My Latest Interview on the NAIOP Podcast: Inside CRE

For those looking for some longer format content, here’s a recent interview from the NAIOP Podcast: Inside CRE.

LISTEN TO THE NAIOP PODCAST

I chatted with Christopher Ware about current U.S. demographic shifts, how the labor force is changing, and why now is the best time for businesses to hire and borrow. I also dive into China’s precipitous population decline, how the cost of manufactured goods will increase, and why we need to double the size of the industrial plant in North America.

I encourage you to tune in if you want a well-rounded, long-form discussion.

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
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Modular Nuclear Reactors Are Not the Future of Energy

A while back, I talked about a few technologies I was most hopeful for – small modular nuclear reactors being one of those. Click below to watch that video…

Understanding the Limits of Innovation

Unfortunately, we’ll be drawing a line through it (for now).

As we enter a period of capital scarcity and top-heavy demographics, many companies working on these modular nuclear reactors have been forced to abandon ship. This complication adds another layer of complexity to the growing energy demands of the next decade.

So, if you were hoping to go off the grid with a reactor strapped to the back of your truck in 2030, it might be time to change your plans…

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

TranscripT

Hey everyone. Good morning from chilly Colorado. It’s a balmy ten degrees today. I got some bad news. So for those of you who’ve been following me for a bit, you know that over the summer I recorded a video of the five technologies that I was most hopeful one for. The issue we’re facing is that we’re entering into a period of extreme capital dearth and a shortage of people in their twenties and thirties, while the twenties, people in the twenties, in the thirties, and the folks who get together to imagine the future and develop the technology and a lot of cheap capital is required to bring it to mass manufacture.

And without those two factors, the pace of technological change that we’ve been used to seeing these last 2025 years is going to slow considerably. And that’s before you consider any sort of general dislocation because of demographic aging or drops of consumption or breakdowns in globalization. So the pace is way too slow, incredibly. And the question is which technologies are kind of already at the hub, where they’re just right on the edge of mass manufacturing mass application.

And one of the technologies that I identified was something called small modular nuclear reactors. The idea is you have a reactor that’s small enough to fit on the back of a semi-trailer and you can just plug it in to any other power system. So if you’ve got a coal plant, for example, that you were looking to decommission, you can pull one of these in or two of these based on the size, you know, up to ten and just plug them in and they’re good to go.

And the 20% of electricity that the United States gets from nuclear currently could continue in perpetuity. Well, over the course of the last couple of weeks, the companies that were involved in building the prototype of abandoned the project. They say the numbers no longer make sense. They couldn’t get enough sponsors. So if this technology is going to continue, it’s going to continue at a later time with different players in an environment of even sharper limitations on technological development and capital availability, which means it’s probably not going to happen this decade at all, which means the 20% of the electrical grid that is supplied by nuclear right now is going to fade away because with a

couple of exceptions, all of those reactors are older than I am and I turn 50 very, very soon. So not only do we need to massively increase the amount of power generation, we have to double the size of the industrial plant as the Chinese break apart, and we need even more power in order to do the green transition and maybe move to a more electric future.

We also have to replace 20% of our total energy supply, which is at the moment all baseload, which is something that wind and solar can’t come up with or can’t work with because they’re too intermittent. So we just saw our overall challenge for the next decade become inordinately more difficult unless of course, someone picks up this technology very, very soon.

Sorry. All right.

Ask Peter: Can Thorium Solve the Nuclear Problem?

Note: This video was recorded over the summer during one of Peter’s hikes.

Thorium is a potential substitute for uranium-based nuclear power, but will it solve our nuclear problems? If thorium could help with the proliferation of plutonium and make it harder to create weapons on the backend, adoption of more nuclear power might be easier….but thorium isn’t our knight in shining armor.

Here’s the grossly over-simplified uranium nuclear process: you take the usable uranium and separate it from the other isotopes, then convert it into something like a fuel rod, then it’s placed in a reactor which generates heat which spins a turbine. (Like I said, grossly over-simplified) Once that’s done, one of the waste materials is called plutonium.

The process with thorium is a bit more involved and requires different infrastructure, but you still end up with plutonium. Sure, it’s marginally less of the bomb-making stuff and in a bit more complex compound mix, but there’s STILL plutonium.

While this is an interesting tech that should be explored by countries with a bunch of thorium (like India), this doesn’t solve our proliferation issue. Plus, there’s still an entire set of other problems that need to be considered, such as disposal and storage.

Barring the development of fundamentally new tech, nuclear power might be losing its place in the US energy mix. As a result, growth in electricity production will be seriously hampered even if all this new Greentech works perfectly.

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

What Role Do the Cartels Play in US – Mexico Trade?

As industries like manufacturing ramp up between Mexico and the US, how will the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels factor into that equation?

These two cartels operate very differently. The Sinaloa treat their operation like a business, and violence is a means to an end. Jalisco New Generation treats violence and fear as an essential part of their operation.

Despite their violent tendencies, the cartels (1) are uninterested in the complexities of manufacturing, (2) lack the necessary skills to disrupt that sector (from the participant side of things, anyway), and (3) would rather target “easy to manipulate” businesses.

So far, issues caused by the cartels have been relatively manageable. The real risk lies in the power struggle between these two cartels and how that could reshape perspectives on US-Mexico trade.

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

TranscripT

Hey everybody. Good morning from a chilly colorado. A lot of you have written in with some questions about what’s going on with the cartels. And that’s something we haven’t talked about a little bit. The big issues are that there’s two cartels to really follow. The first is the Sinaloa. That’s the the one that thinks of drug smuggling as a business.

And so, as a general rule, is not willing to shoot people who are among its consumers. And so they don’t think there should be violence in places where their businesses are critical. So they don’t want to shoot people in Mexican cities or certainly not on the north side of the border if they can help it. It’s not that they’re nice.

It’s not that they’re kind of it’s not that they’re murderous thugs. They are all of those evil. They just see violence as a tool rather than an end. And on the other end of the spectrum, you’ve got political new generation who has the opposite view. When they move into a town, the first thing they do is shoot the police chief and anyone who looks interesting because their whole idea is if everyone’s scared of you, then they’ll either work for you or get out of your way.

Two different theories, both very violent. One is more applied in that violence. So that’s kind of the background I’ve been going on and on and on and on and on about how Mexico is going to be an integral part of the American manufacturing and trading system moving forward for decades, if not over a century. That hasn’t changed. The question is, to what degree do the cartels complicate that picture?

Not as much as you might think. The cartels are into things that fit one of two categories. One are small, have high value, are easy to fit into a backpack and smuggle. Obviously, narcotics fall into that category. Methamphetamines falls into that category or they want industries that they can push a lot of cash through in order to launder it.

And that takes something into things like real estate or avocados, where there’s a very clear business on the other end that is integrated into the broader system. So those are kind of the two types of businesses they go for. Anything else gets a little complicated for them because it’s not their skill set. And when it comes to interfering with trade, it doesn’t really work.

So if they were to go into, say, a manufacturing facility in Nogales and try to take over, it’s not like they would know how to operate it. They would be just a protection racket, and that would mean they’d have to be there presently all the time. Assuming that Mexican law enforcement couldn’t deal with it, I think they could.

Then the American investors in that factory would probably lose interest in the whole thing would shut down. So there’s no profit center there. They could raid things that were going in and out of the facility. But manufacturing in Mexico, as a rule, deals with intermediate manufacturers. So you’re not dealing with a lot of finished cars or even finished carburetors.

You’re dealing with things like spark plugs and casings and seat linings. And, you know, if you get a semi full of seat lines and bolts, you know, that’s not exactly something that’s easy to dispose of. You then have to find the next step in the manufacturing chain that wants it, and that requires a degree of logistics that they don’t have a degree of understanding of the industry, that they don’t command and contacts that are completely unrelated to what they do currently.

The biggest risk that I see to the trading relationship is the fight between these two big cartels. Sinaloa is the number one organized crime group in the United States. How that’s going to generation is rapidly growing to be the number one within Mexico. And at the moment, Sinaloa and some other smaller cartels control all the plazas going into the United States for the smuggling of the drugs.

Politico is challenging those other cartels, especially Sinaloa, for control of each and every one of them. And if they do succeed in commanding a plaza and they do pour into our side of North America and bring their business model with them, then Americans are going to be thinking about Mexico and trade in a very different way. Now, that hasn’t happened yet.

They’ve been trying to get into this country for three years now, and organizationally they’re just not nearly as competent as the Sinaloa. Even after their leader, El Chapo, was arrested, extradited and says it’s a prison forever, it’s just a very different mindset. But if you’re going to worry about something in the trade relationship, I think that’s the number one concern.

So far, it’s proven manageable. So far, the culture clash, if you will, is working for us, but that would still be the dangerous spot. All right. I mean, go inside. It’s cold out here, but.

 

Ireland Needs a New Game Plan

Note: This video was recorded over the summer from the foot of Mt. Huron.

Today we’re talking about Ireland’s raw deal. It’s on the far northwestern extreme of Europe, has a shitty climate and limited cultural development – hence the need for Guinness and Jameson. The biggest problem is that it’s positioned on the wrong side of Great Britain, so London’s relations with Europe and the wider world have huge implications for the Irish.

However, the upside to this unfortunate positioning has been that Ireland has proven able to serve as a broker between the EU and USA, the UK and EU, and the UK and USA. Benefiting from access to the greater European market and development funds, Ireland underwent Europe’s most rapid economic transformation, surging from the poorest to the richest country (in per capita terms) in less than 45 years.

But rapid development brings up a myriad of demographic problems, which Ireland is now facing head-on. In addition, the UK is moving away from the EU and starting to negotiate its own deals, meaning the broker (aka Ireland) loses its purpose. To add insult to injury, the scarcity of capital in Ireland has hit alarming levels.

So Ireland will need to reinvent themselves and find a fundamentally new model moving forward. The issue is doing all that in the face of demographic degradation and without breaking trade links. Or we could all just drink more Guinness for our Irish friends…

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

Ask Peter: Is the Next Arctic Breakthrough Here?

Note: This video was recorded over the summer during one of Peter’s hikes.

Since I stumbled upon a snow field on my hike today, I figured we should take the next question in the ‘Ask Peter’ series: are we approaching a new era of exploration, exploitation and development in the Arctic?

While I can’t rule it out, the Arctic has a knack for keeping us at bay. The area is unpopulated, you have to build infrastructure for anything you want to do, and it just sucks to work in the tundra. Did I leave out the high development costs, high maintenance costs, and seasonal income?

Russia is one of the few places with any sort of population in the Arctic, but they lack the capital and know-how to do anything of note, let alone at critical mass. Places like Norway have ice-free seas, which has allowed them to get into offshore oil and natural gas deposits; however, there’s no real opportunity to expand this capacity.

Without a series of technological breakthroughs, I can’t imagine there will be much development in the Arctic. This is seemingly one of those things at the top of the world that will stay that way.

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
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Why the Port of Savannah Is Poised for Success

Savannah is awesome!

Not only is it home to my favorite bar and one of my favorite food scenes, but it is also the site of the largest containerport in North America. For the people of Savannah, a lot of the hard work has already been done. They are well positioned to thrive no matter what happens with the global environment or how Americans do or do not take advantage of the changes.

Also, the best shrimp and grits on the planet.

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

TranscripT

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from Savannah, one of my favorite cities in North America. And one of the reasons is the bars, and one of the reasons are the restaurants and the other one, it is home to the largest container port in the continental United States, been operating for a few years now. They keep expanding it.

You’re looking at here one of the Merce medium size ships. The supers do come through here. They just have a problem getting through that bridge there. All right, It’s raining. We’re gonna do the rest of this inside. All right. Got some shelter. The Savannah super container port is definitely the newest in North America, and it’s the only one that was really designed for the the post-June TechEd world that we’ve got.

So the Jones Act restricts shipping within the United States, saying that no foreign vessel, no matter what kind, can dock at two consecutive ports. If they come in, then they have to leave the country to come back. And that’s made it really hard to have a domestic waterborne manufacturing system in the country. But it wasn’t until the Savannah port came on operation in the last decade that we actually had a place in the United States could really handle the very, very large container ships.

I mean, yes, you got Long Beach, California, such a special case in so many ways. Usually what happens is they dock in a place like Kingston, Jamaica, and then the cargo is broken up into smaller vessels who can just do a single run because the idea of doing a circuit where you go to New York and Boston and more Fulgham and Savannah and Miami, a foreign ship can’t do that.

It can come in, dump its cargo and leave, has it in the country before it comes back. So those shuttle tankers take most of the traffic except for, again, at the mega port of Long Beach. Oh, the question is, moving forward as the United States re industrialized is because we have to of which sorts of ports are actually going to be able to continue operation.

Now, in the case of Savannah, it probably is looks pretty good because you’re not going to build a huge amount of manufacturing in Atlanta or in Miami. And so you can still have the super container ships coming in and docking and disgorging to serve a huge area because Savannah has excellent rail connections, which is how most of this stuff is shipped about.

But when you’re talking about areas where manufacturing can move back, eastern Virginia, for example, or Texas, then all of a sudden the ability to take really, really large cargo ships really doesn’t matter. And so it’s only going to be the small stuff that can continue to go. I’m particularly concerned about places like Long Beach because despite all of the negative things that everyone always says about California, most of that stuff is coming from China.

If the Chinese face stability issues, they’re going to have to find a different business model. Other ports, like say Tacoma, are a little bit different because they handle so many commodities exports, but places that specialize in containers really haven’t put in the infrastructure to adapt to the changing world. And I really don’t see it happening on the time scale that is necessary for this transformation the U.S. is going to be going through in the next 5 to 7 years.

Savannah seems to be in the sweet spot. It’s all keepers. I think.

Lithium: The False Profit of Electrification

Note: This video was recorded over the summer during one of Peter’s hikes.

Lithium has played an important role in the green transition and remains a crucial resource for the future of electricity; however, it’s not going to be all sunshine and rainbows for lithium…

While lithium is the primary option for electric vehicle batteries, its low energy density and safety concerns leave much to be desired. Unfortunately for us, lithium is pretty much the only option at this point. There remain some much-needed breakthroughs in the battery chemistry space, but even if those happened tomorrow – reaching mass production would take at least a decade.

The lithium supply chain is no clean sheet either. Chile and Australia are the top producers, but between nationalization efforts in Chile and a slower extraction method used in Australia – disruptions are pretty standard. The bottlenecks don’t end there. Processing capacity is concentrated in China, and with collapse right around the corner, get ready for a whole new slew of problems.

If I controlled the flow of investments into this sector, I wouldn’t be dumping billions of dollars on lithium production. Instead, I would allocate funds to the physical science research to develop a better battery chemistry. Diversifying our battery technologies is the only way to make the green transition stick without hindering global progress toward sustainable energy solutions.

If we put all of our eggs into the lithium basket…We’ll have a long road ahead of us.

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

China-US Relations: What Did Xi and Biden Discuss

Thank you to everyone who has already contributed to MedShare International over the past two weeks!

We have some exciting news to share today. Our matching donation – including our initial $40,000 and all subsequent matching donors – has now reached $100,000.

I’m humbled by the outpouring of support from this community and want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart. This is only possible through your generosity, so thank you to everyone who has donated.

If you haven’t donated already, we encourage you to click the link below and help us (and our other gracious donors) hit our match goals.

CLICK TO DONATE TO MEDSHARE'S UKRAINE FUND

This week at the APEC summit in San Francisco, President Joe Biden and Chairman Xi Jinping sat down for a long overdue meeting.

One unexpected twist is that Xi expressed a desire for peace and cooperation between the two countries. There are only three scenarios for why I can see this happening: Xi has lost his edge, his cult of personality has cut off the flow of information, detaching Xi from reality, or he’s trying to play puppet master with the US.

Again, let’s not dive too far down that rabbit hole because Xi was more concerned about the flowers at the hotel than any of the APEC discussions. However, we won’t have to wait long before the truth reveals itself…

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

Transcript

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here comes to you from Colorado. Great news. Our sponsorship of Medicare has done very well and we’ve had a number of you call in with matching donations. So our original match was for $40,000 for the month of November. Dollar for dollar for whatever anyone sends in. So even if just a buck or two, it makes a big difference.

But we’ve now had sponsors come in for to increase of 40000 to 100000. And to give you an idea of specifically what this sort of donation is going to go for. In modern warfare, explosions are, you know, part of the process. So there have been a huge number of cranial and spinal injuries in Ukraine and people might be able to get away from the front and survive, but then they’re not going to be able to function unless they can get additional medical assistance.

And so other donors have provided Medicare with implants and spinal surgery kits that are worth $20 million on the open market that were just given to them for free. And the question is, how do we get this to Ukraine where it can do the good? And that’s where our campaign comes in. So, again, the first $100,000 is matched.

No donation is too small. Thank you for everyone who has buzzed in so far, over 2000 of you have already donated. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It’s really humbling to be part of this process and I look forward to seeing what the final number is at the end of the month. But until then, back to our regularly scheduled program.

Hey everybody, Peter Zeihan here coming to you from Colorado. It is the 16th of November and yesterday in San Francisco at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Chairman Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden finally had that long awaited summit. It’s the first time that a real leader has met with Xi in something like four years, and it was really our first read on how he personally is doing, whether he’s lost his mind to senility or he’s just so drowned in his own propaganda that he can’t function.

The result was, by many measures, fairly surprising. She was basically all friendly talking about how he didn’t want competition. You want to be a of the United States if you want to challenge the United States. I mean, it was basically peace, love and recycle. He sounded like a teenage camp counselor. Three theories that come from this which are going to shake out real quick into the fact, number one, he really has lost his mojo, in which case we’re going to see increasing breakdowns in decision making across the Chinese system as he basically goes bipolar, which could be entertaining but a little bit dangerous.

The other two scenarios had to do with the cult personnel that has formed. Has destroyed all challengers to the throne. There’s no local leaders or regional leaders that have stuff anymore. He’s gone through the bureaucracy in academia and business, and he’s purged the bureaucracy as well. So part of the problem the Chinese have been having of late is that no one will bring him new.

So he really is broadly unaware of what’s going on in his own country and across the world. And so when he is thrust into something like the APEC summit, things get a little weird. All of his staff apparently focused on the location of the table savings and the types of silverware and what flowers would be in the hotel.

And, you know, of course, I didn’t get to see any protesters, but it was all on the atmospherics and the design as opposed to the substance. There was very little prep on the Chinese side as far as we’ve been able to tell for what the actual topics of the day happened to be in. You know, there’s a few things going on right now.

So that kind of puts us into one of two categories. Number one. G Exposed to the world via San Francisco for the first time in years is like, Oh my God, what have I done? My country’s in demographic collapse. Our trade situation is dangerous. We are looking at national de dissolution over the next decade of stuff unless something just dramatically changes.

And every theoretical solution involves the United States in some way. We have to have their market. We have to have the security of our Navy grants, our maritime shipments. We have to have access to their finance markets, U.S., U.S., U.S., U.S. It has to be the U.S. And if he’s come to that realization, then a complete 180, from what we’ve seen over the last five years, makes a lot of sense.

The question is whether the cult came. They’ll push that down into the bureaucracy in the Chinese system when there are very few competent people left in that system. We will know the answer to that in a matter of weeks because the Chinese will stop being a bag of dicks like they have been for the last five years or things will change.

There’s it’s really pretty binary. The second issue is that it’s all lies, that this is all just part of Jesus internal play in order to wall the Americans in the false sense of security. Considering that the Biden administration has taken many more anti-China actions than the Trump administration has and has, unlike the Trump administration, codified them into law so they’ll outlast him.

That is a bit of a stretch to think that the Chinese could be that stupid. But considering the Chinese inability to function in most international forums of late and the destruction of the information transfer system within the Chinese system by Xi, it’s entirely possible that they are really that dumb and we will know the answer to that real soon too.

So one way or another, here we come.

No Regional Powers Will Provide Aid to Hamas

As the situation unfolds in Gaza, many of you have asked who we might see getting involved in the conflict. So, let’s break down the key regional players and how this is playing out.

One of the few countries who could make a real difference in the conflict is Egypt – and given the dodgy history – I doubt that will happen. Hezbollah in Lebanon will likely keep their hands out as well. And despite Iran’s vocal support of the Palestinian cause, they have no interest in a confrontation with the US military.

Since none of the major players plan to intervene, this conflict will likely remain an isolated fight for Hamas. The Saudis are in a complex situation, so we’ll have to touch on that another time.

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

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TranscripT

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here, come to you from Lost Canyon in Colorado. Today we’re going to talk about what’s going on with this situation in the very, very, very short version is that this is a has moss is really a fight and no one else is going to get involved. The big players have all now kind of made their announcements either by action or inaction.

Let’s start with the most important one and the only one who could really change the direction of the conflict, and that’s Egypt. The Israelis had been hopeful that they could convince the United States, you know, nations, you know, anyone with a pulse, that the solution to this problem is just to move all of the Gazans out of the strip and into the camps or into tent camps in the Sinai.

The Israelis have been trying to move the Palestinians for since its 1948, to be completely honest about it. But certainly since 1973, I will say there was no acceptance of that. The Egyptians were the ones who gave the most vociferous objection. In fact, the Egyptians really are broadly against even sending aid into the Gaza. People forget that the Egyptians used to control Gaza between 1948 and 1973 and no one had a good time.

And the only way that the Egyptians would like to see the Palestinians crossing the Egyptian territories in coffins, or preferably by trucks full of bodies. So there’s going to be no assistance there. The second one, the country or the faction that a lot of people were worried about is Hezbollah. Hezbollah is a Shiite Arab militia that operates out of southern Lebanon in particular, and they have had a number of scrapes with the Israelis in the past.

And they have the very powerful paramilitary force and a lot of rockets that every once in a while they rain down on Israeli cities and their leader, Nasrallah, gave this really fiery speech where he’s like, go, go, go, resistance fight the Jews. You know, And we we we’re just going to stay here and everyone have a great day.

Hezbollah has a lot to lose. This is clearly a Hamas operation. They’ve been clearly preparing for it for some time and Hezbollah has not. There was no coordination whatsoever. And so they’re certainly not ready to move. And even if they were, I really doubt they would. They’ve got different backers. They’ve got a different religion. They’ve got different approaches.

And at the end of the day, Hezbollah has got a lot of what it sought over the last 50 years. They are part of the government in Beirut now, and that gives them a seat at the table in a way that they’ve never had before, no Palestinians have ever had before. And they don’t want to give that up, especially since they’re not the ones who lit the fuze on this particular conflict.

Now, Hezbollah does have a sponsor slash ally in Iran, and that’s kind of the third country in question here. And kind of like Nasrallah, the supreme leader of the excuse me, of Iran, recently gave a speech and again, rah, rah, rah rah, fight the occupation, kill the Jews, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, Jews, if you don’t attack us right now, we’re going to reciprocate.

We hate you and you should all die, but not by our hand. And not today. So they’re going to be kicking off some low risk things. They’re taking some pot shots via their proxies in places like Syria, at American bases. So far, CENTCOM, which is in charge of American operations, that area has said that nothing has happened that has generated noticeable meaningful casualties or damage.

So the need to respond in the United States is relatively limited from a military point of view. And the Iranians certainly aren’t going to risk a broader confrontation with the American navy in the Gulf, which is like their sole source of economic income. Now, in order to defend a group that they have publicly denounced as apostates and animals and are worthy of only destruction.

So they found it useful maybe to nudge Hamas into this on a timing issue. But at the end of the day, they’re certainly going to bleed fallen. Okay. That’s it from me.