TFTC: A Bitcoin Podcast - #309: An alternative perspective on the state of the world with London Paul

Episode Date: February 28, 2022

Join Marty as he sits down with London Paul to discuss what is happening in the world right now. Are sanctions effective? What led us to this situation? Is de-dollarization accelerating? Follow London Paul on Twitter Check out The Sirius Report Shoutout to our sponsors: Unchained Capital Braiins HodlHodl Bitcoin 2022 - use the code TFTC for 10% off

Are we recording? Get the thumbs up. What is up, freaks? It's your boy Marty Bent here to introduce this episode of TFTC. It's brought to you by your good friends at Unchained Capital. I'm looking at some Unchained employees right now through the glass windows here at the Bitcoin Commons at the TFTC studio. I see Justin Moon.

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and use the code tftc to get 10% off your tickets Enjoy it, freaks. Thank you. You've had a dynamic where money has become freer than free. When you talk about a Fed just gone nuts, all the central banks going nuts.

So it's all acting like safe haven. I believe that in a world where central bankers are tripping over themselves to devalue their currency, Bitcoin wins. In the world of fiat currencies, Bitcoin is the victor. I mean, that's part of the bull case for Bitcoin. If you're not paying attention, you probably should be. Paul, thank you for joining me today. Oh, absolute pleasure, Melty. Well, I think this is going to be a fascinating conversation.

Like I said, I reached out to you yesterday afternoon. After listening to the podcast you recorded on the Warren newsletter podcast, And I was just extremely impressed with the nuanced perspective that you have on the ongoing situation between Russia, Ukraine, the West at large, sprinkling some de-dollarization between Russia and China as well. And I think it's extremely important right now that people who listen to this podcast and may wander into this podcast understand a different perspective than what is being parroted in the mainstream media right now, which, in my opinion, is completely unorganized. There's a lot of vitriol and, frankly, fake news that's been spread over the last week. And I think, again, your perspective and understanding of this particular situation, how we got here, is just important for people to hear. So I think just to start, having followed the news of the past week, what has dismayed you at how it's being covered by Western media and corporate media at large? well i think we could probably talk for days about this but let's try and distill it down

i think i mean okay we know there's a long-standing problem in attitudes i mean it goes back to my childhood with respect to russia i mean then it was the soviet union it was the whole sort of cold war era and then even after the collapse of the soviet union in 1991 and it became russia And then, obviously, all the states returned to what they were previously, like the Baltic states, etc. It's always been a significant problem. So, therefore, to get any sort of objective view with regards to Russia simply doesn't happen. And I mean, Putin will always literally be demonized no matter what he says or does. And that, of course, blinkers a lot of people's perspective, as you say, to the nuance regarding, OK, what's the reality here? I mean, we can have this very binary viewpoint that it's like in this case, Ukraine's good

and Russia's bad. And of course, it's far more complicated than just a very simple binary thought process. I think what also really hasn't helped in the last week, I mean, I'm only commenting maybe specifically on, say, the UK's perspective, but it's also European nations, where they've kind of talked in a way that's very high-octane rhetoric with regards to Russia. I think it was a statement made today because, obviously, a few days ago, was it yesterday, the Russians started to up the ante and talked about basically putting nuclear deterrence in place. It turned out they said it was because of comments made by Liz Truss, who is the foreign secretary in the United Kingdom.

I made some comments on my own podcasts where this kind of inflammatory conversation is very damaging. It also, I think, belies the fact that there's a Western perspective at the moment that Russia isn't really serious about World War III. We have to be careful saying that because it sounds extremely high-octane to even mention it. Russia is serious, and the West is kind of dismissing it and going, no, he's just doing this for leverage with respect to Ukraine.

Do I think Russia will have, we will have World War III? No, it's extremely, extremely unlikely. But they're making enough noises that, OK, there may be a bit of an attempt to leverage a situation, but I think largely it's to wake the West up and say, look, we are deadly serious about our stance on Ukraine. And whether you agree with it or not is not the point, because we had all that kind of to-ing and fro-ing between Russia and the United States and the European Union. And I kind of separate the UK now, because the UK is not in the European Union.

And they sent them the security assurances, and they kind of just didn't do anything. They battered them back and ignored them, and then just made some other reference to sort of intermediate-range missiles, which, of course, the US walked away from. tore up the agreement during the Trump administration. And even though the US made out it was the Russians' fault. And therefore, because of this contact, it's feeding a media frenzy that people don't take this seriously, that clearly politicians don't take this particularly seriously. And the other aspect that is very concerning is the fact that because of, we can maybe talk in a bit of detail about this, is the Russian military response or they declared

war, went into Ukraine. Because of that tactical response, there's people in the West going, well, they're losing the war. The principal reason they think they're losing the war is because they haven't gone in as the US does, which it did in Iraq, and spent a whole month and basically flatten the entire country or all the infrastructure, and then afterwards walked in in the Iraq war in 2003. Russia's tactic is not to do that. We can go into some detail about that a bit later on, but the point is that's also cultivating this attitude that somehow Russia's failing, Russia's losing the war.

Of course, there's all the usual propaganda in the media which lacks any nuances to, okay, are we given any consideration as to why Russia has done what it's done? Because it is a pretty severe step. It's not something they've done flippantly and on a whim. I mean, they made reference to it previously. Okay, the invasion was a very significant development and step, and we can talk about why, from my perspective, they've done this because there's many. I think it's very multifaceted.

Now, this isn't justifying what Russia's doing or saying Russia gives them free reign to do what they want to do and to exclude the West's perspective on this, because absolutely not. But if we don't start to address the fundamental reasons, we don't understand why Russia's doing it, and we have this very dismissive attitude. to Russia's military capability, its military tactics, and what it's actually telegraphing to the West, the US included, of course, and Europe and the UK as obvious examples, then it's completely skewing perceptions.

And I think it's actually skewed perception in the corridors of, well, notional power in Western nations, in governments, prime ministers, president, who have got the same kind of flippant attitude that, well, Russia's military capability isn't that great. They're going to get bogged down in this war. Well, they probably lost the war. It's all bluff and bravado. And we know it's not. And therefore, it's the age-old thing.

One careless comment by some political leader could have devastating consequences. because at the moment, the situation is pretty tense and it only requires one individual to say something that may be misinterpreted because I'm not convinced there's an awful lot of back-channel conversation, say, going on between the Americans and the Russians or any of the Europeans and the Russians. And therefore, you don't have that opportunity for someone

to pick up the phone and go, look, I know this president or prime minister said this but care to eat at the moment don't worry it doesn't mean that okay okay fine and then they can hang up and get on like the moment that doesn't seem to be this connect between you know nato nations and russia and therefore the miscalculation or the risk of it could be potentially devastating and i'm not kind of trying to sound sensationalistic but We have to face the reality that it is a tense situation, and miscalculation is the one thing you have to avoid in the risk of conflict. And this applies to every single day of every single year, because I've made this point

before that people will be quite shocked what has to happen on a daily basis for us to go to bed at night and wake up in the morning, and the world's pretty much in the same state. That includes cooperation between so-called adversaries like the US and Russia or the UK and Russia or the European Union and Russia, for example, but not exclusively those nations because there can be situations and there needs to be a cool head on the end of a back-channel phone call that says, look, okay, yeah, we had a bit of a problem there. Apologies for that. Yeah, we shouldn't have flown in there or we shouldn't have done this. or by the way, you need to be aware of this, or intelligence is suggesting there may be a potential risk in your nation. Okay, thanks very much. Hang up the phone.

People don't understand that has to happen because despite all this rhetoric and bravado that exists in the public sort of gaze and in the media, there's a very, you know, the world's a very complicated place and we have to be sure that we don't hit a proverbial tripwire and create an unnecessary situation. And that's, again, back to your point about nuance. Yeah.

It's extremely, things are very fragile at the moment. And that's one thing I think you highlighted yesterday on Twitter. You've been saying this in your report, is that the U.S. is the emperor without clothes. And for me personally watching this as an American, And watching this all unfold, I'm just completely disheartened by the lack of competence at the highest level of our government, the amount of hubris that exists there to take the situation lightly. And I've been called a Russian stooge, a pro-Putin stooge for trying to highlight this. It's like, hey, our government's pretty much instigated Russia to the point that they're invading Ukraine, our governments and other NATO nations over the last couple of decades.

And everybody's pissed off at Russia and Putin. But if you take a step back and try to dissect the situation, the history of Russia, Ukraine and NATO, specifically with the Minsk agreement and the strong positioning by Russia, like, hey, we really. would not like ukraine to join nato or the eu because we don't want military bases uh western military bases pointing guns uh from a country that's right next door at our country and taking a step back and trying to understand the history and recognize like maybe there were probably better decisions that could have been made from a western perspective that that could have prevented an invasion at some point. And this is, again, who's to say?

Maybe Russia would have invaded nonetheless, but I think there's a strong argument to be made that the likelihood of invasion would have been significantly lower if we just weren't, would you call the Western, the United States and other NATO countries instigators in this instance? Well, yes. I mean, and I think we probably, again,

We'll try and keep it quite brief, otherwise we could be spending hours discussing this. But I'm not going to go back through all the history of Ukraine because, I mean, I'm not a historian. I've got a friend who knows it far better than me. But I just take it back in recent history since, obviously, the Maidan in 2014 when Yanukovych, whether he's a nice guy or not, is not the point. He was democratically elected, and it's irrefutable. that there was a color revolution and he was overthrown and the united states was behind it

people may like to disagree but it's you know it's just irrefutable so once that happened of course from the russian perspective they looked at it and went hang on okay this is of deep concern to them now the reason he was overthrown is because there's always been a kind of notional desire to to integrate ukraine into nato it's not like a recent kind of thought processing in the united states principally but also maybe at some point was a viewpoint as well that ukraine could be absorbed into the european union and the reason Yanukovych was deemed surplus to requirements is because he wasn't key on any NATO integration. There was a sort of proposal kicking around around that time for Ukraine to maybe join

the European Union. And he was, as any sensible leader would have done, looked at this proposal and went, no, I'm not joining on that basis because, I mean, I'm not a fan of the European unions, some of the aspects could have worked extremely well, but when you start to try and marry disparate economies and have the same currency between, say, Germany, Greece, et cetera, it's not going to work. Yanukovych looked at these proposals and went, no, they're not acceptable, so we're not joining. Of course, they were living. Also, he'd show more and more desire for further integration with russia so when you put all those things in combination he had to go so so obviously he went now the problem is in sort of prior to him being sort of deposed as as as the president

there was a lot of kind of western influence and we started to see this rise of the far right i I mean, and it's not an exaggeration to say they're a neo-Nazi, as you might want to refer to them in Ukraine. And they were already starting to, where they sort of weren't more like underground, were becoming very prevalent. And it was very obvious. And their stated intentions has always been that they have extreme adversity to ethnic Russians. We've already seen elements of banning Russian speaking, banning Russian publications, and effectively trying to squash it. There's been quite a significant proportion in Donbass regard themselves as Russian and

speak Russian. Obviously in the aftermath of the May Dam, it was grave concern in the Donbass region that there was a risk of very livelihood, we could be threatened. It's been some pretty strong rhetoric floating around in recent weeks. The Russians have called it the genocide of people in Donbas. But what's absolutely clear, through all these skirmishes, it was particularly bad in 2014-15. There was thousands of people in Donbas killed. Not all, because obviously, there's a contact line between Donetsk and Lugansk, which they regard as independent republics in their own head. They were fighting a war with the Ukrainians on the opposite side

of the contact line, which was within the oblast, as they call it, of Donetsk and Lugansk. It got pretty hostile in 2014, 2015. It was still happening. and there were effectively because it was a war, there was war crimes committed, there was houses being shelled, innocent civilians killed and it was predominantly the Ukrainian

forces and I kind of made the point that if it had been Russian separatists doing this, the Western media would have been all over it, the government, the Western nations would have been all over it and using it as a pretext to go in and deal with the problem, the fact they

didn't implies there wasn't anything of substance to suggest that the Russian separatists were responsible for shelling homes, et cetera. I'm not saying it didn't happen because we don't know, because this conflict was going on for effectively eight years now. So obviously, from the Russian perspective, it's very controversial because they were very concerned about Crimea because, again, Crimea predominantly regards themselves as Russian. Okay, there's a strategic element to it because they're stuck in the Black Sea. But they didn't go in and just seize control.

There was a referendum. And the people did predominantly vote to obviously become part of Russia. And they took that step. And, okay, it was deemed to be highly controversial. Of course, it was the catalyst for the West to put all these sanctions on Russia at that point in time. Then there's obviously been this ongoing war, although it kind of calmed down, but it's still happening, until probably two or three weeks ago. And then it really started to accelerate again. But we'd seen in the months sort of back end of last year, November, December time, that

it was a big buildup when the Ukrainian side of hardware, personnel, it looked like there was some mega fancy going to happen. And the Russians clearly were aware of this. And their concern, as always, would have been, well, I mean, there's a lot of things where they said Russian forces were in Donbass. They weren't. I don't dispute for one minute they were providing arms, because otherwise, how would they keep fighting? There's no doubt in that, but they didn't have Russian personnel. The Russians didn't invade Ukraine until, obviously, they declared war and then invaded

Ukraine, but they were certainly supporting these so-called separatists in Donbass. There's these things been simmering for a long time. Of course, the irony is that in 2014, when they put sanctions on Russia, and we'll come to the whole sanctions thing, which ties in with what's happened with China, et cetera, and all the de-dollarization, but we'll park that for a minute. For that, ironically, it was a major catalyst for Russia to start to rethink, hang on, we've got big problems, and we need to start to take this seriously that we can't just dismiss these sanctions because there was mutterings even back in 2014 that, well, we might exclude Russia from SWIFT.

It was muttered. Nothing of any substance obviously came from it. But the mere mention of it made Russia start to go, OK, we're going to have to reformulate our financial system, our economy, in terms of usage of the dollar, et cetera. It was a major step in Chinese-Russian relations, which were already pretty strong and growing really since 2008, the global financial crisis, but then it really started to gather momentum in 2014 when they announced the so-called Holy Grail Energy Deal, which was the power of Siberia, Line 1, which has been operational a couple of years or so.

So, there is all this backstory. There was clearly issues. I think what sort of then became interesting was in about September last year, the US started going, the Russians are massing 100,000 troops on the borders. Now, this narrative had been in Western media since 2016 on and off. And I looked at it and went, OK, why is it rearing its head? And then it kind of got more and more sort of vitriolic. And at first, the Ukrainians simply went, I don't believe this.

They ignored the Americans. And the Europeans weren't taking it seriously, particularly. But then it's almost like a propaganda war in and of itself, because eventually the fear was growing more and more. if you keep the americans were really hammering this line and the more it happened i went this is this something's going to end up occurring because of this it wasn't just your usual the streets messing on the border it dies a death a week or two later this started to become the momentum was building and it was starting to be very obvious to me that the us was pushing um some some conflict or other future and of course we had the failed color revolution in belarus which the americans

were behind because that in essence they were trying to do ukraine 2014 mark ii and obviously that failed uh we had the failed color revolution in kazakhstan and the russians in by the csto the forces went in it was all over in a few days but the minute there was protests this for me yeah there's another color revolution it was squashed and of course this infuriated the americans that they failed in belarus they were furious that they that they failed in kazakhstan but there was a precedent being set when the kazakhstan happened i went okay there's gonna something's with regards to Ukraine. It was a kind of inevitability as we got to the back end of last year that at some point, something was going to happen. Now, it wasn't necessarily,

of course, that at that point, Russia was going to invade by any stretch of the imagination, but the US was starting to push and they've been pushing with China and Taiwan. It was just, for me, reflective of the fact the US as an empire, the US as a nation, was really starting to struggle economically and financially. Geopolitically, it was waning very clearly. I mean, just look at the fact how unceremoniously it was kicked out of Afghanistan and did nothing. I mean, and it was just indicative of an empire that's been in decline for a long time. So there's a desperation to pushing this angle with Russia.

I mean, come on to why that's been the case, why Russia is seen as a nemesis for the United States, but also, you know, how long is it going to be before we see something reignited between Taiwan and China or the US will try to. They may not do in light now of what's happened with regards to Ukraine because it's blown out of all proportion. I don't think the U.S. thought the Russians would do what they do. They may have anticipated them going in saying, right, we're extremely concerned that there's a huge offensive against the Russian separatists, so we're going to go in. We're going to deal with that.

And they may have thought, okay, they're going to try and hive off Gantz and Donetsk. Maybe they'll become independent republics. Maybe they'll just try and seize control of them, or how they perceive seized control, like what happened with Crimea. But of course, things completely escalated to a level that surprised a lot of people. I kept making the point Russia would unilaterally invade, because quite simply, they've had eight years to they wanted to they would have already done it so the only way they would invade would be if there was an imminent threat to to donbass again and they've made that point and it's becoming very clear because even before they signed the cooperation agreement with donbass they said

any attack on any russian anywhere in the world we will respond to it but i think there was an awful lot of other developments and all of a sudden it ceased to become just a donbass issue and it wasn't because i mean obviously it was all the issue of ukraine's nato membership and all these kind of security assurances that uh that russia requested but i think there was a whole time we'll come on to this some other significant reasons why from a russian perspective they went we're gonna have to go in and they made the point uh straight out and even i think putin's addressed to the nation that we're going to quote i think demil have demilitarization but also denazification uh and until that objective's done then we're not leaving and therefore once they

they they made that state then of course the invasion happened pretty rapidly and maybe we'll park there so you can obviously come back in because otherwise we could just i could just talk nonstop for for about a week and then which is not really the point of doing this yeah i mean i can i can listen to you talk about this stuff for a week if need be but i think going back to a couple things particularly can you pull on the thread of the the color revolutions in belarus and kazakhstan specifically because this is the first time i'm hearing the theory that it was a color revolution in in those particular cases and then another thing I have another thing to touch on after that, which is comment on your comment that the U.S., the Western world is probably at the end of its empire stage.

I mean, it's pretty obvious if you look at historical examples, whether it be Rome, they had their army spread thin across the world. They were very inefficient and very ineffective towards the end of their empire. And that's sort of how part of the reason why they ended. It seems like we have a very similar situation here, particularly with what's going on in Russia. If you're looking at this as the United States or another NATO nation and you understand the leverage that Russia has in terms of their control of commodities for that, that the Europe specifically is very highly dependent on. And it just seems like an extremely idiotic misstep and miscalculation on behalf of the Western world to instigate Russia to this point when they have control of natural gas that Western Europe is highly dependent on. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the whole premise, the way the West's behaving is, frankly, ludicrous because, yeah, if you look at it with respect to the whole sanctions issue.

Now, thus far, obviously, we talk about not every sort of detail of these sanctions, but I think Gazprom came out today and said we'll continue providing gas. But here's the thing is that if Russia was to cut off the gas, I mean, they're still getting payments because even though they put these sanctions in place, they're a bit half-hearted. It's a bit like, well, we're not going to sanction you over energy because we need energy. And they've even come out and made some very strange comments about sanctioning banks and SWIFT by going, but if they're literally off. I can't remember who it was. One European leader said, well, if someone wants to make a payment to a relative, we'll allow that. Well, that's not how sanctions work.

You're not going to, how do you distinguish who's a relative and who isn't? So I think a lot of these sanctions are just for public consumption. So for example, like saying, with regards to sanctioning Lavrov and Putin, this is utter nonsense because they don't have any assets in the Western world. as though those two would have assets in the Western world. I mean, it's just common sense that that's not the case. So a lot of this is geared towards projecting to the populace that we're being tough on Russia because, I mean, of course,

the political capital is they have to say that. Even if they didn't really want to do this, and I'm not saying that's the case, they've got no choice because if they don't do something, the Western people are going to go, hang on. You vilified Russia for as long as I can remember. You vilified Putin, and now suddenly you're not going to do anything. So I think the question is what degree of substance is in relation to these sanctions. But if you truly cut Russia off in a swift, and therefore Russia would say, well, OK,

you can't pay us for oil and gas. So the immediate problem would be they would cut off the gas supply. Of course, Europe has got enormous gas shortages. This is why they've got this huge hike in energy costs. Well, I couldn't say exactly, but maybe two weeks, there will be no energy. If there's no energy, Europe is going to collapse, as we know, because it's the lifeblood of a nation, of the continent. If you don't have energy, you're in big trouble.

And the same would apply to oil. And of course, there are all the other commodities. I mean, palladium, I think Russia's responsible for about 45% of global production. Neon, which is needed in semiconductors, they produce about 90% of it. And the list goes on. I mean, Russia, as we know,

produces enormous amounts of commodities. If you cut them out of the equation, Europe would collapse very quickly. And if Europe collapses, bear in mind, we have all the inflation problems, we have supply chain issues, we then start to have societal breakdown pretty quickly. And they didn't seem to, I think, again, they're kind of the viewpoint, well, Russia would never do that. And the truth is, Russia would be very loathe to switch off the gas. Because, I mean, it's, you know, if you then look at the situation and go, well, we're responsible for it and the consequences.

And all people in the West go, I don't believe this because Putin's a ruthless tyrant who wants to massacre Western nations, given half the chance. Well, that's simply not reality. And we'll go into some of the tactics with regards to Ukraine, which proves that eloquently. But yes, they've made a grave miscalculation for a number of reasons, potentially the risk of collapsing Europe, and not exclusively Europe, because the US imports a significant amount of Russian oil, although they don't want to admit it, because everyone was supposed to be sanctioned. But as usual, when the sanctions were in place, the US ignores them when they need something.

The other problem, or one of the major fundamental problems, and a miscalculation, is the world's looking at this situation and going, well, OK, Russia's invaded Ukraine. We're not supportive of that. But what happened? Because, I mean, the US's, the de-dollarization process has come about because the US has constantly bullied nations. If you don't do what we say, we're going to sanction, or we'll have a color revolution, or we'll just kill a leader or we'll do something to twist your arm

to make you do what we want you to do. The problem is, after this incident, whatever the perspective is with regards to the invasion, every nation on this planet will be looking at this and going, well, the Chinese and the Russians have been warning us to de-dollarize because of the US weaponizing the dollar. Well, here's an instance where, notionally, whether it plays out in reality, they're sanctioning companies. They want to cut most Russian banks out of SWIFT, but now they're actually attacking

the Russian central bank itself. This is unprecedented. This has not happened before. They're going to be looking at this going, well, what happens if they do that to us? Russia will be able to deal with this because they have enormous resource. They have no net debt, effectively. They've got about $600 billion equivalent, because they don't have dollars, but dollars equivalent in reserves, et cetera, including, well, the gold.

Actually, they've got a significantly greater amount of gold than they publicly admit to. But notionally, that's the belief. So they've got a cushion to absorb this. There's a lot of statements in the West that the West controls all these central bank reserves. It's simply not true. Russia would not, given everything that's happened in the last eight years, expose themselves to not having access to those forex reserves or the equivalent. So that's the problem.

Nations will look at this and go, well, we could be next. And most nations, if you did that, would collapse within, well, a day or two. I mean, I made the point on Twitter earlier. And with the West, if you, in principle, if Russia was able to, which of course they're not, to effectively sanction Western banks, cut them out of SWIFT, sanction their central banks, the West would collapse in hours, literally within four hours. The whole system would fail. That's the gravity of this problem. It's just made more and more nations look at this and go, well, we kind of believed we needed to de-dollarize, and we already are starting to.

Well, that's going to accelerate the de-dollarization process. It will accelerate Russia and China's plans, which have been in place for years. It was first said to me in 2012, well, this is the long-term plans, and this is what they're going to do? Because they know the Western financial system is finished. 2008 was that enormous wake-up call. OK, there's all sorts of chicanery going on, and they've kicked the can down the road, and they've created this illusion that somehow everything's fine, but we know it's not. So it's not like they haven't got alternative plans already. The West is worried as well that this will accelerate the dollarization. I think Obama, of all people, in 2015 made this

point. If we cut Russia out of SWIFT, it will accelerate that de-dollarization process, but the mere fact of what happened in 2014 had already started that acceleration process. He was correct, but it would already be ongoing. They have alternatives in place. The question that the West is not even considering, okay, well, if China and Russia join this, who else is going to join? The ASEAN nations, possibly, the Eurasian Economic Union, most definitely, which of course includes Belarus as well, and one of the nations. We've seen some very interesting meetings recently between the Brazilians and the Russians and the Argentinians and the Russians, and they're talking about military cooperation,

et cetera. There's a huge geopolitical map that's been drawn in a multipolar world perspective for years, and the West has largely been oblivious to it. The threat, therefore, is that you're just encouraging nations. You're actually digging your own grave, so to speak, because you're demonstrating everything the Chinese and the Russians have been telling huge swathes of the world, they're weaponizing the dollar. Nations know it because they've suffered regime change, they've suffered wars, they've suffered enormous economic hardship, austerity, and then just stealing their assets, et cetera. It's not something that is a mystery to most of the world, but this is probably the worst decision that the West has made. Europe, effectively, is being

bulldoze into doing this they didn't want to do it but biden let the cat out the bag so to speak when he made the point and i don't think he should have probably said this but he did he goes well there was two alternatives we either have sanctions so we have world war three so if you're sat there being constantly kind of bullied into putting sanctions and swift and cancelling Nord Stream 2, or suspending, should I say, Nord Stream 2, and you keep going, well, we don't want to do this, and nations didn't. Then suddenly, they all fell into line. Well, logically, it was the United States went, well, it's sanctions or World War III,

and they went, well, we obviously don't want World War III. OK, we'll go along with sanctions. But I don't think they're willing accomplices, because somewhere, people must understand the risk, the significant risk. And they're kind of, that's why they're trying to cherry pick their way through this and go, well, you can pay for, we'll pay for energy and maybe other commodities. So, I mean, effectively, they're keeping the trade open with Russia. And this is all very cosmetic nonsense. I mean, with regards to Russian banks, which most of them function domestically.

So SWIFT can't touch them anyway. Okay, there's some international trade, but they can easily find the different ways around that. But with SWIFT, you can just piggyback off another foreign bank somewhere in a sympathetic jurisdiction and SWIFT becomes irrelevant. So it is cosmetic, but it's the perspective that the world sees, they see in the multipolar world environment. Also, at some point, there's an argument that some heads inside or cool heads more inside Europe will start to go, we're in this abusive relationship.

and they are going to potentially suffer consequences. It depends how this accelerates, depends on what the United States insists, but if they really keep pushing and extending sanctions, there may come a point when your energy does get cut off. If energy gets cut off, then Europe's going to collapse very rapidly. If Europe collapses rapidly, they're telling their own nations, in the Netherlands, for example, they've gone, well, we may have to suffer a bit economically and a bit of price inflation, but it's a price worth paying for the freedom of Ukraine. Well, if it doesn't play out that way, which it would in an extreme case, then they're

going to have political backlash, well, enormous in these nations, because they're going to They say, well, you told us this, and now we've got huge price inflation. In fact, we've got no energy. Hang on. There's a total miscalculation. So politically, it would create enormous problems across Europe. So it's a total miscalculation on every level, no matter what our perspective is with regards to why Russia eventually invaded.

I know there was a lot of rhetoric about Russia invading, but Russia wasn't going to invade. But like everything, there was these red lines. Some of them were more long-term red lines, like absorbing Ukraine into NATO, or putting missiles pointing at Russia in Ukraine, or US bases, officially, at least in Ukraine, or a NATO presence. These were the obvious ones, but they weren't going to happen overnight. I think the other one was obviously absorbing Ukraine into the European Union. It would have been a lesser concern, but still something that would bother them.

And I think the other issue, of course, then was Donbass. That clearly was an issue. But bear in mind, as we said, Donbass has been rolling on for eight years. For the Russians to suddenly go, hang on, now we're really concerned, was I think because there was a provocation to cause an all-out war like we've never seen in Donbass, which they would have had the heavy artillery and the Russian control,

the Russian separatist control areas would have just been blitz. And that was a point when the Russians went, sorry, that is not happening. It's one thing having these skirmishes and we've been pretty patient not getting involved and it's a bridge too far. So that absolutely was part of the reason,

but not entirely. yeah it's a complete shit show and going back to biden's biden's framing of you have sanctions or world war three it's completely irresponsible it's not the only two options here like diplomacy is definitely on the table as well if you have a political will to to actually extend a hand and attempt to meet at the table and again it just highlights the the level of complacency and again miscalculation that that exists in the western world it's mind-blowing like how terrible this is all unfolding how terrible this is going for the west and that's like the creepiest thing about the coverage over the last week is everybody is basically saying oh like we're going

to defeat russia their their army is weak they're they're going to lose to the insurgency in ukraine And like you said, when that doesn't come to pass and these sanctions prove to be as toothless as they actually are, and it's going to be insanely obvious that this last week, I tweeted this out yesterday, this last week will be pinpointed at some point in the future as the final nail in the coffin for the U.S. dollar being the reserve currency of the world. Like you said, the reaction by the U.S. government and Western nations to this is just very acutely highlighting to other nations. All right, we have to start thinking about alternatives. The bullying doesn't seem like it's going to stop. You have a, I mean, we literally have a president, his obvious degenerative decline. Yes. And I don't know if he's controlling this, but he's the face of the reaction to all this.

And it's just, again, we'll look back in history at some point in the future and be like, oh, you had a Caligula at the helm at this point in U.S. history. And again, as an American, it's extremely worrying and disheartening because I do believe that we have the ability, if we have the will, to bring it to fruition, to right the ship. We should be energy independent. Energy policy is something I've been very passionate about the last couple of years because it's completely mind blowing how we're just making ourselves completely dependent and insecure from an energy perspective. Shutting down pipelines, not allowing people to frack on federal land, trying to transition to unreliable renewables like wind and solar hastily and idiotically and having the example of Germany doing so over the last two decades with terrible consequences. i'm rambling here but it's just completely mind-blowing how sloppy the reaction to the situation is on uh from a western perspective um and the lack of understanding of the mass public everybody thinks everything's hunky-dory it's uh it does feel like late stage empire

collapse is upon us and most people don't even fucking realize it sorry for cursing no no you you you're every right to curse about it because it is very frustrating when most people don't see the reality of what's unfolding and i think it's a good point to talk actually let's let's talk a bit about the russian military in reality now we go back to the whole kind of georgian war in 2008 day, Russia was a mess. As an army, they were ill-disciplined, very sloppy. I mean, not that I'm advocating war because I despise war, but I'm just saying in the context of their military. And there was a realization, we are going to have to revolutionize the military, including training, including military hardware, tactics, everything. And they went

through this revolution in the last, what, now 14 years, and the West still thinks that Russia's military is like it was in 2008. They should have had a bit of a wake-up call with Syria when Russia went in in 2015. They didn't. And the other aspect to Russia is, of course, not just battle-ready army personnel, Navy, et cetera, but missile defense systems, the S-400, they've got an S-500. The West can't deal with that. The other thing, of course, is Russia always comes out and says, well, if you've got the S-400, there are always two or three iterations ahead. In reality, Russia already has in development an

S-700. And I can't remember who it was. Someone in the Russian military kind of came out with The comment once a couple of years ago made a joke about it, but it wasn't a joke. They were basically saying, look, we have S-400s, 500s, so our missile defense systems are unprecedented, which is why more and more of the world want S-400s, even the 400s, like even Turkey, who's a NATO member, India, and the list goes on. In terms of their hypersonic missile technology, they are light years ahead of the West. and i made the point there was a speech putin made to to the doomer back in march 2018 and on my own podcast i said this is the game changer this is the moment when the world changes

in a military perspective because they've been developing all these technologies but he came out and basically said we have this technology and and there is nowhere else in the world that has You know, most people in the West think this is a lie. And they think that when even Pentagon officials admit they can't, you know, they don't have an answer to Russia's hypersonic missile technology, they think that's just an excuse to, you know, ratchet up the military budget. But the reality is the Americans are the cool heads know that they have no answer to Russia's hypersonic missiles. And they're constantly developing them. And the US is trying to develop them, and it's failing. But even if they were to catch up with Russia in two or three years, where Russia is now,

which they won't do, Russia is going to be iterations ahead, because they're already constantly redeveloping. But not that I think there will ever be World War III. But if there was, the West wouldn't have a hope in hell. And hell is probably an awful word to use. But they would just, we are sitting ducks. Not least, if you look at the US, its missile defense systems on the western east coast are useless.

The other thing is, if they were to launch these hypersonic missiles via the South Pole, they've got nothing. The US would just have no answer to it. The other thing is with the speed, with the way they're able to literally turn on a proverbial sixpence. And the US was shown this technology. And of course, they had an aneurysm because privately, not publicly, they know that they are sitting there, which kind of makes this whole debacle with regards to Biden coming out and talking about World War III. I mean, in reality, anybody in the U.S. military who understands reality knows that the U.S. will never want to go to World War III because mutual assured destruction is not really what we should be thinking about.

I know we should be more concerned about the fact that Russia could not mutely destroy huge swathes of whether it's the United Kingdom, Europe, or the United States. And we wouldn't have really much of a response. We don't fully understand the extent of their missile defense system, but the S-500 can basically take things out at altitudes which is unprecedented. And they're highly accurate. them so the chances are even if we were to launch a nuclear assault most of them would be shot out the sky and if not all of them and what's our response we don't have a response and there'd be devastation for the west so people in the west just don't believe this and this is conditioned because a lot of politicians don't believe it people still think i mean i come back

There's a lot of people who think Russia's the 1980s, that it's communist, that it's got a completely dysfunctional society. Economically, it's failed financially. It's militaries are shambles, which it was. But Russia's nothing like that. But that's, again, this media perception. So that's the fundamental issue with regards to Russia's military capability. And then we come to Ukraine and all this miscalculation and bravado that Russia's failing in Ukraine. Well, Russia isn't failing because its tactic was clearly initially in the first couple of hours, they took out enormous amounts of the military infrastructure, aviation, controls, centers, everything.

They blitzed them with high precision weapons and they were gone. They lost a lot of their capability. This is where the West miscalculated. First off, there was a 24-hour period where they suspended military operations because there was a belief that Zelenskyy was keen to talk a ceasefire, but I think it was just stalling or maybe he was, the Americans told him not to, but apart from that, their tactics been very simple. They're using very, very basic military equipment. They're not using artillery that would just blitz everything. There are a number of reasons for that. One,

they don't want high civilian casualties. Two, they don't want to blow up all the infrastructure because their attitude is, okay, even if we don't want Zelenskyy as president, we don't want a nation that needs rebuilding. The perception in Ukraine is that you're trying to kill all the civilians. They know the perception in the mainstream media in the West is going to accuse them of this, but they don't care what they think. They care what the fact the Ukrainian people will remember, that they didn't blitz the country, that they didn't just kill civilians. Okay, there are going to be civilian casualties. Let's not deny that, but you want to minimize that. Therefore, you're going to have a more prudent approach. They're

not just going to walk in into kiev and just bomb it all so what they've done is they've tentatively kind of gone in looked at what's assessed and when the west was going they're all backing out that's a reconnaissance you're looking at what what the military capability is in kiev specifically you know and you just back out slightly and what they've done is they encircled kiev they did it with kharkov i think they're in the process not yet of maria pole but they've of form this cauldron, which means they're effectively sandwiching them in. Once they've encircled them and they understand what they're looking at, then they'll start to move in. That is, I hate to say this because I hate war, but it's solid military tactics. It's how you'd

fight a war in the 21st century. People seem to think that if Russia's not flattening the whole country, because that's what the US does, then somehow they're failing, or their tactics are failing, or they're losing the war. I made the point, if they're losing the war, why is Zelensky releasing prisoners who've got some military experience and saying, well, if you go and fight, you can be released from prison. Why? They are, because I know people inside Ukraine have told they're forcibly conscripting 18 to 60 year olds you don't do that if you're winning a war you do that because you're losing the war and you literally need personnel i mean the ludicrous situation like arming people like me who's never fired a gun in his life you don't have any

understanding i mean if you gave me a gun and said shoot some russians if they come here i'd be dead in 10 minutes and the other problem is because ukraine is a complicated nation there's been people getting guns and shooting each other ukrainians killing ukrainians because and that this is again part of the nuance of the nation okay it could be neighborly disputes whatever but there's something a bit more of substance to it so these were crassly irresponsible decisions and desperation but russia has obviously made significant progress going on the north of crimea through the donbass region in northeast ukraine and obviously i don't know where we are specifically now but they'd encircle kia um and obviously that's kind of the line with the denica river

which kind of snakes its way kind of halfish through through uh ukraine they haven't moved through the whole of um the east up to the denied because they probably they don't need to there's not they're obviously dealing with the major cities which is where obviously the other thing is of course i have to deal with is that these uh far-right neo-nazis are using people as human shields i mean they're putting weapons inside housing estates i mean it's the classic tactic because, okay, the Western media is portraying that Ukraine's winning, and they're trying to, you know, it's all the propaganda, but the real war at the moment, Ukraine isn't.

Ukraine is losing very badly. There's been a lot of Ukrainian military defecting to the other side or just handing in their arms and saying, we don't want to fight. And the other part is that Russia's attitude is, okay, we don't know who's going to end up, And I don't think Zelensky will end up staying as president. I think he'll probably be shipped out and end up in the US or somewhere eventually, because he's already been offered that option.

But OK, there's an argument that Russia would want a pro-Russian president. I mean, let's not dispute that. That's a statement of the office. But therefore, for that president to stay, you don't want to blow up the country or the infrastructure. You don't want to kill massive amounts of civilians. and you also don't want to kill as few Ukrainian military personnel because you're going to need them in the future. You're going to rebuild the nation. If you've alienated them, what's going to

happen? If you put a sympathetic Russian president in, they're not going to last five minutes because that army will remember what happened during this war. They're the reasons. Again, that's The lack of nuance in the West, the West doesn't report this, and everything's portrayed as a weakness. But the Russians thus far haven't displayed any weakness. And in reality, given the size of their operation and the time they spent not doing anything, they've actually moved to key objectives pretty quickly. What they're going to do in the long term, I mean, what happens with the West, Ukraine,

et cetera, at this point, we don't know. But if they want to have demilitarization of the entire Ukraine, well, there's military in the West. So they're obviously going to have to comb the entire country. But is Russia trying to conquer Ukraine? Absolutely not. It has zero desire to, because Ukraine's a failed state, not just economically, financially, society.

It's just an ugly, horrible mess that's being created effectively by the West, not just exclusively the United States, because I don't want to keep pinning everything on the US, but the whole West NATO response is responsible for a complete failed state. So Russia wouldn't want to stay in there, because how are they going to handle that? They've got their own problems to deal with domestically. They don't want to be saddled for the nation. I don't know how many will eventually leave Ukraine as refugees, but there's currently about 42 million. I don't know, something like that, Ukrainians. It's a large country. I think it's 600,000 square miles. It's a big country. You wouldn't want to be saddled with that. There's no

economic reason for Russia to be there in any way, shape, or form. They will do their job. What does that mean in reality at this stage? We can't tell because there's the fog of war. we don't know what russia's military operations are we we've learned some things already but what's their long-term objective we don't know but the objective is they're not going to stay in ukraine and the west is trying to make out in some quarters they're trying to rebuild the soviet union which is nonsense yeah i think maybe that's something we should highlight too is how the ukraine has been left out to dry by nato nations i mean there was a lot of um pressure from the eu the u.s in the western world saying all right posture this way posture

this way posture this way and then shit hits the fan and they're nowhere to be the u.s didn't come to the defense nato nations didn't come to defense physically and that's because they know oh shit russia's not messing around we we can't go in there um sorry uh there's nothing you can do zelensky if you want to ride to the u.s you can take it we'll offer you that but that's about it Yes, that was one of the huge problems. This is where culpability comes in because it's very clear for a number of years that they were emboldening Zelenskyy with this idea that, well, you could be part of NATO or you could be part of the European Union.

Even large sections of the European Union admit that some way off because they know fundamentally it's a failed state. But they've emboldened. They've obviously been given the so-called defensive weapons, but you can guarantee there's offensive weapons. They've been effectively bankrolling the Ukrainian military. And that emboldening has given Zelensky ideas above his station and above reality. So, of course, and it's very symptomatic of the US policy, because you're absolutely right.

The one thing the US didn't want to do is have the forces that apparently aren't in Ukraine facing off against the Russians, because the optics of these forces coming up against the Spetsnaz, or even worse, the Chechens, who are now somewhere in Ukraine, and if they're needed, they'll deal with the guerrilla warfare element, which obviously, this far-right contingent, that's what they're looking at guerrilla warfare but going back to the point that with regards to to the u.s they clearly went we can't we can't have this optics of all these people coming home in body bags so let's pull them all out we pulled everyone in i think there's some mercenaries still in some capacity i don't doubt that but they pulled all the personnel out no they've now

pretty much pulled all US personnel out of there. They went from Kiev to Lviv and then went to now in Poland. They've moved more because, again, it's the optics. They don't want to see diplomatic personnel being killed, but I think what was also telling was the way the US was starting to destroy all hard drives, computers, everything in Kiev. They didn't take them with them. They just destroyed them, which I think comes part of the reason, again, I think maybe it's a good point now to discuss. For me, there's a whole bunch of reasons why Russia went into Ukraine. And we've mentioned the obvious one of Donbas and the threat of the risk to ethnic Russians from far right elements within Ukraine. That's a very obvious one. But I think the other

thing that was for me very telling was how quickly the Russians made a move to secure Chernobyl. If anyone knows in history, Chernobyl was obviously a massive accident in 1986, huge radioactive leak, which actually at the time, there was huge radiation all over Europe, including the UK. Obviously, it's encased in concrete in this huge metal structure, but they made a beeline to protect Chernobyl. And interesting, they're sharing control of that protection now with Ukrainian forces. You have Russian and Ukrainian forces protecting Chernobyl. Obviously, it's not a light reactor, but obviously, you have to replace it, and it'll be that way for 10,000, 20,000 years. So obviously, for me, that was indicative of,

A, they both regard the fact as a common enemy. They're concerned that someone could have run. I'm speculating here. I will always say when I'm speculating, but some of them might have been a missile strike on it, which could have breached the casing, caused an enormous radioactive leak, which would have engulfed Europe, as well as Russia, of course. I think that is another reason why they went in. As ever, the Americans have this tendency to telegraph future events. We saw it in Syria with Assad, where they're accusing, we have understanding that Assad's going to have launched some sort of chemical weapons attack. Two weeks later, it happens and it was nothing to do with Assad. When they started talking about chemical

weapons provocation inside Ukraine, I think that was a red line. Russia went, hang on. A, A, there's Chernobyl. B, we know there is, I don't know how many, pentagon-sponsored biolabs inside the Ukraine. We don't know what goes on. Let's be honest. They're underground. What did the Russians do? They went and destroyed them all with high-precision missiles.

Well, 13, I think, have been destroyed. Again, I think that was another reason, because there was a concern about the risk of biological warfare, chemical warfare, or who knows what. It was maybe the Russians know what goes on there, maybe they didn't, but they certainly knew where the sites were, and they've destroyed them all. I think that was another motivation for going in. I think in a general sense, I can't believe, well, I can believe that Russia didn't know the extent of just how dysfunctional, and I'm saying that very politely, that the nation

is. what this far-right influence has done i suspect they came across intelligence because this this has been going on for years it's it's not i'm not saying as as potentially aggressively as it could be in the future but there has certainly been reports of things going on with regards to people disappearing and all sorts of manners of disgusting despicable things happening now it's entirely possible that the straw broke the proverbial camel's back and the russians suddenly looked at things or that we know there was certainly cyber attacks including ukrainian defense establishment maybe they came across

a whole bunch of intelligence that led them to understand things that were happening in ukraine they previously didn't and that was another reason for them to go in and when they started to talk about demilitarization i don't think it was exclusively like surface to air missile and all that kind of thing i think it was these bio bio labs etc but the nazification for me was a very telling statement because that was effectively saying we want to to eradicate this problem out of Ukraine, and they'd never made these references before to that extent in all the years that things have been going on. So I think these were multiple reasons for them to go in, and their intention, therefore,

was to make sure there was no military hardware infrastructure, anything. Everything was to go in Ukraine. And also, they came out with a pretty bold statement that they had intelligence on, they said, 5,000 individuals, they named them, that were responsible, they said, for war crimes and other things. And they want to have some kind of tribunal where these people will be adjudicated. Now, OK, is that a reality? Will it ever happen? It doesn't matter. The mere statement suggested to me they suddenly became aware of the gravity of a problem that was existing inside Ukraine that previously they weren't aware of. There's an argument to say it sounds unbelievable, they weren't aware of it, but okay, even people like me who've talked for quite a few years about problems in Ukraine didn't know the gravity of it.

It's one thing knowing there's problems. It's another thing knowing the extent of the problem and what's actually going on. I think there is a number of pretty disgusting things going on. I've heard for years about human trafficking, organ trafficking, massive forced prostitution rings, the list goes on. I don't even want to venture into other things that could be going on. The point is, it is a totally failed state. I think there was a combination of all these things where Russia suddenly went from, okay,

we can argue that the green light was they signed a cooperation agreement with Donetsk against, which gave them a green light because part of the agreement was, if we feel threatened by the Ukrainian forces over the contact line, then Russia can be called upon to come to our aid. They made that comment. Russia went in. For me, what I think was telling is they were far more interested in not actually intervening in Donbass specifically, although there was some assistance provided the forces went elsewhere which kind of suggested to me that yes we need to deal with donbass but there are far greater problems that we need to address and i think in a way the donbass aspect was just an excuse and a vindication for a not not an excuse to go in for no reason but

a vindication to go and deal with a whole bunch of other pretty serious problems because here's thing if we talk about false flags what would have happened if there was a false flag in chernobyl and it was pinned on the russians where it's a stray russian missile and it's caused this enormous environmental catastrophe in in across europe and obviously with winds but there were eventually it can end up all over the world as has happened uh during the time of the original incident in chernobyl that would have had devastating consequences for russia for obvious reasons so if you believe that to be to be a risk you would want to make sure that didn't happen and i think also the fact they've said to to the ukrainian forces we want you here as well as they

want ukrainian forces to independently verify what's going on so they can't then be accused of, well, you were responsible for something. I mean, I don't think that's an issue. Now, I think destroying the biolabs has removed that problem. But if you could have pinned that on Russia, it would have changed the whole complex of global events, the multipolar world, the US position with regard to Russia being totally vindicated. uh so i think that was certainly a huge uh reason for why russia did the things they've done

yeah you can see with the propaganda coming out of the west now they're they're just looking for something to to pin on russia so that they can paint them as a bigger boogeyman throughout all this and it's it's extremely it's extremely alarming that we've gotten to this point and we can dissect exactly what's going on the history the intention behind russia's invasion particularly but i think this is a good point in the conversation thinking about all right moving forward what happens we've talked about de-dollarization like what like how if at all can this be de-escalated what does the world look like where the de-dollarization accelerates again And I think we're going to look back a decade from now, maybe even sooner, and be like,

all right, this was the week where the US dollar as a reserve currency of the world officially died. What does a de-dollarized world look like moving forward? Obviously, Russia and China specifically have been accumulating a large stockpile of gold over the last two decades. There's been rumblings and posturing between those two countries, particularly about beginning to settle commodities contracts in their native currencies. I believe last year, late last year, we had an instance of Russia and India doing an arms

deal that was denominated in rubies and rubles. And earlier today, Russia, I'm not sure if you saw it, but Russia came out and said they want to unveil a one world digital currency moving forward. And I think this is actually one of the most interesting topics of our time right now as we transition further into the digital age is all right like obviously the u.s having the dollar as a reserve a currency of the world has given a lot of power and given it the ability to to bully the world to an extent for a long period of time again that seems to be coming to an end where do we go next i know that you're big on gold and silver as hedges against uh dollar inflation uh this is a

Bitcoin podcast, I am partial towards Bitcoin being a solution to this problem of, all right, how do you get an apolitical, more fair monetary system in the digital age? But I think the next five to 10 years are going to be insane in terms of a monetary system, monetary system changes globally. Yeah, this is a ginormous subject. Let's just pick on certain bits from a Chinese and a Russian perspective. What I can tell you, because I've said this before and a lot of people for years went, this is a bridge

too far. I can't believe that what you're saying is true. There were people in the late sort of late 90s, at the kind of cusp between the Yeltsin and Putin era. And they went to the Russians and the Chinese, and they said, look, the West has gone through the financialization of economies, and it's doomed to fail. And it was very obvious it was doomed to fail. Even during my early career in the financial sector,

I was looking at things going, well, yeah, I can see why. This is just doomed to fail. And they said to the Russians and the Chinese, look, And these people I know personally, they're not affiliated to governments. They're just very smart people, visionaries, who went and said, look, the Western financialization is going to kill, eventually, the Western financial system, the dollar. And they took them seriously. I mean, they said, OK, why do you think this? And this was kind of so that's why we started to see things like China joining the World Trade Organization.

Okay, the US invited them into it, but it was one of those times when you started to think, okay, this is a significant development, because it then started to project China's capability on the world stage to be, obviously, a major exporter. Really, it was the renaissance of China after spending decades in the wilderness, the fact And then China and Russia did, and there's these kind of interesting stories about border disputes in the Far East, and at some point, China's going to invade. It's nonsense. They signed agreements in 2004 that it was no longer an issue.

No one cares about it. They've agreed to it. There's never going to be an invasion. This is just mythical Western stories, because in the West, there is this belief, oh, it's a marriage between China and Russia. absolutely not. They're not even allies, they're more than allies. They share all their intelligence, except, okay, there's some stuff domestically, but internationally. You'll notice when Biden was trying to twist China's arm to persuade Putin to back off over Ukraine, and here's the

intelligence. They gave it to the Chinese, and the Chinese just went, oh, thanks very much, and then gave it straight to the Russians. But they're obviously not just that. It's economically, financially, and the relationship is, I think, unprecedented. I don't think we will ever see a relationship between two nations like that. Well, certainly not. Maybe in 20, 30 years, the world will be radically different and we'll be laughing about why we ever had issues with each other, but okay, that's speculation. It's decades in the future. They have this relationship. Effectively, back then, they started to go think about the future and, okay, China principally was the Belt and Road. They were told, look, you need to resurrect the

so-called Old Silk Road. You need to start building a multipolar world because the unipolar world that didn't really ever exist is dying anyway. It may surprise people, but for me, the US was in decline from the Great Depression, which is nearly 100 years ago. You go, that's impossible. What do you mean? For me, they were in decline. Even at Bretton Woods, they were in decline they they made stupid decisions where they decided to to believe that they could roll out some unipolar world but they were already in serious trouble and it takes empires decades and and even longer to decline to the roman empire how long that took okay different period in history but it illustrates the point so they sat there and okay we we will start to

work on that but we need to sort a whole bunch of internal mechanisms that russia was going through its own enormous rebuilding process from the sort of Yeltsin era where the West went in and tried to asset strip Russia and really seize control of it. And Yelp, someone I know because they had dealings with the Russians,

they weren't, again, government people. They were just what I call the real architects of this real reset, not the fictitious World Economic Forum reset, which is not reality. and they were talking to yeltsin and and you know trying to impress upon him and he made a point where he said look i may look like the village idiot who's drunk all the time and i don't know what i'm doing he said but my job's quite simple i'm here to make sure that uh that the the things

the the west or the oligarchs deal they think they're important but they're not and the real Russian wealth, they will never understand where it is or what it is and they'll never get their hands on it. He said, because my successor will take it all back. And that's exactly effectively what Putin's done. He's taken it all back. The bits that he didn't take back, Russia doesn't want. And they protected the real wealth, as they call it, which for me was gold. I mean, since the era when the Tsars fell, there was enormous gold reserves.

are supposed to be huge gold reserves. China and Russia have about 40,000 tons of gold each. I'm not talking about citizens having gold. I'm talking about the governments having gold. People say that's unbelievable, but China alone produces 600 metric tons a year every year for the last 20 years. That's 12,000 tons, and it never gets exported. The idea that that we know the truth, because what China and Russia have, of course, is not reality. So Russia went through this process, so Putin's having to try and rebuild Russia. Now, 2008 came, and it's still at that point Russia had sort of ideas. I mean, it spoke to Clinton at one point, well, not in 2008, obviously, and said, well,

maybe we could become part of NATO. There was an idea we could integrate with the West, which was, with hindsight, they realize now it's ridiculous. But 2008 changed everything, not just from an economic standpoint and the financial system, because then they finally really understood what they'd been told over a decade before that the West would collapse. They went, oh, actually, now we really understand why you said this. But what really angered the Chinese is they had happily taken up whatever treasuries, the US wanted to buy. They took the treasuries and gave the US a bunch of pre-money. Then in 2008, the US literally ignored them and just pumped QE and all the things we know that

happened in the aftermath. During the 2008 crisis, financial crisis or global financial crisis, the Chinese were furious because they saw it as betrayal. You betrayed us, you've just now gone, okay, we don't care. We don't need you now. We'll just print a loan amount. That set the rot in. That really started to accelerate the development of the BRICS, the Asian Infrastructure Bank, etc., and all the other things we've seen for the last decade. It's interesting, as we said, when you look at 2014, what was one of the first things Russia and China did, signed the Holy Grail energy all in non-dollar terms so the bricks came into formation well it was the brick and then they obviously included south africa okay it's kind of huffed and puffed of it but it was a kind

of embryonic form or the uh what was to come in the future and and therefore for me i i i made this point back in 2014 about a multipolar world that would replace the unipolar world and people laugh and go, this is garbage, it'll never happen. But it was very obvious, even at that point, there was some pretty significant developments between the two nations, and also in terms of little subtle things like, OK, what's the BRICS? What are they really looking to do here? And really, the acceleration happened post-Ukraine.

That's why I've made the point that in history, Ukraine will be seen as the moment that killed U.S. to Germany and the U.S. dollar. I've said that in 2015. I said, Russia will play a very slow game, and at the right time, Russia will make a move. History will see it to be that. I don't doubt that, ultimately, it was the catalyst because 2014, the Chinese looked at what was going on with Russia and went, right, we really have to de-dollarize. We really have to work on an alternative financial system. Now, literally six years ago, I made a tweet saying, Russia's finished fully testing a new financial system, and it'd be rolled out around the time of what I would term was the reset. And I made the tweet, and I started to resurrect it at the

back end of last year, because very quietly, they came out, the Chinese and the Russians, and go, they said we're working on an alternative financial system. They already have an alternative financial system that's being tested robustly. At the appropriate time, they'll roll it out. What supplements that, apart from all these trade deals they've signed and agreements and rapidly de-dollarizing across the world, the world thinks everyone still uses dollars. It's far less than conventional wisdom and understanding. Everyone goes, well, it's only, what, 2% or 3% in SWIFT, but they've got SIPs. They put all the non-dollar transactions and then it goes through SIP, and it's enormous. Russia has MEA. Russia has the SPFS, which is their equivalent of SWIFT,

which they brought out when the US was starting to talk about excluding them from SWIFT in 2014. so they can utilize that. Excluding them from SWIFT is a bit pointless anyway. As long as they've already said, we have friendly nations and friendly institutions that will allow us to use SPFS. The other point is the digital yuan and the digital ruble. I, again, was told about the digital yuan in 2015, and they said, look, don't say anything about it at the moment, but at some point, we'll say, don't tell the world about it. I did actually break the story there was going to be a digital yuan, and it would eventually be gold-backed. Everyone laughed and went, this is nonsense. It will never happen. Then the digital yuan appeared, and there's an

enormous amount of testing gone inside China. They're also cross-border testing with the UAE, Hong Kong, for example. It's a lot more mature. The whole basis of a digital yuan is for international trade. It is far more efficient, far faster, far cheaper, and far more transparent. and the proposal is we want, and they've omitted it. I mean, they've publicly said it so many times. We want to internationalize the world. We're not going to ever be a world reserve currency because there never will need to be in the future

a world reserve currency. But we want to internationalize it. So here's the thing. We can be two trading nations. We can both utilize it in trade. If it's gold-backed, which eventually will be, then obviously that gives it the currency All the nations have confidence in it.

And already, with China, you can. People think this isn't true, but you can settle oil in Renminbi, or you can have it in gold, either Shanghai Gold Exchange. So let's say you and I are two, I'm China, and you're, I don't know, let's just say the United States. And we trade, and hopefully, in the future, the US will trade, have a not so big a trade deficit. So the trade deficit between you and I at a fixed price for gold, and you owe me 10

tons, we don't have to ship 10 tons across the world. OK, there's a problem of trust at the moment with gold. I appreciate that, but it's just vaulted. And it just gets literally electronically, it's now you own these 10 tons of gold. If you ever want them back, you can have them straight back. That way, you can settle trade in physical gold. It's perfectly feasible to do this, and the Russians also are far more advanced in the digital ruble.

They talk like they're not, but they are, and that can also be utilized. Therefore, if you have a new financial system as well that is completely clean, it doesn't have all the math. I mean, we know the plumbing of the Western financial system is a complete nightmare. I use the analogy, it's a billion pieces of string all interwoven, pulled really tight. You try and find one end of one piece of string with the other and understand what the ramifications are. And because we just built legacy systems on top of legacy systems, we've created derivatives. There is an absolute minefield. We've created a euro-dollar system that could involve 15 transactions and intermediary parties and counter-risk parties between two

transactions at the end, between two parties, because there's all these intermediaries. It's impossible. You cannot fix it. It's completely unfixable. You can't repair it. You have a clean financial system that then can be rolled out and utilized. We know that, for example, the ASEAN nation, it's very easy for them to be able to bolt into it, or nations in the Middle East, or even if Europe, OK, Europe's not in a position

of wanting to do that. But these are processes that are already in place. And I think it was very telling. But even though, obviously, the ruble is going to get hammered today, and the Russians would raise interest rates to 20% from 9.5%, no surprise, what did the Russian Central Bank come out? For all the stories that they're out and they're bankrupt, they've had all their assets stolen or frozen, they came out and went, as of today, we're buying gold.

They came out and went, we're buying all domestic gold production. That is the biggest hint you will ever get that they're saying, why are we buying gold? Because here's the thing, and I made a tweet about it. As much as the US might want to think it's in the ascendancy, Here's what the Russians could do, and they're not going to do it today because the war with Ukraine is ongoing. They're obviously having to stabilize their own financial system, economy, banks, et cetera. But at some point in the future, they can come out and say effectively, well, our currency has been under attack, and therefore, we have to provide stability. We're going to

back our currency with gold. Well, what's the ramification? If Russia came out tomorrow with with a gold-backed ruble, the dollar would be toast in a blink of an eye. That's the point that the West or the United States fails to realize, because A, they don't believe Russia's got the gold, B, they don't believe it's possible. No one believes you can have gold-backed currencies and an economy to function, because we've lived in this Keynesian fiat monetary system, which is a complete failure and doesn't work. Does that mean to me, and I've made the point, and everyone knows I'm not a fan specifically of Bitcoin, but in terms of cryptocurrencies, in terms of blockchain, in terms of the future

expansion, it's going to be enormous. I don't have any doubt whatsoever. Some people get a bit kind of, well, hang on, you don't like Bitcoin, but you like the whole concept. Yes, I do. And I don't think it'll be unique that One Nation will have a digital currency, but it's way of conducting international trade that's far more efficient, far more cost-effective. That doesn't mean you can't have other cryptocurrencies. What I do understand,

and I know people in this realm who've told me that whatever people like or dislike, there will be enormous regulation coming for the crypto sector. That will probably make anger a lot of people, but the idea is, if it's not regulated, it's not going to exist in the future. That may seem controversial, but that's my understanding based on people who understand what's going on. Yes, I think it has an enormous future and it will certainly be something very, very prevalent from a sovereign basis, but not solely a sovereign basis. I already know enough from people utilizing blockchain as a technology that very efficiently and even in things like agricultural projects.

Sounds unbelievable, maybe for some people, but it's a reality. So it's far from that. It's really just in its birth pangs almost. It has decades of progress, but it is going to have to be something that will work in conjunction with a sort of standardized financial system. But traditional financial systems will have to go through a revolution in themselves. And that's a huge, long process in terms of how that comes about. But all this de-dollarization process came from the 90s, and it's just gathered momentum.

And as you make the point, Russia and India are now trading in non-dollar terms. Rosneft sells oil to the West in non-dollar, like Europe in euros, Gazprom sells in rubles or euros for gas. These are all, you can go and check this out, their websites are very clear about how they settle contracts. That's not unique. You've got the ASEAN nations, which accounts for I think it's about 25% of global GDP. It's enormous, the amount of and it's growing in Southeast Asia is the major growth, vertical

growth market for me for the next decade. And they're obviously looking at utilizing, tackling in non-dollar terms, in utilizing the digital yuan. I mean, obviously, UAE are looking at this, other Middle Eastern nations are, and it doesn't mean that the digital yuan will control the future, it won't. There'll be a digital ruble. I don't think the euro will survive as it is, but let's just pluck a name out. There might be a digital euro, maybe even a digital dollar at some point.

The concern I have is that people think that a central bank digital currency is some kind of controlling mechanism over people. Here's the problem with that. We already effectively live in a digital age. We have digital accounts. I know people can say, well, they could cut you off, but we've just seen what happened in Canada. They don't need a central bank digital currency if they're really hell-bent on cutting you

out of the financial system or freezing your bank account. They can do that. They just typically don't. OK, what's going on in Canada is outrageous and not something we've seen, but the capability exists. They don't need to invent central bank digital currencies to do this. And I know people think it's all tied in as well with a cashless society. And I've made the point, we won't have a cashless society unless the world radically changes.

And how the world would radically have to change is, first off, we'd have no narco trade. We wouldn't have drug cartels because that all functions in terms of cash. You wouldn't have all the disgusting things like human trafficking, organ trafficking, prostitution, and the other big one, financing international terrorism. It's all done by cash. The fact of how it operates is there's an enormous pallet of cash inside banks, financial institutions. Someone gets a call, ship, I don't know, $100 million to somewhere in the world, and it's all cash. Because terrorists want cash. They're not going to take payment in a a digital currency because for obvious reasons, anything that's electronic can be traced.

We would have to have a world that had no international terrorism. At some point, maybe that's a utopian dream, but we won't have a drug cartel. We won't have all these things that are totally dependent on cash. That's why the cashless society argument is not reality. What I would say regarding Bitcoin, what I think it's done, it's revolutionized people's thinking, it's made people think differently, and I think it will be remembered in history very fondly. But OK, for me, I don't think it has longevity because I think other technologies will replace

it. OK, everyone has different opinions, and that's fine. It's only my perspective on it, but I do think it was, at the very least, a trailblazer for an enormously different way of how we conduct finance in the future, how financial systems will operate. But sovereign nations will never allow a currency to exist that they have no oversight of, no control, no way of regulating, because you would end up, from their perspective, and there is some legitimate argument that it turns into the Wild West.

And on that basis alone, they're not going to allow it to happen. And that made people who supported for Bitcoin might not like that. But unfortunately, that's the reality of where it's going. Does it mean Bitcoin is going to die a death? Not necessarily. And maybe it will find some function in the future. I don't know. But for me, unfortunately, if I'm honest, and I will always be straightforward, it's

fiat speculation. And we see that recently when there's been a crisis like what's going on in Ukraine, it was getting dumped like equity markets were getting dumped. And I think it's being hijacked by Wall Street and other big corporations. And it's not what it was when it got to 20,000 in 2017, it was largely the likes of UNIO. I don't think that's the case now. And for me, that's very unfortunate. But when it's controlled by big financial institutions and Wall Street, that, for me,

is an enormous problem. But it is certainly the catalyst, and it's revolutionized thinking. And in the next 10, 20 years, people will remember Bitcoin, whatever it is at that point, and say that was the defining moment when, because there's no doubt, it shaped the way China's thinking about things, the way Russia's thinking about things, about cross-border trade, about simplifying the process. And obviously, from their perspective, it's very cost-effective, extremely fast. And it's a fantastic way of transparency in trade and also as a settlement process and

why, OK, it's controversial. Some people say you can link it to gold. But that's the intention. Of course, they'll have a gold-backed where and a gold-backed ruble, and one digital ruble will equal one digital, well, sorry, one conventional, shall we say, ruble. And the same with China, one digital where there's one conventional RMB. The issue is, and they've said, we're not replacing the traditional currency. We're not replacing cash. okay it might we might find in the future things change to some degree but at the moment that's

the stated intention but it's really part of a bigger wider financial system that is clean it's not being utilized they've done testing on it it works fine but this is the bold move that they're going to have to at some point they're going to have to switch all this off because if they're going to be have a viable credible alternative to the dollar and SWIFT and the financial system in the West, this has to work. The question is, when do they make that go live? Because if they get it wrong,

then for me, it's the end of the multipolar. The multipolar world is going to die. And then if that dies, there's just this gigantic package. So it's got to be rolled out at the right time. But I think the US has accelerated that process through what's happening in Ukraine. and because they're forcing Russia's hand

they're effectively saying we're trying to squash you out of existence because it's total economic warfare they can survive it and I don't doubt Russia will but it's accelerated the process hence today Russian Central Bank going we're buying gold

people say well haven't they got enough gold well for me they can never have enough gold so in terms of what they're proposing to do and therefore it will accelerate this process I think Large parts of the world are fully aware of this and at the right time when the Western financial system inevitably collapses and what that means. If we actually collapse, we have to be careful because it can mean many, many things.

But the rest of the world's going to be going, well, we need an alternative. We have an alternative. And telling me, Pewter made an interesting statement, which is a bit tangential, but it's, I think, quite telling. when they were making a decision about Donbass and whether they wanted to, you know, recognize its independence. They did that very public meeting where he had all these key figures in the Kremlin.

And there was one of his, who was it? I, finance people or intelligence. I can't remember, some guy called Sergai. And he kept probing and going, Sergei be be very plain speaking and eventually he got the answer out of it he said thank you very much and it seems by all accounts that that was the defining moment when putin went to to all these people right you've got a choice you're either gonna go with you're either going to choose the failing unipolar world because that's where the alternative is or you're going

to choose the future this is going to be the catalyst that finally pulls all these pieces of the puzzle together in terms of the multipole and and they obviously decided yes they were going to sign this agreement and we'll see how history pans out by all accounts he then got all the oligarchs there are some oligarchs still in russia although they're obviously russian sympathetic ones not western ones trying to pillage the nation and he gave them the same choice. Are you going to go and stay with the unipolar world and its failure, or are you coming with us? Do you understand what that means? Now, okay, I don't know what the subsequent conversations were, but I think that's why it's seen as a pivotal moment, because

Russia knows that when it invaded, the US was going to react. It knew that SWIFT would eventually be part of the equation. It might not, I don't know, it might not have entered that thought process, it would involve the central bank, but I don't think they're remotely surprised. The central banks seem to be very calm and quite measured in its response, where we can manage this, we can provide liquidity to the banks, we can stabilize the situation. They weren't bluffing. They were concerned and obviously having to manage the process, but they weren't extremely fearful. I think there's an idea that this would be the catalyst. And I think it's the early stages of the final leg of the recognition that there has to be

an alternative, and we're here. And I think what's driving the US in terms of its foreign policy is the Western financial system's creeping extremely badly. And the risk is, from the US perspective, is it could be literally the tipping point when it completely fails. I mean, we've seen in recent years where we had the repo crisis in 2019. That was a huge moment

when the banks were in massive trouble. It was an enormous bailout of banks. The problems were surfacing in 2018, and then they just got worse through 2019. There's an argument, and I'm not being conspiratorial because I don't think the pandemic's a gigantic conspiracy like some people think.

That doesn't mean there wasn't enormous amounts of things done that should never have been done, of course, from my perspective. But the point is, around the time, March 2020, just prior to that sort of late 2019, for me, there was warning signs again. And what did we see early 2020? Let's just bail everything out. I mean, the entire economy has bailed out. So the writing's been on the wall for a long time.

We know now we're starting to see all the inflationary pressure, et cetera. So if the West is extremely mindful of the fact that the Western financial system is creeping very badly, the banking system is, and we've got all this massive inflationary problem, then the Russians will be fully aware of it. So I'm not saying they invaded Ukraine for this purpose, but they knew when they did this that the American reaction would be to make the steps they've made. they've made those steps, and they've set this ball roll. There's no doubt, but if Russia needs any assistance, China will bankroll it to whatever

extent. The fact they made the announcement before Christmas about this new financial system they're developing in inverted commas, I think when the US heard that, that was a red line moment for them. Just a small point. Back in early 2016, someone said to me, the Chinese are going to roll out, hey, go back to where? Because there was huge problems in the Western financial system back in late 2015, early

2016. Apparently, they talked to the Americans who said, no, you're not, because that's a declaration of war. They walked away and went, okay, we're not doing it. Well, things have changed now because of Russia's military prowess. The US is very vulnerable. It can't use the military as a weapon like it could have done back in 2016. And it doesn't have the financial weapons now to do anything.

I mean, really, in essence, Ukraine is its last throw of the dice. It's played all its hand. I mean, what else could it do to Russia? It can't do anything else. I mean, apart from World War III, which, I mean, won't happen. But they've reached the extent of what they can do. They've played all their hand, and that's desperation as well. When does the Western financial system blow?

We don't. For me, I always talk about things as event-driven, not time-driven. I think that we've just had a major flip of a domino in the event-driven scenario, and we now have to see how it plays out. But first off, there's Ukraine that needs, from a Russian perspective, they need to deal with that. to stabilize the economy, the financial system, et cetera. But in the coming months, I think we'll start to see more and more developments.

Now, the question is, what happens to the West in the process? Because for me, there's always this constant bailout going on inside the markets to try and stabilize them. I'm not being conspiratorial, but I think it's very clear gold and silver markets get smashed regularly. The Exchange Stabilization Fund is there to protect the dollar at all costs, but also it's to protect everything, all the facets that go around that. For me, whenever we start to see these massive dumps in the equity markets, note how they

tend to get bounced back and they're propped up because the ESF's propping everything up. In the process, that's costing enormous amounts of money. People said, no, it can't be a trillion dollars overnight. I said, yeah, it probably is because they're not just trying to backstop what's going on in the US, there's Europe. We don't know what, I mean, the derivatives complex is so enormous, it's so convoluted. Again, it's the billion pieces of string. Everything's constantly having to be stabilized to prevent it from collapsing, but the problem

is you can't keep doing that, it's a law of diminishing return. As they do this, it's creating even more and more problems, so at some point, it's going to go down. Now, the other point with this, I think, worth making is China and Russia have always been mindful for years that they're not seen to be the ones to take the Western financial system down, for obvious reasons, because the world would then say, well, the Western world would say China caused it, Russia caused it. Here's the point, when the US has put these onerous sanctions on Russia, Russia can legitimately

say, well, we need to protect our financial system or economy, so let's have a process. Maybe at some point, they can legitimately then come out and go, we're having a gold battery. We're knowing damn well what the consequences will be. But the US has split its own throat. And by context, European Union's split its own throat because it's played all its hand and it's been so aggressive. And then to tell its people, well, it's only a minor problem for us, but we're going to

cripple Russia. If that doesn't happen and the West gets crippled, and then Russia can come out and say this quite legitimately because we're under attack, and then it has the catalytic effect of what it will do to the dollar, et cetera, and they have legitimized it. So in a way, the US or NATO and Europe have given Russia a free hand to do what they've wanted it without actually any repercussions because you can't accuse them of doing something and everyone knows that we're doing this to crush Russia and I mean if it doesn't happen as we say for all the reasons they can't sell that to the public that the Russia was responsible so

that's another reason why they've made a catastrophic error of judgment now does it mean it will happen no we can't say with certainty but there is enough early noises already to suggest that they're ready to roll out whatever they're intending to roll out and uh and the multipolar world's going to go with them and that's why putin made this distinction between the unipolar world and the multipolar world you've got to choose your side well at the moment europe's chosen its side it's gone with the americans it shouldn't have gone with the americans it should have gone We rotated east, put Nord Stream 2 in, and then had rapprochement with Russia. But that's a whole separate subject.

But they've made their decision. The UK has made its decision. Nations like South Korea have made their decision. So they've just gone, we're sticking with the Americans and the Argentinians, the Brazilians, large parts of Africa, Southeast Asia. notice, apart from Singapore, not one Southeast Asian nation has come out and criticized or said anything about Russia and invading Ukraine. Even the Brazilians have just come out going, well, we're not taking any sides, which effectively means we're taking Russia's side. It's rather like China's very diplomatically gone. We don't like illegal sanctions, but we believe in having

diplomacy because they're not going to say we support Russia because they're worried about the backlash of Europe and trade. Of course they support Russia. Nations are taking whatever side of the fence they're going to be on. The ones in the failed unipolar world will have to live with the consequences and those moving to the other side will, for me, are making the right decision. The question is, are they aware of their integration? do they know when they need to integrate? Are they even in a position at this point to integrate?

That's part of this whole event-driven scenario where there's all these different things that are happening at the moment, and at some point, they all have to coalesce and come together. But for me, I think Ukraine will be, Ukraine 2014 was the catalyst, but Ukraine 2022 was, yeah, as you say, the final nail in the coffin lid for U.S. Germany, the U.S. empire, the U.S. dollar. Heavy times, heavy times.

Yeah, probably, but that's the problem. I get on a roll with these things and I could just talk. I mean, I've kept being mindful going, well, I should stop going, no, but there's this. I mean, you can talk about all these things in far more greater detail and that's what i've done with my own partners for

since september 2016 was to lay out all these pieces of the jigsaw puzzle as things happen this and it wasn't really till probably the back end of last year because i've had some people subscribed the whole time and they said oh now i'm seeing it all now all these pieces are all pulling together and that was a big indication of how the multipolar world was evolving because previously you'd say something, this is happening in the Middle East or this is happening in Africa or between China and Russia and people going well that's interesting but where's this going and of course we laid out what the thesis was of where it was going

and now it's all pulling together and I mean that's very indicative of the fact that obviously there is this major shift that's really gathering momentum and on for us in i mean just by twitter i mean we had a reasonable following but since ukraine happened it's exploded and i think it's because people have gone hang on they were saying all these things and now they're happening okay we need to go or maybe because people are sat on different sides of the fence we're sat in the middle and they're going well we need someone who might have some answers for this and for us it's been a very logical process in what's happening i don't know i'm not i don't talk on a daily basis about military

operations i don't know i'm not i'm not a military person but i know in broad terms what the what they're trying to do and why i think it's the right thing to do but i think for us it's been a kind of quite a bizarre week as we've suddenly been inundated with so many people getting in touch i mean we used to have quite a lot but we're just drowning in it and it was for me a kind of i think a vindication of all the years we've done this and how we've now got to the point where it does all make sense and it increasingly makes sense to people and uh in a way it's kind of been a long period of time for this to happen and and a lot of people along the way went i just can't see this ever happening i go it will but it you can't just force certain things to happen

I mean, an empire's, in the grand scheme of things, the collapse or the demise of the U.S. empire, for me in historical terms, is like the speed of light. Because a lot of it's really only started happening in the last 10, 15 years, prior to 2008. I mean, there were problems in the 90s, whatever, but in the grand scheme of empires collapsing, it's extremely fast, but for a lot of people, it's painfully slow. but as i always say to people be careful what you wish for because there is going to be consequences there is going to be a fallout from this and we also have to factor in the united states what 340 million people the uk is nearly 70 million people we have to factor in how are they going to deal with the fallout of this and that's a big concern how are people going to react to what's coming and therefore is be careful what you wish for because you just never know what the consequences

will be and and and therefore there is this uncertainty but you know hopefully there's enough people in the west who who can we don't have the political people i mean we talk about what goes on the us the uk political system and embarrassment i mean we've seen recently recently ministers saying absolutely high octane things they should never in the context of where we are so where's the political infrastructure or said well people who are going to be able to deal with what's coming that's a huge problem because whatever we think of putin when we're okay and yeltsin did was just stopping the whole thing collapsing but we don't have a putin who has that diamond dynamism whatever we think of it whether we hate him or whatever he has actually

achieved a lot in terms of progress inside russia and whether you loathe xi jinping or not what's happened in china in the last 20 years is astonishing progress how does that and again we're back to the thing you said that people go well you must be a communist or you're a chinese sympathizing no this is a statement of fact just look at what's happened economically financially etc and geopolitically i mean it's an astonishing progress but we don't have that leadership or it's not obvious we have that leadership so we face difficult times but as a good friend of mine said he was obviously now in the u.s but was originally he was born in russia and moved to the U.S. in his late teens and knows all about what went on in the Soviet Union, obviously

the collapse of the Soviet Union, he said, there'll always be these situations where you get this happening, but in the end, it will resolve itself. And I don't doubt it will resolve itself, but it's a question, do we have the people to make that happen far sooner, obviously, rather than later? Yeah, I don't think Biden's going to be that person, but... No, no, no, definitely not. Hopefully, somebody can step up to the plate here. And before we wrap up here, I will say, as a Bitcoin podcast, and I understand the way

you explain it, it seems that you think Bitcoin is going to be regulated into irrelevance. I would just note that Bitcoin as a P2P network is designed to protect against that. And I wouldn't sleep on Bitcoin. We don't have to get too immersed in a debate on the merits and potential success path of Bitcoin. But I do want to note that it is specifically designed to withstand a regulatory attack. I don't disagree that they're coming. Somebody who's heavily invested in the space and mining Bitcoin and investing in Bitcoin

companies it is something that is top of mind at all times um i would say i i think i really do agree with you what you said that bitcoin specifically has created a shift in people's perceptions of the monetary landscape and finance and i would and i would also take that a bit further and say we'll continue to do that and even though russia and china are are going to usher out their uh gold-backed digital currencies and it's a plan that they've had in motion arguably since the 90s russia specifically i think bitcoin is going to throw a wrench in that in that vacuum that you described i think a lot of value will be sucked into bitcoin because people will recognize yes maybe the gold-backed digital ruble and yuan are better than the the fiat u.s dollar system

that ruled the world for an extended period of time, they are still granularly controlled currencies by governments and that is what typically leads us to these overextensions and in the financial space specifically. The only thing I will add, I'm already expressing my own opinion. It doesn't make it right. It doesn't mean it's definitely going to happen. That's the whole point of this. I'm not sitting there going, this is written in stone, and far from it. So I want to add that because I don't want people to think that I'm trying to present something as a gift. I mean, the world's in a high state of flux, so who knows what will happen in the future.

That's only the regulatory side is the thing that I think is a problem, but you might well be absolutely correct. let's be you know the interest of being objective about things i am personally i'm not convinced but it doesn't make that doesn't make the reality and as i've said that it has been an enormous catalyst in a positive way i think apart from anything else it's woken people up to the to the reality that the current financial system is an abysmal thing and for that we should be eternally grateful that it has because 10 years ago 15 years ago you try to explain that to anyone and they were like what so so in essence it's been a very positive in that sense so and and you know and often something that's a catalyst for something is something that will achieve and it certainly

has achieved that objective we that is undeniable so i think it's i wanted to make the point because I don't want to feel like I'm just savaging Bitcoin for that reason. I'm not trying to do that by any stretch, and I'm just trying to offer an alternative perspective, which only time will tell whether that's a reality or not. But it's not set in stone because I've made the point, obviously not. No, I very much appreciate your alternative perspective on this. it's always good to to question your priors and and have not heated debate but good honest

conversation about these these hard questions about bitcoin's future the world's futures whatever it may be and again like i said in the beginning of the the episode i'd like to reiterate here i think just because we're describing the current state of the world as it is from a factual base like here is the state of the world here's what's going on ukraine here's russia's perspective does not mean that we are russian apologists or putin apologists this is i wanted to have this conversation as an american who is extremely again disheartened and enraged that the our political structure has gotten so complacent that this has been allowed to happen and i think it should be if it isn't already for most people who are listening to this a giant

wake-up call like the emperor wears no clothes right now particularly the western empire and it's emperors if you will it's it this should be frankly an extremely frightening moment for anybody in the western world uh that should drive the point home that our leaders are either incompetent complacent nefarious combination of the three what they're doing is not working out in our best interest at the end of the day. And that's why I am so happy that you agreed to come on and why I was very adamant about getting this perspective out there is because it is not being portrayed in the mainstream, obviously.

They are controlled by the incompetent political class to an extent. And so I'm extremely thankful that you agreed to come on, Paul. No, thank you. more importantly no thank you you know it's it's a two-way street and you've given me the opportunity to to come on and and discuss you know alternative perspectives i mean there's there's a whole myriad of things other things to discuss i think in the future that and i echo your your sentiment and i always say this which but i'll make the point again the world will be infinitely richer with a great America amongst equals, meaning a great America that isn't

encumbered by all the political nonsense and worse, that doesn't have this crazy foreign policy, that actually understands how it can become a vibrant internal economy. And all the challenges that face, but if America does that, and it will need to cooperate with the world, America will be a much better place, but the world will be far richer. to have an America like that. Now, if anyone, and that's why I'm not a Putin apologist or a Xi apologist or anything. I recognize the achievements that they've made.

I recognize why they're doing things. But I'm not agreeing that anyone should go to war. I don't want anyone to go to war. All we're saying is this is why Russia's gone to war. But it's not an endorsement. I made the point on Twitter. I don't want to see a single drop of Ukrainian blood or Russian blood or American or British

or anyone else shed. Because for me, one loss of life is tragic. But we have to comment on what we're seeing and we have to be objective about what's happening. But it doesn't, again, I think sometimes people think when you say about this, well, you're very pro-Russian, you want to see Ukrainians die. my goodness i don't want to see anything and i wish the war the war would end yesterday or never

starting and we weren't in this situation but we are where we are and and to do the whole subject just we have to be brutally honest and not pretend that something's happening that isn't or accepting a narrative but it's not in any way shape or form condoning what what russia's doing and the other flip side to this, I've spent 15 years or longer writing to Western governments about the 2008 financial crisis and warning them, they ignored it. I wrote to them, don't do QE, zero interest rate policy long term, they ignored me. I warned them about the ascent to China. I said, don't have a trade war with China because the US will suffer enormously.

The whole inflationary thing and how eventually these inflationary bubbles will burst, I think I've tried to do my best to raise awareness at government level in Western nations, but as ever, you're either ignored or you get a plight. Well, that's an interesting perspective, but we're not thinking about that at this time. For me, it's whilst we're trying to do what we can in the Western world and not succeeding in terms of raising awareness at the level where someone listens. On the flip side, we can't ignore the rise of China. Well, I could have pretended China wasn't, and here we are today, and it's self-evident

that people would have said, well, hang on, you just omitted discussing what China was doing. Yes, I've worked there. I've spent time there. I have probably a very different perspective of what China is from my own personal experience. But that's not the point. We just have to be objective that whether we like it or not, the West is descending rapidly, and the East is ascending.

And that doesn't just include China, Russia, it includes Southeast Asia and all the poles around the world. I mean, Africa's behind, but eventually Africa will become a stronger pole. And the world's evolving, the world's changing, and we have to observe that and comment on it. And just because we're saying the U.S. is declining doesn't mean we don't like the United States. is just sadly a statement of fact, then, you know, I wish it wasn't. And maybe in hopefully the relatively near future, we can talk about positive developments in the U.S. and how the U.S. is making these strides when it's building relationships

and it's really driving its economy and addressing all the fundamental internal problems, which are enormous, not just in the U.S., but the U.K. and Europe, and actually doing something about it. And it'd be great for us to talk about that. And we won't be talking about the rise of China and Russia and what they're doing. They'll just be, well, they're just doing what they're doing.

But the real fundamentally interesting part is we can talk about developments in the West, and that would be fantastic if we could do that. I completely agree. Again, if you're listening to this, this is an attempt to get people to get their heads out of the sand. it's we we have the ability to to do great things here in the us and in the western world at large it's just we don't the political class does not have the willingness or the mindset to to unlock

the the intellectual capital that exists on on the lands of the west and i hope this is a turning point that wakes more people up uh i am despite uh the depressing nature of the world right now now in the state of the world, I am extremely optimistic. I think people are beginning to wake up and realize that individuals really need to take control and take control of their own destiny and bring forth about a better future in a grassroots nature and not depend on the political class. I think that's probably, it's dismaying to watch happen, but it's actually probably a good thing in the long run, the collapse in confidence in the political institutions here the United States specifically, at the federal level,

is actually a net benefit in the long term. It should be lighting a fire under people's asses to begin taking control of their own destiny and ignoring a federal government that is completely incompetent and arguably doesn't have anybody's best interests at heart. So, me. Thank you again for coming on, Paul. Where can we find out more about the series?

Yeah, it's an absolute pleasure, and thank you. you know it's uh it's you know it's it's good to for us for me to to do this okay it's an opportunity but uh but you know it's it's good for us to have this discussion because we both have i think a far broader perspective and understanding than than other people do in the west and this is you know it it's part of understanding because at some point in the future We're going to have to get along with people. I mean, I don't think people fundamentally have an issue with Russia and disputing, but we need to get to a point

where we don't have these kind of divisions between nations and we just get along and cooperate. And that's what the multipolar world's achieving and achieving spectacularly well. And because that's the future. If we're going to evolve as a planet, they're the important choices we have to make. And I am, I mean, I'm, I'm, to be honest, I've never been depressed or anxious.

I'm always see a better future. It's coming. And I think in younger generations, I'm, I mean, a lot of people are very, very down on younger people, but I'm seeing some really positive things and where, and if that's channel positively, then, then it all goes well for the future. and because they they have a different attitude and perspective on the world than older generations do and okay some people say there's certain aspects to it or there's a lack of maturity but it's life experience the only difference between me and someone half my age is life

experience but i am enthused i think there is a change of attitude in the west and it's starting to permeate through older generations and hopefully eventually we reach a critical mass that that recognizes this and and then we do have this huge explosion of change which is coming and hopefully we're in a better position to exploit that positively by people having that different mindset already before all the challenges that are coming so we don't get a situation when this happens and then it's dog-eat-dog and I'm going to blame this person because that person caused it or whoever it is. We need to start having that change so people will look at the situation

when things happen and go, okay, I want to grab this opportunity with both hands and do something constructively and positively about that in the future. Give peace a chance. Free and open trade. It's the way to do it. Um, uh, it's, uh, I, and again, this conversation is probably one of the best we've had in quite a while on this podcast and I would love to do it again in the future. Oh yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah.

We can, there's a whole bunch of things to discuss, but I mean, so yeah, no, it was a pleasure. Thank you. I really appreciate it. It's been great and it's been wonderful to have this discussion and opportunity. So it's, it's reciprocated as it should be. where can I send my listeners to

to find out more about the Sirius Report what you're doing where they can subscribe to your okay the right

obviously we have the Twitter account which we're pretty active on that at the Sirius Report obviously all one word we have a website

the siriusreport.com now we've we haven't put as many articles we used to put a lot of articles a lot of them are old

but they are very relevant to today so The main body of work we do is our own podcast subscription service, which we do with the equivalent of five lots of 20 minutes a week. Often, we put two of them together, but it's equivalent to five episodes. We do that pretty much every week all year round. This covers economics, politics, finance.

It's just really trying to lay a map out as to what's actually unfolding in the world. and we make it extremely cheap because we couldn't charge 10 times more but we don't because we believe it should be extremely affordable. The plan originally was not to charge anything but we got demonetized on every single platform. This was six years ago now.

So we couldn't do that. So we went, well, we'll charge something that's very cheap. It's $4.75 a month or you can subscribe for a year and get a month free. That's where we put a lot of all the work in. It's very detailed.

People say they have to listen to it two or three times because I make the point of really just sticking to the facts, the interpretation, and try and keep it. It's not like a regular interview. It's very concise. We think it's good, great value for money, and we've had very long-term subscribers. up to we've done 1373 episodes now we had one person a year ago who went back and listened to everyone which is i felt like giving them a gold medal or something i don't don't don't waste the time going all the way back but um but uh yeah so that's the basis of what we do we we're gonna put

more content on the website it's just the time factor and the amount the amount of time we have to spend because we have to I get so much stuff to look through a lot of it's rubbish let me just toss it one side some things are interesting but we have to park it because it's not that point in the chronology event there's no point mentioning it because it'll just get lost in in everything that's happening so um yeah that's the basis of what we do well thank you for doing what you do freaks at home listening to this it's the serious report s-i-r-i-u-s that's how you spell serious um go check out what paul is building listen to the podcast subscribe uh and paul again thank you i think people are going to thank you too i really appreciate it people are going to get a ton of

value out of this i'm very excited for it um i hope you enjoy your night here over in london um yes thank you all right thank you peace and love freaks yeah all the best see ya