Jacob Shapiro: Hello listeners.
Welcome back to Geopolitical Cousins.
This is part one of the Trade Value Leader Index column,
whatever you want to call it.
Uh, Marco and I bring our top 30 leaders.
We go back and forth.
Part two will be digesting the list and arguing about
whether we were right or wrong.
Uh, please, we want your feedback.
Email me at jacob@jacobshapiro.com or uh, marco@geopoliticalalpha.com.
Or you can, you know, if you just do me, I'll also make sure that Marco is CC'd.
We want your feedback on this list.
It'll be controversial.
We want the controversy.
It's great.
Um, take care of the people you love.
Cheers and see you out there.
Marko Papic: Finally, after, uh, a long delay due to well life reality,
Israel, Iran, all that stuff.
Uh, we are finally going to do a trade value, um, list for.
Basically global leaders, so this is based on as many things of our
podcast are on the, uh, bill Simmons podcast and he does this NBA trade
value list where he basically looks at the top 50 players in the NBA and
tries to establish their trade value.
This is, this doesn't mean who's the best player in the world, it's just
that who would you trade for who?
So the player that's number one on this list would be UNT Tradeable.
Effectively, if any team called you and said, Hey, we want.
This guy, you would say?
No.
Um, now that's a combination of age of salary and skill because of course,
somebody who's like, let's say 39 years old and extremely good, but paid a bunch
of money, may not be that UNT tradable.
Uh, similarly, somebody who's ranked 10th on this list, it would mean
that everybody ranked one to nine.
You would absolutely trade that player, uh, for those top nine.
So in the context of politics, it means that, let's say that the prime
minister of your country that you live in is ranked 23rd on our list.
You would absolutely.
Drive your prime Minister to the airport, pack your bag and ship
them for anyone above, right?
So that's, that's kind of what we're doing here.
Um, now a couple of things I wanna say, uh, before we start as an introduction.
First of all, I'm a big believer in the Warren Buffet quote.
Uh, I try to invest in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can
run them sooner or later, one will.
And so, um, I think both you and I, Jacob, I think we agree that fundamentally
our framework for thinking about geopolitics is that we try to invest
in countries that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them because sooner
or later one will so replace company with country and, and you get, uh, a
little bit of a taste of what we do.
So this is kind of unnatural in a way because I think that our, um.
You know, you and I both kind of have a bias to maybe de-emphasize leadership.
Me maybe more than you, doesn't matter.
The point is, we're doing this for fun.
Okay.
This is cool.
It's fun.
We're gonna get to rank politicians around the world.
I mean, that's kind of cool.
The other thing I wanna say is that this is not necessarily
just about current performance, I think it's also about the future.
So we're, we're projecting and that's what the trade value that
Bill Simmons does with basketball players is also about the future.
That's why he will often rank younger players higher than those
who are already mature and have already sort of been priced in.
Jacob Shapiro: Yeah, that was actually, I thought that was the hardest part of
developing my own list was thinking about like, the future of different leaders.
'cause if it's just like you're trading one for today, it's like
that's a different conversation than sort of, uh, the future.
So I'm, I'm curious to see where we land on that.
Marko Papic: Okay.
A couple of more things that I wanna say.
Four points I wanna make before we start just to orient ourselves.
Uh, first of all, we are trying to.
Rank policymakers across different countries.
Right.
And so when I kind of floated this idea to a bunch of my friends I respect,
they say, well, that's impossible.
You know, running Greece is such an incredibly different job from
running the United States of America.
So how can you possibly compare, um, prime Minister Mitsa with,
you know, president Trump?
What we're assuming here is that there is something inherent about
leadership, something truly universal.
And of course, Machiavelli wrote the Prince specifically to elucidate
some of those universal qualities.
It wasn't just about how to be a good prince in Italy, in an Italian city state,
although he did have chapters at the end, kind of tucked in later about that.
Mm-hmm.
It was really about something that's inherent to being a leader
of other men and women in a country.
So our primary definition here of a successful policymaker is
somebody who takes on the material constraints of their context and
sees to successfully overcome them.
So this is about bending time space altering reality.
And this is very unnatural to me, Jacob, because I'm such a hard nosed believer
that ultimately material constraints matter so much more than anything else.
And I'm basically arguing here.
I wanna pick those leaders who, uh, take those material
constraints and overcome them.
Second, it also means that small country policy makers may have an advantage here.
They will often be the ones that have more, obviously,
overcome their disadvantages.
And you'll see that certainly in my list.
I dunno if that was the case with yours.
Um, I don't know if you, you potentially found that as well.
And by the way, we don't know each other's list, so this is probably
going to be a complete shit show.
Just to be clear.
Like I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm guessing we will have no alignment, at least, at
least Bill Simmons is using statistics, you know, when he says this basketball
player averages this or that he knows how much the contracts are and so on
Jacob Shapiro: third, well, no, but I, I listened to your prompt.
You had a couple of things that I needed to keep in mind, so I bet
We'll, I bet we'll land closer than you think, but I mean, I,
Marko Papic: I hope so.
I hope so.
So let's go through that prompt.
Uh, we have a loose hierarchy of how we measure one's performance.
So this is like statistics for a basketball player,
uh, that Bill Simmons uses.
Here's what we're using, first approval rating by the public.
It's kind of like po uh, points per game.
It's, it's a little bit of an empty calorie stat.
You know, you can, you can have good stats on a bad team.
Um, populists obviously have great.
Popularity early in their term because they're giving candy to the people.
Nonetheless, we all believe that on some level, uh, the median voter is
wise and, uh, well, at least I do.
I know Jacob less so, uh,
Jacob Shapiro: yes.
I think the median voter is a moron.
I I'll take that position against you every time.
Marko Papic: Such a, that's maybe the only thing where you are
more elitist than I am, you know, so, uh, but that's interesting.
The second is, come at be
Jacob Shapiro: median voters.
I think you're all idiots.
I will take the house against all of you.
Marko Papic: We need the median voter to reach escape velocity on this podcast.
Economic performance.
Economic performance of the country is the next, I mean, you know, it's objective.
We can measure it again, it can be juiced up by populace, but we're
trying to do our best, uh, especially relative to the peers by the way.
That's where it matters.
Geopolitical performance in terms of building alliances, projecting power,
navigating a complicated neighborhood, staying sidestepping, landmines that are
out there, choosing China versus America, trying to balance them, that's important.
Finally, military performance could be in there too.
Uh, that could be critical for some leaders like Bibi and Zelensky.
However, I think it's very diff difficult to personalize that.
I'm not sure to what extent they're actually doing anything on the front
lines, so just keep that in mind.
Uh, finally, I just wanna remind everyone, the whole point of this is very simple.
Would you trade this leader for somebody else?
That's, that's the point.
Uh, if you are in a particular country, who would you trade?
The person who leads your country for someone else.
Now, finally, uh, last setup before we go into it, we have, um, I think it's, uh,
well, 30, we're gonna do a list of 30, and we have several categories, uh, that
we're gonna try to smush our leaders in.
Uh, first of all, the bottom rank.
And by the way, if you're in the top 30, you're good.
So I don't wanna hear anyone complaining like, oh, you made so and so number 28.
Yeah, there's like 190 sovereign countries in the world, right?
Like, if you are on our list, you're not doing poorly.
So the, the bottom part of our list, we call it product of a system or a
situation, you know, is this somebody who's just like, I mean, clearly
the, the, the country's doing well.
But we're not sure if we should really give them the credit.
So that's why they are in this bottom line.
Then we go to flawed, but effective, I felt like we should have a category
for those leaders who have some problems with their track record, like
human rights, you know, like, ugh, this is one of those like, ugh, like
sections, but they're still effective.
So that's, that's that one.
Then we have some unproven gems that wanted a category.
This is where like, you know, they're, they, they look like they're really
good, but it's too early to tell, uh, that diamonds under pressure,
miracle workers, these are leaders that are really taking their country and
massively outperforming expectations.
Uh, then UNT tradable unless, right, so these are leaders that you would
not trade unless somebody called you from the top five or top six or
however many you have, which is, I. I'm hanging up the phone right now.
That's the last category.
That means that if you had a chance to trade these and somebody
calls you and says, Hey, can we take this number one policymaker?
Uh, you would say No.
Hanging up the phone.
Okay.
Jacob.
I think that's, that's it, right?
Jacob Shapiro: I think you did a great job.
We we're also gonna do some honorable mentions, uh, too, right?
To start people that were on the, on the bubble, but didn't quite make the list.
Marko Papic: Well, let's do that at the end.
Oh,
Jacob Shapiro: you wanna do it at the end?
Okay.
I thought we would go bottomed up, but we can do it at the end too.
That's fine.
Yeah,
Marko Papic: yeah.
Just, just because, you know, then you get a chance to explain why
some of those honorable mentions didn't make it on the list, right?
Jacob Shapiro: Yeah, yeah, you're right.
And that, that way we don't give away, uh, some that are not gonna be on the list.
So, I'm with you.
I'm with you.
Marko Papic: Alright, cool.
So first I'm gonna start off with this, uh, with my, I actually, uh, so Jacob,
uh, in these categories, I ended up doing just five each, you know, so
there's six categories, five each.
Uh, but if you didn't, that's co totally cool.
Uh, we're gonna start off with products of a system in a situation.
Um, first I wanna shout out to Finland and Switzerland.
Uh, they're well run places that don't really seem to
need anybody to be in charge.
Uh, I would've loved to put the president of the Swiss configuration onto this
list, but they change it every year, and so it doesn't really matter.
Switzerland just chucks along and perhaps because Switzerland is such a
well run place, and yet nobody really knows who's in charge of it, perhaps.
That more than anything illustrates the complete vacuous of this effort.
You know, Switzerland has solved the problem by not needing anybody to lead it.
But anyways, uh, the 26 to 30 in no particular order, but I'm gonna start
from the last Donald task of Poland.
Luca Doche at 29 of Slovenia.
Oh, I'm sorry, I, sorry, my bad.
Robert Goup of Slovenia at 29.
Lawrence Wong of Singapore at 28, although he could have also been in the
two new, two fresh, uh, to know too soon to tell category, uh, OLF Christen of
Sweden and met f Fredrickson of Denmark.
So as you can see, a lot of advanced OECD sort of wealthy
places that are just well run.
I can't tell if it's the leadership or not the case for Donald Tusk.
Cover of the Economist, probably k Poland's kind of riding high.
You know, there's a lot of Poland hype out there.
Um, I think I have a gut feeling he's a Superior Commission president,
then president of Poland, uh, then Prime Minister of Poland.
Um, but that's just me.
Why did I put Slovenia here?
Just crushing it.
Goop came out of nowhere.
Um, new movement, kind of the Emmanuel Macron of Slovenia has done really well.
Popularity is down a little bit, but, uh, generally the economy
and Slovenia are doing extremely well in their neighborhood.
Lauren Swang, uh, you know, has been in power really since
May 20, 24, so not that new.
His speech after April 2nd, uh, tariff announcement was probably the best
pushback and you would not have expected that to come from Singapore, which
usually tries to have a low profile.
Um.
Speech against those tariffs was really, really impassioned
and, and excellent wolf.
Christen, why is the Swedish Prime Minister here?
Well, a very complicated coalition actually with Swedish Democrats that
they've navigated extremely smoothly.
So this is the far right populist party, obviously NATO membership, um, you know,
lots of things going on Generally, uh.
I think that's very impressive.
And then finally met the f fredrickson handling of Trump, number one.
Uh, I think that this whole Greenland thing didn't take the bait.
She's done great.
And I think that was a, a really good performance.
So those are my 26 to 30 in reverse order.
Jacob Shapiro: I. Gotcha.
All right.
Mine was, mine was 25 through 30, so I put, I put an additional
person in this category, so mine weren't five per category.
I moved things around a little bit and I really struggled with the
system thing 'cause I could put too many people in the system thing.
So I sort of like, this is my all flawed but serviceable, almost category,
all smooshed because I couldn't, I couldn't figure out how to make the
system thing work with the rest of the list, which is probably my own thing.
Um, it's interesting too, by the way, I'll tell you that Lawrence Wong will
make an appearance much higher on my list.
I think you're under indexing future potential in that pick.
This is somebody who years down the road, like, I like him and he is
already done some other stuff, not just as, uh, as, as, uh, president, like,
you know, he was the one who helped design some of Singapore's pandemic
policy sort of behind fiscal policy.
He's.
Calm, he's globally fluent.
I asked Chad GPT to give me a scouting report on him based on a basketball
player and it's spit back at me.
High efficiency governance in a clean package, like a
macro economic Kyle Corver.
I'm happy to get Kyle Corver with the thir, with the, you know, with that.
So anyway, he's much further on my list, but here, here here's where I'll
go from 30, um, up to 25 at 30, I'm gonna put in Abby Ahmed in Ethiopia.
Um, he's actually made a ton of missteps and the civil war with the
Tigray has been very, uh, destructive.
I think before that though, Ethiopia was a darling of emerging markets
and I think he is trying to forge.
A, an Ethiopian national identity.
So in terms of like, like scale of, uh, not like a degree of difficulty, uh, I
think he's had a really, really hard thing and he is trying to do something that
is unprecedented in Ethiopian history and maybe even in African history.
So I put him on the list for there.
Uh, 29 we get Paul Kagame and Rwanda.
Hmm.
Uh, he almost dropped off the list because getting kind of old and, you know,
there's some other things happening now.
It sort of seems like we're doing another version of the Congo Wars.
Is he really gonna have the stamina?
But think about where Rwanda was before Paul Kagame and think about
where, where it is right now.
He's on the list for me.
Uh, at 28, I had Emmanuel Macron, he would've been much higher,
except that he's a lame duck.
He won't be here for much longer.
Mm-hmm.
So if this were 2017, probably would've put him higher up.
He's got lots of problems.
He wears thin domestically.
Um, nobody actually likes him, so he like, thinks strategically
and tries to do lots of things.
And I appreciate how he tried to go against Francis.
Constraints failed in a lot of different ways, but hey, you get points for
trying, but he's low on the list because not that much time left for him.
Uh, right next to him at 27.
I'll throw in Friedrich Mers.
I can't, I'm not really sure what to make of him quite yet.
Like, uh, his first, like, steps out of the gate were not great, like, didn't
get the chancellorship on the first vote.
Those were like basic blocking and tackling errors that made me skeptical.
So I've thrown him in there.
He, he made it to the top of Germany.
But timing, like lots of different things.
Um.
To say there, and then rounding out my top two for this category at 26,
I've got Abdul Fata LSI in Egypt.
Dictator strongman probably doesn't transport to a lot of different
geographies well, but as a military strongman has done a remarkable job in
a sort of powder keg of a country with 120 million plus people, which was on the
verge of going to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Uh, and at 25, I'll throw in Ilham Aliev in Azerbaijan.
Mm-hmm.
Um, Azerbaijan has gone from strength to strength.
They won the Nur Carrabba war.
They're punching significantly above their weight from economic
performance doing extremely well.
He's this far down in the list because he's ultimately a resource autocrat.
So I'm not sure that Ali's game travels very much, but
it's perfect for Azerbaijan.
And Azerbaijan has done so well compared to, say, its neighbor Armenia
or some others, uh, in the South caucuses that I think he warrants,
uh, inclusion in this category.
So there, there's my, my 30 through 25.
Marko Papic: So what, who, so Ethiopia 30 Rwanda, 29 France 28.
Uh, 27.
I missed, sorry.
Uh, I didn't put it down.
Friedrich
Jacob Shapiro: Mers, Germany.
Oh, yeah.
Germany.
Marko Papic: Germany.
Interesting.
Uh, you have, yeah.
Okay.
Uh, I struggled.
Um, I struggled myself, uh, with, uh, Ali.
I, I thought of adding him as well, and I think that's an interesting one.
The other ones do, uh, make a appearance for me as well, except for e Egypt's, uh,
cc he doesn't, uh, just that, uh, I don't know what to make of it yet, you know?
Uh, mm-hmm.
Uh, obviously navigating post Arab spring is, is a big deal, so maybe I, I
feel bad now that he's not on my list.
Jacob Shapiro: Yeah.
I mean, I think it's easy to forget how chaotic things
were in age of 20 13, 20 14.
But like Mohammed Morsey was there, the Muslim Brotherhood was
ascendant, like Mubarak, and the military had been discredited.
And then like, boom, this guy just comes in goodbye.
Muslim Brotherhood, goodbye like Arab Spring.
Like we're just going back to military dictatorship again.
That doesn't travel particularly well.
Like Abdul fatal.
He's not winning any Democratic elections.
That's why he's like, but in, just in terms of like, would you want him
in charge of the machinery of state?
Yeah.
He has shown himself to be a stable hand, at least when it comes to that.
Marko Papic: Okay, good.
Um, yeah.
Uh, the other thing that I would say is that product of a system,
I think you chose a lot of people that actually I have higher.
Mm-hmm.
Um, because I'm not sure that anyone can be really a product
of Ethiopia or Ze Bijan.
Those are very difficult places to rule.
So the fact that you have them this slow is interesting.
You know, I chose leaders who it's difficult for me to assess
whether they are performing well or whether they're just running.
Really well run countries.
And so that's where, you know, like that's where Lawrence Wong or met the f
Fredrickson, I mean, met the Fredrickson has done a, a, a really admirable job,
uh, in Denmark on many different fronts.
Um, but particularly with the ascendancy of Donald Trump, the
way that they've handled that.
On the other hand, Frederickson is running Denmark, you know,
how difficult is really that?
So that's where Well,
Jacob Shapiro: yeah, and I think this is one of the most difficult
things in this exercise is to try and compare across things.
'cause I had her much higher too, like both sh Oh, interesting.
Both, both.
She and Lawrence Wong, for me are in the, I'm hanging up in 30
seconds, so I'll think about it.
I, you know, but I, for me, they're high functioning technocrats or elite
lieutenants, like the sorts that I would sort of trust, like if you put met to
Frederickson in charge of Ethiopia.
She might do some really interesting things.
And I think when you, I think the other thing about democracies is I think we
don't wanna underestimate how mm-hmm.
Difficult it is to get to the top echelons of democratic power.
Um, it's a different skill set than say, you know, a Paul
Kagame or something like that.
But like somebody who's gotten to the top of Denmark and is crushing it like
that to me, like has, and if you get to the top of the Singapore system,
like that to me is telling me that you have some political credentials,
uh, credentials that could follow.
Whereas some of the others in this category, like I think they are
flawed, but serviceable statesmen and states, women, they have a low ceiling.
But if you just plugged them in, uh, yeah, they would give you some stability.
So like, if you're in.
I dunno, let's think of a really screwed up country.
If you're in like, uh, Kazakhstan is maybe a bad example, but if, if you're
in a country, uh, let's talk Vietnam, like Vietnam has been in the midst of
a power transition back and forth for a couple of years right now, and you
came and said, here, I'll trade you.
Like met to Frederickson, you'd be like, yeah, I'll take met to Fredericks.
That, that sounds great to me.
So
Marko Papic: cool.
Okay.
Well I'm glad that you didn't think that my list was overly
indexed to Europe, because you have at least FedEx in there too.
Jacob Shapiro: I do.
Although I did not have Donald Tusk and, uh, Slovenia's not on my list.
Just 'cause I, I'm not up to date on Slovenia, sorry guys, but Donald Tusk
and of Christensen, like I considered them, but they did not make my list over.
Marko Papic: Okay, good.
But I'm glad you considered them.
At least that's, um, I struggled really with this category at the end.
It was sort of like, you know, you could have gone a lot of different ways.
I thought about Ethiopia, myself in Egypt.
So, uh, good.
So far, so good.
Nothing, nothing that we really disagree with.
Right.
Jacob Shapiro: Uh, no, I, the only thing is like, I think, yeah, Lawrence Wong
for me is much, much higher on my list.
Okay.
But everything else, I'm, I'm with you.
Marko Papic: Alright, cool.
Okay, well let's go to the next one, which is flawed, but effective.
And, and I felt it, uh, several of your picks really
for me fit into this category.
In fact, I have two, I have two that you picked a little bit higher because, uh, I
see them as flawed, but quite effective.
So I start off at 25.
Uh, for me, 25 obviously.
Uh, you picked six, I picked five.
I started off with Erdogan.
Mm. So I have him, uh, on my list pretty low.
I suspect we might have some disagreement on this because I know of course that
you have, uh, you hold Turkey and it's geopolitical potential in high regard.
But I'm almost penalizing Reep type Erdogan because of that, because I feel
that he should have done much better with what he has working for him.
I don't feel that Turkey has really moved, I mean, uh, to expand its
sphere of influence and yes, I, I understand that you've been pointing
out its gains in the Middle East.
However, the true, I think, sphere of influence that Turkey should be
crushing is as it always has been between the Danube and the E gn.
That is where Turkey should be projecting power.
The other issue is that economy has been mismanaged.
It just absolutely has been.
Now there's been incredible improvement over the last two years, but that's
because it started off with a low base.
And unlike Javier Malay, who you can reward for the last 12 months of Orthodox
policies, you can't really reward Erdogan for shifting towards more orthodoxy when
he was the one that implement implemented unorthodox policies to in the first place.
So I have him pretty low on, on this list.
I'll, I'll fly through my other four really quickly and.
Uh, I got Azerbaijan Ilham Ali of 24.
Yep.
Uh, pretty much for all the reasons that you said.
So I don't wanna, uh, kind of waste, uh, time on that.
I think the one thing that maybe you didn't mention is, uh, maneuvering
between Turkey, Russia, and Europe.
Uh, the fact that somehow magically Azerbaijan has been able to tra
transit Russian natural acid to Europe and not get into trouble for it.
Well done.
Slow clap for, uh, Aliyah.
Very well done.
And, and
Jacob Shapiro: decent relations with Iran.
Decent relations with Israel, like really, like some upper level statesmanship.
Marko Papic: By the way, we've lost all our Armenian friends.
I will not be allowed back into Glendale or, or my adopted hometown of Montreal.
So I apologize to my, all my immediate friends who are listening to, but
if you are honest with yourself.
You'll concede, you'll bow, bow down your head in silent moment of despair and
agree that Azerbaijan has been blessed with relatively effective leadership.
Although, yes, as you pointed out, Jacob, we have to note that of
course, it's easy to run a country whose wealth is greased by commodity,
Jacob Shapiro: uh, exports.
So that's Yeah.
But, but, but they're in a difficult neighborhood to, to our Armenian
friends, like I think any of you would trade your leadership for the
leadership of, of the Aliya family.
I think
Marko Papic: that's Well, and, and by the way, if you disagree, tell us.
Tell us if, if you would, but, uh, from speaking to my Iranian friends and from
observing Armenia, like the leadership, uh, vacuum has been pretty significant.
So I agree with you.
Uh, 23rd on my list.
Anwar Ibrahim.
Hmm.
Good one.
Shut.
Yeah.
Malaysia.
Uh, first of all, uh, if there is one person on this list who has adopted, just
like that ability to resurrect themselves, reinvent themselves, God bless Ibrahim.
He has, uh, he's a survivor.
Clearly.
He is, uh, been in and out of court.
He's been, uh, attacked by the elites in Malaysia.
He's done a lot of different things.
I also think that he has handled Malaysian geopolitics excellence since 2022,
and also during the financial crisis.
Uh, remember he was in charge and Malaysia did escape most of that East
Asian crisis back now, 30 years ago.
So he's, he's done really well.
Um, I. Iman Macron is on this list for me.
Flawed, but effective.
Again, it's different.
It's difficult because I, I feel like most of our French listeners will just
say like, you guys are smoking crack.
Um, nobody likes him, as you said.
But look, here's the case for Macron.
Um, he's managed to build a centrist coalition out of nothing.
He's stayed in power a long time.
Uh, and I think he's fallen short of a lot of the things
that he's done, uh, domestically.
But generally speaking, I think the fact that he asserted the two party
system in France, like with his bare hands is, uh, is impressive.
And finally, I have Paul Kagame, right?
Flawed, flawed, but effective.
Now you have Paul Kagame 29th.
I have him 21st.
Uh, astonishing economic development in Rhonda.
I think we all agree with that.
Um, I think the focus on healthcare and education.
Wow.
Like right.
Yeah, this is, this is the Singapore economic model just,
just imported into Rwanda.
Like well done, obviously, um, on and off supporting insurgent in Congo.
Not sure what the, what the winner gets, but Sure.
And obviously troubled domestic track records.
One of those domestic track records were like, you may not be able to
retire, if you know what I mean.
And that's not sure that that was necessary.
Um.
That's it.
Jacob Shapiro: Yeah, no, I, like, I, I think he belongs on the list.
If he were 10 years younger, he'd be higher on my list.
Like my interesting, including him at 29 is just about an age thing.
And he's been around for a long time and eventually things are, are gonna run out.
But I think you're right.
And I think he's actually, he's been masterful in the
way he interfered with Congo.
Like, I mean, when you think about where Rwanda was in the mid nineties and how he,
you know, strategically positioned Rwanda into a real force to be reckoned with
against much larger countries around it.
I think he deserves it.
I think we should spend just a second.
I should have had Anwar Ibrahim on this list and I, I don't have him on the list.
Um, that's a mistake on my part though.
I needed to make room for him and I didn't.
So I take your point there.
Erdowan is not that much higher for me.
I'll give away that.
He was number 16 on my list.
Um, again, here though, this is more about his age, like.
Erdogan is at the end of his career, sort of like a hall of Famer on their last leg.
So he's still dangerous.
He's still got some punches to throw, but there's not a whole
lot left, I think of Erdogan.
I think your shorts No, no, go ahead.
Marko Papic: No, no, please, please go ahead.
Jacob Shapiro: Just I think you're short selling a little bit of his,
of his accomplishment because his main accomplishment is to take when,
you know, when he became mayor of Istanbul, um, in, what was that late.
Late nineties, I forget the exact year.
Um, Turkey was truly a divided country where you had the liberal
secular, you know, cosmopolitan.
We're gonna drink rocky and sit on the bosphorous and eat fish crowd versus
the central anatol, conservative heartland, you know, looked down upon
by the cosmopolitans in Istanbul.
And Erdogan has forged a coherent country out of both of these.
He put the Anatolian conservatives not completely in power.
It's not like he's completely dismantled the cosmopolitanism of Istanbul
and all the things that have made whoever controls the Bosporus and
incredibly important trading partner and all these other things, but he's
integrated them into the economy and he's shown an incredible amount of
economic flexibility in doing so.
Remember, this is the guy who was giving me all the IMF reforms in the late two
thousands, into the early 2010s, like doing all the things by the book, but
then when he needed to grease the wheels.
And to secure arrangements with all of these different parts of society.
Sure.
Let's do a little state led, you know, Archy and like, you know, let's
make sure that the right people were in control of the right industries.
And if that means I have unorthodox monetary policy, so be it.
I'll just call up my friends in Saudi Arabia and I know that they'll bail me out
because they don't want me as an enemy.
I'm worse to them as an enemy, as as anything else.
So I think he's reaching the end of his rope.
I think you can see that, you know, in, uh, in arresting and imprisoning Ima mlu,
like, I don't think that's gonna age well.
You can see he's trying to maybe position sons or sons inlaws or like
other fa like all these things I think are not gonna go well for him.
Um, but I think he's, I think Turkey is in a much more powerful and economically
prosperous situation than it was before.
And I think he really threaded the needle on a country that very easily could have
gone, you know, in a different look at other countries in the Middle East and how
they dealt with conservative, more Islamic aspects of society and the way he was able
to forge something coherent out of that.
I mean, let's not invoke add a Turk, but hey, he's at
least doing a good impression.
Marko Papic: Okay.
So,
Jacob Shapiro: um, I think I, I, my entire first six were all flawed but serviceable.
So I think what you should do next is you should read your next category
and then I'll do my next category.
'cause I don't, I don't want to get in front of your
categories, if that makes sense.
Marko Papic: Sense.
Oh, okay.
But, uh, do you wanna restate, uh, your next five or,
Jacob Shapiro: I think you should state your next and
then I'll follow on behind you.
I think that's Got it.
If, if we're, if we're keeping up with categories, that's
what's gonna line up best.
Marko Papic: Okay.
Okay, cool.
So the next one is unproven gems.
Correct?
Jacob Shapiro: Yeah.
So though I, this wasn't make the G 20 photo or is this unproven gems?
Marko Papic: Uh, this is the unproven gems.
Jacob Shapiro: Oh, okay.
Um, I had make the, the G 20 photo, but that's fine.
It's all, that's fine.
It's all still good.
Okay, so,
Marko Papic: so I, I stopped at 21.
And by the way, uh, so my last one was Paul Kme.
I'm, you know, a lot about frontier markets, um, that I don't really
follow very closely, so I'm very glad that you've kind of confirmed
that that was a good pick.
I, I'm, I'm glad we're aligned on that.
Alright.
Unproven gems.
Unproven gems for me are basically kind of like, um, you know,
lots of potential out there.
I start off with Anthony Albanese in Australia.
Done, well so far, very difficult situation.
Um, a more isolationist to the United States.
There's the cus review.
Uh, he's trying to, uh, he's trying to pivot Australia away from
what was, uh, extremely unipolar.
Uh, basically worldview.
It was really the only country, I think on the planet that just
decided like, world is bipolar.
China US is gonna go into a cold war.
Uh, he's saying like, wait a minute.
That doesn't seem like what's happening, so maybe I should adjust
the foreign policy of Australia.
And I think that's correct.
Number 19,
unproven Gem.
Leo 14th, the Vatican.
Jacob Shapiro: Nice.
I knew you would like that.
Not on my list.
Marko Papic: Not on your list.
Oh, not on
Jacob Shapiro: my list.
There we go.
Not on my list.
Marko Papic: Number 18, Friedrich Mez.
Um, quite frankly, Friedrich Mez, I mean, he's, uh, on your list as
27, just because you don't know.
Um, I put him at 18.
Quite frankly, I think we will both be proven, uh, to have
not picked him high enough.
I think, uh, so far what I've seen is, uh, quite frankly, really, really impressive.
Number 17, Mark Carney.
Uh mm-hmm.
He gets a nod over Mertz just because I think it's more
difficult for him than for Mertz.
Uh, but, uh, doing very well.
We talked a couple of, uh, episodes before about structural
reforms going on in Canada.
He has just submitted the one Canada bill legislation that is going to
break down barriers between provinces.
And I do believe that is going to pass.
And I think that Canada will finally be like all other countries
on the planet, a federal entity, which it hasn't been thus far.
So that is actually enormous.
I mean, some studies show that if they actually get that through, creating
an economy will benefit massively.
Like it will grow like a whole percent higher, um, because of those reforms.
Mm-hmm.
And then finally, this is gonna be maybe a controversial, uh, pick, maybe not.
Ahmed Al.
Jacob Shapiro: Aha.
I uh, that's a great pick.
I left him off.
He was in my honorable mentions.
'cause um, I think he's very speculative.
Like you, you might have found Nicola Yoic or you might have found, uh, I don't know,
insert some other European player that didn't make it, that got drafted that way.
But what he's done so far is very, very impressive.
Marko Papic: Well, what's impressive is this is the former al
basically Al-Qaeda aligned leader.
Not basically
Jacob Shapiro: like, like yes, he was Al-Qaeda.
Marko Papic: He was Al Al-Qaeda.
Yes.
Uh, what's interesting though about him and his family and what
makes me pause here is that he's actually extremely well educated
person from a very educated family.
Uh, so he is, uh, I think he went to school, uh, for medicine.
Um, and he is married to somebody who comes from a very prominent
political family that has very deep roots in Syria, in the elites.
So, um, his father was also a, a prominent, uh, I think
member of previous governments.
Uh, so this is not somebody that just picked up an AK 47 off
like a farm and joined Alqaeda.
This is somebody who was frustrated with what was going on in his
country, very well educated and, uh, fought against the side.
And of course, the easiest way to get resources and weapons at
the time was to join Alqaeda, um, or join its various offshoots.
So thus far, uh, just an incredible savvy understanding of PR and marketing.
I mean, he scored an interview with, uh, you know, AUR on CNN.
Uh, he looks great in a suit.
He is hedging a lot of different risks.
Sharia law, this, that, uh, Israel, Iran, the only country in the entire
region that was very quiet about it.
Um, and I think that.
It's been very impressive, uh, performance.
Of course, the problems are what has been released over the last couple of days.
There's now evidence of, you know, sectarian violence against the alloys.
I mean, he needs to crush that ASAP if he's going to remain on this list.
But I've got him at 16
Jacob Shapiro: or he just needs to crush all the alloys.
I'm not sure the alloys have long to go in Syria based.
I mean, they had their time in the sun led by a pretty brutal series of dictators.
Um, yeah, Leo the 14th, not on my list.
I don't think anyone would trade, uh, a White Sox fan for, uh, any
of these other leaders going on
Marko Papic: here.
Oh, wow.
Jacob Shapiro: Oh, shots fired.
Marko Papic: That was the problem.
Not these baseball dancing age or, you know, like I listen if you can, if you
can survive the conclave of the cardinals and the backstabbing that happens there.
You know what I mean?
Like you're good.
And I dunno, we'll see, but I threw him in there because you and I have
a great affinity to talk about, uh, in, in inner workings of the Vaticans.
So I figured why not?
Jacob Shapiro: Yeah, yeah.
Why not?
Merz Mers would've been hired for me, except that, you know, that
thing where he didn't get elected chancellor on the first vote.
That was sort of like JR Smith calling Time out in game one of that, uh, you
know, know how many timeouts you have, man, that's like a basic, fundamental task
of how you're gonna do these things if you can't do like, so maybe he'll be great.
And I appreciate that he's working against constraints here,
but he got penalized for me.
Uh, Bo both Albanese and Carney are higher up on this list.
Well,
Marko Papic: well I'm glad I was worried.
I was very, very self-conscious about putting Alban here.
Uh, because I thought you were gonna make fun of me, and I also expected, I also
expected you to really shit all over my Mark Carney pick and call me a homer.
So, uh, I may have even brought him lower just because I was self-conscious
and afraid of being made fun of.
Jacob Shapiro: No, I, I think Carney's okay.
I think he's got a tough job ahead of him.
I think that caving on that digital services tax shows you just, that Canada
doesn't have a lot of options and that his job is gonna be to, you know, make
the best deal possible he can with Donald Trump in the United States without
completely bending over backwards.
So he's got a high degree of difficulty.
But, um, you know, if you're thinking about would you trade your current leader
for somebody like Mark Carney, like, he's gonna, like, he's higher up for me
because I think you can, if you start thinking about it that way, I think
there are a lot of countries in the world would be like, yeah, I'll take that guy.
He seems let's pretty smart.
Good, let's good like hand on the wheel.
Marko Papic: So let's explain what we mean by that.
I mean, uh, essential bankers come and go, right?
But having a smooth, sophisticated, and yet comfortable
with being in a small town.
Central banker, there is only one of one.
Mario Drag may be the best dressed person on the planet.
Uh, Mario Draghi may be the highest IQ person on the planet, but I don't
think that Mario Drag would've been as comfortable in a small Canadian town
discussing junior hockey as Mark Carney.
And that's because he actually was born in Northwestern
territories, not even a province.
It's pretty much like Iraqis as far as you're concerned, or hot
more appropriately climatically.
And so he does have small town appeal and uh, ability to actually
seem genuine, um, and authentic.
And that's really a difficult combination to both be a macroeconomics nerd.
And have that authenticity
Jacob Shapiro: well, and really understands the anglosphere,
like, understands Canada deeply, understands the UK deeply, I think
understands the United States deeply.
Like he's, you know, in that sense, he has a deep knowledge of where he
comes from and is able to balance some of these pressures against each other.
So yeah, I'm, I'm not, I have no problems with Kearney whatsoever.
I still think he's not governing a future superpower, but we can, we don't have to
take you through the, the coals for that.
Alright, well my next, my next category goes from 24 to 21.
Um, and I didn't really have it as unproven gems.
This is really just another grab bag of leaders that I
thought sort of belong together.
That's okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
Um, but, you know, um, but anyway, so at 24, I have pro Bwo in Indonesia.
Mm-hmm.
Um, this is a guy who has changed his stripes many different times.
He was a military.
Or really, you know, an assistant to a military dictator, did some human
rights violations, stayed around though for decades, eventually makes a deal
to become vice president with Jai.
Now he's finally, uh, the president showing off some of his like negative
qualities and making the biggest cabinet in Indonesia history and all the pork
barrels spending and everything else.
But hey, like you get points for sticking around four decades in both a
military dictatorship and a democracy.
I think somebody who knows like how to get power, how to
exert power and how to survive.
So I'll take him there.
He might get pushed down lower.
Um, some of his early returns on his first,
Marko Papic: well, that's the thing.
Couple months in power.
If I could just interject, please.
I thought about it.
I thought about it, is just that it's just so hard to follow Joco.
Widodo.
It is.
And if Joco Widodo was here.
You know, I don't really have honorable mentions, to be honest with you, Jacob.
I have some that don't make the list and that I think are terrible.
But many people think they're good.
But I have this kind of like, oh, I wish they were still in charge.
Like, yeah, I have a man crush in Mario Draghi.
What?
Sumi?
Uh, and I kind of had a man crush in Joko Widodo, think the man like, did amazing
stuff and brought Indonesia to the map.
So now I just, you know, it's kind of like when all these basketball
players were kind of promoted by the NBA as the next Michael
Jordan, I ended up not liking them.
Like I was not a Vince Carter fan, and not just because he stabbed Toronto
Raptors in the back, but I just didn't like him because the PR machine
tried to make him the next Michael Jordan, and I just don't think the
Provo is anywhere close to Joe Dodo.
So anyways, that's, he is not,
Jacob Shapiro: he is not.
He and j and he Jacobi did a great job.
But, but to extend your metaphor to a really painful extent, you know, j Jacobi
reminds me of, um, I remember like, uh.
Late nineties still, you know, sports Illustrated was still a thing.
And I vividly remember the cover of Sports Illustrated when they were like, Jerry
Stackhouse, the next Michael Jordan.
I think Jerry Stackhouse is Jae in this metaphor.
Like everybody was like, eh, and you know, he had a fine career,
but like, he didn't, he didn't actually fundamentally change things.
Like, I don't think that, um, I think that now that he's gone, like his
imprint will not stand the test of time.
And that's because Indonesia's impossible.
Um, Indonesia, by all like, is not really a nation state.
All the different languages, all the different ethnicities, all of the di
you know, it's literally a bunch of islands that are strung together in
some kind of strange federal structure.
Like really, really high degree of difficulty.
So if Jacobi were around, we up him, but, you know, fail,
failed to leave as imprint.
The next two are gonna be controversial for me.
They're boring.
Um.
And I'm sure our leaders from New Zealand and the UK will say, there's no way
that you should have these leaders here.
But again, we're talking about would you trade these leaders
for what I currently have?
And if you start putting yourself in the shoes of people in Equatorial Guinea
or Guana, well, actually I shouldn't say Guatemala, but you know, uh, some
of these other Nicaragua like you would trade for these people in a heartbeat.
So Christopher Luxon in New Zealand, you get 23 and Kiir
Starmer 22, just competent.
They're fine.
They're not gonna break things.
They're not gonna change things, but like, just find competent
leadership that you would trade, uh, if you had sort of a bad time.
Um, and then coming in at 21, um, I have Cy Ramos of South Africa.
Um, and I think that he has showed himself to be a pretty adept politician.
I think he has dealt with Trump, uh, correctly.
He's in an impossible situation in South Africa and has played
the game, uh, relatively well.
Um, so, and I, I think he has, you know, reformist desires, but he's
sort of crippled by the A NC and some of their, uh, dysfunction.
But I, he's got a very, very hard job and he's doing a decent job considering the
challenges that he has in front of him.
Marko Papic: Do you wanna go on or shall we stop here for you?
Jacob Shapiro: Uh, we can go on whatever you want.
You're the mc?
Yeah, why don't we, I'm happy to go on.
Marko Papic: Yeah, why don't you complete it, because, you know, I'm at 15 now, so
why don't you go to your next, uh, okay.
Jacob Shapiro: My next list, 20 through 15 here.
This, uh, what, what was the name of this category for you?
Marko Papic: Well, I think we've kind of like, uh, moved away from that.
For me, it was diamonds under pressure, but
Jacob Shapiro: Okay.
Yeah.
For me this was like, uh, sort of the same thing, but more like, like tragic flaw.
Like, these countries are really lucky to have these guys, but they
have some flaw that just makes it, eh, like you would trade them
if you could get a better offer.
So coming in at 20 is Lula de Silva in Brazil.
Marko Papic: Ooh,
Jacob Shapiro: wow.
Um, wow.
Yeah.
Marko Papic: First huge disagreement.
Jacob Shapiro: Because you've got him higher up or 'cause
you've got 'em lowered down
Marko Papic: because, I mean, I don't have 'em at all.
You know, you don't have
' Jacob Shapiro: em at all.
Ooh, no.
Lula.
I think that's a mistake and our Brazilian listeners will call you out for it.
The things that Lula has done over his career are absolutely extraordinary.
Yes, he has survived.
Agreed, incredible things.
Agreed.
He's at the end of the rope, so maybe like, I penalized him.
I he would've been further up if this was young Lula, but
he's done incredible things for
Marko Papic: this.
I view if this was like first term Lula, he would've been top five.
I'm hanging down the phone.
I completely agree with you.
But this is, this is like, pick picking Michael.
Uh, sorry.
This is like picking LeBron James in the top 20 trade value.
I mean, yeah, he puts up the stats, but you're looking at $56 million 39-year-old
playing on knees that have seen, they have gone around the world three times.
You know, like, hey, hey
Jacob Shapiro: La LeBron's still pretty good there.
Uh, I think it was on Zack Lowe's podcast where they were rumoring,
you know, uh, the Knicks might trade Enobi and bridges and something else.
Point.
It's LeBron.
LeBron can still take you places
Marko Papic: under Noia bridges.
IIA Bridges for LeBron James.
Oh yeah.
Come on.
Jacob Shapiro: Wonderful player.
I'll, I'll take Lula.
I like, I like he's got, he's got a tragic flaw.
Like he could never, like, you know, most of Brazil's congress is center, right?
Like his dream of Brazil hasn't necessarily come to pass, but I
think Jacob's been a skilled leader.
Yeah.
Marko Papic: Jacob, this is the way I see it.
Uh, Tupac Shakur's career really goes pre jail, post jail, you know, pre jail.
He is writing basically American poetry.
Right?
Changes.
Uh, dear mama, my letter to the president, like, just fascinating.
Post jail.
Yes.
Some of that stuff is full of just smoke.
And anger and it comes outta the gut, but it's like hit them up, you know?
It's not really, it's not poetry.
And so Lula to me, same as Tupac, there's pre jail Lula, there's Pogel Lula.
And I think jail changed him, man.
I think he just became a bitter populist, and that's just, I think
that Brazil will be very lucky, uh, to get rid of him in the next election.
But, and again, that is not to say that I disagree with anything you've said.
Absolute survivor and his first term, like almost flawless, although
he was riding the coattails of the Kaari bull market nonetheless.
No, nonetheless, I agree with you on that.
Um, but sorry, I interrupted you.
Well, no, no, no.
Jacob Shapiro: And I, and I often say that Brazil reminds me the
most of, of any country in the world that reminds me of the United
States in terms of its politics.
Brazil reminds me of the United States the most.
Yes.
And there's an arc here where Lula becomes the Joe Biden of Brazil, and where Mr.
Bolsonaro is, is waiting in the wings.
But, you know, if, if we had been talking about Biden.
Before it was obvious that he was senile, like 20, 21 version of
Biden like that, you know, I think that's sort of where I'm going here.
But anyway, uh, rounding up this section for me.
So at 19, I hate having him here, but I don't think we can avoid Mr. Victor Orban.
I.
Marko Papic: Oh wow.
He has been
Jacob Shapiro: in power for quite some time.
He is certainly not a liberal.
Um, but I think also, uh, the, the opposition in Hungary has demonized
him to an incredible extent.
He's been ahead on lots of different things when it comes to geopolitics.
I think he's very, very smart and excellent tactician like I would, and
he's, he's played the game very well.
In terms of geopolitics, he saw the world being multipolar.
Well, before, before I was talking about Multipolarity, Victor Orban
was preparing for multipolarity, so he gets some props from me there,
but he's fundamentally a liberal.
Like there are places there, there are countries that he just can't go
to because he cannot brook descent.
He's got that authoritarian instinct in him, so he's got that tragic flaw.
Uh, 18.
You can feel the vibe of this category now, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Another incredible tactician, a politician's politician.
Nobody better at the footwork like can do it all.
He is got, he can do the right hand, the left hand.
He is got the jump hook, he is got the three point shot, everything
else, and yet cares more about himself than his own country.
Oh yeah.
And cares more about own survival than anything else.
And that narcissism, like it makes him such a great politician and he
can position his country, you know, especially a country like Israel, which
isn't polarized and divided like he can be a north star for that type of country.
But like a deep tragic flaw.
I don't think's legacy.
Do you know who's my,
Marko Papic: I think my comp for him in basketball terms would probably
be Gilbert do arenas honestly.
There you go.
Jacob Shapiro: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right down to bringing the gun to the locker room and uh, toting it around.
We've gotta get Iran guys, this is why I've got the gun in the locker room.
Marko Papic: Yeah.
Dero basically, what's his name?
Critter's career.
Critter.
Jacob Shapiro: Yeah.
Javaris.
Yeah.
Whatever.
Yeah, he went to Georgia Tech.
I remember that.
So shout out Georgia Tech.
Well done David at seven.
At 17 Javier Millet.
Okay.
Uh, I, I, I assume based on what you said, that he's higher up for you,
but maybe not that much higher up.
Um, again, I asked, uh, chat GPT for a little help here in sort of,
uh, what the scouting report would be and it spit back out to me.
Crypto Ron Paul meets Steve Jobs.
That was pretty Whoa.
Steve Jobs.
Marko Papic: Whoa.
Jacob Shapiro: Yeah, but like, and I, I, I wanted to punish him a little bit
because I think his winning power was actually more a function of Argentinians
just being fed up and they were looking for the craziest thing possible.
And so they picked the craziest thing possible.
But like early returns, he's shown himself to be much more pragmatic than his dead
dog communing, uh, you know, chainsaw wielding, uh, Mo would suggest I really
didn't like that weird crypto scam that he was a part of or got taken for a ride for.
Like, that was a negative signal for me.
And I think we're about to get into the tough times for him, but I'm
interested enough that he's there at 17.
At 16.
Mr. Erdogan, we've already talked about you, Mr. Sultan, uh, so
we don't have to do more there.
And at number 15, the top of this list.
Again, lucky to have him, but we've got some kind of tragic flaw here.
This also is about, you know, uh, future projecting Narendra Modi
comes in right here at 15 for me.
Mm. Um, yeah, interest if this were, if this were, if this were first term Modi,
he's maybe Untouchables, like he's maybe at the very, very top of this list, but
we're, in a third term, we're getting old.
Have we built something beyond Modi's charisma that
allows the BJP to go forward?
I don't know.
He, he was very ambitious about, have, about his reforms.
Not a whole heck of a lot have gone through.
Some of them have, like we've, we've harmonized taxes and we've done some
good things, but like others we've really haven't made progress on.
So I think he's, you know, MVP level player, but we're in the twilight of our
career and we haven't quite gone through.
Um, some of the things that we thought that some people that need
to be this high on the list would be, so he comes in at 15 for me.
Marko Papic: So if I was to take a pause here and think about this,
I'm very surprised we don't have much disagreement at our bottom,
you know, 10, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
So like in the bottom seven, uh, we don't have that much disagreement.
Okay?
I didn't have Provo, uh, I didn't have cc, um, um, or Ali, uh, in Ethiopia,
so, you know, but like Zer, Peja, Germany, France, Rhonda, similarly
on my end, I mean, okay, fine.
Luka, Don Slovenia, sorry, Robert Gob.
Tus and Christ Christensen, you don't have.
But not yet.
Yeah.
But there was a lot of, uh, agreement, I think at the bottom.
Yeah.
Uh, I, I actually have a, oh,
Jacob Shapiro: and I also, I also just wanted to say, I forgot to say
this, like, 'cause we did say that approval ratings mattered here.
Norendra Modi has the highest approval rating, uh, of all the
different, you know, leaders.
So he's got 77%, uh, melee at 62%.
Albee has a 54% approval rating.
So I, I overindexed him for there as well.
So there's a couple here that got boosts for me based on that.
Marko Papic: So I actually, now that you've run off these out of
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, I've got Modi, Tigan, and Millie.
I have osa, he's coming up.
Mm-hmm.
I don't have, uh, UK New Zealand, Brazil.
Hungary in Israel.
Um hmm.
I mean, no offense to the Anglosphere.
I think, you know, time will tell.
I just wasn't, uh, particularly impressed.
I guess I chose Albanese instead of Starr, quite frankly.
Kind of both came at the same time.
So, um, I think Albany's job is tougher, quite frankly, but we'll see.
Lula disagree a lot, and then Bibi and Victor, um, I get it.
I just, and especially in Ban's case, I feel like I, I should have had him in
the top 30, so, um, I think you're right.
But on Bibi, you know, you are absolutely right.
Just, he puts up incredible statistics.
He is, uh, an all star.
He is got the max contract, but he is a chemistry killer and he's a team cancer.
What I mean by that is that I think that everything that Netanyahu has done
over the last, you know, five years is ultimately going to, uh, you know, it's
gonna be something that Israel will be paying, uh, for a very long time.
So I, I definitely vociferously disagree with that, but that's okay.
That's good.
Let's go to the next, uh, uh, next category.
Okay.
So this is where I think our disagreements, uh, well, no, no, no.
I think actually you're gonna agree with a lot of these.
Uh, number 15 for me is raa.
This is a deep take.
Deep take my friend.
Jacob Shapiro: Deep take.
Yeah.
Marko Papic: Yes.
Leader of Albania.
Okay.
Um, and yes, someone born in Serbia has picked an Albanian leader as top 15.
Um, that's a head nod to all our Armenian friends who are
gonna be mad at us about Aliev.
Just like, Hey, if I can pick Eddie Rama, you know, you guys
can chill with, uh, aliev.
Great navigation of a complicated region, uh, has found new sources of
economic prosperity for Albania, Albania, particularly tourism, just like exploding.
It's like, it's like what Portugal was like five, 10 years ago.
That's Albania today.
Very well done.
Um, and the other thing is that has great relationship with everyone in
the region, including with Serbia, like really well done and has
completed more EU chapters than Serbia.
So closer to integration than, um, a country that's, I mean, you know,
like objectively speaking, just I.
Far more modern economically.
And from an industrial's perspective, Albania started off much worse in 1990 as
the co collapse of Communism than Serbia.
I mean, like, much worse they weren't even aligned with the Soviet Bloc.
You know, their only ally was like Maoist, China.
Um, so, uh, really well done, really impressed.
And by the way, this, this category for me is diamonds under pressure.
So I'm picking a lot of, uh, leaders who have done something with nothing.
So there's ra then Cyril Osa, I have him here, so he's 14
for me and he is 21 for you.
So pretty much, uh, you know, we're in alignment there in line.
Yeah.
13, this is controversial.
All of our liberal listeners will hate me for it, although quite
frankly, you pick Bibi and Orban.
So like, gimme a break, right?
Jacob Shapiro: If, if our liberal listeners are gonna hate us for that,
there's, there's worse to come guys.
Marko Papic: There's worse to, oh yes, there is, there's
absolutely worse to come.
Uh, naive ell it.
Jacob Shapiro: Oh, okay.
Marko Papic: Yes.
Jacob Shapiro: Great.
Marko Papic: Uh, look, PR value alone, like El Salvador,
we're talking about a guy.
We're, we're openly discussing somebody who was, who's in charge of
El Salvador, and not because of some like, you know, terrible civil war.
So that's number one.
Second, everyone who's from Central America and Latin America that I know
and that has been to El Salvador or lived there, basically argues that that
country was absolutely unlivable before B And he has solved that with brutality,
absolutely, but also ruthless efficiency.
And then, um, you know, I mean, uh, perfect man for the era.
He, uh, he linked his country.
To Bt C to Bitcoin at 40,000, you know, doesn't look so stupid anymore.
Uh, he wears futuristic cardillo suits as my dear friend Juan Correra.
Shout out to him 'cause he, uh, he definitely agreed with
this pick, um, would say.
And ultimately, um, I think just, you know, I think there's too
much indexing on what he's done on Bitcoin, I think not enough
indexing on what he's done on crime.
And if you don't like Trump and so you don't like the fact that he's so
pro-Trump, just look at it this way.
I mean, he picked the right winner.
Being a leader of a central American country ultimately comes down to being
on the right side of the United States of America, because it's the giant in
the, it's the elephant in the room.
So I think he's done very well.
I've got Malay, hold on.
Jacob Shapiro: Wait, wait, wait.
I, I wanna, I wanna pause you right there, Marco.
'cause I, I, I don't wanna step on this too much, but we should say that
maybe Bhel is number one on my list.
He is UNT tradable.
He is the top of the, he is the apex for me.
There
Marko Papic: go.
Wow.
I mean, hey, listen, I don't disagree.
His use of media pr uh, reveals a deep knowledge of where the world is going.
And, uh, yeah, man, I mean, again, if he, if he can put El Salvador on the map,
Jacob Shapiro: he got rid of crime in El Salvador, period.
Like, like, they're like, who else is doing that?
You think?
You think El Salvador is trading anyone for bouquet on this list?
No, they're very happy with the guy who gave 'em their country back and allowed
them to walk in the streets again.
Marko Papic: Wow.
Yeah.
My, my dear friend Juan, he's the head of, uh, asset allocation at BC Research and
also my co-owner of the Cali Fornication basketball team in the JBL Fantasy League.
He picked him number one, two, and I respect one so much so that
we share a basketball franchise in the Dreamland universe that
is the Fantasy Sports League.
So well done.
Alright.
Sorry.
Uh, I got Malay number 12.
Uh, I think he's been, uh, amazing.
Um, unbelievable charisma.
He managed to get the Argentinians to agree with tightening your belt belts.
Your point about Argentina was, at this point anyways, that's true, but he's also
managed to do it in a correct sequence by not opening up the capital account
too quickly, which was very important.
Uh, making sure that the reforms first take hold and then discussing
about, uh, lessening capital controls something that mockery got wrong.
So mockery got the sequencing wrong.
Mm-hmm.
Number 11, Abdullah II of Jordan.
Mm-hmm.
The degree of difficulty, the diff degree of difficulty for a leading
Jordan right now is absolutely insane.
Um, this is, uh, you know, this is like a basketball player that just
pulls his crappy team into the playoffs as a seven seed all by himself.
Um, and quite frankly, uh, the security of Israel is more tied to
Abdullah II's leadership of Jordan.
To what Benjamin Netanyahu is doing, quite frankly.
So, uh, Israelis should praise him for his cool and collected demeanor that yes,
it's become rhetorically increasingly anti-Israeli, but you have to sympathize
for him, as we have talked about before.
So that's my number 11.
Jacob Shapiro: Alright, my next, my next list takes me from 14 to seven.
So this is a big one and for me, I thought of this, um, category as
I'm hanging up, but not right away.
Like, I'm gonna listen for a little bit and then I'm gonna hang up.
Uh, so some of these are rising stars.
Some of these are high functioning technocrats.
Some of these are elite, uh, elite lieutenants.
And I think the ones that will be most controversial are 14 and 13.
'cause the rest are ones that we've mostly already talked about at 14.
Uh, SHA Kat MiEV of Uzbekistan.
Um.
This is where I'm gonna go, like really deep.
I'm gonna cut really deep here.
But this is a guy who took over for one of the most retrograde dictatorships in the
post-Soviet world, um, and has, I mean, he has not made it a democracy, but he
has opened up and liberalized Uzbekistan to a degree that nobody thought possible.
He's been able to keep Uzbekistan out of the clutches of Islamic
fundamentalism and everything else.
He has not gone too far down the road with, uh, Russia or
with China or the United States.
He has played all these things different, uh, very well.
Um, I was in Tash Kent in 2019.
Uh, you know, uh, everybody there was of course going to
make it seem like they loved him.
But everyone I talked to from Uzbekistan, when they think about MOV before and re
you have now, they're like, he's great.
We love him.
He's competent.
My.
Uber driver to JFK Airport two weeks ago was from Uzbekistan.
And when I, when I asked him about Shaka Zi, yeah.
First he was like, I can't believe you know who that is, and let
me tell you how great he is.
We are so happy to have a competent leader at the head of the Uzbekistan state.
So that's where he, that's
Marko Papic: important.
That's an important empiric.
Yeah.
Jacob Shapiro: Um, 13.
This, my bias is getting involved here, but she, I'm a really big
fan of Shigeru Ishiba in Japan.
Marko Papic: Hmm.
Jacob Shapiro: Interesting.
Um, he's, wow.
I have a soft spot for him.
Um, I, I talked to our friend Tobias Harris, not the basketball player,
but uh, the Great Japan analyst, uh, and talked about Ishiba as sort of a
tragic hero, heroic figure who's gonna pursue something and not get there,
but that will make him all the more of a Japanese hero because of it.
Um, yeah.
I, I just, I like his policies and I like what he's trying to do.
I'll also say like, he came in in a minority government with really,
really low approval ratings.
But he's getting stuff done and his approval ratings are slowly ticking up.
So if he inherits this mess in Japanese politics and takes it to a position
where he's in charge and he's pushing back against the United States and
the trade war, and he is trying to figure out the balance between China
and the United States and what's going on with Taiwan, like a very,
very high degree of difficulty.
And I think he's doing a great job.
Um, and then the rest, the rest of rounding, rounding up this list,
uh, here is Met Freson at 12.
Oh, okay.
Here is at 11.
We've got, uh, I don't know how to pronounce her name actually, but it's
the leader of Estonia, Kaja, Kaja.
I don't know.
Kaja, you know.
I don't know, but she comes in here as well.
Um, I had your Swiss, uh, Swiss leader at number 10.
Uh, again, I went to chat GPT for this, and they described
her as Switzerland's Popovich.
That sounded pretty good to me.
That was enough to convince me that she belongs there.
Uh, but I take your point that that's sort of a boring pick, like, uh, anyway,
but I, I had her there at 10 and then Albanese at nine, Kearney at eight, and
Lawrence Wong coming in at number seven.
So all countries that I think have high degrees of difficulty,
really, really skilled leadership.
Some of them are technocrats, some of them are rising stars.
Some of them just know how to do things.
But all people that, you know, you'll listen about trading, but ultimately,
like you're gonna look at what you got and be like, I'm pretty good.
I don't think I need to make a trade here because this person has
got the situation under control.
Marko Papic: Yeah.
So Singapore, Canada, and Australia.
7, 8, 9. Interesting.
Switzerland, 10, uh, Estonia 11.
Um, yeah, it was tough for me to give these countries that, uh, that
put them that high because they're just such well run countries.
You know, it goes back to that Warren Buffet quote, I want to invest in
countries that even an idiot could run.
So to what extent does it matter who's in charge of them?
But I think mm-hmm.
Uh, it's fair.
I mean, I have three of them there.
I don't have Estonia and Switzerland, but, um, you know, I, I don't disagree.
Japan is interesting.
Uh, we started doing this a month ago.
And I should have updated my list because the way that Japanese trade negotiations
with us have gone is very interesting and suggests to me that you are right.
There is something in Ishiba that's really interesting.
I mean, they've really played hardball to the extent that I
think no other country really has.
Yeah.
And so, and,
Jacob Shapiro: and his approval ratings were in the toilet a month ago.
He is slowly starting to crawl out of the, out of the basement.
Marko Papic: Super respect, all of that.
And I think that you've, uh, you picked somebody who's had a tough time
and, and their their real potential.
I agree with you, Uzbekistan.
Um, I thought about it actually, uh, shockingly.
But I picked somebody else in the region.
Okay.
Uh, I've, I picked somebody else and I'll, I'll get to that because
he's very high up on my list.
Alright.
So, so I respect that.
Uh, I just didn't think that two central Asian countries really made sense.
It was like two stands, like, come on guys.
And if you, you know, if you count Jose Peja is sort of like part of that
whole post-Soviet space, it would've been a little bit too much and weird.
So I, I, I, I, you know, head tip to you.
I think you picked really well.
Alright, close it out.
Let's close it out, my friend.
Um, number 10, Pedro Sanchez, Spain.
I think we're gonna disagree on this.
We talked about
Jacob Shapiro: it.
We are, we are chat.
GPT kept on saying, do you want Pedro Sanchez on your list?
And I kept saying, no chat.
GPT get this Spanish incompetent guy off of my list.
I don't want him tell me why he is there.
Marko Papic: Well, look, I mean, uh, you haven't heard anything about
separatism in Spain for a while.
Uh, and I think that's important.
Um, I think he's carved out a very bold foreign policy, uh, you know, led on,
uh, Israel, uh, in a very, in a way that obviously nobody who is pro-Israel
is gonna like, but differentiated Spanish foreign Pol policy for the
first time since like the eighties.
So that was interesting as well.
And then ultimately the economy is extremely successful, uh, is
absolutely crushing the region.
Uh, so he is high on my list now.
Is it because of him, the economy?
No, but he hasn't gotten in the way and that is important, especially in Europe.
So he's very high on my list just because Spain is the best performing
economy effectively in the, your area.
Um, and then we get into four names.
I feel like you're not going to agree with based on our previous discussions.
Um, let's put it this way, uh.
Like, think of us as different coaching systems.
You know, you might be modern, you know, uh, spread offense where you
just want to do layups and three pointers and you believe in analytics.
And I'm an old school guy who wants a post play.
Jacob Shapiro: So I'm
Marko Papic: gonna go,
Jacob Shapiro: I'm, I'm, I'm more like the triangle offense and I
want the guy with the drum and the corner and the piece pipe.
I wanna do Phil Jackson's version of coaching.
That's me, right?
Marko Papic: That's you.
Okay.
Well, I'm going with like just old school, like post players.
These guys are not in favor, no one is going to probably agree with this.
Uh, but if you go to any one of these countries, just like your
example with Uzbekistan, you go to any of these countries, you're
gonna find nothing but support.
And yes, maybe that's because people who don't support them are in jail.
Maybe.
Maybe, but I would say it genuine.
Some,
Jacob Shapiro: some people need to be in jail, you know?
Marko Papic: Alright, number nine.
So this is top 10.
Sultan.
Binta Al Sayid.
Oman.
Oman baby.
You love Oman.
Yeah.
Transformation of the country is stunning.
I mean, we're talking a country that, you know, didn't have basic, basic services
like that, needed to hire like accountants to set up its sovereign wealth fund.
And, um, it's really harder to find a smaller country that's
doing more for global peace.
It's hosted a number of negotiations between other powers, not because
they're just a nice beach side location, but because they've made an effort to
improve the situation in the Middle East.
Then after that, Sheikh Mohammed bin, Al U ae transformed the
country into what it is today.
Incredible, incredible effort.
It used to just be oil and tourism in Dubai.
It's not just that anymore.
It's starting to rival Hong Kong and Singapore as the alternative for
emerging market financial capital flows.
Abu Dhabi is absolutely exploding as a financial capital.
There's advanced manufacturing in the country.
Do you know that They make air airplane parts?
It's part of the supply chain.
Uh, it has AI advances.
It's, um, it's becoming a very, very interesting place.
And you mentioned something about city states in a couple of, uh, episodes.
Mm-hmm.
You know, like this is, this is interesting.
And the application of AI in UAE is going to be very, very dramatic
and I think quite interesting.
So UAE makes my eight spots.
Then this is where all the liberals that are listening that are still here.
You know, I mean, uh, for all your liberals listening, just remember.
Jacob Shapiro picked Orban.
Okay.
Yeah.
I'm also
Jacob Shapiro: not saying, I, I'm not saying I wanna live
under the thumb of these guys.
We're just talking about in the abstract of who would you trade leaders for.
You know, I genuinely, like, I'm not trying to live under naive b even
though he is number one on the list.
Marko Papic: I genuinely would pick up the phone and trade our leader of
any country for Mohammed bin Salman.
Did t taunt with Iran.
Just said, you know what?
I just really don't care about the Shia Sunni split, bro.
So you can have whatever you want because I care about the socioeconomic
reorientation of the entire country.
We've talked about this, uh, uh, before, uh, you know, he might be number
one on my list, but I do think the Khashoggi affair was a huge on goal.
But since then, I mean, if you look at where Saudi Arabia was in 2015 on any
number of indicators and where it is today, it is absolutely night and day.
It was practically defenseless.
It was mirrored in endless wars.
It stuck in a fundamentalist doom loop.
The country has been absolutely transformed.
And uh, what I like about it is that he has big dreams,
you know, like, like Biggie.
He's got big dreams.
Is he gonna accomplish them?
Yeah, probably not.
But when your North Star is actually a big dream, you might get 30% of
it and still improve the country.
And, you know what, who has big dreams anymore on our list?
Tell me who the dreamers are.
What's Benjamin Netanyahu's dream other than not going to jail, you know?
So Mohammed bin Salman very high on my list.
Jacob Shapiro: Uh, yeah, Benjamin Netanyahu's dream, by the way.
He, he, uh, you're forgetting ice cream gate where he, uh, got held
up on corruption issues because his office was spending over 400, the
equivalent of $400 a month just on specialty ice cream for his wife.
So he dreams of ice cream and bombing Iran.
There you go.
Marko Papic: That's awesome.
Well, well done.
And then number six, uh, you know, it's interesting that I took this
leader over Mohammed bin Salman.
You could say that.
Uh.
The degree of difficulty in the delta in Saudi Arabia is greater, but I'm picking
King Mohamed, the sixth of Morocco, plus his Prime Minister, Aziz Hanush.
Uh, the socioeconomic transformation of Morocco is al also incredible.
Uh, avoided the Arab Spring, but it's really the integration into the
supply chains that is very important.
And there is, I think, some symmetry of having Morocco six in Spain, 10
because they're increasingly becoming really, uh, Europe's manufacturing hub.
The integration between the two is quite interesting.
Mm-hmm.
Um, also, also this is a country that's effectively doubled its territory.
You know, if you wanna compare King Muhammad the six to Vladimir Putin,
Vladimir Putin's got nothing on annexation because Morocco has effectively
quietly annexed Western Sahara and absolutely nobody has said anything.
Now that's been the case for a very long time, but it's pretty much
now over and it's failed complete.
Uh, also great place to visit and, uh, has really navigated a lot of
the problems over the last 25 years.
I think Morocco is where the rest of the GCC is headed, and that's why you should
be very bullish on the Middle East.
So I'm gonna stop here and then, uh, yeah, any reactions, any thoughts?
Jacob Shapiro: Uh, we're closer than you think.
Uh, this is why we're cousins.
Uh, on my list.
I like you, uh, the four leaders so far that you have, that I should have had.
Anwar Ibrahim, Abdu ii, IDI Rama, and the Sultan of, uh.
Oman, uh, whatever his name is.
I don't know his name, sorry, Saltan of Oman.
I just remember Salton caboose.
I, I remember joking about him over back in our Strat four days.
But I think all those are worthy of inclusion.
I'll give you my seven through one and you'll see that I actually have
taken both MBS and MBZ ahead of you, uh, coming in at three and four.
Marko Papic: Whoa.
Wow.
Yeah, I knows.
Oh, I'm shocked.
Surpris, isn't
Jacob Shapiro: it?
I'm shocked.
You're shocked.
I know I talk a lot of shit about the golf here on this podcast, but here I am
with, uh, with those two at the very top.
So rounding out my top seven here.
Um, and then, well, no, I, I have like 10, 10 or 12 minutes
maybe we get through the top.
And do we come back and discuss this more after we've had time to study?
We, I don't know.
You'll tell me.
Okay.
We do.
So number seven, this might be your number one.
Uh, but this is Georgia Maloney's territory for me.
She comes in at number seven.
I'm sure you're gonna wanna talk about her.
She's, I think she's been very, very effective.
Uh, number six, Xi Jinping.
I'm impressed, Xi I've always liked Xi Jinping.
I've always overindexed on his leadership.
I think he's done an incredible job with a very, very difficult situation.
You wanna talk about degrees of difficulty?
I mean, he's the Mao Deng Xiaoping of this era.
He's trying to absolutely transform China.
He's gotten a long way there.
He's reforming the PLA.
He's moving supply side reforms.
Like nobody has a higher degree of difficulty on this list than Xi Jinping.
And the fact that he's still alive and still kicking and there's no
opposition and there's no opposition.
Don't listen to the annual spate of rumors that Xi Jinping is on the way
out, which is happening this week.
I guess we needed something in the slow news cycle after Israel, Iran War.
Xi Jinping comes here.
Um.
Number five.
This one I bet is not an, well, I don't know.
Maybe she's on your list.
Maybe she's not.
Uh, Claudia Shane Baum in Mexico, I think has been incredibly impressive.
I've described her as sort of the Anglo Merkel of the 2020s.
She reminds me of Anglo Merkel.
She's a scientist engineer.
Yes, she's taking over from Alos populism, but she's dealt with Trump masterfully.
I think she's doing a great job with Mexican politics, her
approval ratings through the roof, like she's putting in good work.
Um, three and four.
I told you I've got MBZ at number four MBS at number three.
And my top two.
Number two, I, I wonder if he'll push back against this, and this is probably
my bias creeping in, but give me Mr. Zelensky in Ukraine at number two,
what he's been able to do for Ukraine.
He's gone through some ups and downs.
He's still kicking, Ukraine is still here.
Ukraine is in an incredible position because of him.
I think that Ukraine is not here today in its current form.
If he's not out in the streets with the cameras, like manipulating the media
the way that he did, like, I think he really was an indispensable man
at a, at a really critical time for a country that was at existential risk.
And I give him extra props for that.
Maybe he's a church alien figure.
Maybe as soon as the war's over, he gets put back out to pasture or.
Face back onto TV as a comedian.
I like that he is a comedian.
Like that works for me.
Um, agreed.
Also, you know, a fellow, you know, according to Putin,
a Jewish fascist, so fine.
Like, let the Jew pick a Jewish fascist at number two.
And I've already told you that ye boule is my number one.
You can't resist it.
I don't wanna live under him.
He's incredibly a liberal.
I bet that 30 years from now, you know, he'll, he's like, uh, the
metaphor might be de nearest Arian, like good intentions, did a whole
bunch of things, but eventually lived long enough to be queen of the ashes.
Like he, he has that darkness to him.
He's got the dragon inside of him, but right now he's riding high and nobody
has done more with, less than bouquet.
Um, right down to the Bitcoin bet.
So there's my list.
Marko Papic: Well, I mean, there's a lot of agreement here.
We've got El Salvador, we've got UAE, Saudi Arabia, um, Italy, Mexico.
I'm, I'm about to reveal my top five, um, one disagreement I have here with you.
Uh, so Ukraine, I have, uh, actually both Zelensky and Trump
in a special category of their own.
Jacob Shapiro: As, as you can tell.
By the way, Mr. Trump not on my list.
I was curious if he would get on your list.
Marko Papic: Uh, he's not on my list either.
Um, you know, I, I think that President Trump has done a lot of very
oppressive things, but is he a product of being the leader of the best?
Like, could he have done what he did with El Salvador?
You know, that's the question that I think I, I struggle with.
And similarly, uh, Zelensky was an absolutely terrible leader before the war.
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely terrible.
So, you know, like, and even during the war, I would say that the first 12
months of Zelensky leadership in the war from February, 2022 to, let's say
September, 2023, admirable, amazing.
Uh, I think he's made several incredibly terrifyingly terrible military
strategic decisions, you know, for the past, like two years straight.
And so like, you are basically giving him the number two spot
for like 18 months of his rule.
I am, and it is, and listen, incredible.
18 months of his rule, but like that's, you know, that's like, I, I don't know
what to do with him because of that.
Um, it's, it's
Jacob Shapiro: kinda, it's kinda like, it's, it's kinda like Brandon Roy, like
when he was on the floor, he was one of the best, but he doesn't have any knees.
He has no cartilage in his knees, so he can't play basketball.
Marko Papic: You know, a better, a better example would be somebody
who catches fire in the playoffs and then gets a huge contract afterwards.
You know, you're like, oh my God, look at what they did in these two series.
Yeah.
But maybe that's because they weren't guarding him.
Uh, I just, that's why he's not on my list.
But I, you know, respect that 18 months of dogged perseverance.
Um, China, big disagreement with you there.
Jacob Shapiro: Not on your list.
No,
Marko Papic: no.
Xi bing is not on my list.
That's a
Jacob Shapiro: huge disagreement.
Wow.
Well,
Marko Papic: and here's why.
You know, I loved what you said about Uzbekistan's president.
Remind me of the name again.
Jacob Shapiro: Shav Kat, me Zev.
I only had to practice that about 30 times before we hit record.
Marko Papic: And I apologize for not remembering the name.
I did honestly take a look at Uzbekistan as one of my potentials.
Didn't choose it, but what you said was interesting.
You talked to some random Uzbekistani taxi driver and they loved him.
You know, and, and I bet you if you poll people into Uzbekistan,
legitimately they would agree.
I don't think that's the case with China.
And here's why.
He didn't take people outta poverty.
Preceding leaders did.
By 2012, China was what it is today.
He unnecessarily, unnecessarily provoked the sleeping giant, which
is the United States of America.
That was not necessary in 2020.
In 2012, you could have waited until 20 20, 20 25, 20 30.
When you have far more ability to kind of challenge the us, I
think that was a huge on goal.
Jacob, there was no need for China to start talking about nine dash
lines or South China Sea in 2012.
It just, why?
Why wake up the United States of America itching to pivot out of the Middle East?
Why alert them to the fact that yes, you have designs on regional hegemony
and then finally, I cannot believe you have him this high because of how he has
crushed private sector dynamism in China.
And I don't wanna sound like some aire, you know, like pro business guy, you
know, like who just cares about that?
But that's a huge, that's something that China genuinely was
crushing and was getting there.
And some of his structural reforms.
I mean, certainly he has put the weight of the government behind certain sectors.
God bless you.
But anybody can do that.
My concern is that there's been a little bit too much opposition to private
sector entrepreneurship and innovation.
Jacob Shapiro: Um, yeah, the, the, I'll, I'll push back in this way.
I think the, the thing that we really disagree on is that I think
that he is popular to the average rank and file Chinese person.
And I think that, not because he made them prosperous, but
because he went after corruption.
I think there was a huge divide where parts of China got incredibly rich.
We agree.
And he came, he came in and said, bogie la the party's over.
And you guys in Shanghai driving around the Lamborghinis, while
people are making less than $5 a day in the interior, the party's over.
Like we are go and military guys who you're siphoning off all this money.
Local governments who are doing all these things to siphon off money
for that's over, the party is over.
We're going back to Moral Rectitude and Xi Jing principles and Little
Red Books and everything else.
Like, and I think that he's gotten popular for that.
The others, I agree with you.
I mean, I would quibble with, I don't think his problem was 2012.
His problem was the wolf warrior diplomacy with 2017.
And to his credit, I. Has fixed it.
He got rid of the Wolf Warrior warriors, he's like taken it back.
Now, that was a mistake, but like he showed the ability to
survive the mistake and twist it.
Private sector Diamond Dyna is sure, like, but I think he's done as good
a job as he possibly can in China, and I think he is the one that said,
Hey, get ready for L-shaped growth.
We are gonna have to go through this at some point we're we're gonna let
the real estate bubble collapse.
I know, but even there, he's gonna have to manage it.
Like, you know,
Marko Papic: but even there, Jacob, like we, he's making the same
mistake that Angela Merkel, Obama Tea Party, everyone in the West made.
So I don't wanna like, like be too negative on this, but there is a
solution to a real estate crisis.
Richard Coup has told us what that is and it's stimulating GDP growth.
Now I, again, he's falling into the same mistake everyone else did.
But all he needs to do is look at the west and how long the de-leveraging
was prolonged because the US government and the European governments did not
step in with fiscal support to know that he is making the same mistake.
So on that front, I think the fact that he has been so astir is in an incorrect move.
But
Jacob Shapiro: yeah, but I, I think that's 'cause it's the right
move for the Chinese context.
He warned them in 2019, do not do this.
This is a red line.
I am not going to bail you out.
And then they did it.
And so he had to follow through and say, look, we are just not
gonna backstop you forever.
We need to be more productive.
Like we need to be more efficient with our capital.
He's not gonna
Marko Papic: Right, but he's not going to be more productive if he's
messing with also the private markets and private businesses and private
Jacob Shapiro: entrepreneurs.
That's, that's, that's true.
I have, so it's, I have nothing to, I can't argue with you
Marko Papic: there, but it's, it's, look, it's not a big deal.
Uh, he is on my list of like the people I left out along with, uh, some others
that we can talk about next time.
I'm gonna finish off my list.
Uh, this has gone on long enough.
The next one, first of all, if you have any reactions to
our list, send them to us.
Yes.
Um, you can use, uh, maritz geopolitical alpha.com or Jacob.
What's
Jacob Shapiro: jacob@jacobshapiro.com.
I'll put them both in the intro, but yes.
Marko Papic: Okay.
So let's, uh, let's get some, uh, commentary.
That's, that's cool.
Uh, we're also, what I'm gonna do with Jacob is I'm gonna use a
sophisticated mathematical formula to blend our lists together.
Jacob Shapiro: Oh, cool.
Marko Papic: You know?
Great.
So we'll know who's number one.
Jacob Shapiro: Great.
Marko Papic: Alright, I'm gonna round off the top.
Um, I think you're gonna love my top first of all, number five, Kasim Jomar to baby.
Yeah.
I didn't choose Uzbekistan.
Why?
Uh, first of all, navigating geopolitics very successfully.
The reason Uzbekistan can ride, uh, quietly and not pick sides is because
nobody truly cares about Uzbekistan.
Like, let's be very clear.
Neither do including Russians.
They're like, ah, whatever.
Like, sure.
Yeah.
You know, sorry for destroying your environment with cotton production.
Moving on.
Kazakhstan.
The Russians care about Kazakhstan, they care about
Kazakhstan, and so do the Chinese.
And yet what the Q has managed to do is perhaps the greatest
balancing act in all of the world.
Yes, I'm gonna go it that far.
He managed to call in Russian peacekeepers when there was, uh,
to call an uprising against him.
Mm-hmm.
But since then, since then, he has managed to avoid picking sides in
Ukraine, Russia, which is extraordinary.
He has left the ruling party completely pivoted away from Nazarbayev, positioned
himself as a political economic reformer.
Uh, he's, uh, refused to recognize Russian puppet states in Ukraine, refused to
accept the, uh, uh, all sorts of domestic political problems in Russia that have
sort of moved over to, uh, to Kazakhstan.
And, uh, just managed to get rid of domestic political.
Problems that have been left over from thus survive, have managed to
balance both China and Russia as well.
So really impressive work there in Kazakhstan that nobody's
probably paying attention to.
I would definitely trade a leader of many countries for to kaev.
Number four.
Hasn't made your list, which is surprising.
This is the best economic performance in Europe.
I said Spain.
There is another country that's doing even better.
The largest budget deficit consolidation in human history.
We're talking about KO's, midis of Greece, also geopolitically, you know, quiet.
Hasn't really pushed against Turkey.
Quietly become the destination for Israeli entrepreneurs and capital
has moved into Greece a lot.
And, um, really interesting, interesting, uh, performance.
I think that, um.
Absolutely would, uh, trade, uh, many leaders for mitsotakis.
Um, also third term, uh, which you know, is very impressive in a place like Greece.
I have, uh, Modi third.
I regret it.
I regret it though.
I think you are you.
No, no.
I mean, just, you made such a compelling case, uh, for why, you
know, he shouldn't be number three.
He is for you, number 15.
I think that's, that's correct.
You know, I, I overstated him.
And then finally we get to our top two choices who will be ranked
number one and two on our lists.
So I nailed it mainly because you also agree yours, uh, six and
four, and it's very interesting.
The top two leaders in the world for Jacob Shapiro and Marco Papich are women.
Number two, Claudia Shine Bone absolutely crush you.
I'm so happy
Jacob Shapiro: she's number two for you.
I'm so impressed with her.
Marko Papic: Yeah, absolutely.
And number one, the greatest leader in the world.
And she will be confirmed.
No, no, no.
I'm sorry.
But if she will be confirmed once I do the math, it will work out.
'cause she is number six for you.
She's number one for me.
Maybe Shaba actually goes higher.
Four and two.
Oh, this is gonna be interesting.
No,
Jacob Shapiro: yeah, it will be.
Yeah.
Marko Papic: Claudia Sheba will be crown number one.
She's number two for me.
For me number one, and will be crown number two.
Overall is I. Just an absolute legend.
Georgia Maloney crushed it just, I mean, mic drop in every way, shape or form from
her facial expressions when she's dealing with chauvinistic, overburdening annoying
men down to the economic performance of Italy, down to way that she has completely
dampened populism in the country.
She's given the anti-establishment populous what they wanted, which
is anti-immigration policies, and then she has pursued a
pretty solid economic agenda.
Nobody talks about the fact that Italy still has huge debt burden because
the deficit has absolutely shrunk.
Well done.
George Maloney, you are number one on the list, but I can just see the data
right now and it looks like Mexico's president, Claudia Scheinbaum is crowned
the best leader in the world with Maloney second, so that's one in two.
Um.
Two leaders, um, two female leaders in uh, G 20 countries.
So that's very interesting.
I will complete the mathematical, uh, consolidation of our two lists.
And in the next episode, what we're gonna do, Jacob, is we're going to,
uh, basically go from one to about 50.
I think we got about 50 leaders here because, you know, you had some
that I didn't have and vice versa.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, and then we're gonna talk about those that we've left out, why we
left them out, namely Donald Trump.
We're gonna get a lot of hate mail, which is great.
Let's go, let's go.
Uh, and then the second thing also, we also,
Jacob Shapiro: we, we left out Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, uh, Gabriel Boruch
was also on my honorable mention list, but you'll still get into it.
Marko Papic: Oh yeah, that's fair.
We, we, we'll, we'll get into all of that.
Um, and also, yeah, I mean, we're gonna, we're gonna ask ourselves
would we really trade these people?
But I gotta say Shiba and, uh, Maloney.
Yeah.
I mean, I think I would trade the leaders of our country for those.
Jacob Shapiro: I, I would be happy to live under the two of them.
That's fine with me.
Marko Papic: Alright, on, on that note, uh, we're gonna
end our, uh, top trade list.
Part one, part two is coming, uh, soon, hopefully early next week when we can
kind of digest some of the feedback and go into, uh, the definitive list.
That is the mind belt of both of us.
Jacob Shapiro: This was incredible, cousin.
Thank you so much.
Marko Papic: Thank you.
No, I appreciate all the hard work.