The Duran Podcast - The Price of Empire w/ Jeffrey Sachs (Live)

Episode Date: July 31, 2025

The Price of Empire w/ Jeffrey Sachs (Live)

Okay, we are live with Alexander Mercuris in London, and we are happy to have Anna Duran once again, the incredible Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Professor Sachs, how are you doing today? Hey, great to be with you guys. Thanks so much. Great to have you on. Let's get started, Alexander, Professor Sacks. A big shout out and hello to everyone that is watching us on all of our platforms. A big thank you to our chat moderators. We have a lot to discuss. So, Alexander, there, Professor Sachs. Let's jump right into it. Yes, indeed. And can I say, and before we get into the events of today, which are enormously important and their significance cannot be overstated, I'd like to take a quick walk back into

the past with Professor Sachs. And I'd say, explain why. A couple of programs ago, I mentioned the fact that the new Ukrainian Defence Minister, Mr. Schmigal, who was pre, who was, who was, who was, who until a short time ago, the Prime Minister of Ukraine, is now asking for $120 billion of assistance so that Ukraine can meet its military defence needs next year in 2026. He won $60 billion right away, and he's basically leaving it open how the other $60 billion are going to be found. And, of course, that brought me back to the events of long ago, in 1990 when Professor Sacks was working with a, at that time, young Russian economist, Grigory Yavlinsky, and they were coming up with their grand bargain.

And I said from memory that I thought at that time, this is my memory of it, that they wanted $150 billion in total over, I said, three years to support the Russian. Russian economy. And my point was that even allowing for the significant changes in the value of money that have obviously taken place in the last 35 years, one can see how the cost of Ukraine is going far beyond the cost of the stabilization of the Russian economy in 1990. The Soviet economy, in fact, we're talking about still the Soviet economy in 1990. And what a difference it would have made if that had been how it had played out. Now, I spoke from memory.

Maybe I didn't get my figures exactly right. We have the man himself who was part of that partnership, that duo with Grigory Yovlinsky, and Professor Sachs, maybe you could just take us a bit down memory lane, you like to those events, those I suspect for you painful events. Firstly, are my figures right? And what are your general comments here? Yeah, thanks so much for this stroll down memory lane indeed. But I think it's actually a very important one. You know, the way that wars end, whether hot wars like World War I or Cold Wars, like the end in 1991, make a huge.

huge difference for the fate of the planet. And that was a lesson I learned as a young economist when I read a book that I regard as perhaps the most important book of the 20th century written by an economist. It's John Maynard Keynes' book written in 1919 called The Economic Consequences of the peace. The title referred to the peace agreement reached at Versailles that ended World War I. And John Maynard Keynes, who was the greatest political economist of the 20th century, the British economist, had been a junior member of the British delegation to the Versailles Treaty. And he was just crestfallen by the treaty because it was an only, Honorous treaty that put all war blame on the Germans and all financial burdens on the Germans, especially reparations.

And Keynes wrote a scathing diatribe against the treaty that was utterly prophetic, fascinating to read. And for me, as a young economist, was probably the most insightful, a single book that I have ever read as a professional economist. Basically, Kane said, if you punish your foe, that will come back to haunt you. And Keynes said that by putting these burdens on Germany, this would give rise to a monster even far greater than anything that was experienced in World War I. And of course, this was prophecy that devastatingly came true. I began my own, career in the 1980s, working with countries that were in fiscal crisis, in debt crisis, in hyperinflations. And that was my specialty and my activity in the 1980s, starting in Latin America, and then in

Eastern Europe. And I took Keynes' message to heart, which is you cannot punish countries, whether for wars or other reasons without potentially devastating human consequences that would follow. So I always believed that one needed a response, whether it was to a crushing debt or to the aftermath of the Cold War, that was attuned to basic ethics, basic decency, basic respect for people that one is dealing with, and a way forward that wasn't punitive and that wouldn't give rise to monsters in the future. And so when I came to be by strange works of fate, Poland's leading external advice, Kaiser in 1989 in those first days when the Soviet rule over Eastern Europe was ending, by the way, not because of the Soviet collapse, but because Mikhail Gorbachev was a man of peace.

And I watched his deft maneuvers to make it peaceful end of the Cold War. And I regard him to this day as the greatest statesman of that era because he, believed in peace. Things could have gone so many other ways. But he actually, for example, called the communist president of Poland, Yarosolzlzky, and said, let those people from solidarity join a coalition with you. In other words, he wanted peace. And I witnessed that firsthand. When I became Poland's advisor, I advised the Western governments. Look, this country is burdened by debt, the Soviet era debt. It's not yet. It's its own fault. It needs a fresh start. It's now a democracy. It is the end of this era of the Cold War. Let it breathe again. And this was a kind of

unusual message, but because of the dynamics of Cold War politics, Poland was clearly on the U.S. side and there were lots of Polish Americans in the United States in Illinois and Michigan and elsewhere. And so the politicians in the White House said, okay, we'll follow what SACC says. And Poland's debts were canceled. And Poland began an economic recovery that actually lasted more than 30 years. It was a period that most historians of Poland looking back over the last 500 years, say, is Poland's best 30 years of economic development that they ever had. And Poland went from about a third of Western European living standards to about 70% of Western European living standards or Germany's in particular in that period.

So quite remarkable. Well, on that basis, a young and very brilliant and very decent Soviet economist, Gregory of Linsky, whom you mentioned, called me up and said, can I meet you in Warsaw? And we spent a long time talking about what was happening in Poland. And Grigory, who is a remarkable person to this day, he became a leading voice in Russia after the Cold War and remained so today. He's very brilliant, very decent, said my boss, Mikhail Gorbachev, would like to do the same, basically, which is we want to make basic reforms, democratize the Soviet Union, make perestroika, that old word, which meant reform of the economy, turned to a market economy, open like China,

had opened successfully, and so forth. Would the West help? And I, being young, naive and seeing what had happened in Poland said, Gregory, of course the West will help. This is the biggest moment in modern history. This is the end of the Cold War. Mikhail Gorbachev is a great statesman. Of course the West will help. And I recounted how the advice that I had given for Poland was accepted by the White House. Sometimes you can't even imagine the The turnaround time of advice that I gave to the White House agreeing was within eight hours in those days for Poland. So I felt pretty good about things. Oh, they're listening to me.

This is, and of course, they're going to help Gorbachev. And so I worked with Gregory. He organized an effort together of his group. And then we put together a group in the United States at Harvard in particular. to sketch out how this could be done. And the idea was very much modeled on the evidence successes of what was happening in Poland. And more generally, the whole idea of Churchill had said it also in victory magnanimity. And this was essentially what was needed right now. The Cold War was ending.

You had a statesman who wanted peace, a statesman who wanted peace, a statesman who, said we want a common European home from Rotterdam to Vladivostok. He meant it. This was not a show. This was not a game. Gorbachev unilaterally disbanded the Warsaw Pact. By the way, for all of these things, he's regarded as utterly naive today. I regard him as a great man. But yes, if you are a cynical, deep down, realist who believes the worst always of everything, then you could call Gorbachev cynical. I believe he helped save the world from war. But the West, and in particular, the idiots, if I could use a technical term that led the United States, and they are idiots, and they're idiots till today, they're fools. They said, oh, this man's weak. We won. He won. He

We lost, help him, are you crazy? And so we made a proposal for help. The numbers are $30 billion a year for five years for the whole Soviet Union, of which Russia was half. This was for 300 million people. The numbers are so small, look, Elon Musk could do it out of his pocket. This is unbelievable how small this was. I was trying to get something through. I wasn't in some crazy dream,

expecting that the United States was gonna turn over many percent of GDP. This was tiny, tiny. Now, what happened was it was completely rejected. And all I heard, All I heard in June 1991 was the White House turned it down. It was 34 years later that I finally read the minutes of that meeting. And I sent them to you, and you could post them if you'd like, because they're publicly

available. If you want to see the stupidity, the arrogance, the ignorance of American leaders, it is on display in almost every word of the meeting that considered should the U.S. help the Soviet Union at this time of massive reform at the end of the Cold War when Mikhail Gorbachev is unilaterally disbanding the Soviet military, apparatus. And the response of the West should have been, let's end NATO, because NATO was to absolutely respond to a potential Soviet invasion. Now, there's unilateral disarmament on the Soviet side disbanding the Warsaw Pact. That should have been the answer. For a tiny amount of what we were spending on the military, we could have helped to facilitate. a smooth and peaceful economic transformation to a market economy, and we would have gone on to live in peace.

Well, this was turned down in June. Gorbachev went to the G7 soon afterwards, came back empty-handed. Some of the politicians in the Soviet Union said, you see what an idiot Gorbachev is. He was abducted. That was the attempted pooch in summer of 1991. Yeltsin stood on top of the tank, you'll recall, and soon Yeltsin was basically in political charge. Now, for me, again, kind of a kid, but with a little bit of track record, I have to say, because I had ended hyperinflations in a few countries.

I had helped get Poland reorganized. I was following Keynes' logic. I was called, this time not by Yvlinski, but by Yeltsin's economic advisor, Yeager Gaidhar. Another wonderful person who wanted reform, wanted normalcy. And he said, Jeff, come to the dacha outside of Moscow in September. November 1991. Help us. It's going to be the Uppsian government now. It's going to be our team. So I flew to Moscow and I spent a week in the Dacha with the Yeager Gaidar and with the others who would soon be the young reformist cabinet of the new independent Russian government.

Of course, I didn't know exactly what was going to happen, but I knew that Yeltsin had the initiative at that point. And in November 1991, the so-called G7 deputies, which meant that the deputy finance ministers of the G7 came as a group to Moscow to meet with G-Darth. Now, by this time, I had some experience on these issues, and I briefed Guidar at length, and I said, Yeager, you need to get from the G7 deputies a standstill on your debt payments right now. What this means is that Russia or Soviet Union had taken on debts in the late 1980s. Part of the U.S. ploy at the time was to drive down oil prices in cahoots with the Gulf countries, which they had done. This put the Soviet Union into financial stress. The Soviet Union took on debts under Gorbachev. Those debts were short-term. They were coming due. The Soviet Union had no reserves to speak of,

and so they were running out of hard currency cash. And I said to, Geydar, the most standard thing that you say in a fiscal crisis like this, which is you need a standstill on debt payments. Now, mind you, two years earlier, I had called for not only a standstill on Poland's debt payments, but an outright cancellation of the debts, which had been accepted by the G7 governments. So what I regarded as the most minimal possible request was just a postponement of any payments coming due

because the Soviet Union and Russia had no, financial reserves. Gidar went into the meeting. An hour later, he came out, I could see, in distress. I said, Yeager, what happened? He said, they told me if we don't pay every penny, the moment it is due, all ships on the high seas heading for Russia with food or other supplies will immediately be turned around, and that will be the end of any financial cooperation with Russia.

In other words, exactly the opposite of what was needed then. Russia continued to pay the interest and the debt as it was falling due, and it ran out of money in the first weeks of 1992. Now, just to conclude this little saga, in mid-December 1991, Guidar asked me to brief President Yeltsin. And so I went with the little delegation to the Kremlin and sat in a giant room in the Kremlin.

And I don't know if you can imagine. This was the end of the Cold War. This was events that were so startling, could not even imagine I was there, but sitting in the Kremlin, waiting for President Yeltsin to come, it was a huge room. The door in the far back on the right-hand side opens their strides in confidently President Yeltsin. And he walks across the long room, sits down immediately in front of me, and says, gentlemen, I want to announce the Soviet Union is. is over. And then he pointed to the back of the room and he said, you know who's in the

adjoining room? That is the military leadership. And they have just agreed with me that the Soviet Union will be dissolved at the end of this month and Russia will be an independent state. So I heard that out of President Yeltsin's own mouth, real time. And I said, this is These events are moving pretty damn quick. And then President Yeltsin said, we want to be a normal country. We want to be at peace. We want to end this central planning. We want a market economy.

We want to be friends with the United States. We want to be friends with Europe. We want your help. Well, it was my turn to speak. and I said, Mr. President, this is one of the most important moments of modern history. I'm sorry to tell you guys, I said it again. I said, I have no doubt that the West will help you. This isn't even about the Soviet Union anymore.

This is now about an independent Russia led by President Yeltsin, absolutely who has said communism is over. We want a normal market economy. We want to be friends. I said, how can the West turn this down? You learn. And it was a very painful lesson. To tell you the truth, I could not really understand it for some many years to come, actually.

I went back to Washington, went to the IMF, because the IMF was kind of the coordinator. for the G7, met the deputy managing director of the IMF, Richard Irb. And he told me, Jeff, none of that's going to happen. There's not going to be big aid. There's not going to be a stabilization fund as I had created in Poland or helped to design. And it was my idea that worked to stabilize the currency. None of that's going to happen, Jeff. And I said to him, Richard, Dick, why, why? It's the right economics. And he stood there completely unresponsive, wouldn't give me an answer. Jess said, it's not going to happen. And to complete the story and give you a little bit more of an insight into this,

I'm pretty persistent and stubborn and had lots of experiences where I was told, no, something won't happen. And then you press, press, press because it's the right thing. And then something does happen. So, of course, I kept on for two years trying to campaign for Western help for Russia because it's the right thing to do. It's how stabilization is done. It's how every successful stabilization is. ended with some outside support, not huge amounts, but modest. Debt standstills or debt reductions or debt restructuring or financial stabilization.

And I didn't succeed. But in March of 1992, so just now three months after the events that I was describing, I was on a news hour, the McNeil-Lear News Hour, which was our public television, And I was paired with the acting secretary of state Lawrence Eagleberger. The secretary of state, James Baker, had stepped down to head the reelection campaign of George Bush. And so we had an acting secretary of state, Lawrence Eagleberger. And I was debating him on the news hour where I was saying we should help Russia. And he was saying, no, no, no, we have to be very prudent.

no reason to rush into anything and so on. He, of course, knew no economics, didn't care, whatever. So at the end of the news hour debate, he said to me very nicely, Jeff, let me give you a ride back to D.C. because we were in a studio in Alexandria, Virginia. So I got into the limousine of the Secretary of State. And as we were driving back, he said to me, Jeff, suppose I told you, suppose just for purpose of argument that I agree with you. Yeah. And Jeff, suppose that I told you that the Polish finance minister,

Legerick-Baltzerovich, had just been in Washington. And he said the same thing as you, actually. Yeah. Well, Jeff, I just want to tell you, it's not going to happen. And I said, but Mr. Secretary, why? It's the right thing. He said, Jeff, suppose I agree with you. It's not going to happen. Do you know what this year is? And I said, yes, it's 1992. So do you know what that means? I said that it's an election year. He says, yes, it's not going to happen. So that was the explanation that was given by the acting secretary of state, not that the arguments are wrong, that the economics are wrong, that the logic is wrong, but that the United States is not going to help Russia because Russia is an enemy. Okay, I took that for a long time as kind of basic electoral politics, you know, that Bush was cowardly, couldn't lead.

was afraid of Patrick Buchanan on his right and so forth. But the truth is it was much deeper than what Eagleburger was saying. Because already by that moment, Wolfowitz Cheney, the neocons, had taken hold of power in Washington and would hold it till today, basically, till today. And their view is something that's very important to us. understand. They did not want peace. They did not want cooperation. They wanted dominance. The idea of the end of the Cold War was not that we would have peace and a common European home from Rotterdam to Vladivostok. The idea of the end of the Cold War is that the United

States would be the global hegemon. We know this now. It's almost commonplace. It honestly, again, I apologize for my naivete. It didn't dawn on me in 1992 when you're listening to Gorbachev and to Yeltsin. And I was advisor in Ukraine also to President Leonid Kuchvah. This isn't Russia versus Ukraine. I was advisor all over the region. And to my mind, this is the greatest chance for peace that we have ever had. But already in the mentality in Washington, this was the chance for global dominance. And no need to help a foe or a former foe, not even to define it as a foe. Any country that would not be subservient to the United States was an enemy. And in the U.S. mentality, there's no such thing as neutrality.

There's no such thing as autonomy. You're either with us or you're against us, as was famously put by George Bush Jr. And this is the mentality. It took me actually years and years to understand this because I thought Clinton would be different. Clinton came in, no difference at all, by the way, on the particular issue of financing for Russia, none at all. In fact, his Russia advisor refused to join the administration and wrote to me in November 1992, Jeff, Clinton's going to be no better than Bush on these big questions. I didn't believe it, again, because I'm kind of stubborn and I was naive.

thinking this had something to do with economics and something to do with the logic of the situation and something to do with peace. But of course, we now know the history afterwards. The Cold War never ended in the U.S. mentality. This is the hard truth. It's very well described in Jonathan Haslam's recent book called Hubris. The Cold War didn't end because after the Soviet Union ended, the next step was that Russia should end, literally, that Russia should end as a country. Maybe Brzynski allowed, maybe it could become a loose confederation of three different countries, one in European Russia, one in Central Asia, and one in the Far East, and a confederation. But the idea was Russia's big.

So big. Therefore, it's an enemy of the United States. And this is an idea also that we learned from the British. The British hated Russia for being big. They concocted a thousand fantasies that Russia was about to invade the crown jewel of the British Empire that would invade India through the Khyber Pass. And so Britain went to war with Russia in the 1850s, exactly the same. same way we've gone to war with Russia in Ukraine, exactly the same. Same location, same ideas, same motivation. Russia's big. It needs to be broken apart. It needs to be thrown out of the Black Sea region. Brzynski, being a good scholar, wrote it all down in 1997 in the Grand Chess Board explaining, yeah, the Cold War is not over. We have to make Russia not a second-rate power but a third-rate power. And the way to do that is to expand NATO and Europe eastward. And then Brzynski has a whole chapter analyzing what could Russia do.

And he dismisses ideas, wild ideas, such as that Russia and China might get together. Impossible, says Brzynski. That Russia and Iran might get together. Ridiculous, says Brasinski. Russia has no future other than its European future. So if NATO and the EU expand eastward, Russia has no choice but to succumb to this. And that's the roots of the 1991 onward. That's the story.

I happen to watch it firsthand close up right at the front row seat of the arena, actually, you know, a little bit as a participant, as I've described. But it took me years actually to understand the mentality because my mentality was so completely different. And until today, call me naive, but I rather like the idea of peace. You know, it's actually the cheaper alternative, the more efficient alternative, the more ethical alternative, the more pleasant alternative. but peace is different from domination, of which I have absolutely no interest for America or anyone else. And the United States just ruined the chance for peace, starting in the early 1990s, because arrogance took complete hold. So that's my trip through memory lane. And just to repeat again, I thought it was $150 billion.

over three years. It was $150 billion over five years. And please, Alexander, remember, that's also for Belarus, for the Baltics, for Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan,

Uzbekistan, Tajikistan. This is for 300 million people. And can I just say something else, which is I'm not an economist. I've never done economics. But I do have, have a certain knowledge of history, it would have worked. It would actually have worked.

If you know anything at all about hyperinflation issues and monetary destabilization, and there's been lots and lots of examples of this, it's actually, if you provide that kind of fiscal backstop, it works. That's it. By the way, I had the strangest experience. And, you know, as a kid again in Bolivia, I helped basically gave a bit of the recipe how to stop a hyperinflation. And so I watched it in one week in August, 1985, so 40 years ago, it stopped from one week to the next by using the recipe, you know? My God, that's amazing. Obviously, you have to be the right cook to apply the recipe. I mean, I couldn't do it.

Yeah, you're going to do it. Professor Sachs could have done it, and that his team from Harvard at that time, could have done it. And it could have been done. And well, let's now come to the situation we have today, because we are now spending astronomical amounts of money on war, a wall, by the way, which in Ukraine we're losing. But we're not just losing the war in Ukraine. We are now seeing the basic cracks and breakdowns of the entire international financial and trading system.

And this is astonishing. And we see one decision coming after another. And we see the United States now getting more. Well, let's say the United States. The president and his administration getting more exasperated and governing basically by tantrum. And they are now threatening 100% tariffs against China. 100% tariffs against India. Today, the president talks about 25% tariffs on India.

And then he says he's going to impose a penalty on India. Above that, of course, we don't know what that's going to be, but it's all over the place, but the talks, the discussions are not going especially well. The sheer cost of this is going to be off the scale. But you know these countries. I believe you have just been to China, Professor Sachs. Can you tell us a little bit about what the people there are thinking about this whole situation?

First, the mentality of Trump is actually not different from Bush, Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama, Trump One, Biden. It's a lot cruder. It's all out there. No niceties. But the mentality, is dominance. And the mentality is Trump can make everybody dance to his tune. All he has to do is say jump and they'll say how high. Now, there's one party that is actually doing that. And that is Ursula van der Leyen and Europe. An unbelievable embarrassment for Europe, a disgrace, by the way. a humiliation, a capitulation, whatever you want to say. Europe, a 27 countries with 450 million people larger than the United States, the vital economic trading partner with the United States couldn't have the gumption

to say anything other than, well, he threatened us with more, so we got a good deal when they gave up everything. Unbelievable. The rest of the world, other than the pathetic European Commission, is not exactly in that way. Some countries are, of course, afraid. They're tactically trying to do something. But the major countries in the bricks are having none of it. And I think the most eloquent by far of the world leaders in this regard has been President Lula, who has said, we don't want an emperor.

We don't need an emperor. And the United States has no business interfering in our internal affairs. In particular, Trump has put on a 50% tariff on Brazil because he objects. to a process by an independent Brazilian judiciary against the former president that Trump happens to align with. It's unbelievable. Even King George III in his moments of madness did nothing like this. Trump's obstreperousness, obnoxiousness, arbitrariness, his claims of power to do anything to anybody, I think are certainly unprecedented in American history. By the way, just to add a footnote under something called the U.S. Constitution,

Article 1, Section 8, it says that the power to levy duties is a congressional power, not a presidential power. There's actually a case in Washington, right now where a lower court already ruled against Trump's powers, but our courts are almost as pathetic at the top as our Congresses. Congress has basically died or disappeared, and the Supreme Court looks like it may do the same thing in the end. So one person rule may become the U.S. rule. All of this is to say we have the arrogance of the U.S., but now it's a, in almost, you would call it a farce if it weren't so, it weren't so destructive and dangerous because it's in one person who does whatever he wants and thinks that he can make any demand

to any country. Now, China has very seriously said no. We're not going to do that. China is the only country that at a operational scale stood up to the United States, stood up to Trump. I think that's the right way to put it always, stood up to Trump. And Trump immediately back down because on the trade, so-called trade war, which is not really a trade war. It's a U.S. trade ambush against the rest of the world. It's not a war the two sides are engaged in. it's the United States trying to kneecap the world. But in any event, China said no, and China started to withhold the rare earth magnets and other crucial components of manufacturing, including automobile

manufacturing and including military manufacturing. And the United States backed down almost immediately. Now in the trade negotiations that just concluded without an agreement between the U.S. and China, the Treasury Secretary said that, assuming that Trump says so, it's likely that there will be a continued so-called trade truce. The United States doesn't hold the cards to bring China to its knees. Now, India is also threatened, as you said, with punitive sanctions and 25% tariffs and so forth. If India continues to buy oil from Russia after this 10-day deadline that Trump has unilaterally given, The Indian foreign minister said we have our sovereignty and we intend to use it.

I have to say that I was in India a few weeks ago. They were talking at the time that they have an inside track to a fast trade deal with the United States. And I told senior Indian leaders, don't count on it. You're dealing with a completely obstruly. Drepresent, completely untrustworthy counterpart. There will be no real settlement. I reminded India, they had a long period of subservience, let us say, to Western power. The United States has no intention of respecting India as an independent sovereign great power.

they only see India completely instrumentally as a potential piece in the game of the U.S. against Russia and China. And India is not going to play that role in my view. But in any event, I warn them, don't play that role. You will not get good results. So to my mind, the bricks really stand out as of great significance at this time. You can imagine small countries being very worried, not quite knowing what to do. But when you have India, China, Russia, Brazil, South Africa, which is having its own issues with the United States, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, these are substantial countries. They represent half the world's population.

If you look at all the BRICs aspirants, it's well over half the world's population. And they're basically in IR international relations language balancing against the delusional, increasingly delusional rants of the United States. The U.S. has power. It can cause a lot of damage, no doubt, but it cannot run the world. And the major powers are not going to let the U.S. run the world. Absolutely. No, just to say about India, I mean, just a few weeks ago, the US vice president, J.D. Vance, was in India. He was talking about India being this great friend of the United States and win-win cooperation. The president himself, Donald Trump, talked about India being a good friend. And then just a few hours later, he talks about India having a dead economy. How do you make friends in this way? How do you make good, long-standing, stable partnerships

when you say one thing one day about a country like India, a great country like India, a future great power like India? You call it a friend one day, you'd call it a dead economy the next. This is not the way to make stable relations with any country. And I'm sure that you're right to the Indians. are not going to follow into the path of subservience in exactly the same way that he said. Let's finish by talking about the European Union, because going back to what you were saying at the start of the programme, I mean, an even bigger beneficiary of economic stabilization,

monetary stabilization in the 1990s in Russia and the Soviet Union, would have been Europe. Look at us now. look at where we are now. We've got a war on our hands. We are losing that war. We are being asked to shell out money every day to Ukraine. And there's been a really good article, by the way, in the Financial Times today, which says that we have capitulated this year three times to President Trump. We've agreed, first of all, to increase our defence spending to 5% of GDP. Secondly, we've agreed to buy American weapons through NATO to supply to Ukraine. And now we've come up with this extraordinary deal, if it's a deal, with Ursula von the Lion, agreed with President Trump, 15% tariffs.

We made no attempts to push back against the Americans. The Americans, it seems, were surprised that we were so passive. It's not as if we have no tools, but we've also thrown in, we're going to spend $750 billion over three years buying oil and gas, which the United States can't supply. And we're going to invest another $600 billion in their economy. I mean, it's incredible that we are grinding the Americans, binding the Americans in this way, to basically demolish our own economy. But that's my views. Maybe I'm being a bit too passionate here. No, President Sachs. You're being completely accurate.

It's unbelievable what Europe is doing to itself, a kind of economic and political suicide. And I wonder whether Europe will roll out the red carpet when the United States literally invades Europe by landing troops in Greenland. And I would not put it past the United States. at all to do that. And I mean that all seriously and not in jest or I think that Trump might well decide to do that because Trump absolutely covets Arctic territory because he understands that the Arctic is a geopolitical area of growing importance. And Russia dominates the Arctic and the United States doesn't. It has a small piece of the Arctic above Alaska, and it covets Europe's Arctic coast. So in this sense, the United States is really a foe of Europe, and Europe is completely subservient.

Now, why? I think there are many reasons. We know how the United States basically has cold the European political class of independent leaders for decades. The U.S. has promoted those who would serve the U.S. purpose, and it has thrown away those that wouldn't. The U.S. has lots of ways to do this by giving all sorts of positions and advancements. Of course, part of Europe remains occupied with U.S. military forces, but there are many, many other ways now. National Endowment of Democracy and many other CIA operations and many others that have given a U.S. direct, say, in European politics for decades. But I think that there's another reason that is obvious, and that is this kind of russophobic idea of Europe,

which is completely wrong, completely not only a historical, but counter-historical. that we need the United States, otherwise Russia is going to overrun us. And as you pointed out, the 1990s and early 2000s were a period of growing, close, mutually beneficial economic relations between Europe and Russia, especially Germany and Russia. And that alarmed the United States, by the way. The whole approach of empire, as everybody knows, is divide et impera, divide and conquer. The United States would never allow Germany and Russia to get close together if it can divide them. Now, if Germany had normal political leadership, it would not allow itself to be divided.

Instead, it has Mertz. I don't even know what words to use with Mertz, but he's plummeting so fast in German approvals. he's not long there in the job in any event. But the point is there were demonstrated powerful mutually positive links. And as an economist, it's always been my by the way, successful strategy, if I may say so, to link countries with their neighbors. When I was asked to design Poland's economic reform to a market economy, the first thing that I was instructed was help Poland return to Europe, meaning the end of the Iron Curtain. But also my first approach was make the Polish currency convertible so you can trade between

Poland and Germany and start getting investments into Poland and start getting exports from Poland to Western Europe. And it worked. It worked very, very rapidly. And so Europe, if it had any economic sense at all, would understand that good, positive relations with Russia are exactly in Europe's interests in all accounts, technological, economic, financial, and geopolitical. Instead, you have Vanderlayen and you have Kayakhalas and you have Merch and you have Macron, You have Starmor declaring Russia the implacable enemy. And therefore, we must agree with everything that Daddy Trump tells us to do. We must do everything the United States says because otherwise we're going to be overridden by the Russians.

Are you kidding? This is how Europe is going to rule itself, such idiocy, such complete fantasy. But that's what's happening in my view. If Europe would just take a deep breath, understand a little history, understand a little bit about the United States, understand the actual events of the 1990s and 2000s, understand that Putin was looking for close relations with Europe. Ask Romano Prody, for example,

one of the closest interlocutors of President Putin in the first years of Putin's presidency. What was the relationship like? How close? How many times he turned to Romano Proti for close conversations, how he tried to strengthen the links with Europe. My God, this is anyone that has participated in this, knows this. But instead, we have a rampant russophobia, generated by the U.S. and UK for this crazy idea that big countries are enemies inherently and Europe is breaking itself to pieces on its knees just asking Donald,

what more can we do for you to abase ourselves further? That's how it's going. Professor Sachs, you've answered my questions wonderfully. Thank you for discussing, as I said earlier. I suspect difficult topics from the past, but doing so forthrightly. And can I just say I can remember you well from that time. I used to follow what was going on. I remember you going on British television.

Probably I remember interviews you were giving at that time, which you probably don't remember. And you were very measured in those days and very polite, much more so than today, but entirely in conformity with what you're saying now. I mean, I can remember that what you were saying then and what you're saying now in substance is exactly the same. And thank you also for telling us all these things about the situation today and where we are. So that's me.

I'm sure there's some questions. If you've got a little time, I'm just going to pass you over with you, Alex. Wonderful. Great to chat about this. Sure, absolutely. Okay, great. We have a couple of questions here for you. We'll start with Jeffrey Brown, who says,

I'm not sure if this is how you submit questions. Yes, it is. But here goes. Professor Sachs, I traveled in your country for about 11 weeks in 1993. I have often said that I fell deeply in love with your country, its geography, its people, even its cities. Did it change or did I fall for a chimera? or were we all tricked by an elite?

Wonderful question and very interesting. I'm in the Midwest today here for a family celebration. I was born in the Midwest in the Detroit area. I should add, the new Pope is from the south side of Chicago. You know, the Midwest to me was a wonderful place to grow up. decent people, nice community. Of course, we had one overarching problem in America then, and until today, a lot of racism. And so that was, I grew up in the civil rights era.

But acknowledging that, and let me acknowledge that, the United States was a, what was a decent, positive place where people went about their lives. looked forward to the future with confidence, believed in their government. And that you can also find demonstrated in opinion surveys. The collapse of those beliefs came in the 1960s and early 1970s. President Kennedy's assassination, I think, was the end of that America, actually, because I regarded as a CIA coup. And I think the evidence becomes quite overwhelming over the next 60 years, including documents released just a few weeks ago showing that James Angleton, head of counterintelligence of the CIA,

was basically running Lee Harvey Oswald as an intelligence asset in the years leading up to the assassination, something denied for 60 years. But the point is the U.S. lost its innocence. if I could put it that way. I think several things happened that changed. The most important is what Dwight Eisenhower warned the American people on January 17, 1961, in his farewell addressed, when he said that the military industrial complex was a danger to American way of life. And that was 64 years ago.

the military industrial complex took over the U.S. government basically during this period. We could watch it. Again, I just explained at some length. I didn't really understand it fully year by year, step by step, although I came to understand it as I got older and more experienced and understood history better. But I think that that was the number one change. Just like the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire when it essentially became a military state in 27 BC. I think the United States became a military state. Maybe you could date it to November 22nd, 1963. But in any event, this was the first thing that happened. The second thing that happened, and it's true of probably all political systems, they become corrupted unless they are somehow refreshed.

And America's politics became completely money infested progressively. It's not always been like that. We had peaks of corruption in the 1890s. It was cleansed, I would say, by the progressive era from 1900 to 1920. We had another round of massive financial corruption and speculation in the 1920s. Franklin Roosevelt helped to cleanse that in the 1930s. I think I grew up in an era of somewhat relative good feeling in the 1950s and 60s, but then politics became corrupted by a series of deliberate actions to put big money back into politics,

especially the Supreme Court in a series of rulings, but quite deliberately as part of a political movement, because the justices were put in for this purpose, like Lewis Powell, said that corporate giving in politics, so-called giving, was free speech and therefore could not be restricted. And American elections became cesspools of money. This time, Silicon Valley bought the presidency for Donald Trump, not even subtle anymore. We had a prime minister for a few months, Elon Musk, who helped to finance the whole campaign. So this is basically the two things that wrecked America from the 1945 post-war period. It is the security state, the military industrial complex, the CIA, and all of its nefarious and covert activities, the secrecy of government around the military industrial complex, the $1.5 trillion a year of military and security-related spending. In other words, it dwarfed the civilian government

and the corruption. And they go hand in hand. So these are the two dynamics. But your sense is right. And by the way, here I am in the Midwest. lots of good memories are coming back to me, lots of nice people around. Americans don't support what's going on, by the way. They don't support the genocide by Israel and the Middle East. They don't support the war in Ukraine. But they're not asked at all. We don't have a democracy about foreign policy.

We don't even have a democracy about domestic policy, but we don't have a democracy about foreign policy at all. So what you're seeing in the United States is a complete elite capture of power and a very corrupted one. You have time for one more question. I know you have an hour hard stop, but one more question, Professor Sacks. From Sticky Marks, does Professor Sacks think there is any possibility of those people who are responsible for their abuses of power and what they've done to face consequences? Unless they are, they will get away with all their atrocities, fiscal and military. No, I don't think there will be personal accountability, but there could be a turn to the better.

So that I would never discount. I don't think it will come through personal accountability. Basically, the U.S. government does not represent either the interests or the opinions of the American people. So we have a democracy in form, but only in form. I think the same is true in Europe. Show me a politician in Europe that has any public support. Starmer, you can barely go lower. Macron, you can barely go lower because just randomly anyone can get 10% support, and these people have 20% support or something like that. Merck's is going to soon arrive at the same level because these politicians are not reflecting the public. Our so-called democratic institutions are not democratic. Who the heck, excuse me, is Ursula van der Leyen to negotiate this capitulation

to the United States? Unreal. And so in this sense, this is the hope for the better in that this is not the evil of the American people. It is a failure of politics. Now, I have to say, there's no guarantee it gets better. The argument that it would get better is that it is contrary to the interests, to the needs, and to the desires of the American people. And they know it. We're all very unhappy with government today. Donald Trump, president, Oh my God. Of course he's got backers, but he doesn't have a majority of the public behind him. That's why he's ruling by decree, not by votes of Congress. Everything is one-person rule because he could not get these things through public deliberation at all. The one big beautiful bill is a monstrosity made in the back rooms without any public understanding or deliberation whatsoever.

Just a gift to the richest Americans, massive budget deficits and all of the problems around that. So the hope is that we restore government for the people in Europe and the United States. It's possible. It's also true, I have to say. history shows it doesn't necessarily go from bad to good. It can go from bad to worse. The Roman Republic never reoccurred. After the end of the Roman Republic, traditionally dated to 27 BC, there never again was a Roman Republic.

There was only the end of the Western Roman Empire in 476. So it became military rule from then on until it's, disintegration in the West. So I don't guarantee it, but it's worth working for a return to government for the people. Thank you, Professor Sachs, for joining us on the Duran. Great to be with you guys. Thank you very much again. Thank you. Pleasure to be with both of you. And you're doing such great daily work, honestly. It's absolutely phenomenally important what you're doing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Take care. Bye-bye. Wow.

Alexander. $150 billion over five years. And that's just said, we now have Schmigal asking for $120 billion just to cover Ukraine's, this is just Ukraine spending money for one year. I mean, where are we getting to? How did we ever get into this mess? He's going to get the money too. Oh, absolutely.

Of course he's. And Zelensky's asking for 60, isn't he? Absolutely, absolutely, yes. So Zelensky's asking for 60. Schmigel's asking for 120. Ursula's going to give, allegedly give 600 to the U.S. They're going to purchase $750 billion in energy, which even if the U.S. just can't even give that,

can't sell that much energy. It doesn't happen. And we got to deal with South Korea to purchase another $100 billion in the U.S. L.J. I mean, I don't. I mean, these numbers now are just getting completely unreal. Yeah. $150 billion in 1990.

And can I just say repeat it again? Because I've looked at the history of how to overcome financial crises. You really want a good example. Go to what happened in Germany in the mid-20s and see how the hyperinflation there both started and how it was ended. the steps that the Reich Bank took to bring it all under control. $150 billion then would have done it. They'd have done it. It could have been done.

Yeah. Smigo, by the way, the former Prime Minister of Ukraine, now the new defense minister. Now the new defense minister is asking. Yeah. Okay. Let's get to the questions. We have a lot of good questions.

Absolutely. To get to. Yeah. And let's start with Commander Crossfire, who says, the price of empire may very well be the empire itself. True enough. Commander Crossfire also says, is there 5D chess in the US lashing out at everyone everywhere at the same time,

but the cost of empire, the middle class, and the leader, the middle class and the latter to get there, sorry. I can't see where this 5D chess is. I mean, if this is a cunning game of chess, then it's so cunning, but I've just completely lost track of what. happening i mean how does it make sense to send vance to india i think it was in april and having you know talk to the indians about what a great relationship we have and then to call india a friend

and then the following a few hours later turn around and talk about them as a dead economy i mean it to me this is not five d chess it's it's it's it's chaos yeah i don't know foreign policy via truth social posts i mean maybe there is some 10 D chess in there. I don't know. I don't see it. I don't see it, but foreign policy via Lindsay Graham and social media. Niko says, I saw John Meerschimer's interview with Tucker and I got to say I am increasingly opposed to his views while he says some right stuff. He always underestimates others while overestimating the U.S. last I checked the U.S. spent 20 years in Afghanistan to go from the Taliban to the Taliban.

The Ukraine war is a war of conquest, something the U.S. hasn't fought since the Korean War. It takes effort. I am more of the Larry Johnson-Jephyr-Sachs thought instead of this nihilism. There are three superpowers in the world now that can coexist with respect to Mr. Meersheimer. He just hates communism in the USSR and China. Personally, I believe China isn't better militarily than Russia or the US because they haven't been tested. They don't project power other than their economy. That doesn't mean the U.S. should go to war with them as John believes.

Well, I agree with your sentiments about your criticisms of mere time. I haven't seen the interview with Tucker, so I can't comment about it. But, I mean, about your sentiments overall, yes, I am in agreement. And I do agree with you also, by the way, that it is really strange. to have people criticize Russian military performance in Ukraine when the Russians are obviously winning the war there. And when our own experience of wars that we've conducted in the West has been so completely unsuccessful. But as I said, I don't want to say more because I do intend to watch this interview, obviously. And I want to see what exactly he has to say.

Haruka, thank you for that super chat. William says, has the Western world ever been so badly governed over the past 100 years? This is not a rhetorical question, but I would like your thoughts. Well, no. I mean, obviously, you've had some very dark periods. The 1930s and 1940s was an extremely dark period, but there were always beacons of light. I mean, you had extraordinary leaders, Franklin Roosevelt in the United States, De Gaulle, and Churchill in France and Britain. You had heroic people in Germany who resisted.

You had all kinds of things going on. I've never known a time as when the level of incompetence and stupidity it has sunk to the levels that we see today. Maybe, you know, if you go back to the dark ages before, you know, after the fall of Rome, things were as bad then. But I've never known anything like this now. Howza asks, not sure if I'm right, but to me it looks like the BRICS countries react to threats from Trump like they were coming from Kaya Kowas. Well, I know what you were saying.

But I mean, so far up to this time, I haven't seen a single BRIC state waiver. And I'm going to make a guess that probably at some point over the next few months, there's going to be another emergency summit of the BRICS. probably they're all going to go to China in September. Xi Jinping, Putin will be there. I'm guessing Lula will be there too. Some of the others, maybe. And they will come up together with some kind of organized response to this. Nikos asks, I wanted to talk to you about the topic of the Russian population in your video.

So far, they have 144 million people. And the fertility rate is 1.47. my second alexander i just lost yeah the the chat just jumped easy easy yeah it happens yeah uh 1.47 found my place uh that rate is not too bad and it's very slowly rising these but this data doesn't include the three million in cremea five million in dombas and five million ukraine refugees in russia doesn't that infusion help yes it does that infusion help yes it does Russia should just import people from ex-Soviet countries who become Russians the easiest. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are good choices.

Yeah, well, I mean, there's a lot of discussion about this. I mean, first of all, there's a major difference, obviously, between people who come from Central Asia and people who come from Ukraine and places like that. Because obviously, Ukrainians are Slavs, Russians are Slavs. They're seen as fraternal people, people who come from Central Asia. Yes, they do have a shared history. Most of them speak Russian. but they are not Russians in the same way that Russians are.

If you go to Russia and you see people there, and I'm not pushing this, there's a lot of integration, but you can also see the difference. I think that the Russian government does want to raise the birth rate. And I agree it is not as bad as it has now become in several European countries, about pretty much all of the European countries, but it is still well below replacement levels. And yes, there has been Crimea joining and Donbass joining

and probably more regions of Ukraine joining, all of these people from Ukraine. And the real population of Russia is probably significant, at least the number of the people who live in Russia is probably well in excess of 140 million. It could be more like 160 million, maybe. I mean, I'm just taking numbers out of the air. But I suspect that the Russians will tell you that's still not enough.

And they are worried about their demographic situation. Putin talks about it all the time. And at least they're trying to do something about it. Commander Crossfire says the system isn't broken. It is by design. Those that made it are still the powerful. The EU leadership cared not for the people, nor do, the US theirs.

You're making a very important point, which is that in spite of all that's happened since basically the 2016 Brexit referendum, which is the moment when challenges began to appear, despite all of that, the system is still in control. And whilst it is in control, he continues to lead us into these extraordinary directions. Yeah, Annalina said it best. We don't care what the voters think. She said it. Yeah, Marcus Kasperzik says, bring on chairman Haas al-Din ACP at some point.

Many are talking about the coming geopolitical flood. He's building the arc that I think might work. Okay. Thank you for that. William says, I believe the sanctions against Russia were finalized in Versailles. Did nobody think? Thank you. That is an absolutely brilliant one, actually.

I might have that on to protest the tax, actually. Neil Mehta says, UK, France, and Canada are now going to recognize a Palestinian state. Is this more than a gesture? Does this change anything in Gaza? We've done a program about this, and maybe we shouldn't anticipate what the program will say. It will come out fairly soon, a couple of days maybe. But in the short term, it's tokenism. It's not going to change the situation.

on the ground in the medium to long term it may make a real difference probably not in the way that Macron's starmer khani possibly maths intend but it gets them out of immediate political difficulties florina says why in this case was Romania punished for having paid in full its external debt good question um i've not really i'm not able to say exactly um it why it's why it happened that way, but Romania never had the kind of traction in the United States, by the way, in Britain as well, the Poland did. People have a kind of romantic sense of attachment to Poland. To some extent, I have it, by the way. I mean, I've always had a particular fondness for Poland, and I take an interest in its history. But it does affect decision-making.

and perhaps not always in a way that's fair to others. Sahir, thank you for that super chat. Sparky says, question Professor Sacks, when you sit down at the Columbia lunchroom with your beloved colleagues, Victoria Nulet and Hillary Clinton, what do you talk about? Well, I would love to know.

I don't think, in fairness, we should ask. I think he's answered that in the past, that they don't, yeah. They don't meet. They don't see each other, yeah. Columbia is a pretty big place if you've been there. I have, by the way. Yeah, I remember he mentioned that in a previous live stream, Sparky.

Yeah. Nico says, I am sorry, but Gorbachev was a moron and he destroyed Russia. The only good thing he did was giving Putin a job because, let's face it, he gets a kick out of running Russia, top five Russian leaders. Well, Gorbachev, as far as I know, didn't know Putin or give him a job. I mean, Putin throughout Gorbachev, Stein, was a official of the working for the KG, I believe in its legal department. I don't believe he was ever a spy or anything like that. The question of Gorbachev and his role in history is one that is going to be controversial

and written about for ages and ages. Nikos, what I will say is this. You've had one view from Professor Sachs. If you go to Russia and speak to people there, you will find many, many people who share your view. Do you think Yeltsin paved the way for Putin as a way to make up for the stuff he did? I think partly, yes. I mean, I remember Jeltsen very well. I mean, he was a haunted

man throughout the time when he was president of Russia. He didn't, I think, expect or imagine things to turn out the way they did. And I think he was very guilt-written about it. In fact, we know that he made at least one, perhaps two suicide attempts. So I think he was looking for somebody who would be, who would rescue the situation.

But I think there were a awful lot of things going on in Russia at that time. And to this day, we've never been provided with a full story of how Putin emerged. Klaus says, what do you think about Zelensky rolling back the corruption law? Is his credibility back? No. I think it's damaged. I mean, I think what happened, the reason is Zelensk, I mean, he's passed a law today.

Exactly what he says. I want to see the law and I want to see what others are writing about this. But if he's done it, it's not because a few people, a few thousand people protested. It is because the European Union threatened to hold funding back. And that is the one thing that. will unnerve Zelensky most. Alex has discussed this many times, you know, that ultimately the whole thing is about keeping the money flowing into Ukraine. This is the priority. This is what glues together the entire system there. It's ultimately the grift that has to go on and nothing

must stand in the way. Big Wyman, thank you for that super sticker. Commando Crossfire says the fighting in Ukraine is over the hearts of minds of Russian people, scattered and broken by the collapse of the Great Union. Victory will not be found on the field of battle. A lot of people are saying this, including in Russia itself, and there's widespread understanding there, and very widespread understanding there. I heard it when I was there, by the way, in St. Petersburg, that the greatest challenge will be when the war is over to sort of bring all of these different parts of the Russian world, the Ruski-Mir, together again,

and to bring about reconciliation between them. Matthew says, I ask this all the time, but can you please explain why you believe that Trump won't be maneuvered into a war with Russia, escalation coming up, and you always say the neo-competion, have no reverse gear. No, I agree with that, but I think also that, first of all, I think Trump really does not want to walk with Russia. I mean, I get the sense that he understands very well,

how dangerous that would be. But I think beyond that, and I think we saw that during the 12-day war between the United States in Iran, there are major political constraints on Trump as well. the people of the United States and do not want war and the anti-war sentiments in the United States now have a political organization, one which was instrumental in getting Trump into the White House and one which he knows he cannot win against. Yeah. Nitzschwich says changing something into something new may seem easy in hindsight, but going that path is surely not. It surely not.

Gourby made big mistakes, but still having courage to change is very brave, I think. Well, it was very brave, and it wasn't easy, and I've never said it was easy. And again, I don't want to give the impression that economic monetary stabilization in Russia and the Soviet Union in 1990, in 1990. would have been easy. As I said, if I'd been appointed finance minister, I couldn't have done it. But it could have been done. It needed the right technocrats to do it. And the one thing, by the way, Russia is not short of ever is good technocrats. It could have been done. Commander Crossfire says, to be fair, every Russian leader, Peter, Alexander, Stalin, Putin, all came to the West on almost

bended knee asking for peace and union. It's time Russia learned. It's true. I mean, this is, this goes all the, I mean, you make absolutely correct point. The Russians themselves talk about this. And there's a big debate now in Russia saying, you know, is this period,

which basically started with Peter the Great, has it now finally ending? There's always been contrary voices. Dostoevsky, by the way, was one. He said that Russia is far too heavily involved with the West. And he was saying that in the 1880s. So, you know, there's always been a contrary narrative that's pushed back against this. But for the first time, perhaps, it's gaining the ascendancy.

Nico says we always talk about how bad Gorbachev was. But what about Brezhnev and Khrushchev? I personally despise Khrushchev for his impulsiveness and decisions. How would you rank the leaders from Lenin to Putin? Good question. Well, I mean, Lenin was the revolutionary. Stalin was the great tyrant, but also the great, you know, state builder. Discussing those two leaders is going to take forever.

One day we will return to our historical. proper program, we'll discuss those better. I think Khrushchev played a key role in ending the terror and, you know, giving people political space and, you know, stabilising the situation in that way. And as a Brezhnev, I'm going to say this. Eventually, his system did evolve into stagnation. but there was a time when it did provide a kind of prosperity. And if you think about what Russia had been through in the 50 years before Rejanov, the First World War, the Revolution, the Civil War, the terror of Stalinstein, collectivization, the Second World War, the start of the Cold War,

de-Stylization under Khrushchev. where you can understand why Brezhnev coming along and saying, look, we've got to keep them stable. We've got to have some normalcy. Why that was perhaps not just welcome, but even necessary. Elsa says... I mean, let me return to that. Just think what it would have been like.

You have been someone born in Russia in 1900, living through to about 1985, when basically the Brezhnev system ended. For you, if you'd lived through that time, the Brezhneuf era would have been the time of peace. Because everything else that went before was so chaotic and so difficult and so violent and so dangerous. Elsa says Trump didn't go to Brussels,

but Ursula had to come to meet His Majesty Trump at his golf course. Same with Stammer, pathetic. Absolutely. By the way, Stama has done more damage. to himself through that press conference. I mean, he was utterly humiliated by it. He hardly got a word in and he looked throughout it as if he didn't want to be that. Yeah. Empire We Are says the bloodless coup of 1947 was cemented with the Kennedy assassination. The deep state hasn't looked back since. Yeah. Well, have you heard what Professor Sacks said to say?

Industrial farting complex says, how do we young people reestablish popular sovereignty and end end the long 20th century. Good question. I am not going to give advice to young people. I belong in, I mean, I was born in 1961, very much in the 20th century. All I will say is that, you know, what was it somebody said, when change seems impossible, it becomes unavoidable. And I think there will be change and it will be young people who will be young people who will, will have to shape it and who will have to make sure that what we get is better than what we have. Sparky says, question, Professor Sachs, do you know Brown University's political economist Mark Blythe,

shouldn't he replace Scott Bess and Blythe can recover an economy without subjecting people to brutal austerity? It's a question that we'd have to put to Professor Sacks, because I don't know what his answer would be, and I don't know very much about Professor Blythe either. Enis Mansoor says, keep up the good work. Lads, as an al-O-white, I wanted to say thank you for continuing to talk about the Western back tragedy in Syria and the assault on its minorities, especially Alex, is one of the biggest tragedies. It is, absolutely. It is a terrible tragedy. And Alex's coverage has been exception.

We have contact with a lot of people in Syria in Cyprus who tell me exactly what is happening on the ground in Syria. and it's pretty horrific. Yes. By the way, just to quickly finish on that, there has been an extraordinary article in Reuters which is trying to sugarcoat the situation. But it basically made it clear that there's a small committee

made up of members of Al Jolani's family headed by his brother that operates from within the building of the central bank and they are basically carving up the various Syrian state assets and are enriching themselves on the back of the,

They destroyed Syria And they're not letting a lot of people leave either No Stephen G says the cost of empire Is it getting too expensive? Yeah Well, it's becoming exorbitantly expensive Yeah

Nikolai says we haven't heard about Zelensky's 12 point planned for some time Any updates? Good question. I don't think anybody pays much attention to that anymore Yeah Or the rare earth mineral deal? No.

All right. What happened to that? What happened to that? Marcus says, turns out doomsday preppers are right, but maybe we should do that collectively rather than building individual bunkers. Centrally share experiences and analysis. Our rulers are not going to save us. Yeah. Yes.

O.G. Wall says, question, what is the origin of the name Duran? One day, we will talk about that. Jungle Jin says Britain's hatred of Russia because of its size makes sense of an otherwise mysterious antagonism. It's still very mysterious to me, actually. I encounter it every day, by the way. I mean, it's something that is very difficult to understand. Jungle Jin says McGovern's answer about 9-11 was most interesting Ray McGovern from last live stream. Principal of uncertainty says.

the left and right mutual interest in opposing the UK online safety bill, the safety bill cooked by the Tories served by Keir. We got to do a video on that, Alex. Everyone's talking about this. I haven't looked too much into it, have you? I know quite a lot about it, and I get an awful lot more. Bear in mind that, of course, I'm right in the eye of the storm, if I can put it like that.

But absolutely, we do. Yeah, I think it needs an analysis because I understand. It's also piggy banking off of Australia. Yeah, absolutely. Internet restrictions as well. Absolutely. You need to also understand that everything dovetails together in British law. So you have this, you have the Terrorism Act 2000s, you have all kinds of other public order acts.

They're all coming into play. Everything interconnects with each other. It's a darkening picture altogether. All right. Principle, then certainty, we'll do in the next couple of days, we'll do a video on the safety books. I just said I sometimes, well, that's interesting, because I sometimes worry that because I'm based in Britain, we cover Britain too much. So if people want to talk about it, I'd be delighted to. I don't know if the chat wants us to do a video.

I think we should because I'm seeing a lot of coverage on it. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I haven't really gotten into it too much, but I will over the weekend. Yes. Istanbul MPW Capital says truth. you all have egg on your faces except Brian. I don't criticize Brian. All I would say is this. I mean, Trump said

certain things and it's turned out otherwise. I mean, we were never holy souls on it succeeding. I think that's the other thing to say. Anyway, sticky marks says, if General's Illusione gets to be Goblin, the war goes on. won't accept him. So Nabu, Vander Crazy Slush Fund, too, awaiting my tass. We are going to, we've done a, we're going to be publishing another discussion, which is going to look into the whole question of General Zillusioni, the new savior of Ukraine, inverted Congress.

Right. From Ronald B., it has been charged that your advice on Russia, this is addressed to Professor Sachs, But I think you've answered this in the past as well, Alexander, that your advice to Russia on going into a market economy resulted in the rise of the oligarchs. The oligarchs bought to national industries at a cheap price and thereby achieved a monopolistic control over production. That system resulted in decades of shortages and recessions in Russia.

What is your response to the charge that your advice resulted in this situation? Well, okay, I can't obviously. We've talked about this in the past. We have talked about this. Look, I'm not going to answer this on behalf of Professor Sam. But I'm going to simply say this. I mentioned during our program before, earlier in our program, when we were Professor Sarkis, that I can actually remember,

I guess I have a very good memory. People will agree I have a very good memory. I remember interviews that he gave at the time, probably some interviews that he has himself forgotten. And I remember one interview he gave on British television back in 1992, which I think addresses the very specific question of privatisation, which is, I suspect, what you're talking about. Basically, this is what he said.

This is what he said at the time. I remember it well. It stayed with me. Firstly, that privatising the mineral extraction industries, the oil industry, the gas industry, those sort of things, was wrong. It shouldn't be done. These are too important to providing revenue

to the government if it would be a major mistake to privatise them. Privatising the big industries, the other industries, would be a problematic at any time given their importance to the Russian economy and should only happen when there is a general consensus about it. Thirdly, the vouchers, the shares for vouchers scheme, he didn't like it at all. saying what he said in 1992. And lastly, that the whole question of privatisation was a terrible distraction from the overriding priority, which was achieving economic stabilization. So he was against it.

I think that's what I really want to say. I mean, that was, as I said, he spoke much more measuredly and much more politely than he does now. But it was absolutely clear to me at the time that he was against it. He saw it as a distraction from the monetary and financial stabilization that needed to happen. And had that happened then, and he was entirely focused on that, then, of course, what happened later, you know, what Russia does with the way it organizes its industries is a matter for Russians, not for him. That was his view. And he always gets confused, by the way, with other people than the West who were advocating privatization at the time.

As I said, he thought this was a mistake at that time. And, of course, it was those people who prevailed. Yeah. Keith Alcoq says Gorbachev struck me as more of a classical Western liberal than a committed Soviet socialist and the imperialist. Am I off base with this perception? Well, I think to some extent you are and to some extent you're not. Gorbachev was a very complicated man who was himself on a journey. And the Gorbachev, who was elected general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee in March 1985,

was a very different man from the man that Jeffrey Sachs encountered back in 1990. Just saying. Matthew says with the decline of Western financial institutions, will there be a bubble burst in asset values like housing? Surely this cannot go on. I personally think there will be. I think that the situation in the US economy is steadily becoming more unstable. This is a big topic as it happens again.

We've touched on it in another program, which will be coming out soon. wait and see what we say there, but maybe it's also a program where we need to talk about this specifically. But in economics, it's always a question of one's own opinions. And, you know, I want to make it clear, I'm not giving any hard and fast advice or saying that this will happen on any particular day. Jay Basman says, Professor Sacks, private wealth in the West is a small pool of individuals who do little to improve the overall standards of living of the national population in contrast with the global South investing and building the wealth of their countries and therefore raising the living standards of the population.

That ideological and philosophical divergence is apparent in the situation. I see living in the West plainly. I forgot to ask if my observation is valid. Is this observation? Well, I don't think he would much disagree with you. about the way in which a lot of private wealth is being used today. I mean, you know, you mustn't say private wealth per se is bad because I don't think it is.

I mean, I think there are genuine entrepreneurs, people who build up real businesses, who employ people, who add to the general prosperity. We've seen that happen in Western countries. We saw that happen in the United States. But I can see that there's an awful lot gone wrong in the system. Again, Professor Sachs is perhaps a better person to discuss the details of that than me. Elsa says, what will be the stuff in Trump's tariff, Armageddon?

What will be the stuff? Yeah, Trump said tariffs and stuff in a recent statement is what is going to happen. You know, I'm losing, I'm losing track of what he's saying, to be honest. Well, I don't know. Yeah, no one knows, yeah. Dane, Nobody the Fourth, thank you for a super sticker. Sir Mug's game says, in record time, Trump, the EU peacemaker, has transmogrified into EU grave robber. This is what comes from empire building.

Breakers, not out. Yes. I'm going to just add something else. I mean, don't be surprised if in six months time, Trump flips again. I mean, it's far from impossible. You know, if it all goes wrong, if Russia goes on winning in Ukraine, if China and India don't play, you know, don't capitulate to him, which I'm sure they won't do. He might start shifting ground again, especially if there are problems in the US economy.

And then, you know, we could revert to Wickoff making more visits to Moscow and coming up with all sorts of plans and who knows what. So don't assume that the Trump we're seeing now is the Trump we're always going to have. Yeah. No doubt Wickev and Vance have been sidelined when it comes to Ukraine and Russia. They've been completely. For the moment, absolutely. Notice that Vance is keeping very, very quiet.

He's made comments about the EU committing suicide, which is an interesting comment, actually. He wasn't talking about economics. it's not difficult to see what you were saying yeah nikolai says the soviet political leadership was able to reflect on their flaws and rectify them think of de-stalinization or kherstroyka is the EU ruling class capable of doing the same well actually i'm glad you made that point because you're absolutely right to this and the answer about the EU is no absolutely not i mean people say you know that they're as bad as the soviet union in some respects they're worse Do you even, can you imagine Kayokalus reflecting on all of this?

No, I don't think she's capable of reflecting on this stuff. Jungle Jinn says destalinization was the first crack in the USSR that even World War II in the Cold War couldn't achieve. Well, I mean, there's lots of issues about this. I mean, most people who live through the Soviet Union remember our destonization as a at a good time. This is a thing to say. The 1950s under

Khrushchev were a time which people who lived through it remember well that the terror had ceased. The Gulag had been shrunk. There was a degree of prosperity.

The economy was growing fast. The country was launching it was pioneering the exploration of space. it's remembered as a time of optimism. Samuel Moroni says, after Ukraine second great northern war incoming? Good question.

Possibly in the Baltics and all sorts of things. I mean, people in Scandinavia and in Germany are going crazy, is my opinion. And they're thinking all kinds of dangerous things and talking about Kaliningrad. And we did a program about it as well. Neil Medas says, guys, it would be interesting to have Tucker on the Duran. He's what indeed. Yeah.

We've tried to get in touch, but no success. Okay, I think that's everything, Alexander. Yeah, yeah. Well, it was a great life stream. Absolutely fantastic live stream. And as I said, it's just to repeat again, 150 billion dollars over five years and it might have bought his peace all right it's perhaps double that today more than double that today but even that let's say it's 350 billion dollars

better than what we're throwing away now give a hundred billion here a hundred billion there i mean it's it's just incredible yeah but people are making a lot of money off of that oh some people are making that's right 150 billion might have bought us peace and stability but it will have meant that a lot of not a lot a small amount of people would have not made these of these incredible profits exactly that's absolutely true that is that that actually is probably the the answer to the riddle you've just heard it all right we will we will end it there thank you to everyone that watched us on uh on odyssey on rock fin rumble youtube and Durand.locals.com.

Definitely check out our locals page, everybody. And thank you to our moderators. Valies, in the house. Harry, in the house. Brett, good to have you here, Brett and Peter as well. Thank you to our moderators. And I think I got everybody that was moderating today. Alexander, we've got some more videos to publish.

We certainly do. All right. Take care, everybody. Thanks.