The Duran Podcast - Putin & Xi, preparing for big sanctions war w/ Alex Krainer (Live)

Episode Date: May 16, 2024

Putin & Xi, preparing for big sanctions war w/ Alex Krainer (Live)

Okay, we are live with Alexander Mercuris. And we are joined by Alex Krainer. Alex, I have your information in the description box down below where people can find you, your substack, your Twitter. Is there anywhere else that people can plug into your excellent work? Oh, thank you very much. Yes. I have a professional website.

site which has my day job topics on it, which is called iSystem trend following, iSystem dash tf.com. And so anybody who's into portfolio management, risk management and trading, they can look me up there as well. I've got that link in there as well in the description box. I will add all those links as a pinned comment as well when the show is over. Everything we're going to talk about today is not. financial advice, but we are going to talk about what's going on in the world and in the world.

Economy, we have an interesting important trip from Putin to China as well. And before we jump into the topic, let's say a quick hello to everyone that is watching us on Rock Finn, on Odyssey, on Rumble, and YouTube. And a big shout out to the community on locals, the Durand.locals.com. Hello to Peter. Hello to, I think I saw Zareel. I'm not quite sure. I think I saw you in here, Zareel.

Or Valies, is Valies with us? Or is it just me and you, Peter? I think it's just me and you, Peter. We'll be moderating in the day's stream. So Alexander and Alex, let's talk about the world. financial system. Indeed, and with whom better to talk about it with, than Alex Kraner, who keeps a careful eye

on this and has the economic knowledge and the understanding to take us through and explain things. And I think the point I'm going to start with is the trip by Vladimir Putin to Beijing, and it's a very interesting trip as well. Now, obviously, Putin and C have met many times, over 40 times. They speak on the phone regularly. It is not new that they meet, and yet this time there is something which is different. And I'll explain what it is briefly, which is that Putin going to Beijing is taking the entire Russian government with him. So, the deputy prime minister, Immanuel Manturov, who's the industry minister, he's going. both the former and the current defence ministers,

Shoygu and Bel-Usov, are also going. The energy minister, Novak, is going. Lavrov, of course, the foreign minister, is also going. But note who else is going to. Elvira Nebulina, who is the chair of the central bank. Anton Siloanav, who is the finance minister. Now, in trade talks, you do not usually take the chair of your central bank with you.

So clearly they're not just talking trade issues. They're talking other things. Now Putin, before he went to Beijing, gave a very interesting interview to the Chinese news agency, which is the official Chinese news agency. And he pointed out that 90% of... of Russian-Chinese trade is carried out in local currencies. Now, Alex would disgust earlier that's what that means. But suffice to say, not the dollar, not the euro.

It was very clear about this. So outside Western currencies, outside the global financial system. And clearly, this is what they're going to be talking about the fact that transactions, a whole system of transactions, has to be sorted out. And of course, each side has to make sure that the sections, the parts of the economy, that in each country, the trades with the other, is becoming sanction proof. Because the United States is now already threatening to sanction Chinese banks. It's already made specific threats to Chinese banks that undertake financial transactions with Russia.

It's tried to stop circulation of the Russian MIR card, which is Russia's own financial card, comparable to MasterCard and Visa. And, well, the Chinese clearly want to continue. to trade with Russia. They made that absolutely clear in a summit meeting they've just, in a series of summit meetings they've just had with Tony Blinken in Beijing, with Macron and Ursula von der Leyen in France. So you have to find work rounds, or if not perhaps work grounds, something more ambitious. So a lot is going on and it's not just involving China and Russia. It's clearly now bringing in other countries. The United States, even as I'm speaking, is complaining about Cambodia,

developing links with China. Little Cambodia, they're worried about that. They're worried about all sorts of other places. So, Alex, Alex Crane, what is going on? Well, I think that what is going on is a massive discontinuity from the system that we all came to take for granted for during our lifetimes, but the system that has a continuity of growth that we could call it 500 years, or we could call it 3,000 years almost. And this is coming to an end. And just to give it a proper perspective to what it is and how the empire perceives it, I wanted to read a passage from Halford-Machinders, 1904 seminal paper about the global pivot, right? So here it is the paragraph.

The spaces within the Russian Empire and Mongolia, recall this was written published in 1904. The spaces within the Russian Empire and Mongolia are so vast, and their potentialities in population, wheat, cotton, fuel, and metals so incalculably great that it is inevitable that a vast economic world, more or less apart, will develop inaccessible to oceanic commerce. In the world at large, Russia occupies the central strategic position held by Germany in Europe. She can strike on all sides, save the north.

the full development of her modern railway mobility is merely a matter of time. The oversetting of the balance of power in favor of the pivot state, resulting in its expansion over the marginal lands of Eurasia, would permit of the use of vast continental resources for fleet building, and the empire of the world would then be in sight. This might happen if Germany were to ally itself with Russia. Okay, so I think that what McIndor couldn't have predicted is the alliance between Russia and China because they were deathly afraid, you know, the imperial establishment were deathly afraid of

the alliance between Germany and Russia. They didn't foresee the alliance between China and Russia, and McIndor did write about the emergence of China, but in their own kind of we should call it racist way. They only thought that China could become a factor in world affairs if it were organized by the Japanese. That was McInders. If China were ever to be organized by the Japanese,

it might become a player in that area. But this fear of Russia emerging as a power and the Eurasia developing its economic potential independent of the, you know, then British today, American Empire was the primal fear of the imperial establishment for more than 100 years now. And so now we see exactly that happening. And so it also explains the reactions of the American establishment. You know, they want to be the hub of everything. They want all the lines of commerce and all the lines of payments to go through New York.

And now you know, like if Iran builds a pipeline in Pakistan, they're in a tizzy. If Cambodia develops its own trade relations with other countries, they want to sabotage and disable all of this. But, you know, I think that their efforts are amounting kind of like king canood flogging the waves to stem the tide. It's too big, it's too strong, it's too robust, you cannot stop it. You cannot reverse it. I think that the Western powers, including the United States, would do much, much better

if they just simply join these integration processes as a trading partner because it's a massive market. We see that these developments are putting something like 100 million affluent consumers on the markets every year. That's huge. So that's a huge market that you can sell to if you have something to sell. if you produce goods and services. Rather than trying to kneecap them, you know, the Tonya Harding approach to competition, they should simply, you know, Western nations have a lot to offer in trade. So they should just trade with them rather than always sabotaging,

trying to censor them and trying to disable these developments. But, you know, unfortunately nobody asked me. So we'll see how it goes. You're absolutely correct. Now, yesterday as it happens, I was talking to a person, a Chinese person, and he made the point that, in fact, what's now happening is that the major export of the United States is increasingly becoming sanctions because they're sanctioning everybody all the time in the most, I mean, now they're sanctioning Georgia, the sanctioning Cambodia, it would seem,

they're sanctioning India, which was their friend. India is, you know, building pipelines and things with Iran, but they want to sanction India to, or threatening to. They're sanctioning absolutely everybody, everything that moves outside their own area of control. They're trying to sanction. And it's, there is a kind of frenetic, almost, one almost can say, irrational quality about it.

Now, the Chinese did not know very much about, MacKinda, I think it's fair to say until a short time ago, they're now becoming much more aware that these ideas exist in the West. The Russians, of course, have known about McKinder for a very long time, going all the way back to when his work was published in the early 20th century. And of course, that period of time is actually quite interesting because the Russians at that time had just completed work. on the trans-Siberian railway. So you can see the concerns about railways. They were also, at that precise time, occupying northern Manchuria, their army had advanced into this part of northern China. At the time of the boxer rebellion, well, it's not a rebellion, but we'll call it that, the boxer crisis in China,

just a few years before. And of course, the British were very alarmed about all of this. And 1904 is an important year also, because this is the year when the Russo-Japanese war begins. And of course, Japan at that time was very much an ally of Britain. And partly, in fact, principally, and I've read an unpublished PhD thesis on this whole list, issue and published, I think, for a reason. A lot of the ideas about what caused the Russ of Japanese

war are completely wrong. It's widely assumed it was about a conflict over Korea. In fact, the key issue was Manchuria and the Russian presence there. Now, the great irony of it was that the Russians had actually decided to withdraw from Manchuria. They'd made an independent decision quite unrelated to what the British were concerned about, what the Japanese were concerned about, which was to pull out of Manchuria because they wanted to build better relations with the Chinese government in Beijing. So, you know, it was all, again, another scare about nothing. But it led to the first of a series of wars, which began with the rosa-Japanese war, and then eventually culminated in the first world war.

and a century of crisis, which in some respects is what we've had over that whole time. And of course, that period of crisis stopped this whole process of Eurasian development. And in 1904, by the way, if you go to Russia at that time, you will find lots of people starting to talk about Eurasianism, the Russian ambassador, to Japan, for example, was a major advocate of Eurasianism.

Anyway, this whole process was stopped for a whole century, and then, of course, it's now resuming with a vengeance. And just to finish a little bit of this history, if you also read H.G. Wells' book, The War in the Air, which was also published at around this time, a bit later, It's all about ultimately a Chinese-Japanese attempt to conquer the world. And importantly, it's achieved through a China, Japan conquering China and developing Chinese resources in exactly the way that you've described.

You see how all of these imperial fears and fantasies of that period are being resurrected today. In that period, the attempt to prevent them developing led ultimately to a catastrophe, a catastrophe from which, in my opinion, Europe has never recovered. The Anglo-Americans did quite well out of it, but Europe itself was devastated and has never regained its pivotal position

that it had had up to that time. But now, of course, it's happening all over again in completely different conditions. China is very strong. India is becoming stronger. Russia is recovering, and they're all talking to each other. So I just wanted to give this brief, you know, historical and, you know, fleshing out some of the points you make. Shall we discuss how all of this is going to work?

Because Nubulina and Siluana for technical people, they understand monetary policies. they understand financing. I mean, they're very good at that sort of thing. I don't know the Chinese opposite numbers, but I am absolutely sure that they're at least as competent in their own fields. What are they planning? What is the, what is there,

what are they working towards setting up? We have an important meeting of the bricks coming up in Kazan, in Russia. I believe in August. But what are they working towards doing? How is it going to work? I think that the changes could be so radical that we're going to have to use our imaginations because we have been operating under certain matrix,

under certain economic theories and theories of society and economy for so long that we can't quite grasp what is possible outside. of these theories, you know, and the core problem here is, one of the core problem is the monetary system. And our monetary system has evolved in order to serve, you know, an imperial, oligarchic establishment that is always centered around the banking cartels, around the dominant banking institutions. And so the theories have evolved in order to support this type of,

arrangement. Once we consider other possibilities, we are truly in our uncharted territories. And it seems to me that the Chinese and the Russians, I know this for a fact about the Russians, they have gone quite far out to explore and theorize and examine other kinds of social arrangements that become possible. And one of the problems that we have, which is, you know, a nice problem to have is that our societies, our, you know, advanced industrial societies are absolutely phenomenally productive. And we generate a huge amount of surplus. Now, how do you deal with that? You know, you have to use that surplus in some way reinvested into further productive endeavors and infrastructure. And in the way, and in the way,

West, you know, we've kind of, by inertia, we've always defaulted into heavy industries and from there to military industrial complex and from there to waging wars, because this is one of the effective ways of destroying the surplus. And in the West, part of the strategy has always been to keep the population kind of, you know, at the edge of poverty. And there's been periods of greater prosperity, but generally throughout history, the inertia of the system has been to oppress the masses and to push them back into poverty. You know, things that Charles Dickens described about Victoria and England, that Upton Sinclair described about the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries. And this is pretty much the way it has always been, and we can see those tendencies return after a relatively benign post-war period where people won certain rights and privileges and more reasonable living conditions. But now it's all going back towards Victorian times, again, you know, crushing poverty for the masses and a very narrow class because, you know, they absorbed the society's surplus wealth.

And I think that now the Russians and the Chinese are opting for a very different model of development. And it is in the Chinese case very obvious in their track record of their development that they have been lifting people by the hundreds of millions out of poverty. And they're making their nation a nation of affluent consumers. And something like basically about two-thirds of Chinese gross domestic problems. product is being reinvested into the nation's capital stock. So we have about two-thirds of the GDPs in the capital investment in in the capital stock around 60%, while maybe only something less than 30% is consumption.

And when you invest in capital stock, you're making your society ever more productive. And the surplus is such that you can afford blunders, you can afford errors, you can afford to generate the whole economic ecosystem and then raise it to the ground, which we see with the real estate development in China, without really destabilizing the system as a whole. And so I think that these are, you know, these are problems that need to be strategized at the national level. You know, do we, are we going to build pyramids, are we going to build cathedrals? Are we going to go to war? Are we going to wage endless wars like the Western countries are? This has to be discussed and there has to be a strategy

and there has to be a vision. And it is completely appropriate for the heads of national banks and heads of governments to get together, to talk these things out, to compare notes and to formulate that vision. Absolutely. Just a few quick. observations. Of course, the West is bitterly complaints all the time and at the same time criticizes the fact that China over-investes, as they put it. They say that the Chinese have this habit of over-investing in their economy. They need to reduce investment. This is something that is quite strange, but they say this all the time. And of course, now recently they've started to complain about Chinese overcapacity, that the Chinese are becoming overproducing.

And this is becoming a theme that has been taken up by Macron, by Blinken, by Ursula von the Lion, by the British government, by absolutely everybody. So they want the Chinese to stop investing. It's not clear what the Chinese are supposed to do if they're not investing. But they're supposed to stop investing. Well, actually, we do know. They have to increase consumer spending, which basically means buy more from the Western countries and balance out.

trade and do those sort of things. Anyway, that is one observation I would make. Now, there's another observation, which is, again, as somebody who worked, you know, not in a major way, but did work in industrial matters for quite a long time in the past. One of the things you understand when you do have any contact with the industrial manufacturing issues and especially investment in them is that planning is essential. Now then, you know, planning has to be long term. Now, in the West, I don't know whether this is so in the United States so much,

but certainly in Britain, planning has become an almost, you know, it's become a dirty word. You don't talk about it. You don't speak about it anymore. But of course, the Chinese have always been into planning. on a big scale. The Russians used to do planning big, then they sort of stopped doing it in the 1990s. What I think people have not been aware of is that gradually over the last 10 years or so, and recently, very quickly, they are reverting to planning systems again, different from the ones

they had previously, but they are going in for planning systems. So if we talk about Bel-Uzv, who is now the defense minister, there's been a very interesting meeting, by the way, about two meetings that he attended in Moscow with Putin yesterday. The point about Bel-Uzv is he's a planner. He's not exactly an economist. His entire background, both in the late Soviet era and since then, has been in long-range industrial.

planning. And the person who's now taking his place as first deputy prime minister is a young man, much younger man, Manthurov, who is also from the industry side and also is concerned about planning. And the Russians are returning to planning in a big way. It is not the kind of planning the Soviet Union used to do, where they control the price of everything and said what every factory had to make. But it is planning that involves building infrastructure. There is a very ambitious infrastructure program now. And of course, planning in developing particular sectors. And I should say that I have read a summary of the Russian plan for developing their electronics and micro-processes and semiconductor industries. And it's interesting and very clear,

laid out, thought through, by the way, very different from the planning we get in the United States. And I noticed, by the way, that the lead company in it is actually Rosatom, the nuclear power engineering complex, not Rostek, which I'd thought that it might be. And there's probably reasons for that, which I'm not going to try and explore. But anyway, we are looking at planning structures being rebuilt. The Chinese already have them. The Russians are recreating them. And of course, they're tying together as well. So do you want to talk a bit about planning and what it is and why we're not talking about the return to Stalinist era, you know, directive planning in exactly that kind of way, which neither the Chinese don't do anymore and haven't done for a long time. And the Russians,

of course, aren't reverting to either. Well, I know that the Russians have created and they're planning massive investments into what is the Russian equivalent of the American Silicon Valley, which itself was a development catalyzed by their own defense establishment and their military industrial complex. And I think that the vision is that very often these military development end up having extremely interesting civilian applications. And so, you know, the Russians are planning massive investments into new scientific developments, into new research. Vladimir Putin himself has intimated developments in the completely new principle, developments based on the completely new principles of physics that are, as of yet, have been. undiscovered and undeveloped. And who knows?

Who knows? I don't know where this is all going, but I see that this is the general direction in which these societies are taking their development. And I wouldn't be surprised if Chinese and the Russians together won't have very considerable space programs announcing, possibly defending the Earth against asteroids, you know, developing ways to blow up asteroids approaching the Earth. Because this is actually a real concern.

If you listen to people like Graham Hancock and people like that, there has been in Earth's history examples where an asteroid almost completely decimated life on Earth, and this could happen again. And then I suppose there's going to be large investment in two arts not only sciences, but also arts, industrial development, infrastructure. And I believe that with the passage of time over the long term, this cooperation between Russia and China is unbreakable,

and there are strategic reasons why they are unbreakable. But I think that they're going to lead to a new chapter in the history of humanity. We're going to find that, you know, we have, you know, the birthright that we enjoy on this planet should enjoy such staggering levels of prosperity and potentialities and the opportunities and options that it's going to be extraordinarily interesting. Now, you know, there's a side to this whole equation that is going to do absolutely everything they can to choke this, to sabotage it, and to to make sure that it doesn't happen.

But at the moment they're on the losing side, whether they have ways to destroy it, I don't know, because it's always easier to destroy things than to build them. And they're actively trying to destroy them. And we see it in the actions of Macron and Ursula von der Leyen and everybody. They're being ignored as a nuisance at the moment, but we shouldn't underestimate them. We shouldn't underestimate their ability to sabotage this process.

But even if they do, I think all they will do is maybe cause setbacks. I don't think that they will be able to reverse it and to bring the system back to the privileges that the West enjoyed in the past. So I think that from our side, it's time to start paying attention. because there's going to be a lot of news things that we're not even prepared to understand. We should pay attention. Absolutely. Just again, a few quick observations.

One of the meetings that I talked about was Belhoose have attended and which Putin also attended, which took place yesterday, were specifically about harnessing the technological leap that is going on within the military industrial sector to benefit the civilian economy. And Putin pointed out that Bel-Uzv is precisely the best person to do that. And that's one of the key reasons he's been made, Defence Minister. So it's quite an interesting thing. Now, you know, let's just talk about the West, because, of course, the West, as you correctly say, they don't seem to have the imagination to see the benefits of this.

They see only threats in it. They're becoming increasingly angry. I mean, I'm really alarmed by how angry some people are becoming. And the obvious way that you could smash and wreck things, because sanctions are losing their effectiveness, is by starting wars. And we've already got a big one underway in Europe. But is that, I mean, my own feeling,

My strong feeling is that the most likely response that they're going to do make half to all of this is to actually intensify and accelerate the process of wars. And if you listen to a watch actually, you know, congressional committee meetings when they talk about China specifically, they're actually talking almost now about starting wars with China in. some way or form and trying to build alliances against China in the Pacific area. I mean, it is very, very concerning indeed. But I mean, do you agree with me that this is perhaps the most likely course that they're going to make, especially as they come to understand that their sanctions weapon, which they once thought was overwhelming, just isn't working anymore? Yes, well, there's no question.

about it. We had a testimony from the American politician, got her name Green. Marjorie Taylor Green. Marjorie Taylor Green. Thank you. I blanked out. So Marjorie Taylor Green, a few months ago, she was giving an interview, I think, to Tucker Carlson in which she said that the people in U.S. Congress are absolutely talking with certainty that they're going to against China. And she even gave a, gave the time frame, 2025. Like there's, they're not, they're not talking about this as maybe, you know, this could happen if we, you know, if in the worst case scenario.

No, they're, it's, it's as though the decision has already been made. And I think that the Chinese are very, very much aware of this, obviously. They're paying attention. And I think that this is the reason why the Chinese, Russian alliance is unbreakable because, you know, if you look at the history of the last 10 years, the way the West has kind of fashioned the whole of Ukraine's society into a bludgeon to use against Russia, you know, if they managed to install, let's say, to weaken Russia and to pull off some kind of a color revolution or a regime change operation and installed some new Navalny, you know,

Karamurza or, you know, another version of Boris Yeltsin in power, they could then, you know, infiltrate Russia back again and then use Russia as a bludgeon against China. There are xenophobic elements in Russian society today as well. You know, you take over the media and you amplify those and you, you know, you find your pretext. They've never failed on finding pretexts for war. course. So this is where I think that the Chinese are very well aware that they have to go it all the way with Russia. And that also tells you that they have to take their strategy all the way, meaning they can't just round off the Eurasian continent, you know, pacify things in Ukraine and leave it at that because the West is going to continue to try to attack, to sabotage, to make their life miserable in whichever way. they can and there's no shortage of those ways. So I think that they will have to continue to

push against the West and to probably completely disenfranchise the ruling establishments that are now, you know, in power in London and Washington and other European capitalists and, you know, help us find a real democracy or whichever form of government is going to allow us to, you know, have peace stability and to join the Eurasian integrations and build new prosperity for ourselves. I mean, quick, a few quick observations. War against China is not what people in Europe want. I don't think it's what people, most people in America want.

It's not, you know, in any way going to solve are growing problems which are very visible on our streets, in all our cities, it's going to make those problems worse. This is a plan to try to sort of reverse history, which is causing enormous damage and destruction to Western societies. And as I always point out to people, I live in the capital of the previous empire, the British Empire, and I could see every day the damage that being,

an imperial state caused to Britain. I mean, at the time, it did provide enormous benefits, but those benefits increasingly became concentrated in an ever smaller group of people. The rest of the people began to bear the burdens. And one effect of being an imperial state was that because Britain essentially traded with its empire and made sure that the parts of its empire didn't develop

economically, the British economy didn't develop. So when I was doing all that industrial work that I was talking about in the 1980s, I found to my astonishment that a lot of British industry was an industrial museum. You could find machine tools that dated from the Edwardian era. I am not exaggerating about this. This is in the 1980s mind. So, you know, Empire is a very bad thing for most. people. Nobody discusses this as I can see. I mean, a few people do. I mean, on our media channels

do. But most people don't talk about this. They don't understand the economics of empire, and it's enormous burdens. Yes, that is exactly right. I think I would call it the empires do two things. They create misery at home and mayhem abroad. Always have done. And, you know, Even from 2,000 years time distance, you know, what do we know about the Roman Empire? We see the ruins of the Roman Empire and they seem very impressive. But Rome, as the imperial city, was absolutely surrounded by slums. People were living in misery and the processes that we see today in Britain and the United States where the cities are falling apart,

where people are sleeping in the streets or falling over with drug overdoses in the streets. And everything seems to be falling apart is exactly the kind of developments that we had in the Roman Empire that we had during the 12th and 13th century Lombard banking crisis in Italian cities that we had during the Victorian era

of the British Empire and that we see today again across Europe, Britain and the United States. And even parts of Canada, Canada is a very resource-rich country. But even there, you could see the symptoms of this sickness. And then we talked about our leadership being out of ideas and very, very angry about losing. But this is the type of leadership that the empire brings to the front. They are selected that way. And just in the last few years, you could observe specific examples of this. Not only are all our prime ministers and presidents and foreign ministers and diplomat

absolutely underqualified people, to put it politely. But you see, you know, we just saw a few days ago a short video of the chairman of the President Joe Biden's Council of Economic Advisors, at Bernstein give a short speech about how he doesn't get it. He doesn't understand the economic process. And it was absolutely staggering. And then a Bank of International settlements at the beginning of this month had some kind of an online innovation summit.

And of course, they invited you Al-Noah Harari, who managed to slip in the sentence that it is absolutely right for the governments to create more and more money, to build more and more trust. I mean, it's absolutely surreal. It's absolutely surreal. And then the people who are competent are being drawn out of the system.

And I will never forget at the outset of the crisis in Ukraine. There was before the war in January 2022, there was German admiral Kayakim Schoenbach, who was at a summit in India. And he said, the low-cost solution, to this process, to this problem in Ukraine, is to simply respect Russia's security concern and to acknowledge them and to work with them to find a common solution. Well, and he was an admiral of the German Navy.

So, you know, a career military man with certain competencies and certain reputation, that statement there ended his career that day. He tried to backpedal to distance. He didn't mean that. it was over. And so who comes to in his place? People who are, you know, who are going to be willing to take the country to war and people who are not worried about the nuances. And this is where, this is why I say that we shouldn't underestimate the West's capability to sabotage development and to sacrifice absolutely their whole entire countries. You said Americans are not interested

in going to war against China and Europeans are not interested in going to war against Russia. But the same was true for Ukraine 10 years ago. And the same was true for Ukraine even two years ago. Ukrainians didn't want war with Russia, but they got it anyway. So the very same way that the establishment managed to coerce Ukraine, the whole society to go to war against Russia, is the danger that we face ourselves. Because now that they lost in Ukraine,

they will try to use Poland, Germany, France, Italy, whoever they can to pull the same things off. And so I think that for us in the West, again, it's time to actively do what we can to defend the peace and to say no to these developments. Absolutely. I think a lot of people don't understand that economics and war and peace and all of these issues are inextricably interconnected with each other. If you have peace, all kinds of opportunities start to open up. If you have war, they start to shut down. And it also, if you have a sort of national security state and a situation where everybody is in a state of constant hysteria

and anger about things, which we seem to be in the West increasingly, then that also affects your politics in very, very negative ways indeed. I'm going to just finish by asking one final question. The position of reserve currencies comes and goes, you know, the Pays or the Spanish Pairs or used to be a reserve currency, then the Poundster was a reserve currency. Then the dollar became a reserve currency. It's part of nature.

It's part of history. It's part of historical evolution. What we are, you said that, you know, trying to sort of hold things back and prevent them developing. I mean, the fact that the dollar might be replaced by a new system of, you know, financing is not in itself a dangerous thing if it's managed properly. It's not something that people in the United States ought to be afraid of. It's trying to prevent it, prevent these developments from taking place that is what,

is dangerous and ultimately impoverishing. And you could say the same about everything else. What these people want to do is to stop everything at where they, well, in fact, push it back a bit and then stop it at where everything was around 1995. Or so it seems to me. And that's not possible. They can't be done. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

that the only people who should be afraid of the dollarization and the loss of dollars reserve status are the Western banking and corporate cartels. For everybody else is going to turn out to be good news. What's going to replace the dollar,

we will find out. We don't know yet. And there's no obvious candidate. People are talking about Petro Yuan and things like this, but it doesn't seem to me that we're going in that direction. I think that the dollar is going to remain the reserve currency for the foreseeable future by inertia you know people are used to people understand what

the dollar is if you tell them this costs so many dollars a ton people understand what that is worldwide you know not just in the united states but you know all the exporting countries understand it and that has a certain inertia and people will kind of default to that for a long time petro yuan is going to have a is going to have a role but i think that we're going into maybe into a future of multiple currencies. Even in China, you have a dual circulation. You have kind of like the foreign trade yuan and you have the domestic yuan, which have a distinct and different circulation so that, you know,

the one system doesn't necessarily destabilize the other. And, you know, throughout the Middle Ages in Europe, we had dual currencies in most places. There were currencies that people used within communes. and in between communities, and then there was usually the legal tender in which they used to pay taxes to the sovereign, and that the sovereign used to trade with other nations. And so we might be going into that kind of a development where there's going to be multiple things that we're going to learn how to manage, but that is not yet discernible and we'll have to just pay attention and find out.

But I think that for us, the number one priority is to defend the peace, because that's, going to decide not so much the fate of multipolar integrations, which I think are now on an irreversible track, is going to define how soon and how well we're going to be able to integrate with them for our benefit. And then we have to pay attention to the scientific and technological development because that's where the opportunities are going to lie for all the rest of us. Absolutely. Well, Alex, Alex Raina, I'm going to finish, I'm going to stop there because we've had a wonderful conversation with each other. I think this is the point where I hand over to Alex. I'm sure he's got questions to put to you. Alex. Thank you. Pleasure. Alex, five, ten minutes, answer some questions from. Yeah, absolutely. Of course. Cool. Medi 1 says, question, Alex, wouldn't Bricks rather deflate the dollar slowly rather than completely?

completely yanking the rug out from under it. Yes, I think there's merit to that idea. You know, it's much better to gradually take over than to destabilize a system on which many of the BRICS nations still largely depend. We have to understand that the dollar has a massive role still in the global economy, that the IMF has a very significant influence overtly and covertly over many nations,

and that many nations, including the BRIC member nations, are very afraid of breaking their bonds with the IMF and with the United States. So that has to be we have to be weaned of those bonds gradually. All right. Could you ask Alex, what is the deal with the West Washington? to change to digital money? Is there a purpose? Well, I think that there's nothing wrong with digital money

provided that you have the option of using cash. There are many advantages to digital money, meaning you can manage micropayments online from anyone in the world to anyone in the world. I think that the great drive towards digital money has to do with CBDCs in the West. So there's this obsession with creating central bank issue digital currencies, which should be programmable, the ideas that they'd be programmable.

And in that sense, they are regarded as an instrument of control, because by having programmable CBDCs, they would be able to condition your access to your money and ability to engage in transactions by, you know, your compliance with whatever they decide, you know, your vaccine schedule, your, you know, how many carbon credits you have or how much red meat you consume this week and so on. But it's largely a fantasy that's never going to come to pass. And they, less than two years ago, you know, they had a big, a big test introduction in Nigeria

where they actually went forward and replaced Naira with E Naira, which was a proper CBD. DC and they threw all their best resources at it. You know, they had the W.EF consultants there and World Bank and IMF consultants. They tried to do everything, right? And the whole thing failed miserably in 108 days. It brought the country to a paralyzed standstill, practically almost led to a revolution. The president of the country lost the first elections and the central bank governor who was who was in charge of that project ended up in prison.

And so they will have a very difficult time finding another test market for that. People noticed. And so I think that the whole thing will never be implemented. It's just going to be a lot of talk. What are your thoughts on China and plans for Hungary and Serbia? Oh, yes. I think that's extremely interesting. Well, you see, I think a lot of it has to do with the Ukraine war and the status of Odessa.

If the Russians take control of Odessa, which they will one way or another, whether militarily or in some other way, they have other options of taking control of Odessa, not necessarily a military conquest, but political control of Odessa. Then they cement their control of the whole of the Black Sea's coast. And the reason why this is significant is because you have the Danube, flowing out to the Black Sea. And then nations like Hungary, Serbia, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, they get exit to the sea and maritime trade. And so it would be much, much more difficult for the Western powers

and the European Union. to coerce these countries into compliance and to sanction them and to prevent them from exiting the European Union. So I think that for China, this whole connection becomes a very important part of their Belt and Road initiative and the whole European, sorry, multipolar integrations. And so the role of China, of Serbia and of,

of Hungary could become extraordinarily important in that sense. They could be the leading regional powers to start breaking off and joining the multipolar integrations. Right. From Mortium Rex, this may be a bit of a tangent, though almost nothing is in today's geopolitical tapestry. Quite right, yeah. Yes.

But do you think the Indians are on a bit of a wobbly path, specifically with joint military exercises that only serve to further antagonize China and annoy the Russians. Your thoughts on India and India's path. I think this is work in progress. I think that India is still regarded by the Western powers as one of the potential, how do you call it? one of the potential nations who might be a major stumbling block for Chinese and Russian integration initiatives. And we saw that a few years where the trilateral commission held their first post-COVID meeting in Japan. And basically India emerged as the most likely country to be breaking the rank.

But I think that, you know, while the relationship between China and India is still difficult, the relationship between India and Russia is rock solid. And I think that Russia will be working that relationship to make sure that India stays on board. And I think that, you know, today India is being incentivized in all kinds of ways to stay on board. For example, India has become a major supplier of oil to Western markets. And all of their oil is Russian oil, right? Before the war in 22, Ukraine war, India was about 1% of Russian oil expert went to India. Today is 40%.

And then, you know, India has suddenly become the major number one supplier of oil to the European markets from virtually zero two years ago. So you see how India already is having very strong interest in being part of these multilateral trade agreements. And so I think that between incentives and between the, you know, not wanting to become the Ukraine of Eurasia, I think that it will make sense for India to stay on board. But it is work in progress. and I think that it will take some diplomatic effort,

particularly on the part of Russia, but also maybe Iran in the future, to patch up those relationships. And then I think that in the same way that Russia and China have been able to overcome their adversity throughout the Cold War, I think it will be possible for China and India to overcome their adversities as well.

Yeah. Can I just quickly add something? this has been an interesting twist because of course one of the problems that the chinese indian trade had was that the indian's indian currency the rupee is not convertible and it's very difficult if you're paid in rupees to use them for other things the russians when they started to export oil to india suggested that india pay in in in chinese uan the indian said absolutely not this is not something that we're going to do. So what has actually started to happen and it's been encouraged by both governments is that the Russians still get paid in rupees. They then invest those rupees

back in India and they invested in sectors of the Indian economy which then export to Russia. So it's becoming a mechanism for the Russians to import various light goods, consumer goods and things like that, which India makes back to Russia. And of course, it's actually ended up by creating even more linkages because this investment from the Russians is now becoming significant and is becoming something that is starting to work. also pull in more people in India, more people in India themselves becoming involved in it. So you could see how integration processes can work in all sorts of strangers. The Americans are not happy with this. And even as India does these joint exercises, the US has now started to criticize the Modi government quite openly. And of course, he has threatened India with sanctions for all sorts of unspecified sins.

Yeah, very true. We'll do two more questions, Alex. Is that cool? Yeah, absolutely. Medi I says, will the West get any common sense responsible leadership in time? I actually don't think so. I think it'll have to be a change in the guards, you know. And I don't even know whether, even if Donald Trump wins in the United States, whether he will be able to drain the swamp in the way that most of us hope he would. I think that the system is too far gone. And right now, there's actually talk in the United States,

but also in France here, where I am, that the leading risk going forward is actually a civil war. You know, there's people close to the French military establishment that actually think that the most likely future for France is a civil war. They say war, but not war against Russia, but a civil war. And well, you know, it would be good to avoid that. You know, if the ruling establishments could be changed by democratic means, it would be preferable. And I think that at the moment, the only hopeful candidate would be Donald Trump. I don't know about RFK if he stands a chance of winning the elections.

but I think that we will get more sober leadership after either after the change of guards one way or the other. And for both Alex and Alexander from Sanjava, on a serious note, what do you think about the assassination attempt on Robert Fizzo? Didn't know these things could happen in Europe these days. I'll go quickly first, Alexander. I think you'll have a lot more to say about this, but there's a long tradition of the empire. And when I say empire, I mean, you know, the current is American, but it's simply a reincarnation of the undead British empire.

There's a long tradition of assassinating people who come in the way of their Eurasian geopolitical strategy. And so FItsa wouldn't be the first one. We already know who pulled the trigger, but why and who put him up to it? We don't know that, and maybe we'll never know. But, you know, he's not the first one, and there's been many leaders who have been assassinated in the past. And I think that we shouldn't be surprised.

That is a part of the imperial tactics. Well, this is absolutely true. I mean, we have had unsolved. It's not unusual. It's not unique for European leaders to be assassinated. Many of us remember Olaf Palmer, the former Swedish Prime Minister, Swedish Prime Minister when he was assassinated. That crime has never been solved.

The way in which the investigation was conducted was extraordinary, and almost calculated to fail to achieve an outcome, if I may say. And one can go back further still. I mean, I'm old enough to remember in the 1970s the kidnapping and murder of the Italian politician Aldo Morrow, who again, people in Italy, your former Prime Minister of Italy, people in the United States, were suspicious of for all sorts of complicated. and intricate reasons which we're not going to discuss in this program. So, you know, there have been cases like this.

And, of course, there have been cases of all kinds of cells and organizations created post-war in Europe. The Operation Gladio thing is a well-known number. It's not, you know, it's obviously. You know, I think on this subject we also need to mention, his name slips my mind right now, but the former CEO of Deutsche Bank, who was assassinated, I think it was in 1989 or so.

Yes, right. And he was precisely one who wanted, you know, after the fall of the, after the, with the opening of the communist bloc, he wanted to drive towards integrations of German economy with the, with the Russian and Eastern European democracies, economies. And so he was, he was assassinated. for that reason. Yes. Now, coming back to this murder,

this attempted murder of FISA, because at the moment, thankfully, it looks like he's in recovery and that he's survived. We're still at a very early stage. We don't have all the facts. The person who has, who carried out the attack,

has been captured. A fair amount is known about him. He is very much aligned with the liberal part of Slovak politics, whether anybody put him up to do it, we'll have to wait and see what the evidence is. But I'm going to say this. Anybody who follows politics

and media coverage of events in Eastern Europe cannot fail but notice the relentless abuse of leaders like Feethe. or Orban or Wuchich or whomever, anywhere in Europe, the way they're talked about, the way they're spoken about the atmosphere of, you know, the poisonous atmosphere that surrounds them. That in itself, and I've been concerned about this,

is going to create a climate where even if you don't actually deliberately organize and put somebody and give them a gun and point them in a particular. direction. That climate in itself creates and is intended to create serious risks and is extremely intimidating. Now, I don't know the situation in Slovakia specifically, but I understand that there it has been absolutely off the scale. Apparently the abuse pulled from the liberal political establishment at Fitsil and the Slovak media, which like the media all across Europe, follows, you know, the line that we all know.

It has apparently been completely off the scale. And, you know, it's not surprising in some ways that something like this happened. Note also, and, you know, in Britain, how there have been some British commentators who have been frankly not unhappy that this event happened and who perhaps would have been even less unhappy, choosing my words very carefully, if this incident had ended in the death. I mean, I was quite astonished just to hear one particular journalist, if I could call him that, on Sky News, for example, saying that under Feats of Slovakia has been. an unhappy country.

What a thing to say? How does he know? I mean, you know, what is the evidence or the proof of that? He's just won an election. His political ally has just won a presidential election. There is no evidence that most people in Slovakia are unhappy. But, you know, we have that kind of language.

We have those kind of things said. So this is a very heavy, very dangerous act. in which it is unsurprising that these sort of things happen. And I'm not saying that there wasn't some controlling hand behind this, because I don't know whether there was or whether there wasn't. But given the climate that we have, even if there wasn't a controlling hand, it's not completely surprising, about not surprising at all. That things like this did take place, and I'm sorry to do.

to say it's not impossible that we're going to see more of them. Yes, I just wanted to follow up. I looked up the name of the Deutsche Bank CEO who was assassinated. It was November 1989. His name was Alfred Herrhausen. And I just wanted to mention that for the benefit of your viewers, if they wanted to look up the story. But I think the point is that we are going back to that Machinterian strategy, where, you know,

the imperial oligarchy wants to be. prevent the emergence and blossoming of this economic world that is outside of their control and inaccessible to them. Yeah, excellent point. Alex Crainer, thank you very much for joining us on the Duran. That was a fantastic conversation. Privileged to join you, gentlemen. And greetings from Monaco to your viewers and listeners.

Absolutely, the privilege is ours. and I have all your information in the description box down below, and I will add your information as a comment as well. Thank you very much, Alex. Thank you. Bye-bye. Take care. Bye-bye.

All right, Alexander. That was a great chat. Absolutely. A lot of good information there. Let's answer the remaining questions. From Sanjava. Yippe, joined a live Duran chat after a long. time. Greetings from Australia. Greetings, Sanjava, good to have you with us. Thank you as well,

Sanneva, for that amazing super sticker. And Ralph says, dear Alex and Alexander, I would like to plea for intercession in the restoration of the chat rights of John Ashley Smith so that he can keep on chatting in the free world. Okay. I'm, okay. I guess, yeah, I have to look. I have to look at at the chat for the user, John Ashley Smith. Ralph also says, Dear Alexander, being a British citizen, being a citizen of the British Empire, and the member of the free world,

did your heart beat louder and your eternal soul stand that much prouder when you heard Neil Blinken saying the iconic lines of rocking in the free world? Oh, I was absolutely overwhelmed. I took out the champagne and I was beside myself with joy and euphoria when it happened. And I have to say, I mean, it was an astonishing performance. It brought back memories of a golden time in the 1970s especially when, you know, all kinds of rock stars and things like that were all over Britain.

What they made of it, of course, in Ukraine, where, you know, they've been brought. bombed, shelled, killed, suffering, rolling blackouts, and all of that, well, of course, there may be, they don't quite understand the nuances and the subtleties and the splendors of this performance. Of Blinken's diplomacy, yes. And Ralph did, Ralph actually put some lyrics. And now she put her kid away as she's about to get hit. She hates her life and what the Israeli bombing has done to it.

There's one more kid. I'll never go to school. Never get to fall in love. never get to be cool. A little change in the lyrics. From Ralph, Keep on rocking in the free world. Keep on rocking in the free world.

Keep on rocking in the free world. And finally from Ralph. And given Ukraine's desperate need for fighting men, why after finishing the gig at the Kiev bar wasn't Neil Blinken and the band members on the first bus from Kiev heading towards Hotgium to go and personally fight for the Nio Kod, New World? Well, because he's directing operations.

from the rear, a far more heroic, that's important thing to do. I mean, he came to the point of danger, which is Kiev itself. He raised the morale of the Ukrainian people with his performance. And as I said, he's now directing operations from the rear, which is, of course, in Washington, where he plays an absolutely indispensable role. Let's not forget it. Yes, Neil Blinken. Interesting. Let's see.

Lover of the Russian team, brilliant show. with Emil. I think you remember the other day. Thank you for that. The Russian team. The Black Cat, thank you for a super sticker. Jungle Jin says, is the Russian Security Council Putin's cabinet? Yes. I mean, it's it's not just a cabinet because bear in mind when Putin eventually leaves the presidency, the Security Council will still be there and many of the people who Putin appointed will remain. It's a sort of permanent institution. But it is the key decision-making body in Russia.

And that is the essential thing to understand. The Security Council is the key decision-making body. The executive office, which is the presidential administration, as it used to be called, is the key secretariat where, again, a lot of the decisions are sorted out and worked out and made. the Council of Ministers or Cabinet of Ministers, as it is sometimes called, the formal government is the executive body that fulfills the decisions that are made by those two other bodies. It's actually a very structured government, with a lot of continuity, by the way, to what existed in the Soviet era, which in turn, it may surprise people to learn,

had a certain amount of continuity with what had begun to develop in the late Tsarist era. There is a sort of pattern of structure to which the Russian administrative and institutional framework reverts because it is adapted to Russian conditions. Tim Gibson, thank you for that super sticker. Anand Clarician, thank you for that, super sticker. JF says, Alexander Alex, thank you for your impressive program and brilliant analysis of current affairs. Thank you for that.

Anon, Colerician, says, fantastic program, guys. Thanks for having a meal on yesterday. Thank you. Anand. Elza says, gentlemen, sanctions were the reason why countries have developed to new profitable markets. If sanctions were removed, what probably will never happen?

Would those markets still remain profitable? Well, this is a very good question, actually. I think beyond a certain point, the answer is yes. You see, the sanctions create adjustments in the patterns of trade, the economy, the various economies, the global economy in response to those adjustments, and develops to follow those adjustments. If and when the sanctions are removed,

the newly established trade and economic systems will continue because they'll have achieved a quality of permanence over time. So I think the answer is yes, they will survive the sanctions. But nonetheless, I agree with you. I don't think the sanctions are ever going to be formally removed. eventually they will become irrelevant, but I don't think they will ever be formally removed. That doesn't happen in the U.S. Ms. Texas Chi says,

The Chinese seem to be very good at absorbing information through listening and reading in between the lines of whomever it is, they are entertaining. So they probably read Macron like the New York Times because he is an emotional person and wears all information on his sleeve. Yes. Absolutely. That is absolutely true. And John Carter says, in the sense of the three little pigs, young countries are built with straw, the U.S. being older, but still young, is built of wood while the thousand-year-old Russian nation is built from Brink.

Very interesting. Analysis. Matthew says, brilliant, as always, do you still think NATO and Russia will avoid out and out war? After all of this, surely world relations will improve. I think yes is the short answer. I think they will avoid out and out war. But will they improve? Not for a very, very long time.

Putin gave a very interesting interview, again, as the same one I mentioned, to Sin Hua, the Chinese News Agency, in which again, he made it clear that a peace settlement in Ukraine can only now happen as part of the general settlement of the peace,

security system in Europe. And there is no way that the Americans and NATO are going to be prepared to negotiate about the structures of the security system in Europe. So that makes negotiations and a general peace settlement between Russia and the West impossible to achieve for the time being. Pauli says, Hi, the Duran. The Dutch have a new cabinet. Ruta will sign off soon. We're hoping for the best and thank you for all you do.

Thank you very much. They say that Ruta is now going to become Stoltenberg's successor in NATO. Interesting to see. Most likely. Or Johannes of Romania. Those are the two. Yeah, I know. Those are the two. Yeah, interesting.

John Scott says, Ukraine freedom won't be stopped. Thank you for that. John Scott. Marco says, To buttress, a super chat made by a friend a few days ago. Absolutely agree, you wonderful gents should try and get Mr. Nema Padabini on your show. Okay. We're working on it, absolutely.

Anon Calarician says, my best regards to your Bandarian brothers, Johnny Boy. Thank you for that, Anon Karasian. Elza says, Alex, if I may, what's the blue object, behind you. Blue up behind me. Ah. It's just a 2000, it's a 2002 actually that an artist gave to me many, many years ago, in 2022.

So that's all it is. Let's see. Marco says the ever dangerous and often fatal delusion of pursuing symbolic victories over real ones will tragically haunt the people of Ukraine for generations. Absolutely. I think that when this war is over, Ukraine will awaken. I think it will. And it will realize that what it has been living through.

Going all the way back, stretching all the way back to 1991 has been a nightmare. And I think you will find that Ukrainians do not want to go to sleep and reenter that nightmare again. And fractured. Thank you for that super chat. Odyssey and Elsa says, I've already seen comments in Ukrainian language asking the US sarcastically for a song under articles which report about problems in Ukraine. I know. I think, I mean, joking aside, I think it was one of the most tack-handed, misconceived, disastrous things

that I've seen a diplomat do. Lincoln can be called a diplomat for a very, very long. time. I mean, it is incredible. It is, that act alone demonstrates why Blinken should never have been appointed a secretary of state. He does a thing like this. I mean, it shows that he does not understand what his job is. And it shows such a heartless attitude towards Ukraine at this time, that it really is, it's unbelievable. On my local slide stream last night, lots of people, there we're comparing it to Nero, fiddling one rome birds.

And that's exactly how it is. And pre-planned. I'm pre-planned, absolutely. This wasn't spontaneous stuff. It was pre-planned, yeah. And a lot of people, just to finish it off, and I think we've got all the questions answered, the fact that he was playing with a left-handed guitar

is the giveaway that this whole thing was planned well in advance. Someone thought this was a good idea. No. What just really wonders, what point did they think they were making? I mean, you know, he is supposed to have gone to Kiev to raise morale. How this can possibly raise people to morale in Ukraine?

I mean, it absolutely scares me. I mean, it was unbelievable thing to do. And I mean, the Russian, internet is utterly mocking about it. I would say it's a power humiliation thing. I don't know. What do you think? I would say it's about power humiliation.

I think you may be right. Exactly. I mean, anyway, whatever, the message it conveyed was a terrible one. And it's something which people will remember, by the way. And when the war is over, it will be shown again and again in Ukraine. and people will be reminded of it. It will never be forgotten. Absolutely.

And one final question, Alexander, that just came in and we'll wrap it up from Mortum Rex. Gents, any chance of having Tom Luan go back on the show? I know you need 37 cups of coffee to keep up with him, but dude blows my mind every time. I agree about both the 32nd, 37 cups, or was it 38? But nonetheless, we should have him back, because as you're right, you say, he's brilliant.

And Marcos has sent a message. Aussie Parliament just passed a bill for a digital ID today. Now due to be put to the Senate, Lord save us from bureaucratic technocrats and globalists. Yeah, yeah. True enough. All right, that is everything. Alexander, a great show. Thank you to Alex.

Absolutely. Fantastic show. And thank you to everyone that watched us on Rockfield. on Odyssey, on Rumble on YouTube, and on the Duran. Dot locals.com. And thank you to our awesome moderators, Peter. Thank you so much, T. Jordan. Good to have you here.

Zareel. Thank you as well. And I think that is everyone that was moderating. a second I think so yeah all right Alexander I think we can wrap this one up indeed and again thank you to everybody who participated in this live stream it's a wonderful live stream all right take care