Hello listeners, welcome to Geopolitical Cousins.

This is our postmortem of the Trade Value Leaders column piece,

whatever you want to call it.

Uh, Marco and I said we were gonna do an hour and a half and we ended up

doing two plus hours, so enjoy yourself.

Um, we, we saved the conversation for why Trump is not on either

of our lists towards the end.

Uh, I'm sure that will cause lots of controversy, but whatever.

We love your hate mail and we love to hear from you.

Uh, jacob@jacobshari.com, marco@geopoliticalalpha.com.

You can send us feedback there.

Um, otherwise we're having fun.

We're hope you're having fun.

We're hoping that if you like this podcast, you will share it with your

friends and your cousins and your neighbors and everybody else, and leave

reviews on the podcast, if you will.

That is also super helpful.

So take care of the people that you love.

We'll see you out there.

Take us away, Marco.

Alright, well, super.

Um, this is the part two of our top 30 leaders in the world, the trade value.

Uh, just as a little reminder for all those of you who missed the first one.

So what we're trying to do here is we're effectively trying to, uh, create a list

of, um, policy makers, politicians in the world if you were able to trade them.

So the, the person that ends up being top on our list, uh, is

technically untraded tradable.

Whereas somebody who ends up 30th on the list, you would trade

for the 29 in front of them.

Um, now there are over 190 countries in the world.

So if you are the last on the list, it doesn't mean you're a terrible leader.

It just, it means you're better than all of those who we did

not put on our, uh, list.

Also, uh, an important point here is that we're assuming that

there are some qualities that are universal to leadership.

So, uh, just as a reminder, if you didn't follow our part one, uh, it means

that we're basically saying that, uh, it know these are policy makers who

overcome the constraints they face.

That's what we like.

We like those who make something out of nothing.

And unfortunately, yes, that's going to, uh, favor, you know,

leaders of smaller countries.

So in the, in part one, Jacob and I both submitted our, uh, top 30.

Obviously there was a ton of overlap there, but there were 14 leaders,

14 across the two of us that were either on one or the other's list.

And so those were obviously penalized a lot.

So even if you were in Jacob's top 10, but you were not in my top 30,

you effectively got ejected from the top 30 list, more or less.

It's, it's very difficult to, to be, uh, near the top at that level.

So, um, we ended up with 44.

So, uh, I'm, I'm gonna start off from the bottom.

Jacob, you just interrupt me at any point.

If you want, we can post the list somewhere as well.

Um, yeah, we'll, we will.

Yes, for sure.

So the 44th is Abby Ahmed from Ethiopia.

Uh, that was Jacob's pick.

Very, uh, you went deep in your back for that one.

That was a, that was a good pick.

Uh, 43rd was Donald Tusk from Poland, by, by me.

Lots of, uh, pro Polish propaganda out there.

You know, the Economist had Poland on the, on the cover.

Tusk managed to squirrel his way to our, uh, top 44.

Uh, one thing I will say about Donald Tusk, he may be a better

EU commissioner, the leader of Poland, but let's leave that aside.

Um, Slovenia's Robert Goup was 42nd.

That was me going deep into my bag.

I felt like some Balkan representation from former Yugoslavia was needed.

Uh, it's more about what Goup has done in disrupting the politics of Slovenia,

you know, coming out of nowhere.

And it's also just because I'm a huge Laker fan, and Luca Doche is

my Jesus Christ Lord and Savior.

So, uh, 41st o Christen, uh, lots of hate mail from, uh, Scandinavia, by the

way, for both the 40 41st and the 39th.

39th pick was met f Fredrickson.

So data leaders.

Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm surprised that one was controversial.

Maybe I, maybe I'm just off here, but I think she's great.

Anyway.

Well, well, what I would say is like, one of the consistent things

that came out of this exercise is that if you are in the west, if you're a, if

you are listening to us from the western world, which most of our, uh, listeners

are invariably you hate your leader.

I mean, that is what we have learned from doing this exercise because the amount of

hate mail we got for doing this exercise where our listeners are like, man, I

love the MBS aspect, like you nailed MBS, but let me tell you about my prime

minister of my perfectly run country.

They are complete and utter morons.

So, uh, we got more hate mail for the 41st and the 39th pick than anyone else.

Also, um, there was some constructive, uh, uh, feedback about the Nordics,

uh, which I thought was really good.

And I think my, maybe we did, uh, drop the ball.

President of Finland, uh, Stubb came up couple of times.

Hey, God bless you for that difficult place to run.

Uh, both because politics, uh, in Finland have been in a state of transition just

like they have been in neighboring Sweden.

So lots of new parties coming up, the true fins rising, falling, uh, you

know, transition away from a immature populist party towards a kind of a

center right, you know, leadership party.

So that was interesting.

But also obviously the elephant in the room.

Largest, uh, land border of any NATO country with Russia now joining nato.

So maybe we did, um, ignore Finland here and, uh, well, I, I

just wanna say, I just wanna say I seriously considered Finland.

I just didn't include Finland because I'm still mourning the loss

of Sauna Marin, who, I'm not saying she was a great geopolitical leader.

I'm sure we'll get more hate mail if I said that.

Just like, uh, this is politically incorrect.

Had a crush on her.

She's, she's awesome.

Like, I couldn't, couldn't make the transition.

Sorry.

Jacob had a crush on the leader of Finland.

That's fair.

Uh, and that she left and UB just didn't do it for you, you

know, so like, there you go.

Uh, but yeah, so, uh, I do feel like that was, that,

that, by that by the way, folks, that's the level of

analysis that we're giving you here.

I just want you to understand.

Sorry.

Well, I mean, you know, if Mario Draggy was still around, I would've

picked him just because I have a man crush on him, as I said.

So yes, uh, that is, that is perfectly fine.

It's our list, Jacob.

We own it.

We do whatever we want with it.

Um, Egypt, Egypt's, uh, l ccc, uh, 40th, the Jacobs Pick.

Kind of jealous of that.

Well done.

Then Provo, Subianto, Indonesia 38th also.

Jacobs Pick, A lot of these are very individualistic.

The two of us did not necessarily agree on these.

Uh, but that's fine.

We didn't, I'm sorry.

I mean, we actually agree on most of these.

We just didn't, uh, have them on our combined list.

37th, Christopher Luxon from New Zealand.

Uh, 30, uh, sorry, that was 37, 30 sixth Anwar Ibrahim from

Malaysia, New Zealand was your pick.

Malaysia was mine.

35th.

Okay.

So you got a lot of hate mail for this Jacob.

And I'm gonna let you take all this hate mail.

Uh, I'm not gonna share this with you.

You did pick Ki Starr.

I did, did

I think it's defensible,

but I didn't want to pick him.

And uh, yeah, there, there was a lot of, again, woe is me.

I live in an O-E-C-D-G 20, uh, you know, first world country.

And my leaders are terrible, but oh boy, do I look that love that Victor Orban.

So that's one of those where we got some hit mail.

Another, uh, I

I also just wanna say about Kiir, like remember that

this list is like you would trade for the people in front of you.

So he was number 22 on my list.

So I'm saying that anybody below him would wanna trade for him.

So there's still 21 leaders out there that I'd, that I'm saying,

um, are not better than Ki Starer.

And also just like, think of the incompetence that he inherited from

Liz Trust and you and everything else.

And things are not like, completely broken.

Like, not to mention Brexit and everything else.

Like he's, he is uninspiring, he's relatively boring.

He's perfectly competent.

Like he, he's a boring, competent leader of a very fractious democracy.

Like that gets him, that gets him points in my book.

That's all.

It's, I'm not saying that he's the greatest thing since sliced bread.

He is not.

And listen, I, I'm letting you take this hit meal.

I am, I'm not gonna share with you.

But I agree with you because he did inherit a terrible situation.

Um, he hasn't made it worse.

And quite frankly, I put Matt Frederickson almost exclusively because of her handling

of effectively American, uh, aggression.

You know, like the United States of America is the threatening

to seize Greenland from Denmark.

She handled that well.

I mean, Keith Star, uh, ki Starmer just purely for handling the

trade negotiations with the US, I think should get some props.

I mean, he handled it, I think, better than most countries.

Obviously.

He got the trade deal first, and so he got out of that wave, uh,

very, very quickly, which was very, you know, tricky for a labor prime

minister of the United Kingdom.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, he is ideologically opposed, uh, like ideologically.

He and Donald Trump are obviously not on the same plane.

So I thought that was a a, you know, I think, I think it's not a crazy pick.

The next one.

I do think you were completely out to lunch.

Um, maybe you also have a crush on Lula the Silva, but, uh,

you did pick him very high.

Um, I thought that was looking backwards.

Now forward he is 34th.

We got I think, a little bit, a little bit of hate mail.

I got some texts about it.

Um, one of my friends, uh, who's in finance basically said next

to the dictionary definition of corruption is Lula's picture.

So, you know, 34th.

Um.

I think that, that, that's fine.

But literally, show me a leader on here who is not corrupt.

And I'll show you a chipmunk that speaks Swahili.

I mean, really, you, you're telling me that politicians and leaders

are not corrupt to get to the top.

Like that's not a meaning.

I, I think the pushback that his best days are behind him, that he

doesn't actually control congress.

That he's actually, he's using 2008 policies for a very different multiple

environment and there's no successor.

Like there's lots of different ways I think you could go at the Lula pick.

I'll tell you though, one of the things that, I didn't mention this when we

talked about it, um, I actually used to shit on Lula a lot more and hung out

with a couple of Brazilians and, you know, you're, you're gonna know who the

Brazilians are or what their ideology is based on whether they like Lula or not.

But, but, but was sort of slapped on the hand being like, uh, Lula,

like change things in Brazil.

No matter what you think of him.

He's a formidable politician with an idea of Brazil's future.

And he got closer to realizing Brazil's potential than literally

any Brazilian leader ever.

Arguably.

So like, I, I definitely was like, privileging some past performance,

but even, even if you don't like him ideologically, like pre pre Brazil Lula

and post Brazil Lula, like, I think he deserves, um, some of the credit there.

But I, I al Yeah.

Sorry, go ahead.

You meant

Prej pre jail and post jail.

Yes.

Sorry.

Yes.

Oh

no, sorry.

Yeah, yeah.

Sorry.

Go ahead.

I didn't mean to interrupt you, just

No, no.

Um, well, what I, what I would also say about Lula is that, um.

You know, we, we are modeling this on Bill Simmons, uh, trade value for

basketball players, which is awesome.

And one of the things that, um, you know, goes into establishing

the trade value for a basketball player is not just this skill.

So when you think about Lula, he clearly is over the course of his career and

incredibly adapt politician, he wrangled congress to pa pass pension reform.

I mean, this is like a Maoist like guerrilla leader for God's sakes,

you know, passing pension reform that OECD gave a thumbs up to.

So, so he's an incredibly skilled player of this game.

But the two things that go in addition, um, in the Bill Simmons basketball analogy

of this is like, how young are they?

How much future do they have?

So you don't want to necessarily trade a 23-year-old basketball

player with a lot of upside for a 39-year-old, 40-year-old LeBron, even

though LeBron is better right now.

So that's a knock on Lula as well.

Uh, I mean, to be fair, it is also a knock on my pick of Anwar Ibrahim who got six.

He's been around for 40 years.

Uh, the other issue also with Lula is the, the contract issue.

You know, so, um, on the Bill Simmons basketball analogy of what we're doing

here is like you contract matters.

If you're a 23-year-old basketball player, young, you've got another 10,

15 years ahead of you and you're on a rookie deal, oh my god, that's so much

better than being in, in your thirties.

Your knees are already hurt and you are, you know, 30,

$40 million a year with Lula.

That's also like, you know, when politicians overstay their welcome.

And so I do think that the, the comp here between the real world in the

basketball world, the rookie contract is sort of like the honeymoon phase, right?

Mm-hmm.

When you get elected for the first time, or you just seize

power in a coup, God bless you.

You know, like we're, we're, we're neutral here, you know, but whatever kind of

seizing of power you are involved in those first couple of years, you kind

of, on your rookie contract, you're, you're cheap if you will, you know,

you're, you have that fresh new car smell.

And so I think that, uh, with Lula, that's definitely not the case.

So what I would say about Lula is he's like Paul Pierce late in his

career, you know, he's still got a chance to hit a game-winning

jumper, but he's kind of overweight.

He's probably out in the clubs too long and he's about

to launch a podcast with kg.

So I would say that Lula Lula is like about two to three years away from

doing a podcast with like, um, I don't know, the parishioners, I don't know.

Like with somebody.

Well,

yeah, and I, I take your point.

I actually think the biggest argument against Lula, and I think he shares

this quality with a couple other folks on our list that will be higher up.

I think he shares it with Narendra Modi, I think he shares this with, uh,

Erdogan and Turkey for a little bit.

And I think Claudia Shane Baum, who we're gonna give a lot of, a

lot of d to on this podcast, like also needs to be aware of this.

His legacy as a leader is, is not looking particularly good.

Who is one is the next Lula.

Like what is the future of the Brazilian left when there's no Lula?

He cannibalized the left.

What could have been a movement that brought Brazil and his image of Brazil

forward for generations has sort of been subsumed, as you said, in this

sort of corruption, charisma, personal leadership, uh, sort of figure.

And I think that's something that Modi is really struggling with.

Like who takes over when Modi's gone?

Is the BJP still gonna be the BJP when Modi's not on top of it?

If you're extrapolating today, maybe not Erdogan, he's casting

about, is it his son-in-law?

Is it somebody else?

Like who's the successor that follows through?

And with Shane Baum too, like Shane Baum is the leader of a party that

looks like it's gonna just be the pre, again, it looks like it's

gonna try to be a single party.

Dictatorship in Mexico.

And even though I think she's very adept and pragmatic and all these other things,

what happens when the next person is not and takes the mere and machine and does it

for things that absolutely should terrify Mexicans and people who are thinking

about the Mexican economy in general.

So for me, the biggest shot against Lula is not what he's done so far.

I think he's been very skilled and, you know, corruption aside, whatever,

these people are all corrupt.

But I don't know, I don't know that his legacy will look particularly

good because I think that he let these things get to his own head.

So if I'm arguing against myself, that's, that's I think my weak point.

You know, first of all, to answer your question,

who takes over from Modi?

I would, I would pay money to see Sue m Ja, Shankar, Ja Shankar,

the Foreign Minister of India.

Listen, if you don't know what I'm talking about, that's perfectly cool.

This podcast is just for normal people.

Go on YouTube and Google.

S Ja Shankar, the foreign minister of India.

Um, the, I mean, this guy, uh, actually that's not how you say it.

It's a minister of external affairs.

Um, yeah, yeah.

But, uh, the guy, he's t guys, he's brilliant.

He's a g Maybe we should do this for ministers of Foreign Affairs.

That would be kind of cool.

The top 10.

We should like Avi, Avi Lav is like LeBron, but like we put that aside.

Uh, I think that Chen Carr is amazing.

He's only four years younger than Modi do, so I don't think

he would be really a replacement.

But, but this is an interesting point.

We didn't actually think about this, this legacy question like who comes after you?

That is not something that you would, uh, really have in a basketball trade value.

Maybe we were over indexing to it, but Bill Simmons does talk about people who

raise the quality of their teammates.

Right.

That is important.

And I do think that, you know, when you, when you think about that, who

does come after, uh, Lula, who comes after Modi to, to give AMLO credit?

I mean, he did create Shiba.

Yes.

Did, I mean, you know, like, and he stepped aside and he's now,

you know, uh, sort of like an, uh, like an old advisor, like a grandpa

or like a Vito Corleone Right.

In, uh, in Godfather.

I mean, I think that's, that's amazing.

And to AM's credit, he's really, uh, he should be high on this

list as well, if he was still, um.

Playing.

Well, I, I, I, I actually do think that, just to close it out on

Lula, I, I do think there is a basketball metaphor here though, for the trade

list because, and we had one listener write in and compare Lula to LeBron, and

I'm jealous of the comparison because it's dead on because like the legacy

thing comes in when you're LeBron and you're forcing the Lakers to, uh, get

Russell Westbrook on the team because you think that's what's gonna happen.

You're gonna leave unless you get Russell Westbrook on the team.

That's what I'm talking about.

Yeah.

I see that.

Like, you're selling the future, you're forcing your organization

to do what you want right now.

Yes.

And not setting them up for long term when you retire.

So I, I think there's an aspect of that.

Yeah, that's true.

I, I see that point.

That's actually pretty good.

And I mean, you're, you're 40 years old and still putting up points, but,

you know, are they empty calories?

Okay.

Uh, next one is also your pick.

So we got three picks of yours, 33.

Victor Orban, um, hated the pick at the beginning, but I don't hate it anymore.

Hmm.

I'm surprised you made the pick, you know?

Oh, I felt,

I felt dirty.

I felt dirty making the pick, but this is my allegiance to objectivity here.

No, that's excellent.

I mean, and, and I think, you know, at first, you know, I don't like leaders that

are just effective at staying in power.

You know, like that's not what this list is about.

You know, this list is about are you actually good at getting

your country to the NBA finals?

Basically, this is about winning.

This is about making the country better, making it great again.

And I gotta say, I mean, Victor Orban has defended, I think

Hungarian interest very well.

Uh, and for the most part he has used his, um, annoying qualities

in a really positive way in which he has extracted concessions from

Europe just to kind of play along.

And I think that's been, um, quite admirable from an

effectiveness policy point of view.

Now, whether he has brought, you know, soft authoritarianism back to Europe,

you know, the kind of things that the foreign affairs are, God forbid the

Economist would write about, I don't really give a shit about that stuff.

That's not what I'm looking at.

Maybe in the long term that will be a problem for Hungary.

I'm not sure, but I do think that was a good pick.

Jacob.

So he is 33 third.

I didn't have him on the list, so he slipped.

I think he's good.

I think he has a ceiling.

Like if your country is facing like other countries that are going after

it, or if you're, if you're in a real problem neighborhood or something like

that, like you'll want Victor Orban.

If you're swimming with the sharks, you want a shark of your own.

If you start the upper levels of my list, where you're starting to get into open

democracies where elections are completely fair and open and things like that,

Orban is not gonna work in that system.

His method of rule is not gonna work.

And that's why you probably trade some of those people in front of him.

Like even if they're not as adept as politicians, like you probably

still wouldn't trade for them.

But if you're any kind of country that has like problems or you're thinking

about defending your interest in a rough neighborhood, like that's why

he earns the, this spot on the list.

'cause if you're in that sort of situation, you're gonna want this

guy, like this guy is ruthless about pursuing national interests and tying

his own future to the national interest.

I think that's, I don't think that's arguable

correct.

I think he would've done a better job, for example, than

me, him in Netanyahu in Israel.

So I would've traded him for, uh, Benjamin Nhu.

The other thing I would say about Orban is that I think

you might be too harsh on him.

I mean, he, he did also, uh, he was electorally successful even when he was

far more committed to liberal democracy, you know, so he's, he's got range.

Uh, what I would say about Victor Orban is if we were comparing him

to a, like a basketball player, he's someone who has transformed

himself and the way that he plays.

He was a down low banker in the post, and then he learned how to,

you know, he's like Brooke Lopez.

That's a good to,

yeah.

Al Horford.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I got you.

There you go.

Yes.

Just, you know, kind of annoying.

Uh.

Francis, uh, Vatican, Pope Francis 32nd.

I gotta say, this was kind of a joke pic.

He ends up being pretty high, but I think he's gonna be a really good pope.

So let's move on.

Alright, uh, 31st.

Benjamin Netanyahu.

Your pick.

Uh, here, uh, I do disagree.

Um, unlike Orban, I don't think he is, uh, like 10 years from now after Orban

is gone, like 10 years after Orban.

I think the Hungary is better off than Orban, particularly because I think

institutions of Hungary will swing back towards liberal democracy and

only Westerners sitting in London and writing about, you know, other countries,

uh, disagree with that, uh, because they look down on Eastern Europe.

So I don't actually have a problem with Orban and what he's doing.

Like it's gonna be fine.

Settle down, hung is not gonna go fascist.

Benjamin Netanyahu, eh, I don't know.

I think he's enabled, I think he's enabled the worst parts of, uh,

Israeli politics to kind of bubble up to the surface to be normalized and

purely for petty personal interests.

I really, really struggled to see much, uh, long-term strategy here.

But you did have a very, very high, and I think that's, you know,

like if you look at him purely from a geopolitical perspective,

I mean, he has kind of crushed it.

And I agree with that.

Iran is on the back foot, Hezbollah hesitating to check their text messages.

Uh, and, uh, you know, Hamas is obviously, um, yeah, basically destroyed.

So, uh, I do understand it from a, from an effectiveness perspective

and a military perspective.

He has done really well.

Yeah.

I, nothing really to add there for me.

Just that like, he probably wouldn't have made it this high

on my list even 12 months ago.

But the quick succession of decimating Hezbollah and then decimating Iran

like this, like it's extremely, like, it's, it's not something I thought.

So maybe I'm over-indexing because I didn't think that he was capable

of it or Israel was capable of it.

But I also think there's no arguing that like he understood this threat

and he went after it to, to the point of understanding the United States,

understanding that all he needed to do was back Trump into a corner and

give him FOMO on foreign policy.

And he would help in the war rather than slap Israel in the wrist.

Like he, he read the room correctly.

He's got a hot hand right now.

You know what I would say about Benjamin Thu, my comp for him.

I know I said Gilbert Arenas.

That's, that's not fair.

Gilbert Arenas, other than a few years in Washington, never really

took his team deep in the playoffs.

I would say Benjamin Thu is Paul George three his playoff b hmm.

You know, like remember when the Indiana pastries with Paul George like took

LeBron to like I do a couple like, yeah.

So, but, but he's terrible and he's terrible for your team and he

whines and he's selfish and he's also, maybe he and Lula will do a

podcast to together to complete the Paul Pearson Paul George analogy.

Alright, we go from the Vatican to Israel to Al-Qaeda, Ahed Al. I

mean obviously that's how we go.

30th on the list.

He was very, very high on mine.

I know you love this pick.

I know you're jealous of it.

That's fine.

Mm-hmm.

We can share it together.

The former Al-Qaeda leader of Syria, uh, this is, this is your 19-year-old

seven foot six project from France.

This is the guy that you don't know if he's gonna stay

healthy or in the real world.

The equivalent of that would be alive.

So you don't know any of those things.

You are confused, but just the range is amazing.

Great family with a lot of political, uh, roots in Syria.

This is not some dude that came out of a cave, picked up an AK

47 and decided to be a terrorist.

This is a university educated, frustrated dude, hated Assad.

The only way to fight Assad was to join Al-Qaeda.

And he did.

God bless him.

And then he was like, Hmm, Windsor changing.

Maybe I should put on a tie and trim my beard.

And then here he is on CNN speaking to Christiana Amur, which was

one of the most fascinating 180 degree turns from a PR perspective.

I think, uh, this is one of the highest rated leaders here.

This guy's got something, he's got that something special.

Um, I'm really fascinated, uh, was quiet.

The only Arab leader that was quiet during the Israel Iran conflict, the

only one that did not disparage Israel for attacking Iran, has been pretty

unequivocally anti-Iran this entire time.

He's got Trump basically.

Uh, advocating for, uh, Syria to be brought back into the

international community is gonna be very, very tough for him.

He's basically a draft project, young player, lots of potential

rookie contract, honeymoon period.

But he did get drafted by an absolutely terrible team.

What is a comp for Syria in the NBA?

Probably the Washington Wizards.

So, you know, we'll see if he survives, but he's 30th and

I think that's appropriate.

Um, I think that's so far what we've seen pretty extraordinary.

Yeah, I, I don't have anything to add 'cause I was jealous

of the pick, but I will say to our Nordic listeners who were sending in

the hate mail, you know, I had met to Frederickson up at 12, so as a result

of smooshing together, MAA Marco's List, Metta comes in at 39th on this

list, and Ahmed Al Shara is at 30.

Would you trade Metta Frankon for Ahmed Al Shara?

Just throwing that out there to the Danish listeners.

Like, just, just, just cook with that question for a little

bit and then come back to me.

If, if you would still make the trade and, and if you would, then, then fine,

then I respect the take, but like, just, just slow down a little bit.

Unless you want, unless you want the Alqaeda guy in charge, you know,

I mean, you know, like he's doing well.

I'm pretty sure he's gonna handle the intricacy of pension reform if he can

handle the intricacy of ethnic conflict.

We'll see.

Uh, alright, next pick was kind of a deep, uh, deep reach by me.

I, I reached into my bag.

Eddie Rama from Albania, he has done really great job.

You then picked, uh, you went deep in your bag too.

This guy was very high on your list, wasn't on mine.

That's why he got penalized.

But I am jealous of this.

Shav got me from Uzbekistan who has transformed the country.

I was jealous of the Albania pick.

And I, I think these are both like really nice, like deep in the bag examples.

It'd be interesting to see if these guys could get called up

to, uh, to the, to the pros.

But they're doing very well in their, in their spheres.

Uh, you then went with Shakiro Yeshiva from Japan.

Um, I thought that was a great pick.

I didn't have him, but I think he's doing really, really well despite, um,

relatively tap popularity in Japan.

The Japanese just does, don't like their leaders ever.

So, uh, God bless him.

He's doing great in the negotiations with, uh, Trump is, uh, you know,

he's the one, the one leader that has decided to hold out for a better deal.

Kayak cull, uh, another person that was very high on your list,

uh, is from Estonia, got, uh, penalized because I did not pick her.

I think that was a good pick.

Karen Keller Suiter from Switzerland.

I thought this was, uh, you know, it's, it's kind of like picking, I don't

know, like Tony Parker outta the Spurs.

Is Tony Parker really good, or were the Spurs really a great team?

Oh, it's, it's not even that.

It's, it's more like Shane Batier.

It's like a really, really safe pick.

It's a, it's a safe pick, but also it's like the

system, you know, this is a great example of, of just the country.

So, well, I think I could run Switzerland.

Um, and then we get into, so now we're getting into like the, the picks

where I, I, I mean, we're not there yet, but like Abdullah's, second of

Jordan, very difficult situation.

Doing great.

Pedro Sanchez from Swain got a lot of hate mail.

Somebody compared him to Merkel because of energy policy.

Please look at the data first before you say that.

Spain is one of the few places in the world where it does make sense

to go hard into alternative energy.

Uh, so disagree with you completely.

There's a boom in data centers in Spain because of their alternative energy

policies, because their electricity prices go to zero for God's sakes.

Uh, Oman's, he binta Saltan, he binta of Oman.

22nd.

Xi Jinping 21st.

We'll get back to that.

Let's hold that thought.

Moham Mohamed's, sixth of Morocco.

So, uh, also for the extraordinary transformation of Morocco is 20th, top 20.

Kasim Jomar to Kazakhstan.

I went deep into my bag.

He was top five pick for me.

He did not make your list.

Because he was so highly ranked.

He sneaked into 19 and now Kuski, he was also top five for me.

Greek prime Minister, who has led to extraordinary reforms.

Olo Deir, Zelensky 17.

Hold that thought will come back to him.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Uh, and now we get into, uh, some leaders that we both had on the

list, which is why they're so high.

These leaders are so high because we, there's consensus now top 15,

basically Amal Amman, Macron at 16.

Uh, neither one of us picked him actually this high.

But where we aggregated our list, he went up because many of our higher picks,

better picks, in our opinion, in, in one of our opinions, just got penalized.

'cause they were only on one list.

So by default, Macron won kind of how he won his second term.

Exactly.

You know, like both of us felt uncomfortable not

putting Macron on the list.

He did transform French politics for the first time since Charlotte

de Gold in a significant way.

So we're sitting there like, yeah, okay, fine.

You know, he's always in the mix, but most French people are probably

lighting themselves in fire for us.

Having him, well, you know what guys?

You should do yourself with more gasoline.

'cause he kind of squirted his way up higher onto our list.

Ami Rwanda also.

We both picked him 15th on the list.

I 14th.

Hey, listen, bald, don't lie, right?

Mm-hmm.

Now Goba not in Armenia anymore, so he is high on this list.

Although obviously we should, we should caveat this.

How difficult is it to win a war?

Uh, a war when you are washed in commodity proceeds Friedrich me of Germany.

Number 13.

I mean, we're treating Merz here as if, I don't know.

He's Victor Van Bama or at least, uh, what's, what's the,

the kid's name outta Duke.

My brain just stopped.

Cooper Flag

Flag.

Cooper Flag.

I mean, Friedrich Mertz Cooper flag on this list just got

picked number one in the NBA.

We're basically giving Mertz a lot of credit.

And to be, to be clear, he is, uh, summer workout.

YouTube videos are extraordinary.

So I, he, I do think he deserves it.

Um, Erdogan another guy who's courted his way up 'cause he was on both of our list.

He managed to get to 12.

I don't think either one of us really wanted him 12, but here he is.

Mm-hmm.

Lo wonk, Lawrence Wonk, I agree with, I had him much lower than

you did, but I had him on the list contemplating putting him in top 10.

He's number 11.

I agree with that.

He's young.

He's, he just started as the prime Minister of Singapore a year

ago, and so far what I've seen is, uh, pretty impressive stuff.

cyril OSA number 10, um, complicated alliance with the, uh, da.

He's, uh, he's the first leader of South Africa and has basically had to, uh, you

know, uh, reach out to the opposition to create a pretty significant coalition.

And of course, his, uh, handling of Donald Trump, I think was very good.

Mm-hmm.

Now the most controversial, uh, part of this number nine,

massive hate mail from Australia.

I mean, Australians are quitting, they're unsubscribing from geopolitical

cousins in droves because they all hate the Anthony Albanese pig, you know?

And, uh, I I, I have to admit, I hesitated putting him as high as I did.

He was, where was he on my list?

He was really high on my list, I think.

Oh, no, he was 20, 20 20th on my list.

No, he was 10th on my list of br Bring the hate over here, Ozzie.

I'm ready for it.

So

I, he was 20 of mine, 10 on yours.

He ends up nine on the combined list.

Uh, and I think that that's too harsh.

You know, like all the, all the hate mail.

Fine.

Maybe he's 10 spots too high.

Who cares?

I think he's, uh, done a pretty admirable job of geopolitical balancing.

I think most Aussies that hate de pick don't understand why

he's saw Aloof of America.

And my answer is because he understands the world is not bipolar.

For the first Australian leader who gets the picking sides.

So clearly is probably a mistake.

So I give him credit for that.

What's your defense of albanese?

Well, it's sort of, first of all, it's sort of like kiir starer,

like think about who else is on this list.

So if you're in Australia, are you gonna trade, uh, albanese for

somebody who's lower on those list?

Like, would you rather have Benjamin Netanyahu running your

country or, you know, uh, ab fatal Assisi or somebody like that?

Like, like so slow.

Your role a little bit there.

I think you're right about, um, look, Australia's defense relationship with

the United States incredibly critical for Australian geopolitics, but your biggest

trading relationship is with China.

You can't just give the middle finger to China in a world that is

moving multipolar where the United States is less reliable in general.

And I guess also just with Albany, like what's the scandal?

Like, what has he effed up?

I haven't heard, almost, almost nothing from Australian politics has risen to

the level of I need to work on this right now for clients in ever since he is been

elected, because he's just handling shit.

Like, is it brilliant?

Is he the, is he the best Australian leader ever?

No, none of this necessarily.

But when you start comparing him to some of the other folks on this list, and

by the way, doing this exercise makes you realize just how few leaders there

are out there that you would even want to be in charge of your own country.

But, you know, we're, we're talking about would you rather have Xi

Jinping as the leader of Australia?

Would you rather have, um, you know, Pedro Sanchez or somebody like that?

Like I, I think that if you're judging him relatively, and you're looking

at his record, he's been competent.

Even if he's been uninspiring, he's correctly navigating geopolitical,

very tough geopolitical Cs.

Like I, yeah, it's, it's not a full throat that he's the, the best thing ever.

But if you're thinking, if you're being faithful to the exercise, I have a hard

time seeing why he should be penalized.

But I'm open to the Australians telling me, no, Jacob, you don't know all these

other terrible things that he's done.

Please tell me the terrible, awful things that he's done to

collapse the Australian economy.

Because here, sitting here in New Orleans, I don't see, it seems

to me Australia's doing okay.

Yeah, no, I, I think you, you did a great job there.

And I, I do think it was funny how much hate mail we got from

Westerners hating their own leaders.

Uh, by the way, just to be clear, we love the hate mail.

Please keep it coming.

Yes, please.

Absolutely No problem.

But we will expose you and make fun of you.

Like that is something that you have to take on that risk

if you send us hate mail.

So, uh, lots of, lots of criticism of these leaders and, and

again, nobody in Turkey sent us.

Uh, it's funny because, you know, a lot of these picks are very

controversial in the countries.

They're picked, but only the westerners unequivocally hate their leaders.

Mm-hmm.

Now we're getting into idea or, or, or, or

feel safe about, uh, or feel safe, uh, izing their leaders Fair.

Alright.

That's, that is fair.

Okay.

So let's, uh, let's get into, uh, number nine.

Sorry, number eight.

Number eight on our list is Javier Mil.

Uh, high on both of our lists.

Um, you know, I think that's, but,

but, but, but also a great example of what I was just talking about.

'cause he was 17 on my list and Albanese was number 10.

So I say again to the Australians, would you rather have the chainsaw wielding

maniac as the leader of your country?

Because in my list, no, you wouldn't.

There's, like, if you're a certain level of like, messed up country,

yeah, you might want the chainsaw to come out and try and do some reform,

but like, that's not exactly what I would wanna trade for in general.

But because Melay was on both of our lists, and because he is do, he's really

doing such an ambitious thing and trying to turn around Argentina, which for

over a century has been a basket case.

Like he gets some dier, but that just to push back against

the Australians one more time.

Yeah.

I think, you know what, I, I think you're right and I think a lot of, uh,

so, so I, I'll take two sides of this.

First of all, I, I think a lot of our listeners in the West, they have to

understand that this is kind of like.

What moment in your life are you in?

Like when you're 23 years old?

And I'm gonna try to do this in a gender neutral way.

Okay, good for you.

When you're, yeah, when you're, when you're 23 years old, when you're 23

years old, you kind of want someone who's riding a bike and got tattoos.

Yeah.

When you're like 50 me, you might want someone who's in their mid thirties

with a stable job and occasionally likes to ride motorcycles, right?

And so I think a lot of our listeners in the West, they're pretending they're 23,

they want a zelensky, they wanted to cave hell, maybe they want to let their hair

down and even go out with Xi Jinping.

But the truth is, you're like 57 year olds old man.

You know?

You don't need someone who's 23 on a motorbike with a tattoo.

You know?

Like, you don't need that.

That's not what you want.

And so I think a lot of our listeners look at someone like Alban or Starmer,

and they're like boring, you know?

Like, we don't want these guys, they're there.

There's nothing interesting about them.

And uh, and I think that's a mistake.

Now that said, we're gonna get into some people right now who I think are as high

as they are because they have vision.

Mm-hmm.

They have, they have vision.

And the problem is, if some of these leaders don't have vision, well this

next mid thirties, non tattooed, non motorbike riding, uh, person.

Is is I think does have vision.

And that's Mark Carney.

He's number seven.

He was high on both of our lists.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, I think, you know, I think that's appropriate.

Top 10 leader, uh, incredible range.

Former central banker who can both talk to you about the Laffer Curve and all

sorts of other advanced economo metric concepts, while also shaking your

hand and talking about junior hockey.

'cause he's got it all.

He's got range.

He was the Central Bank governor of both Canada and the United Kingdom Bank of

England that is, uh, and Bank of Canada.

He also comes from a small town in Canada and knows how to, uh, please both the

crowds wearing the, uh, the white hats.

Uh, and also, uh, how to please the crowds, uh, at an investment fund.

So I think it's very interesting.

And again, he is somewhat, that's higher list because there's a lot of potential.

He's not particularly young, but he's early in his term.

And there's, uh, more to go.

Next one is Modi.

I do think that it's a little bit unfair to Lula, who's 34, Modi six.

I do think Modi is better at this point in his career, but I do think you can

bring up the fact that he's at the end of his career, you are paying a lot.

Uh, for Modi, he's got another three years at $50 million a year.

That's kind of player He is.

So, mm-hmm.

Uh, you know, that's kind of a problem.

Alright.

Top five.

Universally loved number one on Jacob Shapiro's list.

And every single male listener between the ages of 25 and

40 absolutely loves this guy.

It is naive BU from El Salvador coming in at number five, the crypto king, the

Bitcoin baller, the guy who has cleaned up el, by the way, I'm doing this off

the top of my head, so you're welcome.

He has cleaned up El Salvador.

Uh, everybody swears by it.

Uh, I do think he has range.

I think that you would trade for him even if you were in Canada.

I actually think that he would be able to run even an OECD economy because he's

got pr, he's got marketing, he's savvy.

He knows how to talk.

He's got charisma, he's got big ideas, big ideas, and that's useful in any country.

I love this guy.

I love this big.

He was number one on your list.

He was number 13 on my list, but I flirted with putting him in the top five.

Um, and I think, uh, I put him too low, quite frankly.

I think he should be top three.

Yeah.

Great pick.

Alright, next one.

Mohamed Bin Zaid, leader of, uh, the Emirates.

Uh, absolutely crushing it.

The Emirates are not just Dubai, they're not just about fake islands.

I. Other fake things, by the way, just we're not gonna mention what,

they're not just about Dubai anymore.

They're a financial capital.

They're uh, actually a manufacturing hub.

If you're flying in an airliner, you're flying in an airplane whose parts were

partly manufactured in the Emirates.

Uh, the other Emirates are coming up.

It's not just Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Sharjah is blowing up as well.

Abu Dhabi has become a financial center.

They're doing some incredible things.

Also, did I mention ai?

They're probably gonna be the earliest adopters of everything.

So, great job of the Emirates.

Uh, also geopolitics done well on that front as well.

Number three, neighboring Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman.

Uh, he's hired this list, not just because of effectiveness, not just

because of dramatic socioeconomic change that has gone on in Saudi Arabia, that

I would only compare it to the major restoration in mid 19th century Japan.

Not just that, but also because of vision.

Yes, some of this vision is too much.

Yes, some of these projects are not gonna happen, but if 30% of this

vision is actually articulated, that will be extraordinary.

More than that, I also think Bin Salama should be number three, because

the reforms that are happening in Saudi Arabia and the handling of

geopolitics, particularly navigating the very tricky Israel Iran situation

is not just good for Saudi Arabia.

It's good for the region.

Saudi Arabia has decided to become a responsible regional power to

reduce its reliance on various militants and various extremists.

And that is, has just made the world a better place, quite frankly.

So that's number three.

Obviously everyone's gonna bring up Khashoggi and what happened, um, with

the death of that journalist, I would just remind you that the United States

of America, uh, bombed Al Jazeera's, uh, headquarters in Iraq during the war.

So like, don't talk to us about killing journalists, although I

obviously think that's terrible, but that's not what this list is about.

And now, top two, oh, sorry.

Well, I, we, I can't believe I'm, I'm really, I, I'm,

I'm really impressed with the moral equivalency between the United

States bombing Al Jazeera and, uh, Jamal Khashoggi being literally

dismembered in a consulate, uh, at MB s's uh, MB S'S request.

I think that was young mbs.

So hopefully he is a little bit older and he understands that, uh,

taking off the arms and limbs of the people who disagree with you

is not a good way to stay in power.

Better to lock them in the Ritz-Carlton and make sure that they give you

billions of dollars in order to get out.

Um, but yeah, I, I can't let that one go without some comment.

Cousin.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, Jacob.

But, uh, you know, like, you, you should hold countries with

institutional norms and rules to higher standards, my friend, you know?

So that's, uh, that's, that's where I sit on that one.

So, yes.

Okay.

Mr. Ma, you disagree with that?

And he was number three on my list, by the way.

But do you hear me well?

Yeah, I got you.

You, you slowed down for a second, but you're good now 'cause

it's kind of choppy.

Hmm.

You there?

It got choppy for a second, but yeah.

I'm good.

I'm here now.

Can you hear me

okay?

Yeah, I, I hear you now.

Yes.

Okay, cool.

Okay,

I got you.

Alright.

Top two.

Oh man.

It's, it's choppy again.

Okay.

Hopefully it's good now.

Okay.

Top two.

We got Georgia Maloney from Italy at number two, and Claudia

Shine Baum at number one.

So number one and two, both women, both relatively new leaders.

Um, Georgia Maloney, I think, uh, had a tougher time because

she had to actually wrangle her own party and win from scratch.

Fratelli Talia were not in power before Claudia Shaba was kind of

handed the presidency by amlo.

But she has done an admirable job in negotiations with, of course, the us.

Um, you haven't heard anything about Mexico over the last four months,

and that is why she's number one.

She's number one because she's somehow managed to avoid President Trump.

Uh, very tough to be a leader of Mexico so far from God and so close

to the United States of America.

And, uh, obviously, uh, I think that, uh, her handling of that situation

has rocketed her to number one.

We'll see though how she, uh, you know.

How they both do, but for the most part, nobody really complained

about that one, two punch.

Um, and, uh, I think that we did really well.

I'm on at least the top fight.

I'm surprised,

I'm surprised that we didn't get more Mexican pushback

from Shane Baum, but that's sort of been true of her from the beginning.

Like, I've done a lot of work on Mexico this year, and every single person

I've met doesn't like Shane Baum swears they didn't vote for Shane Baum says

she's an awful communist populist who's gonna take their money and et cetera.

And yet you look at the approval rating, she's 80 plus percent.

Marina got a super majority in both houses.

Um, and she seems to be going from strength to strength.

And even the ones, like even some people who would tell you like,

yeah, I didn't vote for this person.

I hate this person, blah, blah, blah.

And the next breath they'll say, yeah, but she's doing pretty good with the

United States, or She hasn't been as bad as I expected, so I I have yet to

meet a full throated Mirena supporter.

Uh, it, I'm almost, I almost think that they don't exist because

everyone I sort of come across, uh, doesn't think that way.

But even the people who are against Shane Baum, I think are sane.

She's done a really good job so far.

Now that said, I think there, there are two things though, because if

I was a Mexican and I was listening to this list and I was anti Shane

Baum, there were, there were two things I would really push back on.

Number one is the cartels and the security situation.

And this didn't go very well for AMLO either.

And she's got like a significant problem there.

And it's, it's not just her problem.

Like Mexican leaders have had to deal with this and it's an almost impossible problem

to deal with, but it's not like she has fixed that or made big moves in fixing

that at any point sort of going forward.

So I think you can favorably criticize her for that.

I think also.

Though, I mean, there's Shane Baum herself who is a relatively pragmatic politician.

, and then there's Morena and what Morena is pushing for.

And she may be the beginning of a new single party dictatorship in Mexico.

And if you are a wealthy Mexican and thinking about your relationship

with the Mexican state, you should be pretty concerned, be pretty concerned

about the centralization of power.

And you can see Claudia Shane Baum as, as the totem of that centralization,

you should view her as an enemy.

So I, I think it's actually ironic.

I think Shane Baum will probably be good in terms of moderating some of Marina's

worst instincts and good for a large majority of the Mexican population.

But if you're that upper crust of Mexican society, like you should be a

little bit afraid of the power that's being concentrated and in some of

the things, um, that she has said.

So we, we didn't get the hate mail that I was expecting from Mexicans, but I

know from talking to them like over the past year that like, there's plenty

of it and she's not a perfect picker.

Nobody on this list is gonna be perfect.

So she was not number one on my list.

Like she is number one because of, you know, when you smush our list

together, she's the one that comes up.

But even though she was top five for me, like she does have some words.

I just wanted to put that out there.

Yeah, I think that's a great defense, uh, Jacob,

and, and thank you for that.

I, I, I, I love it.

And, uh, I think it's a good pick.

I think what you reveal by focusing on those points is that she might be this

high for us because we expected worse.

And so, you know, I certainly did.

I thought she would not do well with President Trump.

I thought that she would, uh, be far more normative and moralistic with him.

And when she, uh, countered his Gulf of America gimmick with a western Mexican,

United States of America, whatever he, whatever she said, that was amazing.

And I bet you the Donald Trump loved it.

I think he was in his office sipping on a diet Coke, going like, wow, wow.

Like she gets it, you know?

She gets that this is trolling and she's trolling back.

And, uh, you know, I mean, it's a silly thing to point out, but that won't be over

when she threw trolling back at Trump.

That takes confidence.

That takes, uh, taking yourself less seriously than some of

these leaders take themselves.

That's the world we're in.

And, uh, I like that.

I think she, she won me over, but at the same time, that might mean that we are

overrated her because we underrated her.

You know?

And so that's the fear Now with Maloney, I just wanna say a couple

things in defense of Maloney, because Maloney was my, uh, number one pick.

Mm-hmm.

So you had, uh, shine Baum at number, I think four.

Five.

Five.

I five.

And I had Maloney at seven.

So

yeah.

So you had, uh, I had Maloney as number one.

So she ends up being number one because she was number one.

My list.

Number seven, yours.

Lemme just explain why she's so high in mine for just an economic performance.

This is an extraordinary turnaround for, uh, for Italy.

Um, Italy is, uh.

Uh, debt to GDP has come down from 160, 170% of GDP to 130.

So huge decline.

Yes, it's still 130, but give her credit.

And the deficit, the deficit, uh, for Italy as percent of

GDP was in the 12% range.

Even, uh, right after the, uh, pandemic, she's gotten it back to 3%.

I mean, that's an extraordinary correction in deficit that most Americans

listening to this would've loved.

Um, so she's done a really good job.

By the way, Miata is, uh, out of Greece.

Uh, the Greek economy is actually, uh, outperforming the Euro area.

Uh, Malone is managed to get Italy to be on par with the Euro

area, which is extraordinary 'cause Italy has a growth problem.

But Mitsa in Greece, just a little defense for him, he's managed

to, uh, actually outperform.

And the debt to GDP of Greece has come down from 210% to 150%, and it now has a

5% almost, um, positive budget balance.

So that's extraordinary, uh, extraordinary performance, uh, by these two leaders.

Spain, by the way, massively outperforming the Euro area in terms of growth.

Uh, debt to GDP is down from 130 to a hundred percent.

Deficits are down as well to two point a 5%.

So all these leaders have managed to, you know, move their, the Mediterranean

leadership has gotten really better in Europe, and I think that's why

they're, they're high on her lists.

Okay.

Yeah, I think so too.

I, I just wanna say about Maloney.

She's, she's a unicorn on this list, and she's a unicorn because she is

this sort of social conservative leaning right wing, a little bit

euroskeptic, but has, wants nothing to do with Vladimir Putin in Russia.

Like, there is a lot of weird Putin love in, when you think about Euroskeptic

circles in the right wing in Europe.

But her, think about the lap.

Yeah.

Not her, but not her.

No.

Yeah, she, she's a one of one, like, I don't know anybody else who could

replicate the sort of different ideological things she has put

together and to dominate Italian politics the way that she has.

I mean, I think, I, I forget if, if it's Italy or some other country has had like

the most leadership transition since World War ii, like Italy is either up there,

number one bad and she's dominating.

Yes.

She, no, listen, so

she's, she's sort of like pingus if, uh, he

didn't get hurt all the time.

Who bad?

She's Dirk Dubiski, I would say.

She's, she's like, oh,

okay.

Yeah.

The first like tall white dude from Europe who shoots threes

that America's ever seen.

That's who she is.

We're all shocked by her.

That's why she deserves to be in the top five.

I would definitely take her over Bhel.

Sorry.

No, no offense.

If you're a 25 to 40-year-old male.

I know you all love Bhel.

That's cool.

God bless you.

But I would take Maloney for president of any one, prime minister of anything.

I think she would crush it in Israel.

I think she would crush it in Ukraine.

I think she would crush it in Canada.

I think she would crush it in Syria.

I think she would crush it in the Congo.

I think Maloney is a badass.

And I'll tell you why.

She's authentic and she doesn't give a fuck.

You do you?

Okay.

Georgia, you do you Italy.

Amazing job.

Amazing job.

Slow clap.

Just nothing to say other than we've got two women on the top.

And quite frankly, I think both of them are bad asses and they will crush.

Crush in any situation.

Um, now that's, that's the summary.

That's the amalgamated, that's your list.

Let's talk about people now that are not on it.

Um, and then I wanna talk about some people that are on it.

Yeah.

So I wanna talk about two people that are not on the list.

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

I wanna ask you why you don't have them on the list.

How dare you.

And then I wanna talk about two people that are on the list that are your pick.

So you can, you can ask me to defend mine.

I just think that you picked two gentlemen that I have to kind

of defend for why they're not.

They were very high up on the list.

So Zelensky ends up being 17 and Xi Jinping ends up being 21.

They were very high on your, uh, your list.

You had, uh, lemme just see here, Zelensky in terms of your list was number two was.

Yeah.

And Xi Jinping was number six.

So if you want me to defend some, we can also do that in that segment.

But neither one of us had Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

And I think that, um, you know, it's funny because when I ask a lot of

people, who would you have in the top?

A lot of them said Putin.

Um, and there's a lot of truth in that and we have to talk about that.

Um, but neither one had it on.

So let's start with Vladimir Putin.

Why is he not on your list of top now?

44. 44 leaders?

We would take, we would take Abbi Ahmed over Vladimir Putin.

Why you and I?

Like, what did we do on, what did

he do?

Yeah.

And I, and we need to spend some time on Xi Jinping.

'cause I think I probably ranked, uh, Zelensky too far

too high for my own reasons.

But I, I think Xi Jinping is the one where we're gonna disagree the most.

But as, as for Mr. Putin, um, look, he would've been towards the top of

this list until he invaded Ukraine.

And that was such a big, big unforced error.

And also I think, showed that he was not in reality, um, like if you read some

of the reports around him at that time, like he had sort of isolated himself.

He wasn't talking to anybody.

He was lecturing foreign dignitaries about like 18th century Russian

history when they came to visit over the very, very long table.

Do we remember that with COVID?

Very long table.

I mean, he didn't even tell he was so nervous to maintain the element of

surprise that he didn't give his generals enough information so that they could

actually plan a military operation.

That should have been a layup for Russia.

This is also like, this is something that he said he had fixed, like part

of the reason to invade Georgia in 2008 was to test out the Russian military.

Yes, they crushed Georgia, 'cause Georgia was puny, but the Russian

military didn't do very well.

They had huge problems in coordinating air and land forces in 2008, and Putin

was the one who said, we have fixed this, like we are gonna throw so many, so much

money into fixing the Russian military and professionalizing it and modernizing

it, and Russia is gonna be this modern country and all these other things.

And it turns out, no, it's just the same old Slavic corrupt Saudi Arabia

with terrible demographics and is only a great power because they have

nuclear weapons in the first place.

I think history will look back at Vladimir Putin.

They'll look back at that first roughly 20 years of his rule as some

of the most inspired leadership in a difficult country that we've ever seen.

But everything that has happened since he invaded Ukraine, he

looks like Czar Nicholas ii.

And, and maybe he'll drag on for another five years.

Maybe he'll drag on for another 10 years.

But he made an existential mistake, um, in invading Ukraine.

And also in not being able to do it, and in believing that he could do it

and believing his own propaganda that the Ukrainians would welcome him and

that he could do the Blitz Greek attack.

So I think just based on that, he's off the list entirely because I think

he sacrificed any future of Russia as a great power in a multipolar world

for this fool's errand in Kyiv that wasn't actually gonna get him anything.

All Russia will be now because of Mr. Vladimir Putin is a Chinese gas station.

Congratulations on your foresight and leadership, Mr. Putin.

Yeah.

I mean, I think it's even worse than I second, quite frankly, I think, uh, his

Nicholas, the first, who, uh, also had a disastrous war in Crimea and then, uh,

died or, and or committed suicide because he was, uh, such a terrible leader.

Um, Alexander II came afterwards and was a badass.

So, what I mean, look, I I, I actually defended Vladimir Putin more than

anyone in my circles, from 1999 to 2000, and let's say eight maybe.

Why?

Because to understand Vladimir Putin, you have to understand how

bad Russia was in the nineties.

Mm-hmm.

It was terrible.

It was a complete and utter collapse of society.

And if Vladimir Putin shows up, he fixes it.

He fixes 80% of it.

He really does.

He fixed it.

He crushed it.

He stood up to the west.

But in a kind of a cool, like, Hey, I'm a partner, but like,

yo, you gotta respect us.

We got our own interests.

That's all fine and dandy.

And then, uh, Ukraine.

There were several pro western kind of revolts starting 2004, 2005.

The Orange Revolution.

Putin handled that masterfully coolly like, like, like James Bond, you know,

my name is Putin, Vladimir Putin.

Like, go ahead.

You want to be pro western, uh, you know, Chenko and Tim

Chenko, you guys go right ahead.

And what happened?

They drowned in their own corruption, feebleness and uh, incompetency.

And so in 2010, the election Yanukovich wins Fair and square,

you know, hashtag great job.

Paul Manafort, you know, so you've got Ukraine basically swing back towards

Russia because Putin was cool, calm, and collected, and didn't overreact to this

like kind of flirtation with the West.

He lets the pro western leaders of Ukraine do what they do best, which is

be complete incompetent fools and just swooped in through a democratic process.

No problem.

Nothing bad happened.

And then in 2014 where there's more pro western protests, he loses his cool.

So I don't even think that it's 2022.

Hmm.

That's the problem.

You know, I actually think it goes back further.

In 2014, he lost his school because let's be very clear, if you annex

and remove Donbas and Crimea.

Now, of course the Parisian and her, these, these regions of

Ukraine that Russia has captured.

There's actually Russian ethnic people living there.

Not just Russian speaking Ukrainians, but actual ethnic Russians.

They're actually politically pro-Russian.

They're actually anti-Western, the human beings that live there.

That's your kind of fifth column inside of Ukraine.

That's your permanent like space inside of Ukraine.

They will always vote for pro-Russian like foreign policy and so on.

So by taking it out of Ukraine, you've created a far more anti-Russian Ukraine.

You've left the rest of Ukraine to be a far more sovereign

and self identifiable country.

So in other words, not only was the military invasion a blunder,

and by the way, I can spend a whole hour on this, maybe we should.

'cause there's a whole lot of folks in the West who think that

Russia is doing great militarily.

They're not.

But not only was the military invasion a blunder, but the fact that you decide

to carve up Ukraine is an old goal because now you've created Ukraine.

You know, one thing that I will agree with, uh, Putin and all of our Ukrainian

listeners will light themselves on fire and or cancel us, which is fine.

God bless you.

The one thing that Vladimir Putin is right about Ukraine is that

Ukraine kind of didn't exist.

Sorry.

And you know who agrees with me?

The Sociological Institute of Kiev.

In other words, there's been a poll that.

The University of Kyiv has been running from the nineties where they

ask Ukrainians, what do you feel like?

And under 50% of them have felt Ukrainian.

So Vladimir Putin is right, right up until he created Ukraine

and you created identity twice.

There's a huge jump in self-identification of Ukrainian people as Ukrainian

after the 2014 invasion by Russia.

And then another huge jump in 2022.

So you know, if I'm a Ukrainian nationalist, hell, I'm building statues

to Vladimir Putin all over Ukraine.

'cause he is probably single most responsible person for the creation of a

sovereign free and pro western Ukraine.

And that you cannot abide.

And here's why.

Your point about demographics of Russia is very important.

Ukraine, 43 million people at its fullest.

43 million people who will buy stuffed in nobody else will.

You know what we buy from Russia oil, the rest of us.

But you know who will buy like a Russian insurance product or

a share, or God forbid, a car.

Ukrainians.

This was your sphere of influence, Vladimir.

This is 43 million people, which is like a third of Russia.

Highly educated.

Pretty wealthy relative to the rest of Russia, you know, um, with

similar cultural affinity, similar thoughts, similar dreams, similar

tasting music and art and cinema.

And yes, also willing to buy your crappy Russia products outside of commodities

did none of us would ever wanna buy.

'cause we don't find them cute at all.

That was Ukraine and you lost it.

And what you got instead is West Virginia of Europe.

No offense to the mountaineers, West Virginia is fucking awesome.

God bless you.

But let's be honest, Don Nets, it's like coal mines alright.

Like that's what you got.

And I think that's an incredible blogger.

Anyone who advocates for Vladimir Putin to be on this list is

straight up, like just high.

Or five, if it's,

if it's pre 2014 or pre 2021, like, I think you can make the

case that he should be in the top five.

But I agree with everything, everything you said.

He created Ukraine, he enlarged nato, he forced the best, he best

and the brightest to flee Russia.

He like put like, you know, uh, he put Russia at the behest of China.

He has like, he just did all these other different things.

He has handedly made me money and not because I've just, uh,

done well playing him, but because my crappy real estate possessions

in Belgrade, Serbia that I never thought I would give a shit about.

Have basically like quadrupled in price.

Thank you Vladimir.

Thank you for sending Serbia, a bunch of Russian IT experts who have to rent crappy

Soviet departments at egregious prices.

So well done, well done.

Slow clap for you,

Marco.

That, that actually reminds me I, before I forget to ask, I wanted to

ask you why, why Uch was not on your list to give the Serbian perspective.

'cause he's been around for a while and he's got some cred.

Why, why did you leave him off?

You know, uh, I think I left him off because there's so much potential.

First of all, Serbia has one of the, uh, best performing economies in Europe.

Uh, the investment into Serbia is skyrocketing.

It's incredible.

Uh, and it's all thanks to him.

Like straight up, like he has created geopolitical stability in the country.

Um, and, uh, you know, basically good relationship.

He's one of the best balancing acts out there.

The problem is that domestically, I feel that, uh.

He had so much potential, and that hasn't revealed itself.

Hmm.

You know, it particularly because he's facing now these, uh, student protests,

which are massive against his rule.

And no, it's not some sort of foreign interference.

It's the fact that basically he's a victim of his own success.

So let me explain what I mean.

Serbia is no longer concerned about security, basic material needs.

Um, you know, it's, it's a country that has economic growth, has investment.

That's all thanks to him, actually.

But the problem is, once you give people a taste of that success,

you have to start delivering on other things, improving governance,

improving institutions, and, uh, and he hasn't, uh, and he hasn't done that.

You know, the, the level of corruption, the level of, uh, uh, you know, and not

all of that is on his back, but he's the leader and he should have cleaned that up.

So he's not in the top 30.

Uh, I mean, I don't think he's in the bottom 190.

You know, many, many other leaders are much worse than Ridge in the world.

But I do think that he's a victim of his own success.

And by the way, I, I defend OT with, with fellow Serbs because

there's a lot of criticism of him.

And I always say like, yes, but you wouldn't be criticizing him

for corruption and institutional incompetence if the country was still in

sanctions or a pariah state and so on.

So he's clearly navigated global geopolitics, perhaps better than

anyone else, other than, you know, big countries like India or Malaysia.

Like, well done.

Mm-hmm.

The problem is, once you've delivered that.

People's appetites and desires rise.

And so that's why he's not here.

But he's definitely, he hasn't done a huge blunder like Vladimir Putin.

Vladimir Putin is just, he's the, the, the largest fall out of anyone.

If we did this 10 years ago, Jacob, I agree with you.

He would've been easily in the top 10.

He's now not even, I think in the top a hundred, Vladimir Putin is an absolute

failure over the past three years.

I would've defended him in the top five.

If we did this in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, a hundred percent,

he would've been in my top five.

He's out of there.

Yeah.

And, and he really squandered.

I mean, he had everything going with Ukraine.

To your point, the way that he wanted.

He had everything going with the EU and NATO the way that he wanted.

He had everything with Russia going the way that he wanted,

like cheap energy, the rise of ai.

Like, can you get people interested in Russia?

Like he just kind of squandered.

Um, it all, to your point about ish, it sounds like there's not a one-to-one

player comparison, but he sounds like Tom Thibodaux, like he's good for getting

you to a certain point, but he can't.

Yeah.

He can't get you above.

Yes.

That's a

good one.

That's a good comp.

Uh, Tom Thito and Che are a good comp, by the way.

One other thing, but

Oh, yeah, go ahead.

If, if I could just stick with Lair Putin, some of our

listeners might say, yes, but the West forced him to invade Ukraine.

You know, let's say, oh, please, mayor

Shimer.

I hope you're listening,

but listen, let's see.

That's, that's true.

Let's say that's true.

You know, my mother always used to say to me, if, if j if your friend Jacob told you

to jump through a window, would you do it?

You know.

It's like, fine.

Let's say that America entrap Russia, God bless America.

That's what rivals are supposed to do.

America's not supposed to be nice to you, Russia for, for God's sakes.

Of course, the America's trying to get you to invade Ukraine.

You don't have to do it.

And they did it.

They did it, and they didn't do it in 2004 and 2005, they let

Orange Revolution burns itself.

And you know what would've happened to Zelensky?

And we'll get to Zelensky.

Your your number two pick.

I'm gonna get after that.

But you know what would've happened if Zelensky didn't have a war?

He would've been the worst president of Ukraine probably ever.

He was unpopular.

He was incompetent.

He didn't know what the fuck he was doing.

And then.

Putin invades instead of letting Ukraine fall on its sword as it has in the past,

again, there is nobody, not even zelensky, more responsible for the success that

is Ukraine other than Vladimir Putin.

Well done, my friend.

Yeah, well done.

And

I, I think we should talk about Zelensky now too.

So I'm gonna give a brief defense.

Okay.

But I, but, but I do think I'm wrong.

So, and, and then you can take it after my brief defense and, and tell me why there's

he, he doesn't belong on this list.

I will say two things for, for Mr.

Zelensky.

Number one is incredible courage and bravery.

What he did when the invasion started walking around the streets and like giving

the Ukrainian people a symbol that was not afraid and unbounded and pushing forward.

That was like, most leaders would not do that.

That took a tremendous amount of courage.

And most leaders will never reach a moment in their career or never hope to

reach a moment in their career where they have to show off that kind of courage.

And they either have it or they don't.

And he has it, like there is something inside of him that said,

I will resist, I will push back.

And it's admirable, and it's probably why I let myself be blinded a little bit

and put him at number two on my list.

The second thing I'll say, though, and again, this is a situation

that most leaders don't want to be in, but when Putin invaded.

It wasn't just the bravery, it was, he understood the mistake that Putin made.

He called him on it.

He said, okay, fine, let's go.

You want to do this?

Like, we're gonna do this.

You just gave me the way out of my terrible presidency, and now

I'm gonna put Ukraine on the map for the next hundred years.

And, you know, there have been fits and starts, and he's done some

wrong things since the war started.

But just, you know, as a wartime president, you can't really

ask for much of a better record considering the cards that he held.

Now, I'm sure you're about to take him to town for everything

that happened before that.

And really, I, the reason I think we should talk about him is because he's

a creation of Putin's incompetence.

He is not himself a leader who would've scaled the heights and

done all these things on his own.

He needed somebody to make such a monumental error, um, like, you know,

trading, uh, uh, of, or, you know, passing on Chris Paul in the draft so

that we could get Marvin Williams with the hawks or trading the pick that

became Luca Dridge to get Trey Young.

Like, you need that kind of mistake in order to get a Zelensky figure.

Oh my God.

So I know you're gonna take him down, but, oh, I'm, I'm, but those

are my two things in his defense.

Go.

First of all,

first of all, first of all, every Russia apologist sycophant

of Vladimir Putin hates me right now.

And now every liberal westerner is gonna hate me too, and I love it.

The only thing, the only thing that gives my cold, nihilist heart any

fucking passion, is your hatred.

So give it to me.

I couldn't care less.

So right now everybody who secretly has a poster of shirtless Putin and

there are many of you out there.

I know you, you hate me, right?

But now you're gonna, everybody else who reads the Economist and thinks it's a

great publication is gonna hate me too.

Do you know what my comp is for Zelensky?

No, but I can't wait.

Jacob.

Jacob, it's Mack McClung.

You picked Mack McClung as number two in your draft.

Yeah.

You're telling me he's a great wartime president.

That's like telling me he knows how to dunk.

By the way, if you don't know this, because you're, I'm sorry.

We keep using basketball, we just can't help it.

We're degenerates.

But Mac McClung, God bless him, he's like a five foot 10 white guy who's

won three dunk contests because he's a five foot 10 white guy.

But he doesn't play in the NBA.

He plays in the development league 'cause he sucks.

And being an NBA player, okay, he's not, he's not actually capable of making one

of the 30 15 men rosters in the NBA and that's who you pick for your number two.

This person is so specialized.

Yeah, he was a great wartime, first of all.

I would, I would argue against that.

I think he was great in the first 18 months.

We did this last time, so we're not gonna go over it.

I think he's made some disastrous moves over the last 18 months.

I think he's completely lost his space.

I think he's unrealistic and I think that, uh, his cost Ukraine lives.

I think he's caused Ukraine territory and more than that before the invasion.

There's a whole slew of things, including that he got suckered by

the US into believing he could get a better deal than the mis minka courts

that the Europeans negotiated for him.

Well, guess what?

Millions of lives later, 20% of territory later.

How do you like that?

How do you like them?

Apple?

So I think that Zelensky is going to go down in Ukrainian

history as a great leader.

And he deserves that.

Just like Mack McClung is gonna go into history as one of the

best NBA slam dunk champions.

And he also deserves that.

And I don't care 'cause it doesn't make him a great leader.

So he's not in my top 30.

I don't know that.

I don't know that Ukraine exists if he isn't there or somebody like him, isn't

there?

So that's the, that's the other thing I kind of disagree.

I think a lot of people on their list, Jacob, have the temerity of Zelensky.

I think they do.

Not all of them, I agree.

But like sitting there and seeing that he's a great leader because of a personal

equality that maybe 30% of humans have, you know, love of your country sacrifice.

You know, would, I don't know, like would Georgia Maloney stayed fight?

Yeah.

Fuck.

I think she would've, I think she would've looked Vladimir Putin straight

in the eye and said comment, bring it.

But I think she would've also known when to quit.

I think she would've also known when to fault them.

When not to invade Russia with your best troops to get trapped

and killed for no good reason.

And so, yeah, I do think that, um, the Western myth of Zelensky is like,

oh my God, nobody would've done that.

That comes out of the Western elites that they, they truly would not have done it.

'cause their kids go to private schools in Bethesda County and you know, they

are, they've never actually done anything dangerous in their lives because they

don't come from a place where you have to make decisions like that every day.

I think there's a slew of leaders out there that do

come from places like Ukraine.

I come from one of those places and yeah, absolutely.

I don't see that, what he did in that moment.

I think it's extraordinary.

So I don't wanna say it wasn't extraordinary, but I don't think that it

was as unique or surprising as I think it is in a western world where we haven't

had a serious conflict in 80 years.

I think this is great because you, uh, you, you sent me this

email, what was it last week or this week, where you said that I was a humble

elitist and that you're an arrogant man of the people and we're getting right to

this point right here, because I don't think that many people would do what

he did and risk their lives to do this.

And I think the, the Churchill comparison with Zelensky is overwrought.

I think we're constantly looking for the next Churchill because of the myth

of Churchill and things like that.

But.

But there is an element here because if you read the Manchester biographies

of Churchill, which are amazing, um, and you read the opening of the first

book, he basically does this prologue that makes, like Churchill is the, is

the, the antimatter to Hitler that he has many of the same characteristics.

He just uses them in favor of liberal democracy and is willing to do all

the things and let people die and all of the, you know, narcissism and

everything else that comes with it.

But that when you're in a war with somebody like of Vladimir

Putin, like you need that kind of essential quality to push back.

And I think in that way, like Zelensky, like he had that thing.

And I don't think that most people have that thing.

Maybe Maloney, like maybe some of the top fives on our list have that thing.

But like, you know, as we're going down our list, does Anthony

Albanese have that quality?

Does uh, you know, I, I'm sure Paul Kagame does, but like as you're

going down the list, like, but,

but, but this is, but Jacob, this is why I don't wanna rank him high.

'cause I come from the third world.

I come from Serbia.

I'm Serbian fully except for quarter German, which makes it even more

likely that I will have this view.

Yeah.

Like when you come from that world, those situations are not that far off.

You, you meet them every time you walk to school as a sixth

grader, you meet those situations.

And so that's why two Apol.

And, and it's funny you settled on Paul Kagame.

You were like, well, Paul Kagame has it.

You know what I, I also think Abi Ahmed has it.

Sure.

You know, I also think Ab Fat Sii has it, Provo Ibrahim.

There's a slew of people that come from the non-Western world

where there is volatility, there is conflict, there's pain, there's

death, and you're surrounded with it.

And so it isn't as surprising, but would it be surprising if, you know,

uh, Liz Truss stayed in Kyiv and fought?

Yeah, it would've been, it would've been very surprising.

And that's why Western journalists obsess about Zelensky because it makes

Westerners hearken to an era where like, men were men and women were women.

You know, it hearkens back to the idea, uh, to an era when, of that photograph

of that, of that Navy, Navy guy kissing a girl in Times Square as the war ends.

And so we look at Zelensky, we're like, oh my God, we haven't had that in decades.

Yeah.

But the rest of the world does.

And so I'm not gonna put him in the top 30, you know, because he stayed and fought

for his country, because that happens every day in a lot of places in the world.

Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, I agree with you that he

should not be in the top 10 and maybe not even in the top 30.

I think I overindexed based on that.

Um, but I, I don't think that we should, uh, I don't think that we

should downplay like the extent to which he was successful.

I'll turn your point about Serbia around on you, your, your Serbian friends who

are saying like, okay, you wouldn't have these issues if Vch VCI hadn't done

some basic level of remediation here.

I don't think there's a Ukraine if there isn't somebody like

a Zelensky in power and Kyiv.

And it's not just the courage and bravery, it's also like the assessment

of, no, Putin can't do this.

Like, I can win this.

I will push the right buttons to push back.

And the Churchill comparison is also especially apt because Churchill was

a fucking terrible prime minister as soon as the war was over, and they

got rid of him as quickly as possible as soon as the gun stopped firing.

And I bet you the Ukrainians will get rid of him as soon as possible.

Like, they'll drive him to the airport and say, go, like, go like Dine Western

capitals, go make your TV shows again.

You did your job, but you are not fit to be a non-war time leader.

But the problem, but the question that, the question I wanna ask you

though is, and this is a really fun one, is, so I know that neither,

uh, Putin or Zelensky are on your list, but on your list, who's higher?

Would you trade Putin for Zelensky?

Or would you trade Zelensky for Putin?

Yeah, I would think Zelensky.

Okay, cool.

I mean, I would take Putin over Zelensky a hundred times at a hundred times pre 2014.

Um, of course,

but today, but today you would take Zelensky over Putin.

Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely.

Like no, there's no contents.

No contents.

Uh, Putin has a lot more to work with.

He has more resources.

He is, uh, he's the catalyst.

He has choice, he has agency and he's using incorrectly.

But one thing I will say that if you are going to compare landscape with

Churchill, you know, one thing that I would say is that, first of all,

Churchill was a terrible military strategist before World War ii.

I mean, he's, he's, he's the reason Gallipoli failed.

Uh, go, go, go check your history.

My cousin.

I, I, no, I think he gets a bad rap for that.

Okay.

And he's also responsible for lots of different advances and things like that.

So,

okay.

Well, that's fine.

I mean, yes.

Technological advancements, yes.

The tank and so on.

But what I would say is that in World War ii, he was really good.

That's where I was headed.

I, I think that if you're going to defend Lansky's track record and say wartime

president, you can't then ignore the, the blunders of his strategy as well.

Mm-hmm.

And I think that that's where I think, um, that's why I would probably

have him top 30 if he had just kept making the right military moves.

But he hasn't, the offensive in 2023 was way too, way too, uh,

aggressive, way too overbuild.

He didn't know what to start negotiating.

And then finally, I think the curse invasion was just unnecessary.

So I do think that there's a lot of things that he's also done.

That don't make sense on the military level.

So not just politic.

Yeah.

Alright.

Well, we go to,

he, he's, he's, he's a standup comic, not a general, like,

Churchill spent his life reading about strategy and things like

that, like Zelensky did not like.

And yeah, so

that, that's a, that's a very good point too.

Yeah.

Uh, I think, I think, uh, he has maximized his potential, just like Mac

McClung has thus great comp, great comp.

Um, by the way, your video is frozen for me, but I hope mine isn't for you.

So I don't know what's going on, but like

No, it's not.

I'm fine.

I, and I'm recording here locally, so we're good.

I'm sorry I'm frozen.

No, no, no.

It's okay.

Alright, so we gotta talk about two, two big ones, right?

Two big ones, two guys that, uh, we're gonna keep Trump for the

end, uh, but let's do Xi Jinping.

So, you know, like Xi Jinping.

And by the way, please, uh, bring up some other ones you wanna discuss.

But I wanted to talk about Xi Jinping.

You had him, uh, a very, uh, very high, you had it six.

I did not have him in top 30.

Uh, just like with Vladimir Putin, I am disappointed, uh,

in some of his performance.

I think geopolitically, we don't have to discuss it.

I think I, you know, we can probably agree with a lot of geopolitical moves.

There's the wolf warrior diplomacy.

You brought up yourself in the first part of this series as, as an own goal.

Uh, I have two issues, which Xi Jinping, first and foremost, I think

in 2012 when he ascended to power, he decided to wake up a sleeping giant,

a giant that was stuck in the morass and the sands of the Middle East.

I think he overly aggressively pursued some of the national

security interests of China.

There is absolutely nothing that China needs to do.

There's nothing inherently necessary in the South China Sea.

You don't have to start pushing into the South China Sea in 2012.

You can wait until 2030.

Uh, the United States of America is today 2025.

It's July 9th, 2025.

The United States of America is spending its tax dollars on ensuring

the security of Chinese oil supply.

I mean, that's literally what's happening today.

The Fifth fleet in Bahrain is not securing my gasoline.

It's securing your gasoline Xi Jinping.

So you have actually not done anything to improve that situation.

And by waking up the United States of America to the assertiveness of China,

I think that he accelerated the need to challenge, uh, the United States too soon.

So that's the first issue.

I think that was, uh, that was unnecessary.

You know, the 2020s could have been the decade where China wakes up America.

It didn't have to happen in 2010s.

Uh, the second thing I would say is that China wasn't the path towards a lot

more entrepreneurship and innovation.

I mean, it has the wallops of it already.

So it's not like they're, you know, doing poorly.

I mean, obviously EVs, uh, there's a, there's a lot in the

financial sector where the payment technology is much better than ours.

There's biotech.

Biotech.

Yes, biotech for sure.

Uh, so, but that could have been better.

Why tinker with the model?

Now?

Yes, there is income inequality.

I agree with that a hundred percent.

But do you improve income inequality by stifling innovation or do you improve

income inequality by creating, you know, things that a communist party should care

about, like a healthcare system, like a social security and pension system?

Those are the things that the state is failing to provide in China.

It's, it's not, it's not entrepreneurship and income inequality of the top.

That's the problem.

The problem is that the state provides very scant, uh, very

scant social welfare network.

And that's, by the way, the root of many problems in China.

The reason that people buy so many condos is because they expect to sell

them so that they can get dentures when they're older so that they can, you

know, heal themselves when they're older.

That's, that's the imbalance to this economy.

And quite frankly, this guy's been in charge for 13 years and he has not

addressed that social, uh, welfare state that's actually pretty poor Amer

uh, America and China in many ways.

Similar.

I mean, one of them is that they don't rebalance income inequality

and, um, and they don't have.

The level of government spending on social welfare state that I think

an advanced economy would have.

So, um, I think that's another failure.

So those are my two problems with Xi Jinping.

I think he challenged the US unnecessarily early.

Seems like an ego play quite frankly.

He ascend to power.

So China must then at that moment, challenged the us.

I thought that was unnecessary.

And then the second thing is, uh, he and his government have

talked about social welfare state.

They understand how important it is in reducing leverage to condos

in real estate, but they haven't actually addressed it significantly.

Yeah.

Uh, you and I disagree on this and maybe I have rose tinted glasses

when it comes to Xi Jinping.

This is the first thing I can think of as cousins that we like.

We truly are on opposite sides of this.

Um, I think you're reading.

His embrace of Chinese nationalism in 2012 and 2013.

Wrong.

And I think you're underestimating just how bad the situation was

in China when he became leader.

Um, you had, you know, Deng Xiaoping eventually leaves the scene and then

you have by consensus these rulers who are coming in every five years and

China's becoming fabulously wealthy, but it's also becoming even more corrupt

and it's becoming even more unequal.

And you get to the point where the factions can't agree on who the next

consensus candidate is gonna be.

And they end up on the, the middling person that everybody

can agree, okay, fine.

We'll do that because he doesn't give me everything that I want.

And they pick this guy Xi Jinping.

And I think when Xi Jinping comes into power, he thinks that something

is fundamentally broken in China, and that if he does not fix things,

this system and the Communist Party underneath it is going to come apart

at the seams because the ideological legitimacy of the party is dead.

It was all gone.

It was all these corrupt parties with your bogie lies and Lamborghinis everywhere,

and people hanging out in the coast having great parties and people in

the interior are less than $2 a day.

So like the ideology of communism.

Was dead and he needed to buy some time to rebuild communism and rebuild

that sense of, so social equality in the welfare state that you're

talking about, uh, while not having people come at him with a knives.

So I think he started with this notion of Chinese nationalism and yes, starts

playing around with the South China Sea and Taiwan because communism is

nothing, it's bankrupt at this point.

And he needs to give the Chinese people something other than, Hey, like,

you know, the preternatural growth you've had for the last 30 years,

it's not gonna happen for the next 30.

We can't deliver that to you.

So I have to give you, the state has to give you something else

rather than the growth that you've become accustomed to if you're gonna

continue to believe in the system.

And by the way, I've got all these local governments and these military

guys and these boje lies that are running around that have way too

much money and way too much power.

And if I don't do something here, we're closer to warring

states than you might think.

So I think he takes that first period of time.

Um.

To do that, to purge people, to get rid of people, to reassert the Chinese Communist

Party and what it's supposed to stand for to get people accustomed to the idea that,

okay, like the last 30 years, the growth you've seen, it's probably not gonna

be like that for the next generation.

I need you to buy into the state.

I need social stability.

I need you to think as the state of the arbiter of equality.

And also I need you to have national pride in China as a national project

because obviously, and ironically the, you know, communism with Chinese

characteristics wasn't quite doing it.

If you go back to Xi Jinping's early speeches, and he still

talks, talks like this.

He, he sounds like Ronald Reagan.

He talks about supply side reform and things that belong in like 1980s

western deregulation narratives that are coming out of the president of

China when he's sort of first in power.

Now.

I think you're absolutely right that he went off the rails.

He, he went too early around 20 18, 19 when he is doing wolf warrior stuff and

he is got the first Trump presidency.

I think he overestimated how strong he was at that particular moment, and I think

it's actually a good sign of a leader who recognizes a mistake and walks it back.

So that's the first thing I would say.

The second thing I would say is that.

For all your shade at, uh, thrown at the Economist, you sound like somebody who

reads The Economist when you're fetching about China and its private markets.

Um, this is exactly the thing that Xi Jinping diagnosed.

He's been talking about it since 2015 and he's been trying to do it.

And doing it in a country like China with a billion people with a sclerotic

authoritarian, Marxist communist system is really fucking hard.

So that's why he let the real estate bubble pop because he wants Chinese

people to do what the Indians are doing.

He wants them to go put their money in the market.

He wants them to trust the market enough that they will do that rather

than buying the third or fourth condo.

And he hasn't been able to pull it off quite yet.

He still doesn't have the average Chinese person trusting the

market the way that they want.

But the flip side of this is that he knows, as Deng Xiaoping knows after

Tianmen, if you give too much freedom, if you give too much openness, it will be a

challenge to the Chinese Communist Party.

So yes, we need to stimulate innovation and growth and all these other things,

but it also needs to be at the behest of the Chinese Communist Party.

So that's why in 20, I think it was 21 or was it late 2020, I forget.

He gets the leaders of the major China tech.

Companies like your 10 cents and Alibabas and says, okay, you guys

need to make sure that X percent of your budget is going towards social.

We welfare in China and devoting money to things that actually make things

better for Chinese people and companies like Tencent said, yes sir, Mr. Emperor.

And people like Jack Ma said, no sir. And look what happened to him and

look at what happened to the ant IPO.

He had to make an example of them just as he made an example of Bo and he made

an example of the real estate market so that a couple years later he could

start to loosen the ties and say, okay, now you understand how serious I am.

You also understand that the United States is coming for us in the long run.

You need to align yourselves with the state.

So I think it's unrealistic to suggest that China's gonna

replicate what worked in the West.

They have to have a version of openness and tech innovation

that also allows that Communist party to maintain its power base.

And maybe it won't work.

Xi Jinping has not announced a successor.

He's getting old.

There's some weird stuff.

And then like he didn't come to the Brick Summit.

Like the biggest risk to him is like, what if he gets hit by a car tomorrow?

And there isn't a successor and he hasn't been able to work out

some of these things in time.

But I just think in terms of degree of difficulty, in terms of vision,

in terms of the scope and level of the challenges that he's gone after.

And he has every single rival he has.

He has either eliminated or eviscerated or put in a gulag somewhere, uh, and he is

hanging on the global stage and people are thinking better of China, uh, than they

are in some places of the United States.

Like all those things together, like I see a leader who has done a very,

very good job and who was dealt a very, very bad hand, um, at the beginning.

So that's my defense of him.

Yeah, I mean, my con here is that I think you can do

anti-corruption drive, which I agree with.

I think that that was correct.

You know, that was genuine in the West.

A lot of people thought the Xi Jinping was just taking out rivals, but it was

genuinely an anti-corruption drive.

It wasn't just about the dragons, it was about the flies as well.

Right.

That was the kind of focus of the government.

I think it can be successful without making the other own goals.

I think where we disagree is that you see everything as sort of centrally

about the anti-corruption drive.

And so you're saying like, look, he needed to ramp up nationalism in order to also

pursue something that was good for China.