Argentina Elects A New President: Javier Milei

The big news out of South America is that Argentina has elected a new “libertarian” president, Javier Milei. So, what will this political shift mean for Argentina?

Since Milei won’t have enough parliamentary support from the Peronists, we should expect some unconventional tactics to bypass Congress. Milei also has a strained relationship with several BRICS countries – with China and Brazil topping that list – so hopefully they have some good translators.

The quick and dirty here is that Argentina will be the center of lots of drama for the foreseeable future. So you may want to hold off on your investments in this region and grab some popcorn while you’re at it.

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.

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TranscripT

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from Central Park in New York City. And on the topic of Skating on Ice, let’s talk about what’s going on in Argentina. They recently had just about a week ago, had a new presidential election and they have a new president by the name of Javier Malay, who bills himself as a libertarian.

Now before you libertarians get too excited, a libertarian in Argentina does not mean the same thing that you’re probably thinking of. In fact, nothing politically in Argentina means the same thing that you’re thinking of. Argentina does things its own damn way and it’s always really weird. So for example, the ruling Peronist are often lumped into the socialist camp.

Leftist camp. But really what they’ve done is they’ve combined the most counterproductive and self-destructive aspects of socialism with some of a really, really sloppy version of fascism. So leftist they are not. They just like to print currency. And don’t let that go to your head. Same holds true for Malaysia’s own thing, and you shouldn’t expect him to fit any pattern.

He’s not the Argentine Trump. He’s not anything. He’s himself. He’s also never been in government. So he may have some grand ideas about what it comes to abolishing the central bank or dollar raising the economy and doing away from the peso. Just keep in mind that he does not have sufficient votes in parliament to get any of this done without cooperation from the Peronist.

So we’re going to see a lot of loud policies, a lot of attempts to do end runs around the Argentine Congress. And whether it goes anywhere, it’s just early days, too soon to know for sure. It’s going to have a much bigger splash when it comes to foreign policy in Argentina, like in most countries, the political leadership has a lot more freedom in dealing with foreign policy than they do with domestic policy.

So in the case of Malaya specifically, he’ll loathes President Lula of Brazil, who is a more classical leftist, if you want to use that category against not perfect, but it’s more it’s more fitting for Brazil than it is for Argentina. And so Lula has already announced that he’s not going to be at the inauguration, getting the relations off to the best possible foot.

And that means a Mercosur, which is the common market, the free trade zone of the Southern Cone that involves Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina is basically dead in the water from both an economic and a diplomatic point of view. Oh, hey, I got a visitor. Anyhow, we’re just going to crop him out. Sorry. Anyway. Or maybe not. New York.

What do you do? Anyway, this was one of the world’s great trade zones, and it’s basically on ice now. Beyond South America, things are also going to get fun because Argentina was just given admission is to the BRICS alignment. Now, BRICS is an association of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa that has well, it’s never punched up to its weight.

It’s always been kind of an odd grouping. And Malaysia has made it very clear that he hates all things Chinese. And since China is Argentina’s largest trading partner and is the dominant power in the BRICS, this is colorful really soon. So the thing you have to keep in mind about all of this is when it comes to Argentina, there can be a lot of smoke without being fire and a lot of noise without anything real happening.

But when you apply Argentina, his own pension for drama to other groups outside the country who have more flavor than substance, things like BRICS, things like Mercosur, things can get really crazy really soon because he’s going to call a spade a spade and he’s going to throw a lot of monkey wrenches into the works. Probably the thing that is going to have the biggest single impact is going to be the Mercosur attempt to have a free trade zone with the EU.

Now, this deal has been under negotiation for how we’re pushing 20 years now, and they believe that they finally have it worked out. Now, Lula decided he wanted to get this all shoved through before Malaya was inaugurated, but then he flat out asked the Europeans for a multibillion dollar bribe to get it done. So pretty much that trade deal is done, too.

So if you’re looking at investment into Argentina or Brazil for the foreseeable future, anything that requires value added work and like manufacturing honestly should just kind of write off for the moment because the entire legal framework is going up in smoke right now.

Why I’m Done With Twitter (or ‘X’ or whatever you call it)

What was once a platform where you could access open-source information that was reliable and free…has now been laid to rest by Elon Musk. Yes, I’m talking about that little blue bird we’ve known and loved for years.

I’m not one for beating dead horses, but at the very least, I’d like to explain my reasoning. #1 is misinformation: the lax content moderation policies have opened the floodgates of disinformation. #2 is a lack of meaningful interactions: what was once a breeding ground for stimulating conversations has become a vat of unintelligible sludge. #3 is Elon Musk: I simply can’t support anything that man does anymore.

While I’m saying goodbye to Twitter (X) for personal use, we’ll still distribute my videos there. However, the best place to get my updates is via the newsletter or my YouTube channel (both of which are linked below)…

Join My newsletter

SUBSCRIBE TO THE YOUTUBE CHANNEL
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.

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TranscripT

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from New York. I know normally people don’t like it when I do a video from my hotel room, but I’ve got a view of the cathedral right here, so I figured maybe we’d make an exception the day I’d stay here and talk about distribution channels and specifically why I’m leaving Twitter completely

So three things. First of all, I used to love Twitter because it provided me access to firsthand information in places that the mainstream media, for whatever reason, couldn’t or wouldn’t go. The best example I can give you is the Ukraine war. As technology has become more important in global media, the number of people who were employed in that space has dropped.

And so there’s a lot fewer eyes and fingers touching any particular story that has one of the reasons why we have a lot more opinion in our news than we used to. And a lot less fact checkers. Your editors, fewer people see anything. And so when something new starts up, especially when there’s something new, is kind of neo violent and dangerous, there just aren’t enough people within the existing media landscape to redirect in this case to either side of the front line in Ukraine.

And so Twitter was where individuals who had personal contacts in the area could provide information. And sure, there’s a lot to vet, but the point is, it was a source of information. Now, when the Ukraine war began, the old Twitter management went through and purged Russian bots from the system, which all of a sudden opened up Twitter to be glorious in any number of venues because it was no longer being spammed by disinformation.

It was not to the same scale. But then Elon Musk came in and as part of his commitment to free speech, he destroyed all content moderation and allowed encouraged the bots to come back in force. And so now I would say on my feed, my curated feed, it’s about 90, 95% misinformation. And so I’ve gone from spending an hour to thumbing through Twitter, getting a feel of what’s going on in the world, to spending 12 hours and having no idea what’s going on because it’s just crap.

So I’ve stopped. The second big issue has to do with interaction. Now, part of the thing that was wonderful about old Twitter is the people who were providing that firsthand information were accessible. And, you know, not to put too much of shine on it, but when you’ve got 100,000 or more followers, those people tend to pay attention if you ask them a question.

So for me, it became free information gathering and I could engage with conversations with potential sources as well as just normal viewers about what was going on. And it gave me ideas of what to do, for example, for these videos, because you guys could interact with me, you could access me, and vice versa. Well, that stopped basically the things that are in the for you category, a mention by you has disappeared from my feed.

And over the last six weeks I have had seven interactions with all of you combined. Now, if you want to spare me with porn bot that gets through and if you want to launch a crypto scheme and see if I’ll fall for it, that gets through. And if it’s a porn themed crypto scheme that absolutely gets through. But it’s gone from being one of the most rewarding parts of my job to just complete a time suck and a waste of everything that I do.

So that’s gone. And then there’s third is Elon Musk himself. What a wanker. It was one thing when he would blindly parrot whatever piece of Chinese propaganda came across the screen. And another thing, when he started doing the same thing for Russian propaganda and then Iranian propaganda. But of late, he’s gone down the white supremacist road in the anti-Semitic road.

And it’s almost like Musk has revealed to the world that in reality he’s not a green or a businessman. He’s just an unapologetic apartheid era, white South African, which apparently is exactly what he is. And so I’m done. I will still be using Twitter as a distribution channel for the videos. For those of you who are somehow able to find some sort of use for it, probably the crypto pros.

But for everybody else, I would just underline that the fastest way, the most reliable way to get the videos is to sign up for the newsletter w WW dot z e i h a incom slash newsletter sign dot com slash newsletter, which is always the first place that the video goes before Twitter, before YouTube, before everything else. So just sign up direct.

We will never share your data with anyone and the video remains free. Okay, that’s it. I’ll see you around. I’ll still be checking in on Twitter every few weeks to see if anything’s changed because, you know, God, it certainly can’t get worse, is my thinking. But then it keeps getting worse. But who knows? Maybe we’ll have a change in management.

Maybe we’ll have a change in policy, and it’ll be some version of what it used to be. But until then. Newsletter. All right. Ticker.

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
Support medshare's global efforts

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
Support medshare's global efforts

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