes many different times.

Jacob Shapiro:

He was a military.

Jacob Shapiro:

Or really, you know, an assistant to a military dictator, did some human

Jacob Shapiro:

rights violations, stayed around though for decades, eventually makes a deal

Jacob Shapiro:

to become vice president with Jai.

Jacob Shapiro:

Now he's finally, uh, the president showing off some of his like negative

Jacob Shapiro:

qualities and making the biggest cabinet in Indonesia history and all the pork

Jacob Shapiro:

barrels spending and everything else.

Jacob Shapiro:

But hey, like you get points for sticking around four decades in both a

Jacob Shapiro:

military dictatorship and a democracy.

Jacob Shapiro:

I think somebody who knows like how to get power, how to

Jacob Shapiro:

exert power and how to survive.

Jacob Shapiro:

So I'll take him there.

Jacob Shapiro:

He might get pushed down lower.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, some of his early returns on his first,

Marko Papic:

well, that's the thing.

Marko Papic:

Couple months in power.

Marko Papic:

If I could just interject, please.

Marko Papic:

I thought about it.

Marko Papic:

I thought about it, is just that it's just so hard to follow Joco.

Marko Papic:

Widodo.

Marko Papic:

It is.

Marko Papic:

And if Joco Widodo was here.

Marko Papic:

You know, I don't really have honorable mentions, to be honest with you, Jacob.

Marko Papic:

I have some that don't make the list and that I think are terrible.

Marko Papic:

But many people think they're good.

Marko Papic:

But I have this kind of like, oh, I wish they were still in charge.

Marko Papic:

Like, yeah, I have a man crush in Mario Draghi.

Marko Papic:

What?

Marko Papic:

Sumi?

Marko Papic:

Uh, and I kind of had a man crush in Joko Widodo, think the man like, did amazing

Marko Papic:

stuff and brought Indonesia to the map.

Marko Papic:

So now I just, you know, it's kind of like when all these basketball

Marko Papic:

players were kind of promoted by the NBA as the next Michael

Marko Papic:

Jordan, I ended up not liking them.

Marko Papic:

Like I was not a Vince Carter fan, and not just because he stabbed Toronto

Marko Papic:

Raptors in the back, but I just didn't like him because the PR machine

Marko Papic:

tried to make him the next Michael Jordan, and I just don't think the

Marko Papic:

Provo is anywhere close to Joe Dodo.

Marko Papic:

So anyways, that's, he is not,

Jacob Shapiro:

he is not.

Jacob Shapiro:

He and j and he Jacobi did a great job.

Jacob Shapiro:

But, but to extend your metaphor to a really painful extent, you know, j Jacobi

Jacob Shapiro:

reminds me of, um, I remember like, uh.

Jacob Shapiro:

Late nineties still, you know, sports Illustrated was still a thing.

Jacob Shapiro:

And I vividly remember the cover of Sports Illustrated when they were like, Jerry

Jacob Shapiro:

Stackhouse, the next Michael Jordan.

Jacob Shapiro:

I think Jerry Stackhouse is Jae in this metaphor.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like everybody was like, eh, and you know, he had a fine career,

Jacob Shapiro:

but like, he didn't, he didn't actually fundamentally change things.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like, I don't think that, um, I think that now that he's gone, like his

Jacob Shapiro:

imprint will not stand the test of time.

Jacob Shapiro:

And that's because Indonesia's impossible.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, Indonesia, by all like, is not really a nation state.

Jacob Shapiro:

All the different languages, all the different ethnicities, all of the di

Jacob Shapiro:

you know, it's literally a bunch of islands that are strung together in

Jacob Shapiro:

some kind of strange federal structure.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like really, really high degree of difficulty.

Jacob Shapiro:

So if Jacobi were around, we up him, but, you know, fail,

Jacob Shapiro:

failed to leave as imprint.

Jacob Shapiro:

The next two are gonna be controversial for me.

Jacob Shapiro:

They're boring.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um.

Jacob Shapiro:

And I'm sure our leaders from New Zealand and the UK will say, there's no way

Jacob Shapiro:

that you should have these leaders here.

Jacob Shapiro:

But again, we're talking about would you trade these leaders

Jacob Shapiro:

for what I currently have?

Jacob Shapiro:

And if you start putting yourself in the shoes of people in Equatorial Guinea

Jacob Shapiro:

or Guana, well, actually I shouldn't say Guatemala, but you know, uh, some

Jacob Shapiro:

of these other Nicaragua like you would trade for these people in a heartbeat.

Jacob Shapiro:

So Christopher Luxon in New Zealand, you get 23 and Kiir

Jacob Shapiro:

Starmer 22, just competent.

Jacob Shapiro:

They're fine.

Jacob Shapiro:

They're not gonna break things.

Jacob Shapiro:

They're not gonna change things, but like, just find competent

Jacob Shapiro:

leadership that you would trade, uh, if you had sort of a bad time.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, and then coming in at 21, um, I have Cy Ramos of South Africa.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, and I think that he has showed himself to be a pretty adept politician.

Jacob Shapiro:

I think he has dealt with Trump, uh, correctly.

Jacob Shapiro:

He's in an impossible situation in South Africa and has played

Jacob Shapiro:

the game, uh, relatively well.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, so, and I, I think he has, you know, reformist desires, but he's

Jacob Shapiro:

sort of crippled by the A NC and some of their, uh, dysfunction.

Jacob Shapiro:

But I, he's got a very, very hard job and he's doing a decent job considering the

Jacob Shapiro:

challenges that he has in front of him.

Marko Papic:

Do you wanna go on or shall we stop here for you?

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, we can go on whatever you want.

Jacob Shapiro:

You're the mc?

Jacob Shapiro:

Yeah, why don't we, I'm happy to go on.

Marko Papic:

Yeah, why don't you complete it, because, you know, I'm at 15 now, so

Marko Papic:

why don't you go to your next, uh, okay.

Jacob Shapiro:

My next list, 20 through 15 here.

Jacob Shapiro:

This, uh, what, what was the name of this category for you?

Marko Papic:

Well, I think we've kind of like, uh, moved away from that.

Marko Papic:

For me, it was diamonds under pressure, but

Jacob Shapiro:

Okay.

Jacob Shapiro:

Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro:

For me this was like, uh, sort of the same thing, but more like, like tragic flaw.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like, these countries are really lucky to have these guys, but they

Jacob Shapiro:

have some flaw that just makes it, eh, like you would trade them

Jacob Shapiro:

if you could get a better offer.

Jacob Shapiro:

So coming in at 20 is Lula de Silva in Brazil.

Marko Papic:

Ooh,

Jacob Shapiro:

wow.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, wow.

Jacob Shapiro:

Yeah.

Marko Papic:

First huge disagreement.

Jacob Shapiro:

Because you've got him higher up or 'cause

Jacob Shapiro:

you've got 'em lowered down

Marko Papic:

because, I mean, I don't have 'em at all.

Marko Papic:

You know, you don't have

Marko Papic:

' Jacob Shapiro: em at all.

Marko Papic:

Ooh, no.

Marko Papic:

Lula.

Marko Papic:

I think that's a mistake and our Brazilian listeners will call you out for it.

Marko Papic:

The things that Lula has done over his career are absolutely extraordinary.

Marko Papic:

Yes, he has survived.

Marko Papic:

Agreed, incredible things.

Marko Papic:

Agreed.

Marko Papic:

He's at the end of the rope, so maybe like, I penalized him.

Marko Papic:

I he would've been further up if this was young Lula, but

Marko Papic:

he's done incredible things for

Marko Papic:

this.

Marko Papic:

I view if this was like first term Lula, he would've been top five.

Marko Papic:

I'm hanging down the phone.

Marko Papic:

I completely agree with you.

Marko Papic:

But this is, this is like, pick picking Michael.

Marko Papic:

Uh, sorry.

Marko Papic:

This is like picking LeBron James in the top 20 trade value.

Marko Papic:

I mean, yeah, he puts up the stats, but you're looking at $56 million 39-year-old

Marko Papic:

playing on knees that have seen, they have gone around the world three times.

Marko Papic:

You know, like, hey, hey

Jacob Shapiro:

La LeBron's still pretty good there.

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, I think it was on Zack Lowe's podcast where they were rumoring,

Jacob Shapiro:

you know, uh, the Knicks might trade Enobi and bridges and something else.

Jacob Shapiro:

Point.

Jacob Shapiro:

It's LeBron.

Jacob Shapiro:

LeBron can still take you places

Marko Papic:

under Noia bridges.

Marko Papic:

IIA Bridges for LeBron James.

Marko Papic:

Oh yeah.

Marko Papic:

Come on.

Jacob Shapiro:

Wonderful player.

Jacob Shapiro:

I'll, I'll take Lula.

Jacob Shapiro:

I like, I like he's got, he's got a tragic flaw.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like he could never, like, you know, most of Brazil's congress is center, right?

Jacob Shapiro:

Like his dream of Brazil hasn't necessarily come to pass, but I

Jacob Shapiro:

think Jacob's been a skilled leader.

Jacob Shapiro:

Yeah.

Marko Papic:

Jacob, this is the way I see it.

Marko Papic:

Uh, Tupac Shakur's career really goes pre jail, post jail, you know, pre jail.

Marko Papic:

He is writing basically American poetry.

Marko Papic:

Right?

Marko Papic:

Changes.

Marko Papic:

Uh, dear mama, my letter to the president, like, just fascinating.

Marko Papic:

Post jail.

Marko Papic:

Yes.

Marko Papic:

Some of that stuff is full of just smoke.

Marko Papic:

And anger and it comes outta the gut, but it's like hit them up, you know?

Marko Papic:

It's not really, it's not poetry.

Marko Papic:

And so Lula to me, same as Tupac, there's pre jail Lula, there's Pogel Lula.

Marko Papic:

And I think jail changed him, man.

Marko Papic:

I think he just became a bitter populist, and that's just, I think

Marko Papic:

that Brazil will be very lucky, uh, to get rid of him in the next election.

Marko Papic:

But, and again, that is not to say that I disagree with anything you've said.

Marko Papic:

Absolute survivor and his first term, like almost flawless, although

Marko Papic:

he was riding the coattails of the Kaari bull market nonetheless.

Marko Papic:

No, nonetheless, I agree with you on that.

Marko Papic:

Um, but sorry, I interrupted you.

Marko Papic:

Well, no, no, no.

Jacob Shapiro:

And I, and I often say that Brazil reminds me the

Jacob Shapiro:

most of, of any country in the world that reminds me of the United

Jacob Shapiro:

States in terms of its politics.

Jacob Shapiro:

Brazil reminds me of the United States the most.

Jacob Shapiro:

Yes.

Jacob Shapiro:

And there's an arc here where Lula becomes the Joe Biden of Brazil, and where Mr.

Jacob Shapiro:

Bolsonaro is, is waiting in the wings.

Jacob Shapiro:

But, you know, if, if we had been talking about Biden.

Jacob Shapiro:

Before it was obvious that he was senile, like 20, 21 version of

Jacob Shapiro:

Biden like that, you know, I think that's sort of where I'm going here.

Jacob Shapiro:

But anyway, uh, rounding up this section for me.

Jacob Shapiro:

So at 19, I hate having him here, but I don't think we can avoid Mr. Victor Orban.

Jacob Shapiro:

I.

Marko Papic:

Oh wow.

Marko Papic:

He has been

Jacob Shapiro:

in power for quite some time.

Jacob Shapiro:

He is certainly not a liberal.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, but I think also, uh, the, the opposition in Hungary has demonized

Jacob Shapiro:

him to an incredible extent.

Jacob Shapiro:

He's been ahead on lots of different things when it comes to geopolitics.

Jacob Shapiro:

I think he's very, very smart and excellent tactician like I would, and

Jacob Shapiro:

he's, he's played the game very well.

Jacob Shapiro:

In terms of geopolitics, he saw the world being multipolar.

Jacob Shapiro:

Well, before, before I was talking about Multipolarity, Victor Orban

Jacob Shapiro:

was preparing for multipolarity, so he gets some props from me there,

Jacob Shapiro:

but he's fundamentally a liberal.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like there are places there, there are countries that he just can't go

Jacob Shapiro:

to because he cannot brook descent.

Jacob Shapiro:

He's got that authoritarian instinct in him, so he's got that tragic flaw.

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, 18.

Jacob Shapiro:

You can feel the vibe of this category now, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Jacob Shapiro:

Another incredible tactician, a politician's politician.

Jacob Shapiro:

Nobody better at the footwork like can do it all.

Jacob Shapiro:

He is got, he can do the right hand, the left hand.

Jacob Shapiro:

He is got the jump hook, he is got the three point shot, everything

Jacob Shapiro:

else, and yet cares more about himself than his own country.

Jacob Shapiro:

Oh yeah.

Jacob Shapiro:

And cares more about own survival than anything else.

Jacob Shapiro:

And that narcissism, like it makes him such a great politician and he

Jacob Shapiro:

can position his country, you know, especially a country like Israel, which

Jacob Shapiro:

isn't polarized and divided like he can be a north star for that type of country.

Jacob Shapiro:

But like a deep tragic flaw.

Jacob Shapiro:

I don't think's legacy.

Jacob Shapiro:

Do you know who's my,

Marko Papic:

I think my comp for him in basketball terms would probably

Marko Papic:

be Gilbert do arenas honestly.

Marko Papic:

There you go.

Jacob Shapiro:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jacob Shapiro:

Right down to bringing the gun to the locker room and uh, toting it around.

Jacob Shapiro:

We've gotta get Iran guys, this is why I've got the gun in the locker room.

Marko Papic:

Yeah.

Marko Papic:

Dero basically, what's his name?

Marko Papic:

Critter's career.

Marko Papic:

Critter.

Jacob Shapiro:

Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro:

Javaris.

Jacob Shapiro:

Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro:

Whatever.

Jacob Shapiro:

Yeah, he went to Georgia Tech.

Jacob Shapiro:

I remember that.

Jacob Shapiro:

So shout out Georgia Tech.

Jacob Shapiro:

Well done David at seven.

Jacob Shapiro:

At 17 Javier Millet.

Jacob Shapiro:

Okay.

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, I, I, I assume based on what you said, that he's higher up for you,

Jacob Shapiro:

but maybe not that much higher up.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, again, I asked, uh, chat GPT for a little help here in sort of,

Jacob Shapiro:

uh, what the scouting report would be and it spit back out to me.

Jacob Shapiro:

Crypto Ron Paul meets Steve Jobs.

Jacob Shapiro:

That was pretty Whoa.

Jacob Shapiro:

Steve Jobs.

Marko Papic:

Whoa.

Jacob Shapiro:

Yeah, but like, and I, I, I wanted to punish him a little bit

Jacob Shapiro:

because I think his winning power was actually more a function of Argentinians

Jacob Shapiro:

just being fed up and they were looking for the craziest thing possible.

Jacob Shapiro:

And so they picked the craziest thing possible.

Jacob Shapiro:

But like early returns, he's shown himself to be much more pragmatic than his dead

Jacob Shapiro:

dog communing, uh, you know, chainsaw wielding, uh, Mo would suggest I really

Jacob Shapiro:

didn't like that weird crypto scam that he was a part of or got taken for a ride for.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like, that was a negative signal for me.

Jacob Shapiro:

And I think we're about to get into the tough times for him, but I'm

Jacob Shapiro:

interested enough that he's there at 17.

Jacob Shapiro:

At 16.

Jacob Shapiro:

Mr. Erdogan, we've already talked about you, Mr. Sultan, uh, so

Jacob Shapiro:

we don't have to do more there.

Jacob Shapiro:

And at number 15, the top of this list.

Jacob Shapiro:

Again, lucky to have him, but we've got some kind of tragic flaw here.

Jacob Shapiro:

This also is about, you know, uh, future projecting Narendra Modi

Jacob Shapiro:

comes in right here at 15 for me.

Jacob Shapiro:

Mm. Um, yeah, interest if this were, if this were, if this were first term Modi,

Jacob Shapiro:

he's maybe Untouchables, like he's maybe at the very, very top of this list, but

Jacob Shapiro:

we're, in a third term, we're getting old.

Jacob Shapiro:

Have we built something beyond Modi's charisma that

Jacob Shapiro:

allows the BJP to go forward?

Jacob Shapiro:

I don't know.

Jacob Shapiro:

He, he was very ambitious about, have, about his reforms.

Jacob Shapiro:

Not a whole heck of a lot have gone through.

Jacob Shapiro:

Some of them have, like we've, we've harmonized taxes and we've done some

Jacob Shapiro:

good things, but like others we've really haven't made progress on.

Jacob Shapiro:

So I think he's, you know, MVP level player, but we're in the twilight of our

Jacob Shapiro:

career and we haven't quite gone through.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, some of the things that we thought that some people that need

Jacob Shapiro:

to be this high on the list would be, so he comes in at 15 for me.

Marko Papic:

So if I was to take a pause here and think about this,

Marko Papic:

I'm very surprised we don't have much disagreement at our bottom,

Marko Papic:

you know, 10, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

Marko Papic:

So like in the bottom seven, uh, we don't have that much disagreement.

Marko Papic:

Okay?

Marko Papic:

I didn't have Provo, uh, I didn't have cc, um, um, or Ali, uh, in Ethiopia,

Marko Papic:

so, you know, but like Zer, Peja, Germany, France, Rhonda, similarly

Marko Papic:

on my end, I mean, okay, fine.

Marko Papic:

Luka, Don Slovenia, sorry, Robert Gob.

Marko Papic:

Tus and Christ Christensen, you don't have.

Marko Papic:

But not yet.

Marko Papic:

Yeah.

Marko Papic:

But there was a lot of, uh, agreement, I think at the bottom.

Marko Papic:

Yeah.

Marko Papic:

Uh, I, I actually have a, oh,

Jacob Shapiro:

and I also, I also just wanted to say, I forgot to say

Jacob Shapiro:

this, like, 'cause we did say that approval ratings mattered here.

Jacob Shapiro:

Norendra Modi has the highest approval rating, uh, of all the

Jacob Shapiro:

different, you know, leaders.

Jacob Shapiro:

So he's got 77%, uh, melee at 62%.

Jacob Shapiro:

Albee has a 54% approval rating.

Jacob Shapiro:

So I, I overindexed him for there as well.

Jacob Shapiro:

So there's a couple here that got boosts for me based on that.

Marko Papic:

So I actually, now that you've run off these out of

Marko Papic:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, I've got Modi, Tigan, and Millie.

Marko Papic:

I have osa, he's coming up.

Marko Papic:

Mm-hmm.

Marko Papic:

I don't have, uh, UK New Zealand, Brazil.

Marko Papic:

Hungary in Israel.

Marko Papic:

Um hmm.

Marko Papic:

I mean, no offense to the Anglosphere.

Marko Papic:

I think, you know, time will tell.

Marko Papic:

I just wasn't, uh, particularly impressed.

Marko Papic:

I guess I chose Albanese instead of Starr, quite frankly.

Marko Papic:

Kind of both came at the same time.

Marko Papic:

So, um, I think Albany's job is tougher, quite frankly, but we'll see.

Marko Papic:

Lula disagree a lot, and then Bibi and Victor, um, I get it.

Marko Papic:

I just, and especially in Ban's case, I feel like I, I should have had him in

Marko Papic:

the top 30, so, um, I think you're right.

Marko Papic:

But on Bibi, you know, you are absolutely right.

Marko Papic:

Just, he puts up incredible statistics.

Marko Papic:

He is, uh, an all star.

Marko Papic:

He is got the max contract, but he is a chemistry killer and he's a team cancer.

Marko Papic:

What I mean by that is that I think that everything that Netanyahu has done

Marko Papic:

over the last, you know, five years is ultimately going to, uh, you know, it's

Marko Papic:

gonna be something that Israel will be paying, uh, for a very long time.

Marko Papic:

So I, I definitely vociferously disagree with that, but that's okay.

Marko Papic:

That's good.

Marko Papic:

Let's go to the next, uh, uh, next category.

Marko Papic:

Okay.

Marko Papic:

So this is where I think our disagreements, uh, well, no, no, no.

Marko Papic:

I think actually you're gonna agree with a lot of these.

Marko Papic:

Uh, number 15 for me is raa.

Marko Papic:

This is a deep take.

Marko Papic:

Deep take my friend.

Jacob Shapiro:

Deep take.

Jacob Shapiro:

Yeah.

Marko Papic:

Yes.

Marko Papic:

Leader of Albania.

Marko Papic:

Okay.

Marko Papic:

Um, and yes, someone born in Serbia has picked an Albanian leader as top 15.

Marko Papic:

Um, that's a head nod to all our Armenian friends who are

Marko Papic:

gonna be mad at us about Aliev.

Marko Papic:

Just like, Hey, if I can pick Eddie Rama, you know, you guys

Marko Papic:

can chill with, uh, aliev.

Marko Papic:

Great navigation of a complicated region, uh, has found new sources of

Marko Papic:

economic prosperity for Albania, Albania, particularly tourism, just like exploding.

Marko Papic:

It's like, it's like what Portugal was like five, 10 years ago.

Marko Papic:

That's Albania today.

Marko Papic:

Very well done.

Marko Papic:

Um, and the other thing is that has great relationship with everyone in

Marko Papic:

the region, including with Serbia, like really well done and has

Marko Papic:

completed more EU chapters than Serbia.

Marko Papic:

So closer to integration than, um, a country that's, I mean, you know,

Marko Papic:

like objectively speaking, just I.

Marko Papic:

Far more modern economically.

Marko Papic:

And from an industrial's perspective, Albania started off much worse in 1990 as

Marko Papic:

the co collapse of Communism than Serbia.

Marko Papic:

I mean, like, much worse they weren't even aligned with the Soviet Bloc.

Marko Papic:

You know, their only ally was like Maoist, China.

Marko Papic:

Um, so, uh, really well done, really impressed.

Marko Papic:

And by the way, this, this category for me is diamonds under pressure.

Marko Papic:

So I'm picking a lot of, uh, leaders who have done something with nothing.

Marko Papic:

So there's ra then Cyril Osa, I have him here, so he's 14

Marko Papic:

for me and he is 21 for you.

Marko Papic:

So pretty much, uh, you know, we're in alignment there in line.

Marko Papic:

Yeah.

Marko Papic:

13, this is controversial.

Marko Papic:

All of our liberal listeners will hate me for it, although quite

Marko Papic:

frankly, you pick Bibi and Orban.

Marko Papic:

So like, gimme a break, right?

Jacob Shapiro:

If, if our liberal listeners are gonna hate us for that,

Jacob Shapiro:

there's, there's worse to come guys.

Marko Papic:

There's worse to, oh yes, there is, there's

Marko Papic:

absolutely worse to come.

Marko Papic:

Uh, naive ell it.

Jacob Shapiro:

Oh, okay.

Marko Papic:

Yes.

Jacob Shapiro:

Great.

Marko Papic:

Uh, look, PR value alone, like El Salvador,

Marko Papic:

we're talking about a guy.

Marko Papic:

We're, we're openly discussing somebody who was, who's in charge of

Marko Papic:

El Salvador, and not because of some like, you know, terrible civil war.

Marko Papic:

So that's number one.

Marko Papic:

Second, everyone who's from Central America and Latin America that I know

Marko Papic:

and that has been to El Salvador or lived there, basically argues that that

Marko Papic:

country was absolutely unlivable before B And he has solved that with brutality,

Marko Papic:

absolutely, but also ruthless efficiency.

Marko Papic:

And then, um, you know, I mean, uh, perfect man for the era.

Marko Papic:

He, uh, he linked his country.

Marko Papic:

To Bt C to Bitcoin at 40,000, you know, doesn't look so stupid anymore.

Marko Papic:

Uh, he wears futuristic cardillo suits as my dear friend Juan Correra.

Marko Papic:

Shout out to him 'cause he, uh, he definitely agreed with

Marko Papic:

this pick, um, would say.

Marko Papic:

And ultimately, um, I think just, you know, I think there's too

Marko Papic:

much indexing on what he's done on Bitcoin, I think not enough

Marko Papic:

indexing on what he's done on crime.

Marko Papic:

And if you don't like Trump and so you don't like the fact that he's so

Marko Papic:

pro-Trump, just look at it this way.

Marko Papic:

I mean, he picked the right winner.

Marko Papic:

Being a leader of a central American country ultimately comes down to being

Marko Papic:

on the right side of the United States of America, because it's the giant in

Marko Papic:

the, it's the elephant in the room.

Marko Papic:

So I think he's done very well.

Marko Papic:

I've got Malay, hold on.

Jacob Shapiro:

Wait, wait, wait.

Jacob Shapiro:

I, I wanna, I wanna pause you right there, Marco.

Jacob Shapiro:

'cause I, I, I don't wanna step on this too much, but we should say that

Jacob Shapiro:

maybe Bhel is number one on my list.

Jacob Shapiro:

He is UNT tradable.

Jacob Shapiro:

He is the top of the, he is the apex for me.

Jacob Shapiro:

There

Marko Papic:

go.

Marko Papic:

Wow.

Marko Papic:

Wow.

Marko Papic:

I mean, hey, listen, I don't disagree.

Marko Papic:

His use of media pr uh, reveals a deep knowledge of where the world is going.

Marko Papic:

And, uh, yeah, man, I mean, again, if he, if he can put El Salvador on the map,

Jacob Shapiro:

he got rid of crime in El Salvador, period.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like, like, they're like, who else is doing that?

Jacob Shapiro:

You think?

Jacob Shapiro:

You think El Salvador is trading anyone for bouquet on this list?

Jacob Shapiro:

No, they're very happy with the guy who gave 'em their country back and allowed

Jacob Shapiro:

them to walk in the streets again.

Marko Papic:

Wow.

Marko Papic:

Yeah.

Marko Papic:

My, my dear friend Juan, he's the head of, uh, asset allocation at BC Research and

Marko Papic:

also my co-owner of the Cali Fornication basketball team in the JBL Fantasy League.

Marko Papic:

He picked him number one, two, and I respect one so much so that

Marko Papic:

we share a basketball franchise in the Dreamland universe that

Marko Papic:

is the Fantasy Sports League.

Marko Papic:

So well done.

Marko Papic:

Alright.

Marko Papic:

Alright.

Marko Papic:

Sorry.

Marko Papic:

Uh, I got Malay number 12.

Marko Papic:

Uh, I think he's been, uh, amazing.

Marko Papic:

Um, unbelievable charisma.

Marko Papic:

He managed to get the Argentinians to agree with tightening your belt belts.

Marko Papic:

Your point about Argentina was, at this point anyways, that's true, but he's also

Marko Papic:

managed to do it in a correct sequence by not opening up the capital account

Marko Papic:

too quickly, which was very important.

Marko Papic:

Uh, making sure that the reforms first take hold and then discussing

Marko Papic:

about, uh, lessening capital controls something that mockery got wrong.

Marko Papic:

So mockery got the sequencing wrong.

Marko Papic:

Mm-hmm.

Marko Papic:

Number 11, Abdullah II of Jordan.

Marko Papic:

Mm-hmm.

Marko Papic:

The degree of difficulty, the diff degree of difficulty for a leading

Marko Papic:

Jordan right now is absolutely insane.

Marko Papic:

Um, this is, uh, you know, this is like a basketball player that just

Marko Papic:

pulls his crappy team into the playoffs as a seven seed all by himself.

Marko Papic:

Um, and quite frankly, uh, the security of Israel is more tied to

Marko Papic:

Abdullah II's leadership of Jordan.

Marko Papic:

To what Benjamin Netanyahu is doing, quite frankly.

Marko Papic:

So, uh, Israelis should praise him for his cool and collected demeanor that yes,

Marko Papic:

it's become rhetorically increasingly anti-Israeli, but you have to sympathize

Marko Papic:

for him, as we have talked about before.

Marko Papic:

So that's my number 11.

Jacob Shapiro:

Alright, my next, my next list takes me from 14 to seven.

Jacob Shapiro:

So this is a big one and for me, I thought of this, um, category as

Jacob Shapiro:

I'm hanging up, but not right away.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like, I'm gonna listen for a little bit and then I'm gonna hang up.

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, so some of these are rising stars.

Jacob Shapiro:

Some of these are high functioning technocrats.

Jacob Shapiro:

Some of these are elite, uh, elite lieutenants.

Jacob Shapiro:

And I think the ones that will be most controversial are 14 and 13.

Jacob Shapiro:

'cause the rest are ones that we've mostly already talked about at 14.

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, SHA Kat MiEV of Uzbekistan.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um.

Jacob Shapiro:

This is where I'm gonna go, like really deep.

Jacob Shapiro:

I'm gonna cut really deep here.

Jacob Shapiro:

But this is a guy who took over for one of the most retrograde dictatorships in the

Jacob Shapiro:

post-Soviet world, um, and has, I mean, he has not made it a democracy, but he

Jacob Shapiro:

has opened up and liberalized Uzbekistan to a degree that nobody thought possible.

Jacob Shapiro:

He's been able to keep Uzbekistan out of the clutches of Islamic

Jacob Shapiro:

fundamentalism and everything else.

Jacob Shapiro:

He has not gone too far down the road with, uh, Russia or

Jacob Shapiro:

with China or the United States.

Jacob Shapiro:

He has played all these things different, uh, very well.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, I was in Tash Kent in 2019.

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, you know, uh, everybody there was of course going to

Jacob Shapiro:

make it seem like they loved him.

Jacob Shapiro:

But everyone I talked to from Uzbekistan, when they think about MOV before and re

Jacob Shapiro:

you have now, they're like, he's great.

Jacob Shapiro:

We love him.

Jacob Shapiro:

He's competent.

Jacob Shapiro:

My.

Jacob Shapiro:

Uber driver to JFK Airport two weeks ago was from Uzbekistan.

Jacob Shapiro:

And when I, when I asked him about Shaka Zi, yeah.

Jacob Shapiro:

First he was like, I can't believe you know who that is, and let

Jacob Shapiro:

me tell you how great he is.

Jacob Shapiro:

We are so happy to have a competent leader at the head of the Uzbekistan state.

Jacob Shapiro:

So that's where he, that's

Marko Papic:

important.

Marko Papic:

That's an important empiric.

Marko Papic:

Yeah.

Marko Papic:

Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, 13.

Jacob Shapiro:

This, my bias is getting involved here, but she, I'm a really big

Jacob Shapiro:

fan of Shigeru Ishiba in Japan.

Marko Papic:

Hmm.

Jacob Shapiro:

Interesting.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, he's, wow.

Jacob Shapiro:

I have a soft spot for him.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, I, I talked to our friend Tobias Harris, not the basketball player,

Jacob Shapiro:

but uh, the Great Japan analyst, uh, and talked about Ishiba as sort of a

Jacob Shapiro:

tragic hero, heroic figure who's gonna pursue something and not get there,

Jacob Shapiro:

but that will make him all the more of a Japanese hero because of it.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, yeah.

Jacob Shapiro:

I, I just, I like his policies and I like what he's trying to do.

Jacob Shapiro:

I'll also say like, he came in in a minority government with really,

Jacob Shapiro:

really low approval ratings.

Jacob Shapiro:

But he's getting stuff done and his approval ratings are slowly ticking up.

Jacob Shapiro:

So if he inherits this mess in Japanese politics and takes it to a position

Jacob Shapiro:

where he's in charge and he's pushing back against the United States and

Jacob Shapiro:

the trade war, and he is trying to figure out the balance between China

Jacob Shapiro:

and the United States and what's going on with Taiwan, like a very,

Jacob Shapiro:

very high degree of difficulty.

Jacob Shapiro:

And I think he's doing a great job.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, and then the rest, the rest of rounding, rounding up this list,

Jacob Shapiro:

uh, here is Met Freson at 12.

Jacob Shapiro:

Oh, okay.

Jacob Shapiro:

Here is at 11.

Jacob Shapiro:

We've got, uh, I don't know how to pronounce her name actually, but it's

Jacob Shapiro:

the leader of Estonia, Kaja, Kaja.

Jacob Shapiro:

I don't know.

Jacob Shapiro:

Kaja, you know.

Jacob Shapiro:

I don't know, but she comes in here as well.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, I had your Swiss, uh, Swiss leader at number 10.

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, again, I went to chat GPT for this, and they described

Jacob Shapiro:

her as Switzerland's Popovich.

Jacob Shapiro:

That sounded pretty good to me.

Jacob Shapiro:

That was enough to convince me that she belongs there.

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, but I take your point that that's sort of a boring pick, like, uh, anyway,

Jacob Shapiro:

but I, I had her there at 10 and then Albanese at nine, Kearney at eight, and

Jacob Shapiro:

Lawrence Wong coming in at number seven.

Jacob Shapiro:

So all countries that I think have high degrees of difficulty,

Jacob Shapiro:

really, really skilled leadership.

Jacob Shapiro:

Some of them are technocrats, some of them are rising stars.

Jacob Shapiro:

Some of them just know how to do things.

Jacob Shapiro:

But all people that, you know, you'll listen about trading, but ultimately,

Jacob Shapiro:

like you're gonna look at what you got and be like, I'm pretty good.

Jacob Shapiro:

I don't think I need to make a trade here because this person has

Jacob Shapiro:

got the situation under control.

Marko Papic:

Yeah.

Marko Papic:

So Singapore, Canada, and Australia.

Marko Papic:

7, 8, 9. Interesting.

Marko Papic:

Switzerland, 10, uh, Estonia 11.

Marko Papic:

Um, yeah, it was tough for me to give these countries that, uh, that

Marko Papic:

put them that high because they're just such well run countries.

Marko Papic:

You know, it goes back to that Warren Buffet quote, I want to invest in

Marko Papic:

countries that even an idiot could run.

Marko Papic:

So to what extent does it matter who's in charge of them?

Marko Papic:

But I think mm-hmm.

Marko Papic:

Uh, it's fair.

Marko Papic:

I mean, I have three of them there.

Marko Papic:

I don't have Estonia and Switzerland, but, um, you know, I, I don't disagree.

Marko Papic:

Japan is interesting.

Marko Papic:

Uh, we started doing this a month ago.

Marko Papic:

And I should have updated my list because the way that Japanese trade negotiations

Marko Papic:

with us have gone is very interesting and suggests to me that you are right.

Marko Papic:

There is something in Ishiba that's really interesting.

Marko Papic:

I mean, they've really played hardball to the extent that I

Marko Papic:

think no other country really has.

Marko Papic:

Yeah.

Marko Papic:

And so, and,

Jacob Shapiro:

and his approval ratings were in the toilet a month ago.

Jacob Shapiro:

He is slowly starting to crawl out of the, out of the basement.

Marko Papic:

Super respect, all of that.

Marko Papic:

And I think that you've, uh, you picked somebody who's had a tough time

Marko Papic:

and, and their their real potential.

Marko Papic:

I agree with you, Uzbekistan.

Marko Papic:

Um, I thought about it actually, uh, shockingly.

Marko Papic:

But I picked somebody else in the region.

Marko Papic:

Okay.

Marko Papic:

Uh, I've, I picked somebody else and I'll, I'll get to that because

Marko Papic:

he's very high up on my list.

Marko Papic:

Alright.

Marko Papic:

So, so I respect that.

Marko Papic:

Uh, I just didn't think that two central Asian countries really made sense.

Marko Papic:

It was like two stands, like, come on guys.

Marko Papic:

And if you, you know, if you count Jose Peja is sort of like part of that

Marko Papic:

whole post-Soviet space, it would've been a little bit too much and weird.

Marko Papic:

So I, I, I, I, you know, head tip to you.

Marko Papic:

I think you picked really well.

Marko Papic:

Alright, close it out.

Marko Papic:

Let's close it out, my friend.

Marko Papic:

Um, number 10, Pedro Sanchez, Spain.

Marko Papic:

I think we're gonna disagree on this.

Marko Papic:

We talked about

Jacob Shapiro:

it.

Jacob Shapiro:

We are, we are chat.

Jacob Shapiro:

GPT kept on saying, do you want Pedro Sanchez on your list?

Jacob Shapiro:

And I kept saying, no chat.

Jacob Shapiro:

GPT get this Spanish incompetent guy off of my list.

Jacob Shapiro:

I don't want him tell me why he is there.

Marko Papic:

Well, look, I mean, uh, you haven't heard anything about

Marko Papic:

separatism in Spain for a while.

Marko Papic:

Uh, and I think that's important.

Marko Papic:

Um, I think he's carved out a very bold foreign policy, uh, you know, led on,

Marko Papic:

uh, Israel, uh, in a very, in a way that obviously nobody who is pro-Israel

Marko Papic:

is gonna like, but differentiated Spanish foreign Pol policy for the

Marko Papic:

first time since like the eighties.

Marko Papic:

So that was interesting as well.

Marko Papic:

And then ultimately the economy is extremely successful, uh, is

Marko Papic:

absolutely crushing the region.

Marko Papic:

Uh, so he is high on my list now.

Marko Papic:

Is it because of him, the economy?

Marko Papic:

No, but he hasn't gotten in the way and that is important, especially in Europe.

Marko Papic:

So he's very high on my list just because Spain is the best performing

Marko Papic:

economy effectively in the, your area.

Marko Papic:

Um, and then we get into four names.

Marko Papic:

I feel like you're not going to agree with based on our previous discussions.

Marko Papic:

Um, let's put it this way, uh.

Marko Papic:

Like, think of us as different coaching systems.

Marko Papic:

You know, you might be modern, you know, uh, spread offense where you

Marko Papic:

just want to do layups and three pointers and you believe in analytics.

Marko Papic:

And I'm an old school guy who wants a post play.

Jacob Shapiro:

So I'm

Marko Papic:

gonna go,

Jacob Shapiro:

I'm, I'm, I'm more like the triangle offense and I

Jacob Shapiro:

want the guy with the drum and the corner and the piece pipe.

Jacob Shapiro:

I wanna do Phil Jackson's version of coaching.

Jacob Shapiro:

That's me, right?

Marko Papic:

That's you.

Marko Papic:

Okay.

Marko Papic:

Well, I'm going with like just old school, like post players.

Marko Papic:

These guys are not in favor, no one is going to probably agree with this.

Marko Papic:

Uh, but if you go to any one of these countries, just like your

Marko Papic:

example with Uzbekistan, you go to any of these countries, you're

Marko Papic:

gonna find nothing but support.

Marko Papic:

And yes, maybe that's because people who don't support them are in jail.

Marko Papic:

Maybe.

Marko Papic:

Maybe, but I would say it genuine.

Marko Papic:

Some,

Jacob Shapiro:

some people need to be in jail, you know?

Marko Papic:

Alright, number nine.

Marko Papic:

So this is top 10.

Marko Papic:

Sultan.

Marko Papic:

Binta Al Sayid.

Marko Papic:

Oman.

Marko Papic:

Oman baby.

Marko Papic:

You love Oman.

Marko Papic:

Yeah.

Marko Papic:

Transformation of the country is stunning.

Marko Papic:

I mean, we're talking a country that, you know, didn't have basic, basic services

Marko Papic:

like that, needed to hire like accountants to set up its sovereign wealth fund.

Marko Papic:

And, um, it's really harder to find a smaller country that's

Marko Papic:

doing more for global peace.

Marko Papic:

It's hosted a number of negotiations between other powers, not because

Marko Papic:

they're just a nice beach side location, but because they've made an effort to

Marko Papic:

improve the situation in the Middle East.

Marko Papic:

Then after that, Sheikh Mohammed bin, Al U ae transformed the

Marko Papic:

country into what it is today.

Marko Papic:

Incredible, incredible effort.

Marko Papic:

It used to just be oil and tourism in Dubai.

Marko Papic:

It's not just that anymore.

Marko Papic:

It's starting to rival Hong Kong and Singapore as the alternative for

Marko Papic:

emerging market financial capital flows.

Marko Papic:

Abu Dhabi is absolutely exploding as a financial capital.

Marko Papic:

There's advanced manufacturing in the country.

Marko Papic:

Do you know that They make air airplane parts?

Marko Papic:

It's part of the supply chain.

Marko Papic:

Uh, it has AI advances.

Marko Papic:

It's, um, it's becoming a very, very interesting place.

Marko Papic:

And you mentioned something about city states in a couple of, uh, episodes.

Marko Papic:

Mm-hmm.

Marko Papic:

You know, like this is, this is interesting.

Marko Papic:

And the application of AI in UAE is going to be very, very dramatic

Marko Papic:

and I think quite interesting.

Marko Papic:

So UAE makes my eight spots.

Marko Papic:

Then this is where all the liberals that are listening that are still here.

Marko Papic:

You know, I mean, uh, for all your liberals listening, just remember.

Marko Papic:

Jacob Shapiro picked Orban.

Marko Papic:

Okay.

Marko Papic:

Yeah.

Marko Papic:

I'm also

Jacob Shapiro:

not saying, I, I'm not saying I wanna live

Jacob Shapiro:

under the thumb of these guys.

Jacob Shapiro:

We're just talking about in the abstract of who would you trade leaders for.

Jacob Shapiro:

You know, I genuinely, like, I'm not trying to live under naive b even

Jacob Shapiro:

though he is number one on the list.

Marko Papic:

I genuinely would pick up the phone and trade our leader of

Marko Papic:

any country for Mohammed bin Salman.

Marko Papic:

Did t taunt with Iran.

Marko Papic:

Just said, you know what?

Marko Papic:

I just really don't care about the Shia Sunni split, bro.

Marko Papic:

So you can have whatever you want because I care about the socioeconomic

Marko Papic:

reorientation of the entire country.

Marko Papic:

We've talked about this, uh, uh, before, uh, you know, he might be number

Marko Papic:

one on my list, but I do think the Khashoggi affair was a huge on goal.

Marko Papic:

But since then, I mean, if you look at where Saudi Arabia was in 2015 on any

Marko Papic:

number of indicators and where it is today, it is absolutely night and day.

Marko Papic:

It was practically defenseless.

Marko Papic:

It was mirrored in endless wars.

Marko Papic:

It stuck in a fundamentalist doom loop.

Marko Papic:

The country has been absolutely transformed.

Marko Papic:

And uh, what I like about it is that he has big dreams,

Marko Papic:

you know, like, like Biggie.

Marko Papic:

He's got big dreams.

Marko Papic:

Is he gonna accomplish them?

Marko Papic:

Yeah, probably not.

Marko Papic:

But when your North Star is actually a big dream, you might get 30% of

Marko Papic:

it and still improve the country.

Marko Papic:

And, you know what, who has big dreams anymore on our list?

Marko Papic:

Tell me who the dreamers are.

Marko Papic:

What's Benjamin Netanyahu's dream other than not going to jail, you know?

Marko Papic:

So Mohammed bin Salman very high on my list.

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, yeah, Benjamin Netanyahu's dream, by the way.

Jacob Shapiro:

He, he, uh, you're forgetting ice cream gate where he, uh, got held

Jacob Shapiro:

up on corruption issues because his office was spending over 400, the

Jacob Shapiro:

equivalent of $400 a month just on specialty ice cream for his wife.

Jacob Shapiro:

So he dreams of ice cream and bombing Iran.

Jacob Shapiro:

There you go.

Marko Papic:

That's awesome.

Marko Papic:

Well, well done.

Marko Papic:

And then number six, uh, you know, it's interesting that I took this

Marko Papic:

leader over Mohammed bin Salman.

Marko Papic:

You could say that.

Marko Papic:

Uh.

Marko Papic:

The degree of difficulty in the delta in Saudi Arabia is greater, but I'm picking

Marko Papic:

King Mohamed, the sixth of Morocco, plus his Prime Minister, Aziz Hanush.

Marko Papic:

Uh, the socioeconomic transformation of Morocco is al also incredible.

Marko Papic:

Uh, avoided the Arab Spring, but it's really the integration into the

Marko Papic:

supply chains that is very important.

Marko Papic:

And there is, I think, some symmetry of having Morocco six in Spain, 10

Marko Papic:

because they're increasingly becoming really, uh, Europe's manufacturing hub.

Marko Papic:

The integration between the two is quite interesting.

Marko Papic:

Mm-hmm.

Marko Papic:

Um, also, also this is a country that's effectively doubled its territory.

Marko Papic:

You know, if you wanna compare King Muhammad the six to Vladimir Putin,

Marko Papic:

Vladimir Putin's got nothing on annexation because Morocco has effectively

Marko Papic:

quietly annexed Western Sahara and absolutely nobody has said anything.

Marko Papic:

Now that's been the case for a very long time, but it's pretty much

Marko Papic:

now over and it's failed complete.

Marko Papic:

Uh, also great place to visit and, uh, has really navigated a lot of

Marko Papic:

the problems over the last 25 years.

Marko Papic:

I think Morocco is where the rest of the GCC is headed, and that's why you should

Marko Papic:

be very bullish on the Middle East.

Marko Papic:

So I'm gonna stop here and then, uh, yeah, any reactions, any thoughts?

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, we're closer than you think.

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, this is why we're cousins.

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, on my list.

Jacob Shapiro:

I like you, uh, the four leaders so far that you have, that I should have had.

Jacob Shapiro:

Anwar Ibrahim, Abdu ii, IDI Rama, and the Sultan of, uh.

Jacob Shapiro:

Oman, uh, whatever his name is.

Jacob Shapiro:

I don't know his name, sorry, Saltan of Oman.

Jacob Shapiro:

I just remember Salton caboose.

Jacob Shapiro:

I, I remember joking about him over back in our Strat four days.

Jacob Shapiro:

But I think all those are worthy of inclusion.

Jacob Shapiro:

I'll give you my seven through one and you'll see that I actually have

Jacob Shapiro:

taken both MBS and MBZ ahead of you, uh, coming in at three and four.

Marko Papic:

Whoa.

Marko Papic:

Wow.

Marko Papic:

Yeah, I knows.

Marko Papic:

Oh, I'm shocked.

Marko Papic:

Surpris, isn't

Jacob Shapiro:

it?

Jacob Shapiro:

I'm shocked.

Jacob Shapiro:

You're shocked.

Jacob Shapiro:

I know I talk a lot of shit about the golf here on this podcast, but here I am

Jacob Shapiro:

with, uh, with those two at the very top.

Jacob Shapiro:

So rounding out my top seven here.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, and then, well, no, I, I have like 10, 10 or 12 minutes

Jacob Shapiro:

maybe we get through the top.

Jacob Shapiro:

And do we come back and discuss this more after we've had time to study?

Jacob Shapiro:

We, I don't know.

Jacob Shapiro:

You'll tell me.

Jacob Shapiro:

Okay.

Jacob Shapiro:

We do.

Jacob Shapiro:

So number seven, this might be your number one.

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, but this is Georgia Maloney's territory for me.

Jacob Shapiro:

She comes in at number seven.

Jacob Shapiro:

I'm sure you're gonna wanna talk about her.

Jacob Shapiro:

She's, I think she's been very, very effective.

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, number six, Xi Jinping.

Jacob Shapiro:

I'm impressed, Xi I've always liked Xi Jinping.

Jacob Shapiro:

I've always overindexed on his leadership.

Jacob Shapiro:

I think he's done an incredible job with a very, very difficult situation.

Jacob Shapiro:

You wanna talk about degrees of difficulty?

Jacob Shapiro:

I mean, he's the Mao Deng Xiaoping of this era.

Jacob Shapiro:

He's trying to absolutely transform China.

Jacob Shapiro:

He's gotten a long way there.

Jacob Shapiro:

He's reforming the PLA.

Jacob Shapiro:

He's moving supply side reforms.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like nobody has a higher degree of difficulty on this list than Xi Jinping.

Jacob Shapiro:

And the fact that he's still alive and still kicking and there's no

Jacob Shapiro:

opposition and there's no opposition.

Jacob Shapiro:

Don't listen to the annual spate of rumors that Xi Jinping is on the way

Jacob Shapiro:

out, which is happening this week.

Jacob Shapiro:

I guess we needed something in the slow news cycle after Israel, Iran War.

Jacob Shapiro:

Xi Jinping comes here.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um.

Jacob Shapiro:

Number five.

Jacob Shapiro:

This one I bet is not an, well, I don't know.

Jacob Shapiro:

Maybe she's on your list.

Jacob Shapiro:

Maybe she's not.

Jacob Shapiro:

Uh, Claudia Shane Baum in Mexico, I think has been incredibly impressive.

Jacob Shapiro:

I've described her as sort of the Anglo Merkel of the 2020s.

Jacob Shapiro:

She reminds me of Anglo Merkel.

Jacob Shapiro:

She's a scientist engineer.

Jacob Shapiro:

Yes, she's taking over from Alos populism, but she's dealt with Trump masterfully.

Jacob Shapiro:

I think she's doing a great job with Mexican politics, her

Jacob Shapiro:

approval ratings through the roof, like she's putting in good work.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, three and four.

Jacob Shapiro:

I told you I've got MBZ at number four MBS at number three.

Jacob Shapiro:

And my top two.

Jacob Shapiro:

Number two, I, I wonder if he'll push back against this, and this is probably

Jacob Shapiro:

my bias creeping in, but give me Mr. Zelensky in Ukraine at number two,

Jacob Shapiro:

what he's been able to do for Ukraine.

Jacob Shapiro:

He's gone through some ups and downs.

Jacob Shapiro:

He's still kicking, Ukraine is still here.

Jacob Shapiro:

Ukraine is in an incredible position because of him.

Jacob Shapiro:

I think that Ukraine is not here today in its current form.

Jacob Shapiro:

If he's not out in the streets with the cameras, like manipulating the media

Jacob Shapiro:

the way that he did, like, I think he really was an indispensable man

Jacob Shapiro:

at a, at a really critical time for a country that was at existential risk.

Jacob Shapiro:

And I give him extra props for that.

Jacob Shapiro:

Maybe he's a church alien figure.

Jacob Shapiro:

Maybe as soon as the war's over, he gets put back out to pasture or.

Jacob Shapiro:

Face back onto TV as a comedian.

Jacob Shapiro:

I like that he is a comedian.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like that works for me.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, agreed.

Jacob Shapiro:

Also, you know, a fellow, you know, according to Putin,

Jacob Shapiro:

a Jewish fascist, so fine.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like, let the Jew pick a Jewish fascist at number two.

Jacob Shapiro:

And I've already told you that ye boule is my number one.

Jacob Shapiro:

You can't resist it.

Jacob Shapiro:

I don't wanna live under him.

Jacob Shapiro:

He's incredibly a liberal.

Jacob Shapiro:

I bet that 30 years from now, you know, he'll, he's like, uh, the

Jacob Shapiro:

metaphor might be de nearest Arian, like good intentions, did a whole

Jacob Shapiro:

bunch of things, but eventually lived long enough to be queen of the ashes.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like he, he has that darkness to him.

Jacob Shapiro:

He's got the dragon inside of him, but right now he's riding high and nobody

Jacob Shapiro:

has done more with, less than bouquet.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, right down to the Bitcoin bet.

Jacob Shapiro:

So there's my list.

Marko Papic:

Well, I mean, there's a lot of agreement here.

Marko Papic:

We've got El Salvador, we've got UAE, Saudi Arabia, um, Italy, Mexico.

Marko Papic:

I'm, I'm about to reveal my top five, um, one disagreement I have here with you.

Marko Papic:

Uh, so Ukraine, I have, uh, actually both Zelensky and Trump

Marko Papic:

in a special category of their own.

Jacob Shapiro:

As, as you can tell.

Jacob Shapiro:

By the way, Mr. Trump not on my list.

Jacob Shapiro:

I was curious if he would get on your list.

Marko Papic:

Uh, he's not on my list either.

Marko Papic:

Um, you know, I, I think that President Trump has done a lot of very

Marko Papic:

oppressive things, but is he a product of being the leader of the best?

Marko Papic:

Like, could he have done what he did with El Salvador?

Marko Papic:

You know, that's the question that I think I, I struggle with.

Marko Papic:

And similarly, uh, Zelensky was an absolutely terrible leader before the war.

Marko Papic:

Mm-hmm.

Marko Papic:

Absolutely terrible.

Marko Papic:

So, you know, like, and even during the war, I would say that the first 12

Marko Papic:

months of Zelensky leadership in the war from February, 2022 to, let's say

Marko Papic:

September, 2023, admirable, amazing.

Marko Papic:

Uh, I think he's made several incredibly terrifyingly terrible military

Marko Papic:

strategic decisions, you know, for the past, like two years straight.

Marko Papic:

And so like, you are basically giving him the number two spot

Marko Papic:

for like 18 months of his rule.

Marko Papic:

I am, and it is, and listen, incredible.

Marko Papic:

18 months of his rule, but like that's, you know, that's like, I, I don't know

Marko Papic:

what to do with him because of that.

Marko Papic:

Um, it's, it's

Jacob Shapiro:

kinda, it's kinda like, it's, it's kinda like Brandon Roy, like

Jacob Shapiro:

when he was on the floor, he was one of the best, but he doesn't have any knees.

Jacob Shapiro:

He has no cartilage in his knees, so he can't play basketball.

Marko Papic:

You know, a better, a better example would be somebody

Marko Papic:

who catches fire in the playoffs and then gets a huge contract afterwards.

Marko Papic:

You know, you're like, oh my God, look at what they did in these two series.

Marko Papic:

Yeah.

Marko Papic:

But maybe that's because they weren't guarding him.

Marko Papic:

Uh, I just, that's why he's not on my list.

Marko Papic:

But I, you know, respect that 18 months of dogged perseverance.

Marko Papic:

Um, China, big disagreement with you there.

Jacob Shapiro:

Not on your list.

Jacob Shapiro:

No,

Marko Papic:

no.

Marko Papic:

Xi bing is not on my list.

Marko Papic:

That's a

Jacob Shapiro:

huge disagreement.

Jacob Shapiro:

Wow.

Jacob Shapiro:

Well,

Marko Papic:

and here's why.

Marko Papic:

You know, I loved what you said about Uzbekistan's president.

Marko Papic:

Remind me of the name again.

Jacob Shapiro:

Shav Kat, me Zev.

Jacob Shapiro:

I only had to practice that about 30 times before we hit record.

Marko Papic:

And I apologize for not remembering the name.

Marko Papic:

I did honestly take a look at Uzbekistan as one of my potentials.

Marko Papic:

Didn't choose it, but what you said was interesting.

Marko Papic:

You talked to some random Uzbekistani taxi driver and they loved him.

Marko Papic:

You know, and, and I bet you if you poll people into Uzbekistan,

Marko Papic:

legitimately they would agree.

Marko Papic:

I don't think that's the case with China.

Marko Papic:

And here's why.

Marko Papic:

He didn't take people outta poverty.

Marko Papic:

Preceding leaders did.

Marko Papic:

By 2012, China was what it is today.

Marko Papic:

He unnecessarily, unnecessarily provoked the sleeping giant, which

Marko Papic:

is the United States of America.

Marko Papic:

That was not necessary in 2020.

Marko Papic:

In 2012, you could have waited until 20 20, 20 25, 20 30.

Marko Papic:

When you have far more ability to kind of challenge the us, I

Marko Papic:

think that was a huge on goal.

Marko Papic:

Jacob, there was no need for China to start talking about nine dash

Marko Papic:

lines or South China Sea in 2012.

Marko Papic:

It just, why?

Marko Papic:

Why wake up the United States of America itching to pivot out of the Middle East?

Marko Papic:

Why alert them to the fact that yes, you have designs on regional hegemony

Marko Papic:

and then finally, I cannot believe you have him this high because of how he has

Marko Papic:

crushed private sector dynamism in China.

Marko Papic:

And I don't wanna sound like some aire, you know, like pro business guy, you

Marko Papic:

know, like who just cares about that?

Marko Papic:

But that's a huge, that's something that China genuinely was

Marko Papic:

crushing and was getting there.

Marko Papic:

And some of his structural reforms.

Marko Papic:

I mean, certainly he has put the weight of the government behind certain sectors.

Marko Papic:

God bless you.

Marko Papic:

But anybody can do that.

Marko Papic:

My concern is that there's been a little bit too much opposition to private

Marko Papic:

sector entrepreneurship and innovation.

Jacob Shapiro:

Um, yeah, the, the, I'll, I'll push back in this way.

Jacob Shapiro:

I think the, the thing that we really disagree on is that I think

Jacob Shapiro:

that he is popular to the average rank and file Chinese person.

Jacob Shapiro:

And I think that, not because he made them prosperous, but

Jacob Shapiro:

because he went after corruption.

Jacob Shapiro:

I think there was a huge divide where parts of China got incredibly rich.

Jacob Shapiro:

We agree.

Jacob Shapiro:

And he came, he came in and said, bogie la the party's over.

Jacob Shapiro:

And you guys in Shanghai driving around the Lamborghinis, while

Jacob Shapiro:

people are making less than $5 a day in the interior, the party's over.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like we are go and military guys who you're siphoning off all this money.

Jacob Shapiro:

Local governments who are doing all these things to siphon off money

Jacob Shapiro:

for that's over, the party is over.

Jacob Shapiro:

We're going back to Moral Rectitude and Xi Jing principles and Little

Jacob Shapiro:

Red Books and everything else.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like, and I think that he's gotten popular for that.

Jacob Shapiro:

The others, I agree with you.

Jacob Shapiro:

I mean, I would quibble with, I don't think his problem was 2012.

Jacob Shapiro:

His problem was the wolf warrior diplomacy with 2017.

Jacob Shapiro:

And to his credit, I. Has fixed it.

Jacob Shapiro:

He got rid of the Wolf Warrior warriors, he's like taken it back.

Jacob Shapiro:

Now, that was a mistake, but like he showed the ability to

Jacob Shapiro:

survive the mistake and twist it.

Jacob Shapiro:

Private sector Diamond Dyna is sure, like, but I think he's done as good

Jacob Shapiro:

a job as he possibly can in China, and I think he is the one that said,

Jacob Shapiro:

Hey, get ready for L-shaped growth.

Jacob Shapiro:

We are gonna have to go through this at some point we're we're gonna let

Jacob Shapiro:

the real estate bubble collapse.

Jacob Shapiro:

I know, but even there, he's gonna have to manage it.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like, you know,

Marko Papic:

but even there, Jacob, like we, he's making the same

Marko Papic:

mistake that Angela Merkel, Obama Tea Party, everyone in the West made.

Marko Papic:

So I don't wanna like, like be too negative on this, but there is a

Marko Papic:

solution to a real estate crisis.

Marko Papic:

Richard Coup has told us what that is and it's stimulating GDP growth.

Marko Papic:

Now I, again, he's falling into the same mistake everyone else did.

Marko Papic:

But all he needs to do is look at the west and how long the de-leveraging

Marko Papic:

was prolonged because the US government and the European governments did not

Marko Papic:

step in with fiscal support to know that he is making the same mistake.

Marko Papic:

So on that front, I think the fact that he has been so astir is in an incorrect move.

Marko Papic:

But

Jacob Shapiro:

yeah, but I, I think that's 'cause it's the right

Jacob Shapiro:

move for the Chinese context.

Jacob Shapiro:

He warned them in 2019, do not do this.

Jacob Shapiro:

This is a red line.

Jacob Shapiro:

I am not going to bail you out.

Jacob Shapiro:

And then they did it.

Jacob Shapiro:

And so he had to follow through and say, look, we are just not

Jacob Shapiro:

gonna backstop you forever.

Jacob Shapiro:

We need to be more productive.

Jacob Shapiro:

Like we need to be more efficient with our capital.

Jacob Shapiro:

He's not gonna

Marko Papic:

Right, but he's not going to be more productive if he's

Marko Papic:

messing with also the private markets and private businesses and private

Jacob Shapiro:

entrepreneurs.

Jacob Shapiro:

That's, that's, that's true.

Jacob Shapiro:

I have, so it's, I have nothing to, I can't argue with you

Marko Papic:

there, but it's, it's, look, it's not a big deal.

Marko Papic:

Uh, he is on my list of like the people I left out along with, uh, some others

Marko Papic:

that we can talk about next time.

Marko Papic:

I'm gonna finish off my list.

Marko Papic:

Uh, this has gone on long enough.

Marko Papic:

The next one, first of all, if you have any reactions to

Marko Papic:

our list, send them to us.

Marko Papic:

Yes.

Marko Papic:

Um, you can use, uh, maritz geopolitical alpha.com or Jacob.

Marko Papic:

What's

Jacob Shapiro:

jacob@jacobshapiro.com.

Jacob Shapiro:

I'll put them both in the intro, but yes.

Marko Papic:

Okay.

Marko Papic:

So let's, uh, let's get some, uh, commentary.

Marko Papic:

That's, that's cool.

Marko Papic:

Uh, we're also, what I'm gonna do with Jacob is I'm gonna use a

Marko Papic:

sophisticated mathematical formula to blend our lists together.

Jacob Shapiro:

Oh, cool.

Marko Papic:

You know?

Marko Papic:

Great.

Marko Papic:

So we'll know who's number one.

Jacob Shapiro:

Great.

Marko Papic:

Alright, I'm gonna round off the top.

Marko Papic:

Um, I think you're gonna love my top first of all, number five, Kasim Jomar to baby.

Marko Papic:

Yeah.

Marko Papic:

Yeah.

Marko Papic:

I didn't choose Uzbekistan.

Marko Papic:

I didn't choose Uzbekistan.

Marko Papic:

Why?

Marko Papic:

Uh, first of all, navigating geopolitics very successfully.

Marko Papic:

The reason Uzbekistan can ride, uh, quietly and not pick sides is because

Marko Papic:

nobody truly cares about Uzbekistan.

Marko Papic:

Like, let's be very clear.

Marko Papic:

Neither do including Russians.

Marko Papic:

They're like, ah, whatever.

Marko Papic:

Like, sure.

Marko Papic:

Yeah.

Marko Papic:

You know, sorry for destroying your environment with cotton production.

Marko Papic:

Moving on.

Marko Papic:

Kazakhstan.

Marko Papic:

The Russians care about Kazakhstan, they care about

Marko Papic:

Kazakhstan, and so do the Chinese.

Marko Papic:

And yet what the Q has managed to do is perhaps the greatest

Marko Papic:

balancing act in all of the world.

Marko Papic:

Yes, I'm gonna go it that far.

Marko Papic:

He managed to call in Russian peacekeepers when there was, uh,

Marko Papic:

to call an uprising against him.

Marko Papic:

Mm-hmm.

Marko Papic:

But since then, since then, he has managed to avoid picking sides in

Marko Papic:

Ukraine, Russia, which is extraordinary.

Marko Papic:

He has left the ruling party completely pivoted away from Nazarbayev, positioned

Marko Papic:

himself as a political economic reformer.

Marko Papic:

Uh, he's, uh, refused to recognize Russian puppet states in Ukraine, refused to

Marko Papic:

accept the, uh, uh, all sorts of domestic political problems in Russia that have

Marko Papic:

sort of moved over to, uh, to Kazakhstan.

Marko Papic:

And, uh, just managed to get rid of domestic political.

Marko Papic:

Problems that have been left over from thus survive, have managed to

Marko Papic:

balance both China and Russia as well.

Marko Papic:

So really impressive work there in Kazakhstan that nobody's

Marko Papic:

probably paying attention to.

Marko Papic:

I would definitely trade a leader of many countries for to kaev.

Marko Papic:

Number four.

Marko Papic:

Hasn't made your list, which is surprising.

Marko Papic:

This is the best economic performance in Europe.

Marko Papic:

I said Spain.

Marko Papic:

There is another country that's doing even better.

Marko Papic:

The largest budget deficit consolidation in human history.

Marko Papic:

We're talking about KO's, midis of Greece, also geopolitically, you know, quiet.

Marko Papic:

Hasn't really pushed against Turkey.

Marko Papic:

Quietly become the destination for Israeli entrepreneurs and capital

Marko Papic:

has moved into Greece a lot.

Marko Papic:

And, um, really interesting, interesting, uh, performance.

Marko Papic:

I think that, um.

Marko Papic:

Absolutely would, uh, trade, uh, many leaders for mitsotakis.

Marko Papic:

Um, also third term, uh, which you know, is very impressive in a place like Greece.

Marko Papic:

I have, uh, Modi third.

Marko Papic:

I regret it.

Marko Papic:

I regret it though.

Marko Papic:

I think you are you.

Marko Papic:

No, no.

Marko Papic:

I mean, just, you made such a compelling case, uh, for why, you

Marko Papic:

know, he shouldn't be number three.

Marko Papic:

He is for you, number 15.

Marko Papic:

I think that's, that's correct.

Marko Papic:

You know, I, I overstated him.

Marko Papic:

And then finally we get to our top two choices who will be ranked

Marko Papic:

number one and two on our lists.

Marko Papic:

So I nailed it mainly because you also agree yours, uh, six and

Marko Papic:

four, and it's very interesting.

Marko Papic:

The top two leaders in the world for Jacob Shapiro and Marco Papich are women.

Marko Papic:

Number two, Claudia Shine Bone absolutely crush you.

Marko Papic:

I'm so happy

Jacob Shapiro:

she's number two for you.

Jacob Shapiro:

I'm so impressed with her.

Marko Papic:

Yeah, absolutely.

Marko Papic:

And number one, the greatest leader in the world.

Marko Papic:

And she will be confirmed.

Marko Papic:

No, no, no.

Marko Papic:

I'm sorry.

Marko Papic:

But if she will be confirmed once I do the math, it will work out.

Marko Papic:

'cause she is number six for you.

Marko Papic:

She's number one for me.

Marko Papic:

Maybe Shaba actually goes higher.

Marko Papic:

Four and two.

Marko Papic:

Oh, this is gonna be interesting.

Marko Papic:

No,

Jacob Shapiro:

yeah, it will be.

Jacob Shapiro:

Yeah.

Jacob Shapiro:

Yeah.

Marko Papic:

Claudia Sheba will be crown number one.

Marko Papic:

She's number two for me.

Marko Papic:

For me number one, and will be crown number two.

Marko Papic:

Overall is I. Just an absolute legend.

Marko Papic:

Georgia Maloney crushed it just, I mean, mic drop in every way, shape or form from

Marko Papic:

her facial expressions when she's dealing with chauvinistic, overburdening annoying

Marko Papic:

men down to the economic performance of Italy, down to way that she has completely

Marko Papic:

dampened populism in the country.

Marko Papic:

She's given the anti-establishment populous what they wanted, which

Marko Papic:

is anti-immigration policies, and then she has pursued a

Marko Papic:

pretty solid economic agenda.

Marko Papic:

Nobody talks about the fact that Italy still has huge debt burden because

Marko Papic:

the deficit has absolutely shrunk.

Marko Papic:

Well done.

Marko Papic:

George Maloney, you are number one on the list, but I can just see the data

Marko Papic:

right now and it looks like Mexico's president, Claudia Scheinbaum is crowned

Marko Papic:

the best leader in the world with Maloney second, so that's one in two.

Marko Papic:

Um.

Marko Papic:

Two leaders, um, two female leaders in uh, G 20 countries.

Marko Papic:

So that's very interesting.

Marko Papic:

I will complete the mathematical, uh, consolidation of our two lists.

Marko Papic:

And in the next episode, what we're gonna do, Jacob, is we're going to,

Marko Papic:

uh, basically go from one to about 50.

Marko Papic:

I think we got about 50 leaders here because, you know, you had some

Marko Papic:

that I didn't have and vice versa.

Marko Papic:

Mm-hmm.

Marko Papic:

Uh, and then we're gonna talk about those that we've left out, why we

Marko Papic:

left them out, namely Donald Trump.

Marko Papic:

We're gonna get a lot of hate mail, which is great.

Marko Papic:

Let's go, let's go.

Marko Papic:

Uh, and then the second thing also, we also,

Jacob Shapiro:

we, we left out Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, uh, Gabriel Boruch

Jacob Shapiro:

was also on my honorable mention list, but you'll still get into it.

Marko Papic:

Oh yeah, that's fair.

Marko Papic:

We, we, we'll, we'll get into all of that.

Marko Papic:

Um, and also, yeah, I mean, we're gonna, we're gonna ask ourselves

Marko Papic:

would we really trade these people?

Marko Papic:

But I gotta say Shiba and, uh, Maloney.

Marko Papic:

Yeah.

Marko Papic:

I mean, I think I would trade the leaders of our country for those.

Jacob Shapiro:

I, I would be happy to live under the two of them.

Jacob Shapiro:

That's fine with me.

Marko Papic:

Alright, on, on that note, uh, we're gonna

Marko Papic:

end our, uh, top trade list.

Marko Papic:

Part one, part two is coming, uh, soon, hopefully early next week when we can

Marko Papic:

kind of digest some of the feedback and go into, uh, the definitive list.

Marko Papic:

That is the mind belt of both of us.

Jacob Shapiro:

This was incredible, cousin.

Jacob Shapiro:

Thank you so much.

Marko Papic:

Thank you.

Marko Papic:

No, I appreciate all the hard work.

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