So I'm from Africa, I don't carry cash all that often
because it's very dangerous to carry cash.
But you reckon it's not that much different in the US, $40?
None. Is the West and the East to work
together? We don't want, we don't want
rivalry. We don't want, well, we don't,
we, we want competition, but we don't want fighting.
And, and it's very important that that we try and understand
each side because that is how we actually make progress.
We don't make progress by creating enemies, but that's
what could happen. That's our podcast.
Yeah, that's our podcast, but we're done.
Let me, let me press end. But I mean, that's what that's
what's been happening under the Trump administration.
I like some of the things that Trump says and does, and I
dislike many others. One of the things that I dislike
about his administration is how he has created China as as as
enemy #1. That's, well, first of all,
Trump does not even represent the entire W Trump only
represent a a segment of the US right now.
It doesn't. Even the president entire, but
he's a. President, he's a president.
He's a president because we, we have the Electoral College
system. But as you know, US itself
politically is quite divided. You know, it's almost like 5050
right down the middle. But yeah, guys, Trump is the
president and he actually slapping tariff against everyone
now, not just China or, or, or people in the east is slapping
tariff against Europeans as well.
You know, all the right now all the EU leaders are.
Did you see that recent photos of all these you leaders that
were lining up sitting like, sitting like school children
ready to get sculpted? And, and, and I mean, wow, you
know, like that, that, but that's how it is.
That's how it is because you, you Trump can do that because
you know, US has a lot of power. And, and, and Trump just felt
that he could throw the weight around and, and right now it's
all big sticks. No carrots, no carrots, no ice
cream, sorry, just big sticks. Am I right in saying that India
and China have decided to remove trade barriers between each
other? So, so right now there's an
interesting development because of the Trump, because of the
Trump actually because Trump, Well, well, Trump, you know, I
say give that man a Nobel Peace Prize already.
You know, Trump is the greatest peacemaker at the moment because
he's making India and China sitting together, resolving
their long how differences. So give that give that man a
Nobel Peace Prize. I mean, Nobel Peace Prize is AI
mean Nobel Peace Prize is a piece of joke anyway, like Obama
receives a Nobel Peace Prize before he even started working
as the US president, right? He just he just won Nobel Peace
Prize for getting elected and you.
Know why not? And then he authorised I think
something like 26,000 shellings in the Middle East in 2016
alone. Yeah, so, so, so give, give,
give Trump a Nobel Peace Prize. You know, that thing is a piece
of joke about I saw for I saw the picture.
Your picture froze and I just automatically assumed it was
your Internet because you're, I mean, South Africa.
Hey, it turned out it was me. It turns out it was me.
So I had to at least one day, at least once a day, reset my Wi-Fi
router to get the Internet working.
And it just so happened. So where, where did we left off?
Should we? Just about to tell me about
Trump. Oh yeah.
But but give that man a Nobel Prize nevertheless, because
Trump, because Trump is putting a lot of pressure on India for
purchasing of Russian oil. Now India is felt compelled to
see closer alignment with its fellow BRICS members that that
is China. And one of the things that
happened between India and China was there was a 2020 border
conflict that kind of put the bilateral relationship on a
nosedive. And as a result, India banned
TikTok. They put a lot of restriction on
Chinese investment into India, particularly in the tech sector.
Chinese auto giant BYD was going to build a electric vehicle or
joint venture in India and because of the Indian government
intervention, that deal got can. So now as a result of the Trump
pressure on India, the 50% tariff on Indian goods now, now
India is approaching China and say, OK, let's work our, let's
work our differences. We're going to lift the
restrictions that we previously put on Chinese investment and
trade. And in fact, the Chinese foreign
minister Wang Yi just met with Modi that's to pave way for
Modi's upcoming visit to China end of this month, August 31st
for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting in China.
That's this is the first time in seven years that Modi is, is
visiting China. So this is this is pretty big.
This is pretty big. There's looks like there might
be a a a soft rapprochement or daytime that's going on right
now between India and China to get there, come get their
relationship back to a normal track.
And he all it's all thanks to Donald Trump, of course.
He gets all the I. Think he knows this?
I mean, do you think he's doing this on purpose or is it?
Is it just? Backfiring.
Well, I think there there's multiple reasons why Trump
decide to squeeze I1 is because Trump can't just like how he's
squeezing all the European leaders right now, He's not
putting the same kind of pressure on China for purchasing
Russian oil, even though China is the number one purchaser or
Russian oil. That's because China has a Trump
card, so to speak. You know, they got United
States, you got, they got, they got US by the balls because
China controls 90% of the rare earth refining.
You know, right now if they dig out rare earth in the largest
rare earth mining in in United States, which is Mountain Pass
mine in California, they had to ship it to China to get it
processed because there's no refining capacity in the United
States and China just put export control on rare earth exports.
So now anyone who want rare earth, they have to go file
application to the Chinese Commerce ministry and say, could
I please have some rare earth? And so, so Trump, no, he,
there's not much pressure he can additional pressure he can apply
to China. So he's decided to punch in the
softer target, which is India. And and another reason, another
reason this is again, this is I think has to do with Trump
personality because Trump really want that Nobel Peace Prize.
You know, he claimed credit for mediating A ceasefire between
Pakistan and India during the recent Pakistan India conflict
and the move was welcomed by Pakistan publicly.
You know, Pakistan the sing praise of Trump and they even
nominated him for Nobel Peace Prize, whereas India immediately
came out and deny Trump any role of Trump in mediating the end of
the conflict. So I, I think that really pissed
off Trump. I mean, that man really wants a
Nobel Peace Prize. And when India publicly rejected
his claim of actually bringing peace, Trump didn't like that.
And and so, and there's also, I think there's a bit of right
now, there's a there is a lot of anti Indian racism in United
States. I've seen that.
Yeah, yeah, there especially on X, you know, you can see that on
X. And I think this is probably a
result of, you know, like the success of Indian Americans in
in in United States. And, you know, particularly
recently we had several high profile Indian American
politicians like Vivek Ramaswamy, who didn't do himself
any favour by calling Americans stupid.
They should apply themselves, study harder.
I mean, it's true, but you shouldn't say that when you're a
politician, when you're trying to get elected into the office.
And so, so, so, so he got a lot of hate and now, now the whole
Indian community is catching a lot of flag, flag also over the
issue of immigration. So, so Trump, I think he's, he
sees that, you know, there's a lot of anti Indian racism,
particularly among the right. And so maybe he's not just
trying to capitalise on that as well, you know, 'cause Trump is
very good at kind of sensing which way the wind is blowing
and capitalise on the public. Popular movie.
Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly, exactly.
So I I think this is these are the reasons why Trump is going
after India, because he felt he could the thing.
That I call is. Go ahead, sorry.
But The thing is you can understand the the anti Indian
sentiment. I'm not, I'm not defending it,
but I'm saying you can understand that when you see
what's going on in the States, you got this mass immigration
problem. They have all sorts of
employment issues, no longer manufacturing.
So what happens is that they transfer the anger onto somebody
else. It's the same with Europe.
Europe is also imploding, but it's a mass immigration problem.
They like to point fingers at the Muslims, but it's the
immigration policy that welcomes the Muslims.
If, if, if, if they copy China's border policy, they won't have a
mass immigration problem, for example.
But they they don't want to accept the fact that, well, have
more kids. If you, if you, if you feel that
you're, that you're, that your population is, is dwindling,
have bigger families. Stop celebrating degenerate only
fans me me me culture and go back to what it means to have a
family you know and then. You won't, folks.
Yeah, go, go back to the bedroom, go back to the bedroom
and you won't need to point fingers at Indians.
Or what does that, that tweet, you let me pull it up here at
some Lego thing with a, with a jet.
And it said something about every lost.
But when we say every lost yellow man, we mean every lost
yellow man. And it's a, it's, it's a, it
looks like a Lego promo with a, with an F16 or, or stealth
bomber or something made out of Lego.
Yeah. It's over.
It's what's supposedly the China's three gorgeous stand.
Now it's like a Internet mean now, like a lot of people are
especially Americans. They're coping.
Oh, we're we're gonna bomb this take out the three gorgeous
stand. I mean, this is crazy talk that
that's not gonna happen. You know, first of all, there's
a lot of assumption that that AUS stealth bomber can get deep
enough inside the Chinese airspace because 3 Gorges Dam is
about 2000 kilometres up the Yangtze River, you know, very
far from the coastline. You know, So assumptions is that
American stealth bomber can penetrate so deep into Chinese
airspace and drop a bomb and without retaliation, you know,
like if that happens, there's going to be a nuclear exchange.
You know, China is going to launch the.
Nukes. But we know that can happen
because a balloon went into American airspace.
A Chinese balloon call. That was the first that was the
first blunt by F22, by the way, that was the first confirmed
kill by the American stealth fighter F22.
Is, is that they, they, they killed a Chinese weather bloom.
So OK, so a lot of this is copium.
Like I said, there's, there's I think there's very little
possibility of actual hot kinetic war between US and China
because that that would just lead to, you know, Sir, World
War 3 and thermonuclear exchange end of the human civilization,
right. So that doesn't.
Survive that. Yeah, America won't survive
that. No, nobody survives.
There's no winners in a nuclear war, right?
I mean, so, so, so a lot of that is this copium and there's a
copium. The, the, the amount of copium
was produced is because as you point out, US and I think on a
great greater scale, the collective W is facing a
decline. You know, they're facing
deindustrialization and they're and, and breaking down of the
families and, you know, the, the, the, the massive
immigration is just a symptom. And I mean like, like, like you
say, oh, it's why don't they just go have more babies?
Well, you have to incentivize people to have babies.
You know, the reason people are not having babies because the
Youngs, they can't even afford to buy their own house.
They can't move out of their parents basement because they,
they know the housing is so expensive and, and, and and then
you know, like once you start working, you know, is they, you,
you can have you, you need a whole government support for
people to have more babies again.
You know, you, you're going to make it easier for people to
take longer maternity leaves, right?
So the women can, can, can stay home longer to take care of the
babies. And and you can you have to
government have subsidised housing, education that all
costs money. It's a lot cheaper just to
import immigrants for several countries who are essentially
like, like cheap, cheap labour and a a permanent political
underclass because these people, they don't have, they don't
have, they don't have all. Slave labour.
Everything in China's slave labour.
So there we go. We have low wages.
Well. China, actually China today has
the, the, the, the largest deployment of industrial robots
in the world. China has more industrial robots
than the rest of the world combined.
You know, people may not realise this, but that that is, that is
a fact. And you know, Chinese car makers
like the Xiaomi, they, they're, they have a lights off 24 hour
20247 lights off factories. It's lights off because there's
no humans working there. It's all robots.
Robots is rolling out the, the making cars 24/7 because robots
don't need to sleep. But yeah, that and, and, and for
US to even try to bring some manufacturing back, the only way
they could do so is through automation.
But again, automation is not going to add a lot of job
manufacturing jobs. So so that's a problem like the
youngins can't afford to get a decent paying job so they can
they can go go have their own house, form their own family and
have more babies. And it's like, but at the same
time, you know, the rich, they still need nannies to take care
of their kids. They still need someone to get
this from Mexico. And from Mexico and the
Philippines, yes. Yes, they still need they still
need someone to pick the strawberries from the field, You
know, so I literally that's that's what's going on in the
USI live in California for like 20 years.
I mean, California, a lot of the low wage labour in California
basically runs on the back of Mexican migrant workers that,
that, you know, so I, I don't know how there's a problem.
It's, it's a lot easier here, economic downturn to point
finger at the immigrants. But issues, as you correctly
point out, it's a policy. The policy actually encouraged
that, you know, the at least during the Biden administration,
they literally just throw the, the, the border open and to, to,
to allow anyone to come in. Why did they did that?
It's, it's easy. It's, it's, it's free labour.
It's, it's, it's cheap labour. And you create a permanent
underclass, these people who have no voting rights.
So they, they can't, they can't influence political process in
either direction. So, so This is why the elite,
the 1%, they prefer it that way. And and it's just serve as a
further point of division the society, you know, that the two
political party can play football on the immigration
issue because it's very easy for the politicians to just take a
stance, right, Rather than actually doing something, just
take a stance. I'm for this issue.
I am for for this. And you don't have to do
anything and you get 50% of the vote.
I mean, that's, that's the quandary we're in right now.
US is originally set up as the immigrant society.
You know, it's, it has a being a history being a country of
immigrants. So, so there's a lot of people
who are for immigration and, and who, who people for, for reasons
of, you know, humanitarian reasons, They felt, felt that
it's, it's wrong to deny people a better chance, a chance at a
better life like their ancestor did when they came to United
States come through Ellis Island to US.
So that that this is, this is a very complicated issue.
I don't, I don't think that's going to be resolved anytime
soon. But I, I, I think you're right.
I think the, the, the Indian American circums, they just got,
they just caught a stray because you know the, and, but, but, but
you know, because there's a lot of lot of, there's a lot of
react, there's a big reaction against the H1B visa, right?
That's when they, they bring in a lot of tech workers.
But in a way, I work in the IT industry, right?
So I know how H1B visa work. Lot of time they brought in the,
the, the, those are not genius visa.
Let me put it that way. There's those are not GH1B is
not genius visa. I work with those people.
They're brought in because of tech companies.
They want cheap labour. They, there's United States is
not producing enough computer programmers, just not graduating
enough STEM graduates. And, and one of the reason they
don't get enough STEM graduates is because they're not paying
them enough. No, you, you, you can make more
money if you just go to the Wall Street, You know, you make the
bank. So all the smart cookies, the,
the, the choice, you know, the people, the people that can
actually do the math. It's so easy.
They just go to Wall Street. Why, Why do they want to have to
be a cranking, cranking the cold, be a cold monkey.
So, so the tech for the tech giants, it's easy.
Let's just bring in a lot of the Indian coders, you know, on H1B
visa because we don't want to pay our engineers, software
engineers more money. This way we can keep the wages
low. And, and, and This is why, you
know, a lot, lot of Silicon Valley tech Bros, they're very
much in favour of H1B visa to, to continue to, to bring in and
it's, it's to depress wage. This is the this is the idea of
a lot of why you know the 1%. That are pro immigration right?
It's suppressing the wage policy.
Call. Yeah, it's policy.
I think the fundamental problem germ is there's a fundamental
disconnect between the 1% and the rest because the, the, the,
the, the 1% in United States, they're not working.
They're they're not working. Oh, let's, let's work for the
greatness of America. Let's make America great again.
No, they're, they're trying to make their wallet fatter again,
you know, even fatter. And that's a problem.
They treat Americans, their fellow American citizen, the
same way they treat people from the certain world countries.
They're all peons to them, right?
Everybody is a peons to, to collect rent from, to, to
squeeze money from. And and that's a problem.
There's no, this results in breakdown of, of social
solidarity, right? I mean, if you go in United
States as well as in, in Europe, nobody believe those the leaders
are working for the common man. Nobody believes that.
And, and, and, and for, for EU, those guys are not even elected.
I mean, Wanderling was elected by what, like 40 people, 40 MPs?
What is that? But, but these guys are making
the political decisions that that influence all lives of
Europeans. Why?
Doesn't doesn't matter if your country doesn't manufacture a
lot. Ultimately you can't be a Jack
of all trades. Well.
What you're saying germs you're, you're talking about Adam Smith,
right? The, the comparative advantages
and, and, and but, but our current leadership, they don't
believe that anymore. Nobody has they stopped talking
about free market a long time ago.
And, and now, now they're talking, talking about trade
barriers and bring, bring manufacturing back home.
I mean, I mean, I, I can understand there's a, there's a
certain, there's a lot of appeal to that, you know, like, because
United States has been shedding tonnes of manufacturing jobs
since 1970s. US have been off sourcing to
mostly East Asia for the last 40 years.
And as a result, a lot of manufacturing job which
previously were staffed by college graduate man with
college with no, not college graduate, sorry, man with only
high school education, you know, they could get a decent pain
manufacturing wage job. But now nowadays you have to be
a college educated to kind of even have a chance to make into
the middle class. And that leave a lot of people
behind, right? Those are the people who felt
left behind by globalisation, right?
Well, unlike you germs, you know you are, you are, you are, you
are doing well. You know you're making the bank.
You're the 1% Jeremy, you're you're the benefit.
The. The the war is going, is
happening between America and China, and meanwhile nobody even
cares. In fact, the world cares so
little about South Africa that we had to name our country, the
physical geographical location of it, South Africa, just in
case you didn't know where we were.
How many countries? How many countries have that?
Yes, it's a big country. Yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to
Africa for a safari. Do you do you know, Mike?
A lot of this also seems to be in, in my view, a result of
highly developed countries. Yeah, yeah, I, I think I don't,
I, I think in the energy sector, I think we are doing OK.
I mean, there's still a lot of like United States, for example,
is full of cheap natural gas and, and oil.
And, and This is why Trump is actually going in a big way in,
in oil. We're asking other countries
like China, they're developing solar, wind, nuclear, all these
other source of energy. So I think energy wise, I think
I think we're going to be okay, especially unless.
You mentioned Venezuela, which has I think one of the largest
oil reserves and you spoke about that also recently.
Well, the, the problem with having the world's largest oil
reserve is gonna, you're gonna attract the tension of United
States because they're gonna start bringing democracy to your
country when they smell oil. And that's, that's exactly
what's happening right now when the US is about to send 4000
troops to Venezuela. I don't know what they're gonna
do with 4000 troops, to be honest.
I, I, I, I that's just sounds like the base of Bay of Pigs
invasion, but on a slightly larger scale.
I mean, you're, I don't, you're not going to be able to take
over the country, which is 4000 troops.
So I don't, I don't exactly know what the intended effect of that
is. Maybe Trump is just like trying
to bluff, but I don't know. Who knows?
Did you see Putin when he was in the States recently?
He went and gave. We put down flowers on the
graves of former Soviet soldiers.
Yeah, I mean, this, that was a big win for Putin going to
Alaska. You know, a lot of people
saying, oh, why, why is Putin taking a great personal risk,
you know, go, go to United States could be a trap.
He could be detained. No, no, like he, he put know
what he's doing by going to United States, the country that
was main backer of the ICC warrant that was out for Putin
and, and being received by Trump and, and got wrote in the beast
with, you know, he wrote the beast the armoured car and that
actually lent a lot of legitimacy to Putin as a world
leader. Look, he's he's like the ICC
warrant is a joke. Even United States, the country
that pushed for it, is now treating it as a joke and
they're receiving him as the world leader that he is.
So, so and that This is why, you know, his is a Russian foreign
minister. Lavrov showed up with a USSRT
shirt casually strolling into Alaska.
And so, so, so this is a big win for Russia.
They they, they show that, you know, they are still world power
to be reckoned with, but I don't know.
We all know that's not true, Carl, Because because Trump made
sure that Putin drove past all the big jets.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. There were like a couple F22's
that flew over. I mean, come on.
But by the way, the reception for Trump, that was just pretty
sad because they have the usually a world leader comes to
your town. You have this whole honour guard
right? And, and, and, and, and for
inspection. And then, then you see the
picture and the videos of, of, of, of Putin walks down the,
the, the red carpet and they have just bunch of like, like
AUS servicemen who showing up like they were forced to, you
know, work on Saturdays. It's like, it's, it's very sad.
I mean, like, there's a reason nations have honour guard.
It's, it's to, to, to like in a show respect both to your guests
and to put the best foot forward for yourself, to present your,
put your own nation in a good positive light.
But what instead, you know, the whole Alaska meeting, it was I
think because it was a last minute thing, like because they,
they couldn't find enough hotel room for the Russian journalist.
So they have to host him in a stadium and with dividers like a
like an emergency hospital ward for the Russian journalist to
sleep in. Because apparently it was
efficiencies in the Alaska. So all the hotels were already
booked. So that tells me this meeting
was a very last minute thing, right?
And like This is why everything is so haphazard.
And I think this is Trump is looking for some kind of win by
hosting Putin by showing, hey, like all the Russia gate to get
Putin saying that Russia gate that's a hoax.
You know, that Russia did not interfere in the election.
That was all Democrats making it up.
But overall, I think Putin came out the bigger winner.
You know, he but but because for Trump, there's really no big
deal broke ground breaking deal that he could show and say, all
right, give me give me a Nobel Peace Prize now, folks.
You know, I deserve a Nobel Peace Prize.
I think, I think that's what Trump is really after.
Does Trump ever come out as a winner?
Why? If you, if you listen to the, if
you listen to the White House press release, Trump always win,
man. So much winning.
He's like that.
He's like that dude in in a school playground who's got the
loudest voice and he's shouting at everybody, telling everybody
how great he is. He types everything or writes
everything in uppercase letters. And Putin's, Putin's that that
that little quiet nerd sitting in the corner playing chess.
Yeah, but except he he's also like a judo captain.
Then he can actually kick your ass.
And that's the difference. He's not just like a nerd who
play chess. He can also kick your ass.
But Trump, but see Trump, Trump is loud, loudmouth because
that's how what it takes to succeed in American politics.
In America, you have to be a loudmouth, a very confident
loudmouth to, you know, get ahead.
You know, like you can't be a nerd from a chess club to be
elected to president of the United States.
That's just that won't happen. I mean, Trump recently, you
know, said, oh, you know, like there was because because Trump
was putting the squeeze on India.
So there is a warming of ties between US and Pakistan.
And Trump was saying, oh, it's Pakistan is so great.
We're going to go there and we're going to get all the
minerals. We're they have oil and we're
going to get their oil. And people are people in
Pakistan is like, what? When did we discover oil?
He'd probably think, OK, Pakistan is a Muslim nation.
You know, it's kind of close to Middle East.
It must be oil rich too. But you know, that's just Trump.
He's he's he's great. He's a great Trump is great for
television, man. He's great for television.
Like the the real question is how the United States ended up
with a reality TV host as a president.
That's that's a real question. But Trump is undoubtedly ATV
star. You know, he is, he has a great
presence. Yeah.
I, I, I don't think, I don't even think that the Pentagon.
Is about war, shall we say, other than the bankers.
Right. I, I don't, I don't even think
the bankers want a war. I, I think what everything, it's
very easy to understand. Everything is easy to understand
if you just understand the whole government in the West, but
particularly in the US, is set up as a grift, right?
Like, like, like Julian Assange said, He said US and NATO is not
in Afghanistan to win the war in Afghanistan.
The whole point of Afghanistan in Iraq is to wash money from
the vast taxpayer bases of Europe and America into the
pockets of a few selected transnational security elite.
That's all it is. It's all about grift.
And so I, I don't think that because, because a World War
three that could lead to a nuclear exchange, that could be
the end of the civilization, right?
Nobody wants that. But I, I do think that the, the
purpose is to maintain tension. You know, there's a term for it
called strategy of tension to maintain tension so they can
continuously to fund money towards the military industrial
complex. This is why the US official
Pentagon budget is over a trillion dollars right now and
Trump administration is demanding European countries to
put put up 5% of their GDP into defence spending.
I mean that's great, great 5% of your GDP toward defence
spending. That's a war level of military
spending like Russia. Even Russia is now is a missile
war is spent about 7%, but but officially EU is not at war with
anybody. And even even United States only
spend officially only spend about 4% of GDP on defence.
So, so yeah, I, I, I don't think there's going to be a, a, a, a
war. I I I don't think the danger,
the real danger is it accidentally gets started.
I don't think it's anybodies plan to start a World War three.
But the danger is it's an accident, right?
Because like World War One, nobody expected, you know, World
War wanted to go off the way it did.
But that that's, that's, that's, that's a danger.
Like there could be some accident in South China Sea
somewhere in the, in the Red Sea, Gulf of Oman.
And then certainly it get bigger than than you should be going.
Back to what you were saying, it's not as though China has got
military bases all around the world.
And, you know, thankfully, the United States has no military
bases anywhere around the world. Yeah, but I mean that that's all
part of the grift germs. That's, you know, those, those
military bases, that's a lot of fat contract for the military
contractors, you know, like Halliburton, they made a lot of
money during through the whole, the whole Iraq debacle.
They they, they if you, if you look at the defence contractors
stocks, they have been they have been going through the roof
since, you know, the Great War on Terror.
But but you know, like the, the, the and not the same can be said
by the general economy. But you know, those defence
money, the defence companies that been eating, they've been
eating well. Right now we can see that the
Eastern Bloc internationally is becoming the next powerhouse and
it's very obvious that the West, NATO, Trump, MI6CIA, UK, Western
Europe, they don't like this. The irony is that they actually
don't make up much of the world's population.
That's right, That's right. I mean, but This is why I think
there's a fear among some western elite that the rest of
the world is going to out to get them right?
Because for, for so long, United States have what, like 5%, less
than 5% of the, the world population has dominated over
the globe for, you know, since World War 2.
And, but now there's a lot of fear about losing that, that top
spot and, and, and, and which I think it's unwarranted because
if you look at the example of UK, you know, people in UK did
pretty well after UK lost its empire.
And, and right now the US empire, it's not really serving
the average Joes in Michigan, you know, because, because if
anything, it's taking away the resources that's needed to be
ploughed into domestic infrastructure, education,
everything that needed to actually make America great
again. Instead, it's getting squandered
in endless wars over the globe. And then it's just making the,
all the defence contractors and the Washington lobbyists rich
and, and you know, that's it's not sustainable, whereas China,
China, China just investing in itself.
You know, China hasn't fought a war in last 40 years.
You continue to invest their, their in their own education,
their own infrastructure And, and the, the track record speaks
well for itself. And, and, and I think what the,
the reason there's also a lot of anti China propaganda in the
West. I think it's because our ruling
class don't want people to look at China as an example.
It's like, see what happens when you don't waste trillions of
dollars in in wars abroad, when you actually invest your own
population. Like what, what could happen?
So This is why they must paint China as it's like dystopian
hell, you know, So, so don't think about like you think you
got it bad in US or Europe. No, no, no Chinese, they have a
way worse. So.
So don't think about it. It's still always blows my mind
though when people make that claim about China.
That is the sort of dystopian totalitarian hell.
They very quickly forget that here in South Africa we have on
average about, I think it is something like 20 to 30 murders
out of 100,000 and something around 50 rapes out of 100,000,
which is one of, I mean, those are two of the highest ratios in
the world. You know you are very likely to
to become a victim of crime no matter where you are in South
Africa at some point in your life, whereas you don't even
think about crime, you know, in countries like China or Japan.
Germs, germs. According to Jon Stewart.
That is the price of freedom, my man.
That's, that's the price you have to pay for your freedom.
I mean, that's that's what literally what Jon Stewart said
when Tucker Carlson went to Moscow and marvel at how clean
the street of Moscow is compared to New York City.
And Jon Stewart just says, well, that's the price of freedom.
And he said that ironically. It's like This is why you have
to accept shitty subways in New York City with rats everywhere
because that's the price of freedom germs.
Here in South Africa on car insurance, for example, on my
own car insurance, you you pay more if your car is not parked
inside the garage. Wow.
Well. Actually I I would like I wait
wait you pay more in other. Words.
Sorry, I beg your pardon. You paid less because they want
your car out of sight. OK.
So your car's likely your car's likely to get broken into if
it's in the driveway or in the street.
OK, so they don't want you to park in the driveway or in the
street? Yeah, they want you to park in
in the garage if you have a garage.
No, no, no. We we need that law in Bali,
man, there's so many cars parking on the street.
I can't barely squeeze by. We, we have to.
We need that laws by here. It's ridiculous how how people
are so myopic and it's because of propaganda.
They're indoctrinated and it doesn't matter what you say.
I've had these conversations over and over and over and it's
become almost like a comedy sketch now.
But you're not Chinese. Have you been to China?
No, but I want to go to China. OK.
I was in China. How long were you there?
I was there for 10 days. That's not long enough.
You need to. You need to live there.
OK, well, let me talk to somebody who lives there now.
You can't talk to somebody who lives there because they've been
watched by the CCP. Yeah, I mean, even I get that.
I mean, like, and then they're, they're like, oh, like they're
like trying to tell me they know more about me, about China,
because China does not have freedom access to free
information. I'm like, look, I, I live
outside the free fire, the great Firewall, man.
I have the same level of access to information as you do, except
I have also been inside China and I have lived there and I
have travelled through China. So, but you know, but it's hard
to change people's mind, right? It's hard to change people.
But that's why I encourage people to actually travel there
and see it for themselves, you know, seeing.
Doesn't matter. Travelling doesn't matter
because to be being something for 10 days, you still only see
what they want you to see. Yeah, it's.
It's a. It's a rather.
Believe the BBC. Well, I, you know, the, the
surprising thing about BBC is that I thought I was immune to
Western Corp corporate or her government propaganda in case of
BBC. But I was surprised when I
travelled to Moscow, I was surprised to see how colourful,
vibrant, beautiful Moscow is in the summer.
And I was taken back by that. It's like, why did I find that
surprising? And then I realised in the West,
all the image I see coming out of Russia is like grey, they're
always like a grey philtre applied to it.
Like the sky is always grey. Everything is has no colour, is
very drab and very depressing. And so it's, it's, it's a quite
shocking for me to actually been there and to see how vibrant
everything is in the summertime when the sun is out and people
are out there enjoying themselves.
Right, Because people are not well travelled, people are not,
you're not, they're not as worldly as you are germs.
They haven't, you know, there's only like 5%, there's only 5% of
the people in America that possess passport, they actually
have passport, you know, and the, the people that do have
passport, they travel the the most destination to travel is
just Canada and Mexico, right? They, they haven't even been
outside of a lot of them haven't been outside of the continent of
North America. So, yeah, I mean, the only thing
they, they they get is what their media fed them.
I was told by this by African, by a Somalian, he said.
Search Mogadishu into English into Google and then serve
search this I forgot what's it called the Mogadishu name in the
Somali language into Google and do a image search.
See what you happen and it's very striking.
If you put Mogadishu in Google and do image search, you just
see like, like warzone, right? And whereas you use the, the the
Somali term for Mogadishu in the same Google image search and
it's very nice. It's a it's a it's a wow.
It's a modern city. You can tell it's a modern city.
So I mean, it's it's it's kind of amazing that just the
language philtre that that was put on in the in the media.
But that do you think that is by design or by emergence?
I think it could be both, to be honest.
I mean like, because one, lot of the lot of the news they they
sell to capture eyeballs and also news tend to be
overwhelmingly negative anyway. You know that because that's to
to play on people's fear, right? The fear is one of the strongest
emotions and, and that's how they get you, you know, like the
to, to, to, to, to, to, to give you, to get a emotional response
out of you that, that make you may possibly want to click
right? So click bait.
So I, I think there's that part and then then there's, there's,
I think the, the, the media also selling to people what they want
to hear, right? They, they want people, let's
face it, People want to hear that other people are doing more
poorly than they are. And the media feeds into that.
And I think that's what's going on, remember?
When you and I were in Hong Kong, we went to a Japanese
restaurant and you weren't there.
But afterwards, I briefly went and spoke to the the head chef,
the Japanese chef who could barely speak English.
Now, what was so funny to me is, you know, we talk, we often talk
about stereotypes and how countries are are seen.
You know, you spoke about Mogadishu being a war zone.
And so South Africa is a crime capital.
And there are other things that I suppose that come to mind when
you when you say South Africa. But one of the things that
doesn't really often come to mind is bolt on, which is
effectively beef jerky. We call it bolt on.
It's the Afrikaans word. We don't say beef jerky, but it
in my view, it tastes way better than beef jerky.
It's thought the way that it's made anyway.
It's not exactly something you would think of when you say
South Africa. So when I was chatting to that
to that chef and you asked me where I was from, I said South
Africa. And the first thing you
responded with was Boltong. Boltong.
Wow, that's incredible. Wow.
Well. That's a little bit different.
That's his specialty, right? He's, he's a, he's a Top Chef.
That's yes, you know, he knows his food.
So he's, he's a very well educated chef.
I mean, I, I, I this when you told me about this, this is the
first time I heard about both. You know what?
I got to travel to South Africa. I got to take my own advice.
I want to, I want to go taste it for myself.
Come stay with. Me yeah, come stay with me.
Let's. Do it.
Let's do it. You will, you will love, you
will love Bolton. It is one of the best things you
can eat and and our wine, I would argue is often better than
French wine. But we never win those
competitions because I think it's all rigged in favour of the
French because they can't possibly lose anything to do
with wine. Yeah, Yeah, that's true.
I mean, I mean, it's it's, it's a branding, right?
This is in South Africa. They need a what you guys need,
you need Americans to do your PR because Americans are great at
marketing, right? But we're we're, we're great.
Marketing. No, no, no Chinese.
Shit at marketing and propaganda.
American Americans are best at marketing and propaganda.
So that's what you need. You need some American PR person
to do more PR for South Africa for.
The South. African.
Both of them, yeah, to prove. Your point?
Look at look at branding in America, like Apple, right?
It's just literally an icon. They don't even have the word
Apple on it, right. Chinese cars like GWM.
It just says GWM. Yeah, you wouldn't even know
what. GWM means right.
You wouldn't even know what the hell is the GWN or if you have.
All that's the word HAVAL or BYD.
It's the word sorry, the letters BYD, There's no, there's no
branding. Exactly.
So they need to work on that
too. Yeah, yeah, they do.
They do. They should hire.
But Americans? Are the best, You're right.
They're the best in marketing, yes.
Yes, the Byds of the world, they should hire me.
I can, I can. I can inject some of this
American marketing for the American PR.
I I just don't work my magic. Something that I noticed when I
was in the UAE and also in Hong Kong and I, I suspect this is
now very normal across Asia, is the the combination of electric
and ICE. It's not one or the other to buy
huge amount of electric cars, but also a huge amount of, of,
of diesel or petrol. I think that's very clever
because what I think a lot of Western manufacturers, car
manufacturers have done wrong in the last 10 years is just go
balls to the wall on electric. And, and I've, I think it's cost
them very dearly because not everybody wants electric, yeah.
And especially in places where you don't have charging
stations, right? I mean, like, why would China be
diplomatic? I mean, like a lot of people
don't. I mean, when they talk about
China, Chinese overcapacity, they always talk about Chinese
state subsidies. What they don't realise, there's
actually intense market competition within China.
All these Chinese automakers are competing with each other for
market share. That's why slap they slash
prices by a great deal. Like once those cars get
exported out of China, the price doubles.
In fact, the the the the Chinese car makers right now, they're
looking to expand their export markets because they they they
get more profit selling outside of China versus inside of China
because inside China they face too much competition from their
fellow Chinese car makers. And in a wonderful horseshoe,
back to the beginning of the conversation.
God bless Trump because his tariffs have now encouraged us
to buy to buy Asian, Asian products.
Chinese cars are are taking the market by Stormia.
I'm telling you, germs, Trump is my president.
He's my president for acceleration.
ISM I, I love him. I love him.
I wish he'd be like the God Emperor for life.
What do you think of that comment?
That I think it's Alex Craner and what many others have made,
that Trump actually favours multipolarity and is
deliberately trying to create competing currencies.
I, I don't know, I think for Trump, he's very transactional,
right? Like to subscribe him to some
kind of grand strategy. I think that's a little far
fetched. I think Trump, Trump for for
Trump, everything is transactional.
Like he's he's he's doing stuff like he's telling NVIDIA, OK,
we'll allow you to sell this watered down AI chips age 22
China, but you have to pay me 15% of your revenue.
And so he just collecting toes from everybody.
And that's that's what the whole tariff is about, right.
The tariff is, is, it's not being paid by foreign countries.
They're being paid by American importers and, and then it's get
passed out to American consumers.
So in effect, a tariff is a tax, but it's disguised as tariff.
So people don't realise it's a tax.
But, but, but that's all it is. It's, it's about collecting
toes, collecting rent from the, from the rest of the population.
So I, I, I, I don't, I don't, I, I doubt, you know, I have my
doubts whether Trump have some like any more grander vision
than that than just collecting money.
For now, call. How can I follow you?
Oh yeah, I'm a prolific ship poster on on X.
Like if you haven't got enough of my ship posting right now,
you can you can get more if I follow my handle, just Carl Zah.
That's my X handle. And I have my own YouTube
channel, Carl Zah again and or you can find me on Patreon where
I do the Silk and Steel podcast, which focus on everything China
history, culture and politics. And I do a chronological
retelling of the Chinese history from the very beginning.
Right now I'm up to like 310 BC. So I still have a long way to
go. And feel free to check it out.
Support, support me, Support my surfing habits in Bali so I can
live like a degenerate surfer that I am.
All right, Carl, thanks for joining me in The Avengers.