Transcription
The more the United States government, whether it's Trump or whoever, uh, uses and abuses the exorbitant privilege that the dollar payment system gives them, the more of the world's wealth is going to shift to the Chinese-based system.
If you're any other country on on planet Earth here and you're trying to make a decision, who should be my central ally, America or BRICS? Because that's now the conversation, right? That's kind of a no-brainer because like America's out of control. We start these nonsensical wars. We bomb your, you know, Nordstreams and make your life more uncomfortable. We threaten to invade our own allies.
When the war continues, the economic effects will not be small. They will be cataclysmic. Um, I feel like uh I'm on the deck of the Titanic and I'm screaming my head off iceberg straight ahead.
My calculation is that um you know the average blue collar worker that voted for Trump is already paying $500 $600 more for energy.
Today I'm talking to Janice Farafakis and Jenk Yuga. Janis Farafakis is an economist and was formerly the finance minister of Greece. is a professor of economic theory in a university in Athens and has held multiple academic positions in different universities in including King's College London, University of Cambridge and the University of Sydney. He has also co-founded Democracy in Europe movement 2025 and Progressive International. And he is also the co is also the author of several books. Jen Cuga is the founder and host of the Young Turpps, a progressive news show which has over 27 million subscribers across social media platforms and with their content being viewed over 29 billion times. Thank you so much for joining Anis and Jenk.
Um, if we can just start with you, how much economic harm has the continued closure of the streets done to the world economy?
Well, enormous, but it depends on where you're standing. So you know if uh your livelihood depends on uh uh food production and there is a massive shortage of fertilizers um if um you you depend on uh natural gas from the Gulf to cook and run your restaurant in Bangladesh or wherever in the United States for that matter. Uh the effects are going to be detrimental in the long run not just in the medium term. even if um everything goes back to normal which I don't see happening uh yesterday the reperc the secondary and tertiary effects are going to mount but having said that allow me to make the point that something really strange is happening uh especially in the United States economy uh whereas after you know you know the great financial collapse uh covid it took a long while for the stock exchange to recover uh it took more than 1,000 days in those events in after Ukraine um it took um a very long time again for you know stocks to recover after the bombs started raining down on Iran in what is considered by most commentators around the world uh you know the utter and ultimate folly on behalf of um Donald Trump. Nevertheless, you know, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ recovered within 12 days and unlike in the case of the 2022 invasion of uh Ukraine by Putin. Uh the result of which was that after 10 weeks uh uh stocks were down the stocks of the of companies worth more than 10 billion were down by something like 2.5 trillion. Uh now 10 weeks after the war in Iran commenced uh they're up by 5.6 trillion. So a lot of people are making a lot of money. Well not a lot of people a very tiny proportion of the population are making a lot of money but there are quite a few in absolute terms who are laughing all the way to the bank. uh especially AI the AI industry the splurge is continuing which is slightly you know puzzling because uh both microchips are becoming dear and the energy of a very energyintensive industry uh is going up but nevertheless they are doing really very well the perian oil frighting business is you know that's a godsend for them because between 20 2023 and 2025 the Perian basin was in trouble and they are part of the MAGA base. Um now they are you know they actually it's too good for them. They would like the price of oil to stabilize at around 1995 because beyond that um cost push inflation is pushing down the demand for their for their wares. So this is it's a tale of two worlds. the tiny world of plutoaucrats uh that um Trump cares mostly about including realtors they are doing magnificently well as a result of this of old war in Iran. Uh and then there is the vast majority of Americans including people in the MAGA movement. So you see there is a class war happening uh across the world in the United States and within the MAGA movement.
So you're talking about currently what's happening as a repercussion where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer or not just the poor but everyone else really long term. You said you said you see a lot of effects long term. What other effects worldwide do you see long term?
Well look there's so much um bad news that I don't want to darken the soul of our listeners and our viewers more than I have to. So I'm going to give you the silver lining of all this and the silver lining is that uh comrade Trump this is in inverted commas comrade okay um has been the greatest uh boon for the green transition which is you know um a remarkable irony. uh the man who refuses to acknowledge climate uh change, the man who does everything in his power to uh deepen our dependency on fossil fuels is the man who through the war in Iraq or Iraq. Oops. Sleep of the tank through the war in Iran is um um helping the green transition already. Already already, you know, countries in Africa are decoupling from both the dollar payment system and the fossil fuel industry. Countries like Ethiopia banned the importation of all internal combustion vehicles from buses to to um to motorcycles. uh countries like Pakistan they are electrifying you know they are importing all those very cheap extremely efficient uh solar panels from China so you have the bifurcation of the world economy you have states that are becoming electoral states and other states like mine in Greece who are you know because we are effectively a colony of the United States and party of Israel um you know we are we we're effectively being you know um we find our hands our arms tied up with uh you know chains made by Chevron and uh and Exxon Mobile. Um, so you know, it's it I think it's going to be noted by future economic historians this war in Iran by Trump as a major tipping point that um encourage uh decoupling from the fossil fuel industry.
Jenk, what's your thoughts on Iran and how do you think it's gone? Has it gone well, bad? What do you think?
Yeah, my views are actually slightly darker than Giannis's. So, first I'll start with the economy and then I'll go to the war and of course they're interrelated. So, uh Giannis is of course right uh that you got the short-term consequences, gas prices, you got the midterm consequences now food prices and all of inflation. And we saw that this morning, huge inflation number. I I can't believe people are surprised by it. I I mean, you got to give Donald Trump credit. He is such a great BSER, uh, such a terrific con man that people are like, "Oh my god, when gas prices skyrocket, uh, inflation goes up." Of course it does. We learned that the first day of Econ 101. And yet he, oh, the war is almost over. We're doing great. We're doing great. And I guess Wall Street believed it. That's insane. It's insane to me. So now the long-term consequences even if the war were to end now is uh well when you have that kind of high inflation then you uh can't lower interest rates. In fact you probably have to increase interest rates which then causes more of an economic downturn. You risk stagflation. You've got more unemployment and that puts uh the economy potentially in a tail spin. So we're already there. Okay. But the reason my view is darker is because I'm at this point 99% positive that we're going back into the war. And if we do, there's only so long this fantasy can last. So the stock market is crazed. I I think they've lost their minds. I think they're detached from reality. And so they're saying, and I've now talked to a number of people in America. I know when a bubble's about to pop when people keep telling me that it can't, that it's a new type of market that can't go down. And that is what they're saying right now. The people who are diluted and they're saying that because they say, "Well, there's so much liquidity. Where else can the money go since money can't go anywhere else? It's going to be in the market no matter what." No, of course it can go in other places. I mean, this is again, it's basic economics. They'll put it in cash. They'll put it in gold. They'll put it in different places to protect their money. And again, Giannis is right. You know, those Plutoaucrats, they'll I think in the beginning, I think they they're they're high on their own supply and they'll get a a significant haircut, but they'll be able to pull out quick enough, right? They have enough savviness that they won't bear the brunt of it. Your 401k is going to bear the brunt of it. They're the suckers at the table, right? So now you're going to have a harder time retiring as well. But this is all in leadup to when the war continues, the economic effects will not be small. They will be cataclysmic. Um I feel like uh I'm on the deck of the Titanic and I'm screaming my head off iceberg straight ahead. Straight ahead. How could you not see it? Right. And the stock market and the political world. No. Israel told us to hit the iceberg and that there is no iceberg. We're going to go right into it. Yeah. Well, Israel's wrong. Uh and and it's not that they're wrong. They don't care about the rest of the world. They don't care about Americans. They don't care about Greeks. They don't care about anyone. All they care about is mighty greater Israel. So, they're going to drive us into this economic collapse. And I don't think they have any idea the level of anger that they're going to get, not just from America, from the rest of the world. Why Why is South Korea protesting Israel now? because they're having uh trouble uh with energy. They're having having to constrict gas and and different uses and they're thinking, "Wait, why is my economy suffering?" Because Israel wants to take southern Lebanon and wants to neuter Iran and wants to be their only regional superpower in the Middle East. South Korea is like, "What does that have to do with me?" So, why are you punishing the whole world? Right now you got gas shortages in India and all over South Asia. And when it when you multiply it by four or 10, which is what's going to happen. I'm I'll guarantee it to you right now. The world is going to be on fire in a rage against Israel. And I don't know what happens next, but it isn't going to be pretty. So, and finally to get to a political answer, uh yeah, every indication is we're going back in. Uh Trump talks about well the market could go down 20 or 25%. There's no way he says that unless he's planning to go back in. Administration officials, oh enough Bennett on Piers Morgan the other day said, "Well, the war could take another three months or three years." Benjamin Netanyahu and 60 Minutes already gave us our marching orders. He said it, you know, we got to go back in and destroy all their ballistic missiles. They got all their enrichment facilities, control their foreign policy, get regime change. And then right after he said that Donald Trump ripped up Iran's peace offer, which was perfectly fine. And so we're going back in, guys, and it's going to be way worse than anyone imagines right now.
Jenk, how long do you think we'll be in there for? Or and and although I know it's hard to give an estimation.
Yeah, we're going to get be in So good news, bad news here. Uh, we're not going to be in there nearly as long as we were in Iraq or Afghanistan. Not even close. Okay. And I don't think we'll even make it a year. Uh, but by that time within 3 to 6 months the economic damage will be so devastating that we'll leave humiliated uh, get a worse deal than the deal we can get now. Uh, and it'll just look it but the cataclysm could go in a different direction because it's not impossible for Iran to sink one of our ships. And what happens when they sink a a an US aircraft carrier? Well, I tell you one of the things that happens, every Israel supporter in America will go, "That's it. You have to murder them all. Murder them all. Murder them all." And they'll sing it together and then they'll want to drive us deeper into the war. Um, at that point, I mean, we we got to have a political revolution in this country because as long as Israel controls us, and right now their control is 100%. Um, and I'm happy to debate that with anyone on planet Earth. As long as Israel controls this country, we're going to go into the war. It's going to be the one of the worst disasters you've ever seen in your life. And we'll never stop the wars. Ever. Ever. Ever. Because Israel's greed is insatiable. Literally. They said after all this is done, they plan on attacking Turkey, a NATO country. I mean, you can't once a country's gone fascist and lost its mind, you can't talk to it. It's not a reason. You can't reason with it. We've just got to cut them off. Cut off every dollar of funding that goes to Israel all across the world. Otherwise, they're going to drive the entire planet to disaster.
Janis, what happens if the war does continue? Has how Jenk predicts it to continue? And it does take a long time, another year or so, and the blockade continues. What happens then? If the blockade continues for a whole another year on the suic?
Well, all the nasty things that have been happening the last 10 weeks, uh, to the power of n, that's what's going to happen. Now, Jenk, I very much fear that your views are not more gloomy than mine. U, it's just that I chose to concentrate on the silver lining because, you know, I've had enough of darkness around me. Uh, we have we both more or less share the same uh, the same prognostication or diagnosis of the situation. Uh, let me say a few things however in response to your point. Now firstly I can't predict what's going to happen with this war and I can't predict because you know I believe in track record and my track record that predicting Trump is abysmal. I never expected him to start um, you know, raining bombs down upon Iran because I assumed that he would do in his second term that which he did in the first term which is to do whatever it took to avoid being uh u dragged by Netanyahu into a war with Iran. And I have to say that it still doesn't make sense to me as to why he did it. Unless of course there is, you know, a reason to rename the Straits of Hormuz the Straits of Epstein, if you know what I mean. Um Maybe we should rename them, rename them. Um, so given that I didn't foresee the bombardment of Iran by, you know, the last 10 weeks, I'm not going to try to progate what, you know, what he's going to do. Looking at the the hard numbers again, I'm going to mention the Permian Basin and Franken. remember that, you know, one of the great success stories of both administrations, Democrat and Trumpian, uh, is that they managed to get rid of uh Russian natural gas in Europe and to replace it with fracked liqufied natural gas from New Mexico and from Texas. This is a major success story. Um Europe is now totally dependent in a way, you know, we were dependent on Russian gas. Um we are now dependent on uh fracked LNG from the the Gulf of Mexico right not America um and you know we paid eight nine times as much as we used to for Russian gas so this is a success story but from the perianbased perspective from their business model they don't want a price much above 100 it it will be detrimental to their interest and I think that you know Donald Trump is very uh sensitive uh to the interests of the franking industry. So he knows that if he starts bombarding again and for a long while you know the price will go to 120 150 60 that would be catastrophic for the permanent basis. They they just want it there between 95 and 98. Uh so this is one reason why he wouldn't do it. But then again you know I'm the guy who didn't forecast the original bombardment in 10 10 weeks ago. So I better shut up about that. uh on Israel Jen. Um look, it's not I mean it is greed of course, but I wouldn't put it this way. The whole project of Israel, especially after 1967, but from the beginning, from 1948, was all about ethnic cleansing, ethnically cleansing Palestine, uh getting rid of the Palestinians, denying them the right to call themselves Palestinians, denying them human rights uh from the river to the sea, right? Um, and they know they are going against every ounce of international law, every paragraph of, uh, the charter of the United Nations, uh, the charter of the international criminal court of the, you know, the rules and regulations that govern the International Court of Justice. They know that. So what they want us to be doing at the moment and we do it is to discuss the war in Iran, uh the war in Lebanon, the bombing of Yemen, uh as Jen said, the possibility of attacking Turkey. Why? Because while we're discussing that, they are contining the genocide in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of of the West Bank. So, uh, from Netanyahu's perspective and from the perspective of all these genocidal maniacs who are, uh, running not only the government of Israel, but also the official opposition, right? If you look at who is about to replace Netanyahu if he loses the forthcoming election, yeah, they're just just as genocidal as he is. Uh, from their perspective, the only thing they care about is to be left alone to continue with the genocide of the Palestinians. So they need to have a permanent war. Perpetual war is their mantra. It is what they do in order to continue uh in the cacophony and the dust that these wars all over the place uh leave behind uh to continue with the ethnic cleansing and the genocide of the Palestinians. So you know setting that aside um I agree with you J your description of the stackflationary forces. I mean there's no doubt that stagflation is going to be registered very soon. Even if it even if this war ends today, stagflation is a given. Uh there is also no doubt that the AI bubble at some point some point is going to burst. Uh but as John Manad Kanes once said, the market can stay rational far longer than I can stay solvent or even alive. So you know for the next two years you may have this bubble continue. uh it's self-perpetuating. Uh there are no fundamentals supporting it. But you know bubbles don't need fundamentals to support them. That's why there are bubbles. So you know Trump can see out his term uh he can continue this war for another year without having any negative repercussions in the stock market. Of course the chickens will come home to roost. But even if they don't, even if you know the bubble deflates slowly with with, you know, with a whimper, not a bang, uh the vast majority of Americans are suffering today. They don't have to wait for the bubble to burst in the stock exchange in ASD. Uh people are suffering today. Uh my calculation is that um you know, the average blue collar worker that voted for Trump is already paying $500, $600 more for energy. If you if you factor in the number of miles they drive every day um and if you add to that the increase in the price of food in the supermarkets and remember workingass rates of inflation are always higher than the official rate of inflation always. If you look at the basket of commodities that the working class uh purchases the rate of increase of its cost is much higher than the average because the average is amilarated. is pushed pulled down by the large basket of commodities that uh the ruling class purchases and usually their inflation rate is much lower than that of the working class. Let's not forget that. So the the loss of purchasing power by the MAGA base by even people who are against the Trump who are not part of the MAGA movement but you know workingass middle-class people um Betty Bourgeoa their losses are real they are happening it's not something that will happen it is happening already but of course you know we don't live democracy in democracies your country is not a democratic country it's an oligarchy with periodic elections that are taking place so that nothing changes. So since when has public opinion really changed policy in the United States? Well, last time was sometime in the 1960s I believe.
Jenk, I want to ask you I mean this of course as both of you have outlined is a huge war with huge financial consequences. I mean even if we look into 1970s the old crisis of then when Arab states uh led an embargo on west some of the west and reaction to the yon the October war I mean that lasted so long the stagnation lasted years and years and years in Britain and in other western states um Trump who's very into his marketing he loves going on camera loves talking uh so much for some reason by the swore he hasn't hasn't gone out to defend it so much. He hasn't gone out to explain what he's doing or why he's doing it. Jen, why why do you think this is? Why has he left his usual of trying to connect to the public and trying to explain what he's doing?
Yeah. So, we do predictions on TYT, especially me. Um, and so check it out, Young Turks, 6 o'clock Eastern on YouTube every day, Monday through Friday. Um and uh and our record track record on predictions I have to confess is excellent. Um so uh we thought for sure that he was going to go into Iran and he did. Um we think now that there's like I said earlier 99% chance I I don't have to equip I at this point it's it's almost 100. I I'm hesitating saying 100 but anyway 99% chance that he's going to go back in. Okay. That's as you know that's as solid a guarantee as I can give you. Uh, and so why is he doing these totally irrational things? Like anyone who studied economics for one day knows that if we go back in, it's going to be catastrophic, right? That's that's why Giannis is saying, well, you can't go back in. It'll like because I I want people to understand the second layer behind that. It's not that it'll break the heart of Donald Trump or anyone in his administration if the American people suffer so much. No, there's a couple of reasons why you technically theoretically can't go back in and I'll tell you why they're going to. Right. So, number one is it'll affect the economy so much it'll affect Trump's legacy and his approval ratings and his popularity and being the, you know, world record-breaking narcissist that he is. He's not going to like being that deeply unpopular. That hated hated by his own base that is definitely coming. It's already arrived for some portion of his base and it's going to expand and expand. So he can't sta stand stand that idea. So he can't go back in. And then as probably more importantly the second layer why he can't go back in is what Giannis is referring to. There are other economic interests and other lobbies like the oil lobby and other lobbies that then go no no no no no tap the brakes brother. Okay this isn't this isn't the right way to go. And remember we also gave you a ton of money. Okay so it wasn't just the Israelis. Like look, we talk about the Israelis because they seem to have so much control right now, but you know, any lobby, any donor class can buy America and Yiannis is 100% right. Uh we have an oligarchy here. And what does that mean? Just for the average guy, the practical terms, it means as Princeton and Northwestern proved in a gigantic study over 20 years, uh and over 2,000 bills that they studied, but the bottom 90% of Americans have absolutely zero effect on US foreign US policy, period, foreign or domestic. Zero. They don't listen to us at all. What it is is like a poll bureau uh in in China or uh you know the mullas in in Iran. Uh they get together uh and they decide two fake candidates or two candidates or you're going to have a fake choice, right? So here's moola number one and moola number two or you know comrade number one and comrade number two. And the same exact thing for the billionaires, right? Here's Comrade Budajage or Comrade Rubio. But either way, they're going to do exactly what the billionaire class ordered, right? So, so we don't really have a democracy here. We're not going to be able to affect them, but the donor class can. Okay? So, that's a super long windup to but nevertheless, he's going to go back into the war, right? Why? Because we're not being realistic, guys. Like since everyone in like media and politics is gental, they and we've all been taught that you can't say things that mainstream media will call conspiracy theories. Uh mainstream media are thugs uh who basically do propaganda for Israel. And so they're going to call and the government, US government. So they're going to call everything that challenges the government uh policy or or position as conspiratorial. Uh but the reality is uh Donald Trump has gotten over $300 million in bribes from the Israeli lobby and just from the Aden family alone he's gotten $317 million and those are called campaign contributions in America and they're legal. Uh nevertheless they're obviously bribes but that alone wouldn't do it because he had already gotten several hundred million from the Adson even in his first term, right? And uh and so what's different this time around? And by the way, Donald Trump is legendary for stiffing his creditors, right? So he could be like, "Hey, Adlesen's Apac oil companies, thanks a lot for the money. I'm already president. Nothing you could do about it." So that leads me to the conclusion and also based on how Donald Trump is acting and super panicked and jittery, right, about the Epstein files and about anything related to Israel that yes, they have blackmail. Uh, and if you're horrified by that thought, um, okay, grow up. Uh, I mean, the the people in in mainstream media in America, they're children. They're like, "Oh, no, the government can't ever do anything wrong. That that sounds like a conspiracy theory. No, the government always has our best interest in mind." And no government would use blackmail. Are you insane? Have like, are you How do they call themselves reporters? I don't understand. Almost every government does these dirty tricks. Uh, do governments, secret agencies like the CIA, MSAD, uh, MI6, etc., do they use blackmail? Of course they do. And by the way, the number one uh, intelligence operation all across the world and historically is a honeypot. A honeypot operation is when you get a guy to have wrong kind of sex and then use that as blackmail against him. And our mainstream media in America is hilarious. They're like, "What is honeypot? I have never heard of blackmail. I believe our intelligence agencies are all made of angels and especially the Israelis. Their Mossad is angel of angels and they would never do anything wrong. No, Epstein is Israel. There's no question about that. The drop site news uh reports of the leaked emails from Epste, from Ahud Barack, from Larry Ellison proved definitively that every single business deal, international deal that Epstein did was on behalf of Israel. He even procured cyber weapons for them. He was even in the middle of Iran contract cleaning up uh the planes that they were using for bringing drugs into the country. So the CIA is perfectly aware of him. The US government has been protecting him this whole time. Why are they going to protect this guy? A pedophile running a pedophile ring. Um because they really care about the Norwegians. Because the Bolivians have him by the you know what? No, it's because there's only one country in America that is lar powerful enough to get uh the media and the politicians to go, "No, there is no pedophile ring. There was no other culprits. We're not going to arrest anyone. There was no video, even though there's video cameras in the tissue boxes. There was no blackmail. The world is run on unicorns and rainbows." No, it's run on Mossad's dirty tricks. So that they will force Donald Trump back into the war. I I guarantee it. And you if I and if that doesn't happen, which there is overwhelming reason why it shouldn't happen as we just discussed. And even so, I'm going out on a limb and telling you I guarantee it. H if I'm wrong, hold me accountable. But if I'm right, begin to consider the possibility that our government is co-opted and occupied and is not really our government at all. It's Israel that is controlling America and now hence the world.
Jiannis, I want to move on to America's role in the world. Uh so you mentioned before that Greece uh you that people are starting to see Greece as a client state of America. I live in the UK. I know you love the UK. We see that start we're starting to see that the same thing as well. Like okay, why are we so attached by the hip to America? And that's AC I think that's starting to happen across Europe. That's what we saw at the World Economic Forum earlier this year saying we have independence from America. We can't just rely all over from our military from America. But ever since Trump came in last year, he's been attacking European leaders, Western leaders, Canada, Greenland, Panama, Canal, all those supposed what he what America's supposed allies. Um what do you see as America's future role in in the world if he's continuing to attack his allies like this?
Well, allow me Ellie to say that u here in Europe and in the UK we overestimate the novelty of Donald Trump. I hear you know centrist politicians um despair lament the loss of the special relationship between Britain and the United States. Uh the way in which Trump trashes the European leaders but they forget that this is not the first time it happened. Have they forgotten Richard Nixon? Have they forgotten the Nixon shock? Have they forgotten that immediately after essentially jettisoning Europe and the United Kingdom from the dollar zone because that was what the Nixon shock was up until the 15th of August 1971. uh from 1944 the Breton Woods conference onwards uh Britain and the United Kingdom and Japan and sorry put that in the United Kingdom, Europe and Japan were part of a fixed uh exchange rate scheme. Effectively we were dollarized uh with capital controls and uh conditions and so on but we were dollarized and then you know Nixon decided that once the United States lost its surplus position and it went into deficit uh there was no sense in continuing that system and he blew it up and he took John Connelly his treasury secretary and sent him to Europe to London first and then to Paris and Bourne which was the capital of West Germany at the time and the message was you know a middle finger effectively what John Connory the dollar is our currency and from now on it's going to be your problemates. So you know the let let's not forget that what Trump is doing is he is um reliving and extending the hegemony of the United States that begun with the madman theory and the madman uh strategy of the Nixon administration which was then adopted by Carter and by Reagan and there by by the Bushes and the Clintons. Now if you look at you know the country in which you reside the United Kingdom uh they destroyed their industry under Thatcher uh under Tony Blair they didn't do anything except to uh continue the privatization process in the public sector they sort of uh subcontracted uh public procurement even in the national health service to privateeers uh the productive foundation of the United Kingdom was decimated made it. They replaced factories with shopping malls and the growth model was the city of London. Now the city of London became extremely successful. Why? Because it was joined at the hip with Wall Street. Effectively it was doing the dirty work that Wall Street wanted to subcontract to the city of London. So you know the bruis the bourgeoisi the ruling class in London and in the home counties is utterly dependent on Wall Street and they are dependent on the dollar system which you know the city of London always served as the locus the center of gravity of the so-called euro dollar and the petro dollar. So it it's effectively a colony of Wall Street. That's what the city of London is. And the city of London, you know, under the category uh of you know the finance curse has been the reason why the rest of of of the British political economy is um you know in the stagnant state in which it finds itself. Go now to the European Union to the continent to the European continent. Why is uh Trump uh trashing our European leaders? Well, because they give him every opportunity to do it. Uh you have to remember that the European Union um after the 2008 great financial catastrophe that starts with Wall Street, spreads to London and then brings down bankrupts the French and the German banks. The European leaders responded to this with a combination of socialism for the bankers, bailout for the bankers just like in the United States and harsh austerity that began in my country here and then spread out to Ireland, Portugal, Spain, France including Germany. So if you depress aggregate demand through austerity and then you print money to give to the finances, what happens is asset prices go up. You know, share prices go up. You know, Volkswagen gets free money from the Frankfurt to buy back its own shares, but it doesn't invest anything. That's why, you know, Volkswagen is kaput. It cannot compete with BYD, with Tesla, with anyone. It can't sell cars, right? So, we have a catastrophe as a result of the response of our elites to um the 2008 Wall Street collapse and banking system collapse. Now during these the these years from 2008 to today because of austerity practice in Europe the only way German industry you know Louis Vuitton you know Hermes uh French champagne manufacturers right producers the only way they could sell stuff and make profit was because the level of demand was so low low in level low in in Europe in the European Union they had to sell their stuff to the United States. So, you know, when Trump was elected last year, second time around, the the European Union had a€ 240 billion euros uh €240 billion euros um surplus trade surplus with the United States. So, you know, that is music to Trump's ears because you can never lose a war, a trade war, a tariff war if you have a trade deficit. You can only lose it if you have a trade surplus. And because the idiotic leadership of the European Union and the economic planners, if there is such a thing in Europe, because they decided to replace the lost level of aggregate demand in Europe by exporting deflation through this huge trade service to the United States. Effectively, they became hostages to Trump. And Trump likes nothing better than to trash people who have volunteered to be his hostages.
So, I mean, you said originally at the beginning part of that, that speech that uh you look back at Richard Nixon uh when he when he was a president and it could it sound like you were saying that this could be shortlasting and soon enough they'll become great allies again and they'll be just because they're hostages. It's not. Is that is that what you're saying?
Not allies. Europe was never an ally to the United States. Europe was always a colony of the United States uh with the political personnel that pretended to be on an equal footing with the with the Americans with the American leaders. They never were. You know the um Eisenhower administration, the you know even Kennedy uh certainly LBJ certainly LBJ Nixon all of them um you know looked at the British and the Europeans as their vassels and that's exactly what the Europeans were. They were very happy to do that. Now look, let me give you a very simple more modern example, more you know recent example. Remember when Nordstream that uh pipeline gas pipeline was blown up and our media immediately blamed the Russians for that which would be just totally logical because you know they were selling through this pipeline their own gas to Europe. Why would they blow blow it up? It's like me blowing up my house when it's not insured. It would be absolutely stupid. So it wasn't Russia. Now we know we know in court cases in Germany and so on there was a combination of Ukrainians and Americans, right? It was it was official American policy uh that along with the Ukrainians to blow up that that that pipeline. Now that destruction of Nordstream added billions of dollars to the costs of German industry of Mercedes-Benz of bus of semens of decent group and so on. billions, right? Did you hear one of them complain? Did you hear one of them say, "What are my allies in the United States doing? Why are they, you know, damaging their allies so much?" No. Not a word. They all played along for a while that it was the Russians who had blown up their own pipeline. And then when it was revealed that it was the Americans together with the Ukrainians, they said, "Not a word. Not a word." Why? I can tell you that they were really pissed off with the Americans. But the same industrialists because they were part and parcel of the political economy that imposed huge austerity on the people of Europe and they knew that they couldn't sell stuff to the Europeans because the Europeans were impunious. They were dependent on selling their surpluses surplus goods to the United States. So you know they are the ultimate vassels. So please don't use the word allies. You know to be allies you have to have some kind some modicum of equality.
So I want to ask you one question then we'll go to Jenk. You said in a previous interview that when a significant significant part of the world shifts their savings away from the dollar system that's when the American empire will will start withering. Is that starting to happen?
Jiannis, what do you think?
Oh did you ask me?
Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. You have to repeat that because I was making a mistake.
It's okay. You said in a previous interview that when a significant part of the world shifts uh the savings from uh the dollar system, that's when the American empire will start withering. Is that is that what's starting to happen?
Yes. But it we are at the very early stages of that. What happened is this from my point of view, the Chinese uh because they wanted not so much to replace the exorbitant privilege of the US dollar with something similar for the one or the remni. No, they didn't want to be dependent on the dollar system when the United States um leaders have shown a readiness to just press the button and cut people off their own money uh on a whim. Um they may have good reasons for doing it or bad reasons, but you know, nobody wants their bank account to depend on an adversary who has a button and a kill a killer switch, right? uh so they developed their own remarkable electronic payment system and they did it in two ways using their public sector and their private sector. The central bank of China, the people people's republic of China created the digital one. The digital one is a marvel. The equivalent would be if in the United States you could download from the app store um a Federal Reserve um you know application and you could um use it as a a digital wallet um to make free payments even to receive an interest rate equivalent to the central bank's overnight interest rate. Imagine if you could do that. Why would you need to have an account with Cityroup or Bank of America only if they offered you really very good terms that they never offer you now? So the Chinese have that there are you know um hundreds of millions of these uh digital wallets that people not only Chinese people but I know Germans who have it and use it Germans who do business with China in one of course. So that's a public sector. The private sector created an app called WeChat. You may have heard of WeChat. WeChat does everything that our apps do here in the west. Plus one more thing that none of our apps do and that is free payments. You know, no commission payments at all uh from whatever bank account to whatever bank account as long as it is in one. So essenti and then if you add to that take the bricks pay system uh the brick created their own payment system which uh uh competes with swift an international messaging system for making international payments in all sorts of different currencies uh and that's based on a remarkable new blockchainbased technology which because of its distributed ledger China cannot control India cannot control Russia cannot control it is a genuine common a monetary commons for the bricks country. So all these three things that I desribed the central bank uh digital currency, WeChat and bricks pay if you look put them together what you have is a super highway for making payments. You know it's like imagine if you have a re an old road full of potholes that all the traffic goes through. It's very slow. It's very uncomfortable. It's very old. And then next to it you have a super highway with six lanes um each carriageway but very few cars very few trucks traveling on it. That's a Chinese system. The reason why there are very few is that the Chinese themselves don't want to use it. the ch the really rich Chinese because their um savings are in dollars and you know they have something like four and a half$5 trillion dollars and they don't want to undermine the dollar but they have this um super highway if needs be. Now what happened after 2022 when Putin invaded illegally Ukraine and so on. I'm not passing moral judgment. I'm just describing what happened. um 300 billion dollars of the Central Bank of Russia's money assets were frozen by the United States and by the European Union. Um immediately some Emiratis, some Saudis, some um Moguls from Indonesia, from Malaysia started worrying. They thought, you know, if they did this to the Russians, they can do it to us. And you know what they did? They hedged their bets. So, you know, they took 10% of their dollars out of the rickety very slow, very backward dollar payment system and placed them on the Chinese super highway. So, there there is some traffic down there. But I tell you, Eli, the most um fervent supporters of the US dollars continued hijgemony at the moment are the Chinese because they have four and a half 5 trillion worth of savings. So if you had, you know, so much money in a Swiss bank account, you wouldn't want to see the Swiss banking system being undermined. Uh but you know the more the United States government whether it's Trump or whoever uh uses and abuses the exorbitant privilege that the dollar payment system gives them the more of the world's wealth is going to shift to the Chinesebased system and that's when what you said is going to happen.
Jenk, um I'm sure there's a lot of for you to for you to say there, but as well as that, what do you think about the direction that America is going on right now? And do you think the direction is going on now, it will retain its uh badge as one of the world's hedgemonies?
Yeah. No, no, we're in a lot of trouble here. Uh so I think the only question is uh you know, how long it'll take. Um because you know if you're any other country on on planet earth here and you're trying to make a decision who should be my central ally America or bricks because that's now the conversation right >> that's kind of a no-brainer u because like America's out of control we start these nonsensical wars we bomb your you know Nordstreams and make your life more uncomfortable we threaten to invade our own allies like Greenland And what is that? We keep electing mentally unstable people uh that
You know that do this herky-jerky foreign and domestic policy. And if you're a rational actor, you have to think even if I'm okay with the present leader of of America, who's next?
You know, like, okay, so let's say Trump, you know, is finally done and we elect a normal sane person, right? But who's to say that the next election we won't elect Donald Trump on steroids? I mean, we So we you thought you can't get any less intelligent than George W. Bush and then they found Trump. And just when you think you can't get any less intelligent than Trump, can they find someone? I don't know, maybe they wheel him in out of a mental institution. And Netanyahu points to him and goes, "That's your new leader." Right?
And so like we're the world is going to have almost no choice but to work around us, right? And I hate that. I'm I'm an American patriot. I'm I'm weirdly corny about that. Uh I love the country and I love and the reason why I love it is because I love the idea of America and it's been a struggle living up to it, right? But but I love the idea of freedom and opportunity and all the things that we talk about and human rights and civil rights and constitutional rights.
And uh and so look, the Supreme Court robbed us of our uh democracy in 1976-78 and then in 2010 they legalized bribery in America and it made America the most corrupt country on earth and that breaks my heart but it's uh obvious and any place where you legalize bribery uh you would instantly become a deeply deeply corrupt country right so guys when uh you know again go back to the adles because there's such a spectacular example, but really there's literally thousands of these examples. Uh because it's an open auction. They're all buying our politicians.
In fact, before I go back to Miriam, um there's a guy named Mo Brooks. He's a congressman from Alabama. He was running for Senate and he decided to be super honest and uh there's a recording of him at a fundraiser saying, "Look guys, how do you get think that you get to be a committee chair in American Congress? uh you need a million dollars uh because you need to disperse that uh to the other committee members that are in your party and that's how they elect you to chair. Uh now where are you going to get a million dollars? He's like do you think John and Susie in Alabama have a million dollars? No, they don't. Right? So you have to get it from an industry from a corporation. Now which industry do you think you're going to get it from? Right? The one you're regulating and hence not regulating. Okay. So literally every committee chair both Republican and Democrat has been bribed by the industry they're regulating.
So do like Israel is a giant problem because they're driving us into this catastrophe, but they're not the source of the problem. They just took advantage of a system that almost any rational actor would take advantage of if they had the opportunity. If they had the opportunity, the Bulgarians would have done it. Okay? Certainly the Chinese, the Russians, whoever else would have done it. As it turned out, the Israelis because of their existing infrastructure in America were able to take advantage of it, right? Like I'm from Turkey. You think the Turkish government wouldn't have done it? Of course they would have. Right? Like I mean again, our media is a bunch of children. They're like, "Oh no, that is an ally of ours. They would never do any What do you Israel already stole our nuclear secrets. They stole every other top secret through Jonathan Pard. They stole our uranium. they stole our nuclear triggers and you think those guys wouldn't control us in a nefarious way.
But again, it's not it's not about that. It's about the incentives and disincentives that you set up. So the oil companies also control us and the drug companies also control us. So all of this is to lead to the conclusion uh for all of the rational actors in the world this America has become too unstable, too corrupt, too uh you know the corruption, let me put it this way, makes us a huge risk because what if the next person or entity or country or corporation that bribes an American official or the president um gets them to do something insane that is only for the benefit of that particular industry and to the detriment of every other industry. Well, yeah, that's entirely possible because literally anyone can purchase an American president.
So that brings us back to Miriam. So between her and her husband, they've given $317 million to Donald Trump. It was through his three elections. And in fact, they now ritualistically humiliate him from time to time. Uh they had a a on-air appearance together about six months ago where Miriam said, um, look, uh, Donald, I I'll give you $250 million if you run for a third term. Now, there is no third term in America. That's unconstitutional. So, what she's saying is yes, I'm going to bribe you again just like I did last time. And this time, I'm going to ask you to violate the Constitution because I don't really care about your country at all. Your country is a piggy bank for me. I give you 300 million and you give me 300 billion. Again, why would you blame the Israelis? Who wouldn't do that deal? Right? The issue is us. We can't allow that kind of bribery and we do. And in a system this corrupt, it will lead to catastrophe and hence the rest of the world is going to want at some point and that point is going to be in two weeks uh say we got to get out of here. These guys are out of control. We got to go to BRICS. We got to have a real alliance we can count on.
Why can you count on BRICS more than you can count on America? Well, because it's a a number of nations together, right? and now very powerful, very large countries and they're going to create some sort of balance of power within themselves first otherwise they can't exist as an alliance and an effective economic coalition and then they're going to have to offer things to people to get them out of the American sphere. So, and since they're more stable, more balanced, and they're giving you things that are attractive, it's going to be a no-brainer once we uh crash the markets in two weeks. So, and I hate that for America. And that's why I the answer is we have to get money out of politics. If we don't pass a constitutional amendment to get money out of politics, >> it will absolutely ruin this nation and it'll ruin the world for some period of years and then everyone will turn away from us.
And so, so and the last thing is guys, all of this is also part of the plan. Uh, and so what do I mean by that? So after the UN sanctioned Israel um meaning like said yes Israel can exist in 1948 um they then Israel went on the attack and did these slaughters in '48, '67 uh and constantly invading and occupying. So the UN was passing resolutions. So Israel hated the UN after that and they wanted to destroy the United Nations because they're the keepers of international law and Israel didn't want to follow international law. Then recently they've been trying to destroy NATO. Why? Turkey's in NATO and they want to attack Turkey next. And you can't attack Turkey if they're in NATO and the US is in NATO.
>> Just by the way, I think we need to finish in like a minute. So uh >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So yeah. So they've been destroying uh NATO and then and then they wanted America to really lose all of their alliances and only have Israel left as an ally so that we're more dependent on Israel. So, they've accomplished that mission and uh and so by the end uh it'll be us and Israel and and the rest of the world will, you know, honestly hate us. And and I as a proud American, I can't stand that idea. And as and as soon as that happens, everyone has to realize there's no other issue. There's no other issue at all because until you get the money out of politics, it's not our government. You're having false debates. No one cares if the left or the right wins because neither one of us is in charge. The only people in charge are the oligarchs. You've got to get the money out.
>> Thanks so much for coming on, Jen Kanyan. And I'm happy we agree that we need to get rid of Citizens United. Top priority.
>> Well, best of luck reclaiming your country. We are trying to do this in Greece. We're trying to do it in Europe. uh we have um you know uh an immensely difficult struggle to try to achieve that. Um we will probably fail but life is not worth it unless we try.
>> Yep. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you so much. Thank you guys.