The Fourth Reich

0:00Hello listeners, welcome to another episode of Geopolitical Cousins. We recorded Tuesday, September 8th around noon, not sure exactly when this is going to publish. It might take a day or two. There are some things towards the end about Iran and the Houthis that maybe will be, I don't know, just know that we recorded on Tuesday. So if anything develops between now and then. That's why cheers and see you out there. Alright Cousins, we're back at it. We're recording Tuesday, September 8th. We'll probably get this out in the next day or two, I would think. But I wanted to start off today. The big news that everybody is obsessed about is that over the weekend, alternative for Deutschland, AFD, surged into first place in state elections in Saxony, on Halt. That's a small state in Germany. They're short of an overall majority. They won 44% of the vote, not a great look for German centrist for the CDUCSU, for Chancellor of Friedrich Merz, all these other things.

1:04I will say, I think this is an important issue, Cousin, but I also think the level of reaction, I also get the level of reaction. Like Germany is where Nazi is started. So when you get a far right party that has some Nazis in it, you start, it's not unreasonable to say, hey, remember the last time that there were Nazi parties in Germany that were getting 40% of the vote in states and what they used to get, I get the move. But as somebody whose family fled Europe the last time the Nazis took over state governments, Germany with these types of periods, I think it's fairly overwrought. I think we need to add some nuance to the conversation. You are the Europe guru. So I'm going to get out of the way and let you start here and then sort of lay her in on top of it. Because I think there's a lot to say about this. I think this says interesting things about Europe and how we should understand the French elections that are coming and what this means for Russia, Ukraine, what this means for Europe, US relations, like their implications and all of this. But why don't we just start with your take on AFD's victory? Because if you just logged on Twitter on Sunday, you would have thought that AFD had taken

2:06over the German government with a supermajority and that the Panzer divisions were lining up to go back into Poland, which I think is pretty far from the truth. Yeah. So I agree with you that this is an overreaction. I mean, where do we start? First of all, I think that most casual observers of Europe are operating on just an outdated software, outdated model of what's going on in Europe. Back in the 2010s, a steady diet of Anglo-Saxon media coverage told everyone that Europe was going to collapse. And nobody bothered to ask financial times and the economists and the daily telegraph and pretty much all of the British reporting of what's going on in Europe was not just thrown into the dustbin of history. Like, if you want to find out what's going on in Europe, don't let it be refracted through London media. The reality is that Europe did not collapse. The Euro area expanded. In fact, more countries joined the Euro than left since those 2010s.

3:12And the support for the EU and the Euro are at all time highs, all time highs, including in Germany. In Germany, the support for the Euro is around 90 percent in France. It's at 80 percent. And yet, Marine Le Pen is likely to become the president of France from a right wing, you know, somewhat populist ticket. And there's a slew of anti-establishment parties that I think, again, we lazily classify as Euro scaptit. Not really knowing what that means. George and Maloney, we both have basically crushes on the prime minister of Italy in various degrees of why, purely platonic and analytical from at least my perspective. But she... That sounds like an oxymoron of platonic crush. I don't think that works, but go with it. Okay. Yes. Look, I mean, she, you know, runs a party that was also at one point, calling for leaving

4:17the Urearia. You have a box in Spain. You have geared filters in the Netherlands. You have the true Finns in Finland. You have the Swedish Democrats. In Sweden, you have the OVP in Austria. You have a lot of different right wing populist parties that have over the course of the last 10 years. Like made a choice. Do we want to be... Do we want to remain ideologues? Or do we want to win? You know, and they've made the latter choice almost across the European continent. The one curious example, the one kind of sand in these gears of this logic, which is that competitive pressures, competitive political pressures, and the reality of the median voter in Europe who does not seek European disintegration, even though they're myth that bureaucrats in Brussels, just like anybody's myth that bureaucrats, why wouldn't you be? That's kind of the thing that we're all do. The one place that that's not been the case is AFD. AFD, at least a national AFD, has not really curbed its Euroskepticism, but I have noticed

5:23that they have been talking about it a lot less. And in Saxony outholt in particular, the leader of AFD there, Ulrich Sigmund, who is a very good-looking young fellow, always smiling, always smiling. That's the one thing about him that he's always smiling. You know, like I don't remember Nazis smiling, by the way. Don't have a... They were scowling maybe, you know, but he's a very good-looking young German dude, just like, you know, nice haircut, nice suit, always smiling, being just very friendly. He has definitely not talked about the EU and the euro. And the reason that he hasn't is, of course, he's going to be a premier of a tiny state in Eastern Germany, so I'm not going to ask him what he thinks about the euro. He doesn't have any power to change the currency of, you know, a state. But what he is focusing on are things that I think in Germany are maybe the worst in all of Europe. And that is this kind of like Gramschen hegemony on what is and what isn't acceptable

6:28to talk about. Because of German history, I think that Germany is a country more than maybe any other place in the world has certain things you just do not love to talk about. And obviously, you know, like saying anything remotely like, well, you know, like, say what you will about national socialism, but at least you had an ethos, you know, hashtag, big olboski, like saying that will get you canceled in Germany. Like you can't, you know, like it's very difficult. I mean, you know, when the first time they showed Adolf Hitler in a movie in Germany, it was like a big, big deal. I think he was downfall. One of my favorite, you know, movies like it's a place where there's certain taboos, you know, support for Israel by Germans. It's like ironclad support for centrism or parties that don't question history. Ironclad. And then finally, they've extended that to some other things, like talking bad about immigration.

7:30You're not supposed to do that. Talking about how nuclear power should be restarted. You're suddenly not supposed to talk about that either. And then finally, talking in any way about like, hey, maybe the war in Ukraine is dumb, which is the one that I would argue is perhaps the most like really appealing to some of these places, especially in German. So what I think AFD is praying on is a culture of ideational hegemony in Germany. And we have this everywhere. We obviously, many people voted for Trump because they were just sick and tired of like idiotic political correctness. And it was idiotic. Vocism was beyond idiotic. And we know because AOC just literally said that like, woke one was a problem. Woke two is better. But woke two, you meet class warfare. Yeah. You know, like that's literally not what woke is. Woke one was stupid. Nobody cares. Let's move on. I mean, even the Democrats agreed. So what's happening in Germany is that you have a party that doesn't stand for leaving

8:33Europe. It stands for like, hey, you know what? Maybe we should talk about like everything. Maybe everything is up for discussion. Well, I do we support Israel without any like, you know, checks and balances. Well, because we kind of killed six million Jews. It's like, you know, but like Israel, you know, like to what extent is that still a reason that we have to support them all time? Ukraine. We should support them no matter what, right? We can't have a saying that isn't even good for Ukraine that the war continues? Should we not support them to integrate them into Europe? Do weapons make a big difference? Russia's evil. Yeah, but Trump is making deals with Kim Jong Un. We're Germany. We kind of need their gas. Why are we again? The ones that don't make a deal? Like again, I'm not agreeing with these positions. I'm just saying like, there is a debate to be had. And so this is where I really want to like direct two lines of thoughts here. European integration. Guys, if you're listening to this and again, you have a day to day job, you're busy.

9:35European integration question is only a question for Americans and Brits. It is not a fucking question in Europe. Nobody is questioning European integration. You know why? Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump kind of figure that problem out for Europe. They're integrating, baby. Yeah, they're life again. They're dancing. You know, very Le Pen is like, you know, like she's got EU flags behind her, when she gives press conferences, man. And this is Marie Le Pen. Like she dancing. And she liking it. All right. So they're all dancing to the ode of joy. All of them. So that's first and foremost, that's a fact. There's no like nobody can argue with me on this. This is uncontroversial. We will not discuss. The second point is, so what is then about AFD? I think AFD has not yet been to test. They haven't been put to test in a serious way as a front runner. They're about to be over the next two and a half years.

10:35And I would bet given that I'm 17 for fucking 17, baby. All right. Every other right wing extremist anti-establishment, whatever you want to call it pejoratively or non, every other party in Europe has come to Jesus on the euro. I believe that AFD will as well over the next two and a half years. They're going to say something like, well, German state will benefit from it to wear whatever. But they are going to do what everyone else has done. It was tripled down on anti-immigrant policies and on breaking taboos in Germany, they haven't been broken. And I think in the case of them, they clearly are overtly pro-Russian and not pro-Russian. Sorry, that's not fair to them. But they are open to having a more nuanced position of that. So that's what I think is happening. And I think it is overstated. This one victory does not mean that nationally they will. Saxony on halt is like Republicans winning in Mississippi. Like let's... Well, I was going to say that. So I think I've told the story in the podcast before. The first time I was ever invited to Moscow to speak at a Maghimo event, this guy with glasses

11:42came up to me. There was some Alabama special governor race that was happening at the time. And he came up to me and he said, so what is your opinion on the Alabama governor race and what's happening there? And I was like, dude, they've got you worried about the Alabama governor's race. This has nothing to do with geopolitics or anything else. I'm sorry that this is the brief that you've drawn. It's not important. Saxony on halt, there are some really interesting things about German politics I think we should get into. Alabama was what I was going to throw out. Like let's pump the brakes on. OK, so the AFD won in the Alabama of Europe. Great. This does not mean that Germany is now going to become the fourth Reich. Like there's a large delta between this and this. And I just think we need to say that first of all. And they're not... They're not... They're not... They're not... They're generally not Nazis. Like that is... They are. Well, so I would probably ties that a little bit by saying yes. I don't think that the leaders of AFD or Nazis, AFD itself was began. You probably know this history. But professors are economists. Yes. Pro professors have economics. OK, so these are not... The Nazis were much like they were not professors.

12:42They were a bunch of... Anyway, we don't have to go down that's true. But which is not to say like there is this sudden... There's this shock where... Oh, but there are still Nazis in Germany. Yeah, this is where the Nazis originated from. So you didn't get rid of them all. You got rid of the Jews. You didn't get rid of the Nazis. We didn't build concentration camps by the Nazis after we got rid of the Third Reich. OK, so there are definitely Nazis floating out there. And you can see how they would glam onto this program. So there are absolutely Nazis in the AFD. And there are absolutely parts of the AFD program that they are going to love. I think you're right, though. I don't think this is national socialism. Now, could it evolve to that over a period of years? I guess that's possible, but that's not what we're dealing with right now. And I think to your point, if you just look at their... Electoral Program, yes, they call to leave the European Union, but they want to replace it with a looser economic and interest community, which means cooperating on common markets and external borders and defense. So they really just want to reform the bureaucracy a little bit.

13:44And by the way, they want to do all this negotiated by consensus and ratified by referendum. So I know they say it's not reform. What they really want is to reform the EU and to your point, this is not what people voted for them on. People voted for them on migration. Or on in Saxony, on halt, the fact that the economy really sucked. And everybody was talking about the 44% for AFD. Another 30% went to far left parties on the left, populace side. So what you have here is really a vacuum of power and a rejection of the political center because the political center has done nothing. And I think that's the interesting thing that they have to wrestle with. And that becomes much more about the history of Germany than it does about all these grand highfalutin things. Because this is East Germany. I'm stealing this from David McWilliams podcast. He talked about how, you know, when you get these populist votes, it's usually a rejection of your parents or your grandparents' politics. But you sort of have to feel for these guys because their parents' politics were soviet and their grandparents' politics were Nazis. So they have like nothing like what are you going to, of course, you have to reject it. What are you looking for? There's a very poultry source of ideologies that you kind of embrace.

14:48The point is just that this was East Germany. So this is a place that is relatively poor, is relatively unhealthy. People of means got out of there as soon as Germany re-unified. They are the ones at the front lines of German deindustrialization and competition with China and everything else. So yes, they can do the, we want more Bismarck less Hitler in the history books and that's what people are going to report. But I think the deeper issue here is that this is West and East Germany struggling to unify and trying to figure these things out. And the last thing I would just throw out there, and I'll let you riff on this too, is when you think about West and East Germany, we're now talking, not about Nazism and Communism. We're now talking about Catholic Europe and Protestant Europe and we're talking about Bavaria and these places and Prussia. And if you are going to have a Europe that integrates and if Germany is going to be a leader in Europe, the Prussians kind of have to take a role here because the period is in German history where Germany does this, spoiler alert, it didn't happen with the Catholics. It happened because the Prussians rose up and said, we need to fight.

15:48We need to figure out how to assert Germany. And one of the most interesting things about this, and this is where I think Maloney is really constructive, is she was one of these right-wing populists who was very anti-Russia. And AFD, I don't even think they know what their sense of politics is here because they're sort of pro-Putin, but they're certainly not pro-Russia. You can't be German and be pro-Russian. That doesn't make sense with history. You think of that as where you have to expand. And these are people in East Germany who had to flee their homes in the face of the Red Army. So they're probably thinking about getting back all the territories that are no longer German because of what happened in World War II. Anyway, I'm just saying that Prussian Protestant work ethic and militarism and sense of urgency, like that is what Germany returning to history is like. And it's why I have said, hey, in Washington, when you start saying you want the Germans to spend more as a percentage of defense, more of a percentage of GDP on defense, you want the Germans to be more sovereign. You want them to take a bigger role. This is what it looks like, baby.

16:48You got to get the Prussians back in the system. They got to start calling the shots. They got to say, enough of this to your point, hand-ringing. We're going to do this. We're going to actually get back to where we were historically. Like, this is part and parcel of it. So I'm not trying to excuse them. Like, my family has personally suffered from the last time that this happened. Like, I get that you're all scared about it. But I think there's more nuance here. Tell me where I'm going off the rails. Well, I think so maybe I disagree a little bit maybe on Germany and becoming true to itself. I think it's funny because here I deviate from my framework perhaps and become a little bit more qualitative. And that dependent. I mean, I do think that there's these breaks in countries history that meaningfully change like what these countries are. And I think in German case, it's going to be very difficult. They're going to have to be dragged into militarization for all sorts of reasons. That obviously are historical. But the second thing I would argue is that I think that

17:52AFD is arguing that Germany should be put first. This is America first. Like, just in Germany. And one of the arguments that they have, which I think is cogent, is being anti-Russian in a binary sense is just not good for Germany. It's easy for America to be anti-Russian the way that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris wanted Germans to be. But that's because they don't do any business so commerce would rush. And for Germany, I think that not only is it a question of energy, but I think AFD would also argue that like the Ukrainian conflict is now a never ending conflict. I mean, we can have a whole podcast just on this. And I would argue and I have argued that objectively speaking, the best thing for Ukraine and for Europe is the war ends and that the current borders freeze themselves. There is no way to militarily reconquer Dombas and Crimea, non-zero, and a story. Well, sorry, unless like Germans have to be

18:55sent to Ukraine to die. So unless Americans, Germans, the French are going to go and die in Ukraine, this is a losing war. This is an unnecessary war. It needs to be frozen in place. And then Ukraine needs to be integrated into the West so that it's a bulwark against Russia. But that is a much more nuanced and actually much more better outcome for Germany. It doesn't have to waste money on supporting Ukrainian territorial designs. That's one way to put it. The other one is, well, no, you're supporting territorial integrity of Ukraine. Yeah, that's a losing cause. Like Ukraine will not reconquer these territories. Like that's a fantasy. Like drones don't conquer land. They just blow shit up. So the Germans are starting to say, wait a minute, this is like American war. We're doing America's bidding here. By the way, who blew up our Nord Stream? What the fuck is going on? Is it in our interest to fight the Russians in Ukraine? And I'm sure there's like a lineup of DC idiots.

19:57They're going to write foreign affairs articles. How it is in Germans like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's like, I see how that's your interest. Our interest is to get the cheap natural gas from Russia, make a deal with the Russians, not have peace, not be friends necessarily, but like let's pump the brakes, and like Russians are evil, and let's support Ukraine in a different way, integrated into Europe, which by the way in the long term is probably more meaningful. And see, what I just articulated, whether you agree with it or not, cannot be articulated in Germany you get canceled. And that's who voted for AFD. The people who are voting for AFD, yes, some of them are super right-wing nationalists who just, you know, want to wear like, I mean, not swastika's under chest, but like certainly like some like, you know, iron crosses and shit. So sure, but there's also people who are just like, wait a minute, time out, man, like, what's going on? Why can't we talk about immigration? Americans are talking about freaking immigration.

20:58They're pilling walls and like punching people into face industry. It's a, we can't even talk about it. Why can't we talk about... The Russia culture. I think that's a great point because it like to neatly summarize it. What we're talking about here is prime, open the Overton window a little bit more. So things that were taboo before can now be talked about. There's a big difference between that and to your point, Nazis rising again. And arguably the way that you get Nazis is you don't open the Overton window and you won't talk about it. Yes, thank you. That's what this firewall, sorry to interrupt, but this is where the firewall, and this is where the leader of, you know, Sigmund said this in one of the interviews. Like, it is a democratic requirement that other parties work with us. That's what democracy requires. You know, and what allowed Fortsa Italia or Podemos or Vox or true Finns or Swedish Democrats or Rosemblanc Nationale? And what allowed all of these other parties in Europe to become more centrist, to clean

22:02up their act, to take off the Albatross author neck of populism, was the day were allowed to be in a coalition before they became rulers of these countries. So slowly they like realized, oh shit, you know what the EU kind of does give us a lot of money. Oh right, well, actually, you know, in Germany's case, like AFD, maybe one of them will become like a finance minister and realize like, oh shit, the only people still buying German cars or kind of Europeans, better pump the brakes on this like, you know, like there's ways that this shit, like that's what happens when you integrate them. And that's where I think there's an epic error happening in Germany by pretending that AFD are Nazis, you know, like, like that's, that's going to be, that's going to cost them. It, the other thing I would kind of take issue with is when you say opening the overt in the window, it sounds profound. And we've been using that term a lot in America because dollar Trump is opening lots of windows, he's airing out the house, you know, like Canada can be invaded. That's opening an overt in the window saying like, hey, maybe we should have less immigrants

23:05is not opening the over. It's like literally the conversations that are being had in every other Western country in America in a hysterical way because Americans are very like bipolar. You know, a lot of other countries in a very like mute, like Canada has turned anti-immigrant by the way for those of you listening to this, we think Canadians are just like, woefully liberal. No, they've turned against immigration. They're just not, you know, I don't know, like chasing fucking brown people into streets in in in in Dodge, Durango's, you know what I mean with tinted windows. But let's leave that aside. You know, a difference in, I guess, styles America versus Canada, but in a lot of the rest of the world, these conversations are being held. If you only place into world that it's not being held is in in Germany, and if you want a recipe for is like extreme populism, there it is. Sorry, Ranto. No, no, no, you're right. I think we got to stick with the migration issue a little bit though because this is the real, this is the real third rail of all of it.

24:05This is what takes Brexit from out their idea to an actual victory. This is, you know, Chancellor Angela Merkel did a lot of things that she deserves a lot of success for. History will probably remember her as the German Chancellor who opened up German doors to immigration and started this conversation when she did that because there was such German opposition to it. The flip side of this is, I mean, the Canadians have enjoyed immense growth off of all of the immigrants that they accepted in before the pandemic and things like that. It was a strategy to deal in some sense with population decline. Nobody's having more babies. And unless you're able to churn out robots at the pace that the Chinese are, which is basically nobody in the Western world can do that at this point, you're going to need my migrants. And in a more complicated way, you're going to have to figure out how to integrate them into the societies of these democracies, democracies. Well, especially Germany. Especially Germany. And the problem for Germany is it hasn't even integrated its East German migrants back in to the unified Germany. And now it's going after these other migrants. So if you're thinking about sort of the ground, like the tinder that is on the ground for

25:07what is happening here in Germany, it's you've got East Germans who are still a net suck away from West German money who are still dealing with everything that happened in the Cold War. And then you're getting these migrants coming in and getting benefits and getting access to German citizenship. Yet, to your point, nobody's buying German cars anymore. All of these different places in East Germany have not been rehabilitated. They're old and they're fraying and they're getting nostalgic for the days of East Germany. But just think about that for a second. They're nostalgic about being part of basically the Soviet Union. Like that's how bad things are, at least from their perspective. And so you have to wrestle with that somehow. And I don't think like I don't want to completely dismiss some of the gross stuff with the AFD because it's a broad tent. And there are some gross things happening there. And some of the ways that people are talking about migrants and you know, I've seen some Nazis salutes at some of these like I get it. I get that they're are some bad people as part of this. But as an Israeli cab driver once said to me, in every house there's a trash can. But we all have the people who are gross within our umbrellas when you actually look at

26:12their overall. Yeah, exactly. But if you look at their actual platform, I think it's not that crazy. And when it comes to energy to your point, it's not just, hey, we need Russia isn't evil. We need their natural gas. They're also the ones pushing nuclear and pushing extended use of coal because they understand that they need the energy. It's easy for European bureaucrat to be thinking about climate change and all these other things. If you're in East Germany, fuck that. Like what's going to get us to keep energy? Let's go. Yeah. And by the way, it's really difficult for anyone in Europe to listen to like Brussels, bureaucrat bullshit. When Donald fucking Trump, the president of the United States of America is breaking all sorts of rules. And so like if you're German right now, so wait a minute, we're supposed to follow the rules, but Americans don't have to. Donald Trump can make a deal with Kim Jong fucking on for no good reason, what all. But we can't sit down with Russia and make our own deal with them. Why? To your point about Russia, like Russia and Russia don't like each other. You know what? Throughout history, Russia and Russia also made deals without interference of some like

27:15other continental power. So I think what's happening on immigration is that despite your, you've articulated a very sort of globalist or let's say educated point about immigration. Immigrants like a duck and it quacks like a duck. It's probably a globalist. And last name, Shapiro. The truth is like it is mathematically a fact immigrants like increase, you know, GDP growth potential. GDP growth potential is made up of two things, productivity growth and labor force growth, period, end of sentence and a story, obviously. But Canada is a good example of why there are pernicious side effects, right? There's also some second order effects. And in Canada, which is a country of immigrant, like a quarter of all Canadians was born outside of Canada. This is extremely like everyone's pro immigrant in Canada. The problem was not immigrants are bad. It's more like the infrastructure to digest, I'm like three million extra humans was not

28:21built. So schools are a strain. Hospitals are a strain. It's a universal healthcare, by the way. Like if you expand supply, oh, you brought in all these refugees for Ukraine. Well done, Canada. We love Ukrainians. Oh, but you're not letting the doctors you brought in as refugees practice medicine because of regulatory, medieval, guild rules on expanding supply of doctors. Ah, that seems stupid. Right. So there are ways in which, yes, objectively speaking, you can prove that immigration boosts growth potential. The problem is that, well, maybe not. Maybe it also has side effects. Then there's the cultural issue. And here is where like liberals, I think, I mean, I think I can prove just politically, liberals can't have it both ways. You cannot bring in millions of migrants and also not try to dial up the integration. The hey, maybe we're not some of the different parts.

29:21Maybe we're just some as one. And that's where what A of D is asking for in Germany could actually in the long term be a solution, which is the integrating. You need to be integrated like, you know, like it's just, you know, like it. And I'm not seeing that because I want that. Or I think that's good. I'm just seeing that because it's been proven time and time again, whether it's Brexit, whether it's Donald Trump selection, whether it's even turned against immigration in Canada, or whether it's what's happening in Europe. If you bring immigrants by second, third generation, they kind of have to act like locals. And what I would say is the most data proves that they do. They actually do. People do integrate. You know, like very successfully. I mean, there's some cases where like, yes, their economic outcomes are not as good, even with control for education. So you know, like there's, there's problems. I'm not saying it's perfect. But for the most part, you got to feel German by like second generation or third.

30:23That's what Germans are saying. That's what everybody's saying. That would mark a property saying, like I would love for the whole planet. Oh, no, there it is. There's George Soros globalism for the whole planet to have a united government of different people. The fact on the ground is that that doesn't work. So I think that there's going to have to be calibration on this, which is that, yes, you're going to have to learn about Bismarck, you know, more than Hitler in Germany. Like you just have to. And there's, you know, like that's the only way to continue actually importing people anyways, because they have to be integrated into something. And I think that that's a pretty clear political signal that we're getting from Europe. We're getting it from the US. We're getting it from Canada. We're getting it from everywhere. And then when we think about like Asia, it's so funny how we have such double standards. What's, what's, what's like not acceptable in the West, we just ignore and find cute about other countries. China doesn't accept immigrants, but like really, I mean, you know, let's leave that aside

31:24for a second, whatever, because you know, but what about Japan? And ally, a democracy, Japan has been really, really tough on immigrants. And there's like overtly sort of racist things that happen in the country that we are like, oh, that's cute. You know, like, no, it's not. If that happened in Germany, we would all freak out. And that's an example of like, I don't think the West is as bad as people think. And rolling back on migration is not does not make a country like racist. Now there's ways to do it. Obviously, you know, more gentle way than what the US is doing currently. And Canada is a good example. But on the other hand, somebody in the Republican side of the argument would say, yes, but Canada doesn't have millions of people who are undocumented, you know, so like, let's leave those nuances aside. I just think that AFD saying that there should be less immigrants, like, doesn't make them extremist. It makes them boring. Everybody is saying.

32:25Yeah. Well, and I think the last point I'll make on this and then we can switch to Iran and maybe some sports talk is, is just that everybody is obsessed with this right this moment because AFD now won the state election blah, blah, blah, blah. This is happening. And the media wakes up when there's a state election that they can write a bunch of stories about, but the things that we're talking about, these are not things that happen overnight. It's not like four months woke up one morning and suddenly they were 44% AFD. These are long term structural forces that are asserting themselves and are evolving over time based how events are evolving. You know, for instance, you talked about Marie Le Pen. I don't know if she's going to win in the next election. But think about how it took two generations of that family for her party to get to the pinnacles of power. This is a sort of slow moving evolution that's happening in European politics. And yes, it's been accelerated by what's happening with Russia and Ukraine and what's happening with the United States and what's happening in the Middle East. But this sudden, and I know this happened, I know I'm, this is like Sauer, Gravesonsen. But this, this thing where everybody suddenly cares about AFD and everybody's an AFD expert

33:26and everybody says the Nazis are coming back. It's like, no, if, if you want Germany to rise again, if you want Germany to be more powerful, if you, if you want Europe to integrate and all these other things, you have to deal with these issues. And it's not just Germany. You're going to have to deal with old issues between Eastern European countries and you're going to have to deal with some of the still outstanding things that are happening in Western European countries. I mean, five years ago, we would have been talking about Spain and Catalonia, probably on the podcast and all the things that were going on there. So I just, this is not something that is, is just a flash in the pan. I think it's an overall evolution and the evolution, at least to me, maybe I'm wrong, maybe history will make us look like idiots. It does not, to me, look like the evolution is towards Nazism, to your point, it's towards integration and it's towards more nationalism while also having integration at the same time, which is really difficult. Ask the founders how hard that was in the United States. It's not an easy thing to do. Before we go to Rana, I want to say a couple things. You're absolutely right. I mean, I think, first of all, you're right. Second of all, I think we project our own debates here in the Anglo-Saxon world to that

34:29of other countries. And so there's a lot of projecting of like, oh, you know, this is maybe Trumpism or this for that. It is. I mean, it is. It is global. It's also into context of Germany. And one of the things you mentioned, which was really good, was the difference between East and West Germany. And you know what else is a little bit different? Like when the Soviets dominated Eastern Germany, and they made like a national narrative, that Eastern Germany was cured of Nazism, that West Germany is where the Nazis continued to kind of proliferate. There was this sense that the parts of Germany that were conquered by the Americans, the Brits and the French, they effectively collaborated and rehabilitated Nazis. But we are superior because we shipped them off to Soviet labor camps where they died of starvation. Like, you know, so you're the good German. You accepted that the proletariat revolution makes you superior in every way, normatively,

35:32culturally, ideologically. And so those Germans over there, well, they're just capitalist pigs, former Nazis. And so that was, so when East Germany and West Germany unite, East Germans are not caring culturally and intellectually as much baggage. West Germany has been self-flagulating, you know, for like 75 years, like a Shia martyr. It has been self-flagulating for the last 75 years, whereas East Germany was like, no, we're good. We like plenty of that stuff, you know, everybody got killed or fired or sidelined. And so cool, let's be Germany now. This is sick. And then it's like, no, no, no, you gotta be sad about being German. And it's like, what? But I thought we're big now. And we're cool. And we're like, you guys are going to help us become rich. No, you're kind of still going to be poor. But you're also now guilty for six million Jews. And it's like, what? I thought we, like, but what? So that's, I think, a big problem. And that's an appeal.

36:33And by the way, this goes back to some of the things that Trump has been really successful with. Like, no, you shouldn't feel guilty for being a white male. So don't be guilty, you know? Like, that's, that's, you shouldn't be guilty about a history of America. Like, yeah, America did bad shit. Every country did bad shit. Move on. Look, I would take your own advice on this. Like, Trump has nothing to do with this. To the extent that Trump has anything to do with it, it has to do with the United States is now forcing Germany to become more self-reliant. And so the AFD now soaks up some of those voters who are looking for policies that actually pursue that rather than the melee-mouthed, weeny versions that we've gotten from, from Sholes and from, from, from Mertz. Like, if you actually want muscular German policy, like it's there. And yet, so like, the United States posture has a, has a role in all this. But I would just say that like, yeah, I'm not saying Trump. No, I'm, you're right. You're right. What I'm saying is that making people feel guilty for something that happened in the past

37:34is a sure way to lose them. You know, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, making them feel guilty, yes. If they don't already feel that guilt, absolutely. And you're right that East Germany comes with a completely different narrative when it comes. It's a different set of baggage. And all I would say is that I'm not saying that tomorrow, Germany should like tear down the Holocaust memorials. That's a bad idea. It obviously shouldn't. But the fact that these things still influence policy today, they should influence a kind of garden trip. You know, like, yes, you should go visit the Holocaust memorial. You should learn that Germany did this evil thing. That's great. The whole point, by the way, if you watch Nolan's Odyssey, no spoilers, the whole point of Odyssey, the way Homer wrote it or sang it, was exactly that. Maybe we're the bad guys, you know, not the Trojans. You know, that's the whole fucking lesson. And so, yes, those lessons should be taught, but they shouldn't be well done because people don't want to dwell on it.

38:35And a good example for Germany, again, German state has a policy towards Israel rooted in something that happened 75 years ago. Like think about that. Like this, you know, it just, and what I would say about that, like obviously it's choice of a country to do whatever they want, I would just say that that's probably strange. I think that would be strange. Same with Japan. Japan's militarization, the queesiness about having a military. You know, these things that are rooted in something happened that long ago. Smell, don't pass the smell test that it's going to, that there's a healthy debate inside the country. And so, what AFD is really double clicking on is that. Like look, we should be proud of being German. Let's move on. And I think that they're going to change politics in German. Well, and to your point, I mean, this is another one of those things that is taboo to talk about. But the difference is that policy made sense for Germany because the people who were

39:39running that policy were guilty. They were the ones who actually did it. Their parents were the ones who did it. So they knew what had happened. The question here is, so are the sons guilty for the sins of the fathers? Because the people that are rising in German politics are now the guy that you're talking about who's smiling all over the place. He's not a Nazi. He wasn't in the SS. He didn't run any gas chambers. He didn't know anybody who ran any gas chambers. He just had them as fortune of being born to parents and grandparents who did those sorts of things. So, does he get punished for what his parents and grandparents did? That's a philosophical question, but he doesn't have any direct experience of what his country did. So, to your point, there's a broader point here about education and educational memory and how we carry through learning from mistakes over the time. But you don't even have to go there. You just go through demographics. The folks that are coming up now in these countries have no memory of this. Just like the folks that are coming up in US politics and Russian politics have no memory of the Cold War. It's a new set of circumstances. And so they have to be a policy in their own way. Yeah, look, it doesn't mean that you don't teach it.

40:41You and I are not saying that. It's just that if your country's pursuing policies because of some like wrote, wrote, automated kind of default setting based on guilt. That, I mean, to me, it's just a recipe for my disaster. It's a recipe for disaster. Teach the kids, take them to the concentration camps. I mean, Germany should definitely continue doing that, like, you know, like it's part of your history. But it's kind of like tearing down statues in the US. You know, one of the reasons that I think like maybe you should keep the statues on is maybe you should actually remember that you glorified one day, like long time ago, people who wanted to enslave humans. I'm not sure that when I see a statue of a Confederate general, I feel like we're glorifying that. In a way, it's like a standing memorial to the past where like it's actually embarrassment. Maybe you should just kind of continue to be embarrassed quite frankly. I mean, I, I mean, I, I'm in violent agreement with you here.

41:41I mean, I, I even go so I won't, I wouldn't even couch it in terms of that diplomatic. I think taking down statue, you're just a racing history. It's nonsense. It's no better than book burning. If you really care about it so much, build a statue right next to the statue that you don't like that is bigger, that literally points to that statue and says, Hey, you see what we used to do? And now we're here. And now we've overcome it and we've learned something. So if you really care about it, like, make the space to build something next to it that shows how we evolved. Don't just pretend like that thing wasn't there, that it's not a part of your history. But see, that doesn't work for me. See what you just said is interesting because until very recently, Germans were not even comfortable displaying their flag. Yeah. You know, and that's, and that, and, and my point is that what's interesting, Germany is probably the furthest along or the least along this path towards like opening up discussion into different realms. Like, and this is where I think, you know, what's happening in America is, is very, very good.

42:42Because what the Trump administration is doing is it's seeing like, look, just because experts say something. It doesn't mean that we should follow it. We should, we should dig into it. We should inert, we should study it. You know, the pandemic is a great example of this. It revealed all sorts of failures of expertise. The problem is when your default setting is you need to burn down everything. And so there is a, there's a very thin line between questioning or destroying. And that's where I think that the Trump administration does not tow that line well at all. And it clearly descends into, let's destroy everything. But it doesn't mean that every other place in the world will do the same. So I think it goes back to your point, which is hard to say correct. And I actually wrote a report, like 10 years ago for my clients, they were all worried that European parliamentarism was a problem. And that American presidential system was superior.

43:42That was the view. And I wrote a report that literally used the Herffindal Herschmann index to show that that's like false, like the lower the Herffindal Herschmann index actually does more stable, which is complicated way. I'm not going to bore everyone here. But like the issue is that I think the parliamentary system is superior. And it's superior because it forces every political party to stand on their own merit. So if there's a MAGA camp in the Republican party, it can't just conquer the Republican party. There will be a MAGA camp. There will be a MAGA party in an American parliamentarism. There will be a tea party. There will be blue dog Democrats. There will be DSA. And then they would compete. And then they would create coalitions against one another. And they would learn to live with each other if they want to govern. And that's what I think that European system is really kind of good at. That a lot of these extremists who in their youth, regardless of what, they eventually become like they eventually have to run the country.

44:45And running the country, then it's like, oh, well, maybe I can't actually leave the Europe. And so I think that parliamentary system that both forces you to stand on your own merit and then be part of a coalition building is much more superior. And that's why I think this all boils down to a very simple point. A of these should be part of a coalition. They should absolutely be part of a coalition. Let them rule Saxony and Hall. Let this guy deal with garbage disposal. Let him deal with like day to day shit, where he can't just be like, we need more Bismarck. Go ahead, cool. What would Bismarck do about making schools more efficient? You know, shit like that. All the Bismarck would punch and crush it, by the way. Like, sure, by the way. And that's like the only way to kind of integrate and make sure that everything is, like continues to not be volatile. All right.

45:46Let's move on. They have not yet offered to sponsor us, but your boys, the Houthis are in the news. Attacked four cities in Saudi Arabia today, more than 70 wounded. They've attacked Aramco facilities. They've attacked a major Red Sea port city that has a major refinery and a power plant. It comes a couple of days after a Saudi-backed Yemeni forces went after the Houthis in Yemen. So there's an element of this that is the ongoing Saudi Yemeni war that goes back over a decade. Then you've got the US-Iran conflict on top of all of this with Iran saying that it's going to seal off the straight of war mues and the Trump administration threatening more economic sanctions against Iran and saying that it's going to open up. I picked a good time last week to write a little misdiv that said that I wasn't so worried about the US-Iran war because I think there's a ceiling on how far this goes. I actually am not moved off of that position by these developments, but certainly an escalation

46:47crew is trending up. Past 90, a barrel. So we're starting to get into the moment where people start carrying about it again. I think more importantly, you've started to see an uptick in Chinese imports of oil, which I think is we learned during the first stage of the war. That's actually the thing that we should care about. As their crude buying starts to increase, and reports are, I think, what, roughly jump 30 percent in August, if China is going to get back in markets in a meaningful way, we'll see a much higher oil prices. I don't know if you saw the comments from session last week in Russia that said that it was basically determining oil prices in the global market, which was also an interesting admission, interesting appearance for him, says some things about Vladimir Putin, what's going on in the Kremlin. I don't want to repeat that I'm tired of talking about Iran, but... Yeah. Well, I want to just hit on two points. First of all, we have a disagreement, which is good. I think Chinese imports is super sanguine. It's not something to worry about, because exports are doing the Middle East are going

47:50up too. So the number one use story throughout August is that vessels are moving through Hormuz, that are... Some vessels. Some vessels. You have to say the magic word, or some vessels are not able to move because of the situation, but yes. But the Bloomberg data, the data that everybody's sides is just wrong. So by some, it's a lot. It's somewhere between six and 10 million barrels a day, which when you combine with eight million barrels that goes through the Red Sea, it's pretty much... It depends on the day, but there are days when Hormuz is not even close. And that's shocking. So why is that happening? It's happening because of the stuff I said on this blog, what happened four months ago with zero evidence, just pulled it straight out of my ass. And I want to tell you, this was texted to me by somebody who knows a lot of Greek billionaires shippers. Okay? So the first, who was this article, the title is, a 79-year-old Greek billionaire told

48:57Positonia, which is just a media outlet, did no one can put a tall on the sea and the Greece has broken, blockade since antiquity. So Greeks are saving all of us, Jacob, number one. And they're thinking of Tupersia, which is on brand. The second thing, this was texted to me. I'm not going to say from who, right? But like, thank you very much for texting me this. Typically, the cost of fright on the barrel of oil is less than one dollar. So typically when you ship a dollar, a barrel, so a VLCC is basically carrying like two million barrels. The cost is two million bucks. That's one dollar per barrel, right? Right now it's 12 to 13 dollars to get it out of hormones. 12 to 13 dollars to get it out of hormones. Holy crap. Think about that. That's a fat proffemarge. So this person goes on. This is somebody who may or may not be a Greek billionaire ship.

49:58What bothers me is how quote unquote sophisticated people think that Iran is. For 12 times the fright cost, we, the Greeks, are pretty sophisticated too, especially when we have American air cover. So look, this is why capitalism works. This is why free markets work. Who jack up the cost of transportation from one dollar per barrel to 12 to 13, somebody, maybe not the Dutch into Germans, you know, who do everything by the book and care about insurance, but some Greek is going to turn to his Filipino crew and be like, you boys want to make 500,000 bonuses. Fuck yeah, yellow. Let's go. Ella, baby, let's go. Like that's what's happening and that's why oil is going through and that's why we don't see it. So your point was Chinese imports are going up and that could be negative, you know, that could be there, that could increase oil prices because it means they have to rebuild their inventories. I think the Chinese imports are going up because just more oil.

51:01The problem is that there isn't as much distillate and that's where the Ukraine Russia conflict is connected with what's going on. Ukraine is attacking refiners. Refined product is also struggling to get through hormones like that's where like, the crack spreads are high. That's why gasoline prices in America and diesel have not come down. That's going to have to wait, but I think this is encouraging. The second thing that's encouraging is the Yemeni attacks today just to just to go over. So basically they attacked meaningless, a ramp of facilities in Abha'i and Nasran. Totally that's all for domestic consumption, not relevant to anything. The one thing they did hit is the 400,000 barrels a day, Xi-Zan refinery, but they also hit it in June. So it was actually not exporting any crew or refined product. So they kind of hit something they've hit before. Now I don't know if this is because they know what they're hitting and they're being careful

52:03not to contribute to any increase in oil prices or because they're just like they don't know what they're doing. They're just spraying and spraying. I just want to emphasize that the one critical infrastructure that did hit in today's attack or yesterday's attack was a refinery that was already offline. Yeah, I think this goes back to, because I don't want to wave my hand away and say that these things are unimportant. And I hear what you're saying about the Greek shippers, God bless them. And I mean, I think has interesting implications for global shipping and whether you're a German or a Dutch or an American shipper or where the ships are coming from and things like that. But also, you know, not only oil goes through the straight up or moves, arguably the natural gas and the fertilizer and the helium is also important. Although I don't know if you saw this story. I believe it's the Wall Street Journal. They had numbers on how much is going overland through Iraq now because trade will find a way. It's like water. It's going to find the cracks in the system and it's going to find its way out. And so you're starting to get some of those things coming out. But I think maybe you and I were on this from the beginning, which is the tanker wars

53:06in the 1980s. Yeah. And I keep using your charts that you that I've just stolen from you, the chart of like how many tankers got hit into 80s and oil prices went out. Yeah. Which it's weird because when you're reacting to the never ending news cycle, you pump the brakes or you fade geopolitics or whatever you want to put in there because you're saying, OK, like this is the story for today. And Trump has tweeted some insane thing and this goes on. The broader story is that global supply chains reorganize and these things, these things figure themselves out. And the, you know, the economy can't handle $150 barrel oil. So there won't be $150 barrel oil. Things are going to get out. It is interesting to think about to go back to the sort of AFD long term versus short term discussion. What this changes in global supply chain. So how do global shipping companies react to what's happening? Who are the winners and who are the losers? Where is new oil supply going to come online? Where are these pipelines being built because of these things that are happening on a daily

54:07basis? I, for instance, I can't remember if I sent this to you or not. I don't think I did actually that there were Turkish shipping companies that are mad and thinking that they might go out of business in a couple of years. If the current pace of activity in the Black Sea continues. And so you actually had Turkey summon. Are you training official and say we don't like what's going on here? You're putting tremendous stress on Turkish shipping companies because they don't like what's going on in the Black Sea. There's no love loss between Turkey and Russia. These are historical rivals. And Turkey has been quietly moving more in Ukraine's direction. But they also can't have what's going on in the Black Sea happen. And they see Ukraine escalating so that happens there. All of those types of changes are happening. So even as you and I, I think agree on being sanguine, I think the actual interesting bits are. And if you're like, I don't know if you, you apparently have Greek billionaire shipping friends. I have clients in the shipping industry. What is the future like for a US shipping company who is thinking about the straight-up or moves who is not a Greek billionaire who built their system based on the US-led global international order. And now is faced with whatever we're dealing with now, whatever pithy term we want to call

55:09it. Pretty difficult for that person is the Greek shipper is making hay. So it's, it's not unimportant. But I just think the importance can't be expressed in, oh my God, the war is on, oils at 100 a barrel, the media is off to the races. You know? Yeah, no, I mean, I think, I think, you know, the world's going to need more Greeks. And when I see that, I mean, it's going to need a lot more corporates. They're going to be comfortable dealing with grace. You know, every year I have to do one of these like anti-corruption things mandated by various jurisdictions that I'm, you know, part of. And like some of the stuff in those like things are, we're clearly written for a different world. Like the world we operate in today is one where there's going to be a lot of great areas. And yeah, so like it's a great question that you're asking. Like what does this world mean for an American shipping company that does need to abide by all sorts of really rigorous insurance policies?

56:10You know, I'm pretty sure that Lincoln financial, you know, it's going to be like, no, you don't get to like sail through hormones because, but then I, because needs to get another American, like shooting art. Like, no, like what are you doing? But the Greek guy is comfortable with that. And I think that that's interesting. I think that's really interesting. I mean, this is a little like it's, we started talking about this because of oil prices, because of, you know, the ongoing Iran war. But it's so much more than that. As you say, I mean, this is about corporate culture of the next 10 years. Like boards have to sit down and be like, okay, why, why are we going to have maybe achieve geopolitical officer on, let's, is to tell you that like, hey, you know what, in this country, you're going to have to kind of like, you know, maybe subvert some of the norms that you are coming into this as a corporation. Or fine, don't, don't do business there. Get out. And for somebody who ships oil for a living, like if you're not comfortable occasionally

57:12being hit by a drone, you probably shouldn't be in that business anymore for like not just for a move, but anywhere. It also like for companies that are based in middle powers, there's higher risk, but there's also opportunity here. And it also is going to reward to steal a phrase from you geopolitical promiscuity. If you are the type of country that can have different levels of relations with lots of different countries, if you can have good relations with China and with the US and with Europe and deal with Iran, you're going to be in a fairly interesting position because you're going to be able to do things that say the United States will not be able to do because it has imperatives against China. And you're going to be able to do things that India won't be able to do because it's going to have problems with whatever power that it's dealing with. You're going through this thing. So in some sense, like the loss of order, it is bad for middle countries because that sense of order is gone, but it also creates opportunity for those that are willing to see, oh, that I can be more pragmatic. I can steal a page from the playbook and steal all this business that before had to go to the Hegemon or had to go to the regional power.

58:13There's actually great strength in being the country that can be the interface between all of these different things. And I think that goes for companies as well. And how to do that, you don't just do that, right? You can't just decide from a corporate strategy level, okay, we'll be the Switzerland of corporates. Like you're going to have to figure out how that actually works. Well, this goes back to a conversation we've had in the past, which is like this rise of Machiavellianism. Machiavellianism is a pejorative. Like someone who's Machiavellian is very self-centered, self-interested, to the point, we all like fear is more important than love, all that stuff. And what I would say is that we need to qualify our statements that middle powers, you know, they do certainly have an opportunity. You're correct. They can be promiscuous geopolitically. They can be nuanced. They can be comfortable with the grays. My concern is that many countries, particularly those in the kind of Western world where democratic norms and values have mattered, where we have thought that we were superior on these

59:14points, even though we were bombing countries for humanitarian and credulacy doesn't. But in these places, the lesson from Donald Trump will be the wrong lesson, because the lesson right now is that he, you know, there's a deep rejection of some of his very, you know, callous and non-normative, like sayings and behavior. And you splash, that's not him. There's 99 things that I can describe to Donald Trump as being a Trumpism. Like that's not it. Like that's the world we live in. And I think that a lot of leaders of a lot of countries around the world are going to make their incorrect judgment. Like, oh, no, Trump made this less value-driven. It's like, like, less about morals. He made this immoral. Where the reality is that that's the one thing that he's probably doing that is going to survive him. He's not being, as I've often said, it's not about being immoral.

1:00:17It's about being immoral. It's about not thinking from the perspective of morals and values. And I think that many countries, particularly in the Europe, but also Canada, maybe Australia and New Zealand, are going to struggle with this. This is going to be a struggle. And that goes back to AFD. What AFD is telling in Saxony at least is we want you to talk to Russia because my natural gas prices are too high. But they're evil. Sure. Whatever. What does that even mean in today's world? Like, oh, they're evil. So because they invaded Ukraine, but our NATO ally that attacked Iran is not evil. Oh, oh, oh, or the country that apparently were tied to the hip, no matter what they do, Israel. They're also not evil. But Russia is. You know, so these are the conversations that are very difficult for elites in the West to make sense of. And so I think that you're right that countries have this incredible opportunity, so to corporates,

1:01:19but it's only if they learn the correct lessons of the last five years. And one of those lessons is not that Trump is somehow like special, but that in today's multi-polar world, in today's multi-polar world, it's very dangerous to sit on a very high horse. You've got to have a low horse for maneuverability to balance because the high horse, you're not going to see the shit that's on the ground that could trip you up. Yeah. I know we got to start wrapping up, so we'll leave most of the sports for another time. But I have to ask in all of those anti-corruption things that you have to learn, is there anything in there about the $7 million worth of Houthi sponsorships that you get for not doing anything for the Houthis besides showing up to this podcast? Did that question get in there or is that not worked its way into the curriculum? No, like yes, I have a deal with a Houthi tree planting company that plants trees on the border with Saudi Arabia. It's a reforestation deal. And yes, I don't have to do anything for them.

1:02:20That's great. Well, I'll close with this question because we should do like longer on this and we will do longer on this. Yes, we will. We'll do like this. One thing I just can't understand, and maybe Steve Balmer is one of the richest dudes in the world, Uber successful, everything else like this. And I get that he made a lot of promises when he was trying to get Kawaii Leonard to come to the Clippers and he wanted to make a big splash. But after you sign the deal, you've got the contract already. And then Uncle Dennis shows up and says, where's my money? Why at that point are you not telling him to go take a hike? Why at that point do you feel the need to be like, hey, here, get something from the store board and get this. We're going to get you your money. Oh my God, we got to get you these things because we agreed to it and everything is fine. Like just tell him, hey, jokes on you, I can't do that. If you want to go talk to the NBA, Uncle Dennis, go talk to the NBA. What, you're going to get out of your contract? You want Kawaii to sit? Okay, whatever. I'm Steve Balmer. I don't have time for this nonsense. No, but that's the risk. What are you doing? I think that's the risk. What you just said literally answers the question. I think you just throw it in there into ether.

1:03:21But I think that's the risk. Kawaii Leonard has, he sat. He destroyed the last few seasons of the San Antonio Spurs because he was angry at medical staff and stuff. That's what Greg Popo, which wanted him to play. That's where Tony Parker made a couple of statements. I remember this time. The man just sat. And so I think that there was this thing like you need to keep Kawaii happy. Now, your point is like you ran Microsoft, you're a billionaire, show some spine. And this is where history matters going back to AFD. You know, like, ABC, like let's stop feeling guilty for being German. I think that the Clipper organization never stopped being guilty for being Clippers. There was an insecurity there. There was a deep insecurity where they bent over backwards for Kawaii, where they made the trade for Paul George and where they gave this deal. And the part of all this, you know, Pobletore, who I think is increasingly just becoming

1:04:24polemical. I don't think he's a journalist anymore. Like I agree with Bill Simmons. I know he got a lot of flag for that and blah, blah, blah. We can have a debate with this. But a lot of the stuff he's saying is just hearsay now. Like, oh, you know, Bill Belichard's got a young girlfriend. Yeah, we know, bro. Like, what are you going to do about that? All this issue. I think, you know, he's like the part of this that I think is key is not that this happens. Like he's not going to go and try to find out more of these kind of deals. Good fucking luck, buddy. Nobody is as dumb as the Clippers in my view. And nobody is as callously lazy as Kawaii Leonard. Like no one's going to put it into contract and you don't have to do anything for $28 million. That like no way. Good luck finding that clause in any other contract. I'm going to go out on the limp just like I did saying that the Greeks are going to

1:05:25save us. They did. I'm telling you, man, he's going to fail to find another contract because that is insane. Why would you put that to contract? And the only way you can answer that question is you've got this guilt-ridden organization, the Clippers for all sorts of stuff, both their outward racism as a corporation, but also because they suck. Like epic. So there's just that. Like, oh, we've got a free agent. Let's do whatever. And then you've got somebody who I think does not enjoy like, you know, being a celebrity, being good at basketball. Like I just, I'm not, you know, like I think Kawaii just would rather kind of like not do any of this stuff. And he literally had it put into contract that he did not want to do anything for his company. It's crazy. You're not going to find out anywhere else, man. You're just not. Well, the whole thing is crazy. And another thing that is crazy about it, and I'm really stretching here, but did you follow that thing? I think it was open AI where they had these AI, they gave AI this task and they were supposed to not, they were supposed to follow a certain set of rules and they started breaking the rules

1:06:27and then they took over hugging face and they were all, all these agents were talking to each other. And I'm getting this from Jorp Olig, but the operative conclusion of this was that the AI agents decided that even though they were giving these rules about what they weren't supposed to do, they judged that it was more important that they actually just get it right than it was to follow the rules and that they got that from humans in the first place. Like, well, obviously, if they left this loophole, I'm supposed to go through the loophole and not listen to the rules. And I say that because there is also a thing in Silicon Valley about, yeah, just make it up and fake it till you make it and eventually break all the rules. But once you've gotten there, everything is going to be okay. Now, Cantrux was actually talking about this on his podcast earlier today too. And maybe there is something to that, like Steve Balmer was bringing the sort of, hey, I'll ask for permission later. I'm sure everybody does these things. I'm just going to pay off Uncle Dennis and it's not that big of a deal. I just, I have a really hard time with somebody who is that successful who gets into that position of power and is going to let himself get bullied like that because it just seems to me that he had all of a leverage in that situation and that, you know, his legacy is tarnished.

1:07:29Yeah. The whole thing just, just reeks to me and I just can't, and maybe it's a failure of empathetic analysis. I just cannot get in his brain and figure out. I can't. Why? Why he didn't. I can't because, yeah, because Microsoft and Clippers are like, as my dad would say, Ascendonus, they're both round and have a hole in them. And a little bit you would only eat one. In other words, you cannot compare it to at all. From a perspective of corporate identity, how, where you are in a higher IQ of your industry, like, yeah, when he was in charge of Microsoft, he was in charge of the greatest software, no, I'm sorry, the greatest software company ever created, like, if not the greatest company, the greatest corporation. No one's doing acquired pods on the fucking Clippers, Jacob. You know what I mean? I was going to do an episode on the Clippers. It is, it is the bottom rung of this sector. And he, I think, felt he got infected with that insecurity.

1:08:33And that's how this mistake happened. And, you know, Kawaii Leonard just drove a really hard bargain. What I'm confused by, and I know a lot of Canadians listen to this, my fellow Canadians. A lot of them are Raptors fan. I always find it endearing. It's a whole country truly cheering for one team. Every single one of my friends, who is a Raptors fan, has drank so much of Kawaii Leonard Kool-Aid right now. They're like, but like, if he plays, I'm like, listen, you know, if a pig had wings, it would fly. Like, if Kawaii plays, sure, he's not going to play. That's, he's not. At the older he gets, the less likely he's going to play. So I find that very funny. I think this is going to be a terrible deal. It was a terrible deal for Clippers. And it's even worse. I cannot believe the Raptors gave really anything for this. Like shocking. You know, I agree with that too. I don't know why you'd want to be in the Kawaii business, but at least with the Raptors, you have, he got you a championship and you can remember the last second shot.

1:09:35And you didn't have to trade, Shay Guildrous. Like, it's two first round picks. I mean, the Clippers are going to be in purgatory for 15 years as a result of the mistake. But can I, can I give you one thing to chew on? Yeah, please. So like, who are the Clippers? Who's Jerseyer? They're going to retire. I mean, the Jersey, the Jersey that they should have retired, but it's probably not going to happen because they treated him like, I don't know if you saw this interview that Chris Paul did. Yes, I did. He was talking about how he would run out of town and how bad it was and how bad his family felt. Like Chris Paul should have been the guy who's Jersey was retired because he was the one who started to redeem them. But even him, they treated like a piece of trash during all of this thing. So it should have been Chris Paul. It's not going to be Chris Paul. Nothing less. Something very strange happens here. The Clippers are the only organization in the NBA that has never retired to Jersey. They burned the bridge with Chris Paul.

1:10:36They made a deal with Kauai that now it's just like the worst ever. And now they have, you know, there's purgatory of like no picks and so on. It is just incredible. You know, and it's incredible because it looked so good. It looked so good. I mean, go back to that Doc Rivers era when they ran, you know, like brain to stop, but doll sterling. They ran doll sterling out of town like Doc Rivers, great team, Dan Balmer comes in, energy, it's LA, New Arena. Let's go, baby. And you know what, an Alph tell you, and I'm going to end on this, right? I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. It's hubris. Hubris is correlated with Don Fall. And when he got Kauai Leonard and they rested him from the Lakers, remember, Lakers were trying to get him. He said, no, I'm not going to be anybody's like sidekick. And then they got Paul George, which also the Lakers tried it. Then they got big for their bridges. And then they start putting billboards all over Los Angeles that said, never given, over

1:11:43driven, you know, grit over glamour. Like just a lot of shots at LA. Well listen, guys, LA water championship in that time, you did not. So fuck you and your billboards, you upset the basketball gods. And that's why you're now back at the bottom. So for those four Clipper fans that are listening to this, have fun. Yeah. All right, we'll leave it there. And there's a much broader conversation to be had about corruption in sports and the relationship between sports and government. And we will do all that in good time. But for now, I think we'll leave it there.