E144: Biden targets Elon, BRICS challenges the West, Tiger hit piece & more

you want to see something look at my eyes look look at my eyes look at his eyes it's [ __ ] contagion over here brosi what happened you have conjunctivitis yeah double eye I got it from my daughter I think he got something in his eye and then I got this like [ __ ] allergic reaction to it it is a it I'm just messed up dude for two days now I haven't been able to see okay well let me tell you about this weekend which was the most [ __ ] exhausting weekend of my life I mean where do I even start okay here's here's where I start so I [ __ ] fly home from Italy from Italy y back in the arena 35,000 ft I I decide to troll the mids

oh no we'll talk about that later but anyways sipping a beautifully chilled white burgundy by trolling the mids you mean that you were occupying their airspace you were flying at the level of commercial Jets he did a flyby instead of 45,000 ft instead of 45,000 ft I went to down where the public airlines fly and I was like mid mid mid came back let your winners [Music] rain David and in said we open source to the fans and they've just gone [Music] crazy I land in LA and uh I go straight to house I land at like you know I get there like 1:30 or 2:30 or something 3 o'cl something around there in the morning I take a no in the afternoon

take a ice bath and boom we start playing at 4:00 okay we start playing for the time it's not a big deal it's like one day of Poker we play poker we finish at like 3:00 or 4 in the morning we're exhausted Kevin shows up in a wheelchair cuz he had pulled his [ __ ] abdomen Kevin Hart Kevin Hart in a race with Steven Ridley he had a 40 yard dash with step Ridley pulled pulled all this musles like door I think you mean a 40 in dash if it was Kevin Hart that's a 40 inch Dash anyways Kev Kev pulls all these muscles the door in the car opens and the wheelchair comes and he Wheels himself to the table and I so that was the beginning I was like this is like a this is an odd way to start poker we

play till 4 in the morning go to bed wake up do our thing start the game again Thursday at 4: okay we play again till [ __ ] 3: or 4 in the morning wake up we go to bird bank at 10:00 and we fly to Port of aarda for Bater party it's unbelievable okay 10 bedrooms huge Compound on the beach the whole nine yards we start gambling on the plane I just want you guys to know that we slept 9 hours in 4 days and we just kept playing and playing and playing at one point said and this is exactly how the interaction went said hey guys maybe we should go to the St reges for D and then as soon as he was about to say dinner I was like shut up keep

playing the point is that we played from the plane in the car we played on an app then we played in the house the food was served buffet style it all decorum just went away we didn't do anything we didn't leave that house we didn't walk on the beach we didn't [ __ ] nothing you didn't put your feet in the ocean I played until I landed in Moffet on Monday afternoon can you [ __ ] believe it it's so it's like almost like you know six days straight of Poker I will say this it's an incredible house the food was incredible I really wish I could have seen more than my bedroom and the

poker table I wish I could tell you that the Pacific Ocean was nice but I have no [ __ ] idea you peed in a bucket you didn't even see the bathrooms in this house no I had the doors opened so that I could run to my room and pee and come back I mean it yeah you don't want to waste time you it was the most Deen weekend I've ever been a part of and and then all of us by the way we're so exhausted we slept for [ __ ] 10 hours a day for like the last three days oh and by the way so smart you know you think it's a Bacher party it's like there'll be girls be nothing not even the housekeepers were women everybody was man no

distraction no distraction it's just all dudes dudes cleaning the house dudes cooking dudes dudes doing this dudes do that our one attempt to go offsite to go to a dinner was like no sit down the best he's the best that should pay for some tequila research he's the best my Lord I just want to I don't want to make this into tequila part two but my email is filled with 8,000 word tequila missives and overviews from fredberg and every tequila producer in the world and my Twitter my ex is filled with posts about Jam's man in the arena comments they have set off an absolute Fury as uh chth was alluding to so the man in the arena tweet I I don't know

the time stamp here looks like 10:22 a.m. I don't know uh what that is Italian time but chamat decided to say I'm in the arena trying stuff some will work some wound but always learning you're anonymous and afraid of your own shadow enjoy the sidelines and this of course was to some somebody who is criticizing a spack or something and I think this person had eight followers and uh let's just go through the memes here here somebody with the AI revolution has made a chth version of gladiator here is Russell Crow and chth DNA being mixed freeberg I didn't know this was possible in DNA today but I guess there is a new actor storming Hollywood and it's chth Crow it's

Russell poopaa beautiful I mean what a great job that is it looks like you so great job to uh whatever mids did that in whatever mid software do you want to actually talk about the men in the arena comment and what the context of it is can we talk about that actually I think people got upset because what I said was the truth and this is no different than when I've said stuff before that's become a huge Meme and a huge moment cultural moment telling the truth especially when it's so clear and so obvious sometimes can really touch a nerve and what I said is basically the following which is that there are all these people the four of us are examples who are constantly doing

things and then we come into X and we don't confuse x with the arena you know we don't do stuff in the in X we talk on X but then you go back and you actually do things you start companies you invest in businesses you incubate ideas you help Founders get their businesses off the ground those are meaningful things and success is never guaranteed but there is small strain of people who just violently either hate themselves or hate the fact that you're doing things and then that you talk about them and I think what this touched was just that in a simple nutshell it forced people to confront the fact that hey hold on a second am I this Anonymous rube on the

sideline that just throws shade or am I actually doing stuff here I just wanted to take an actual direct line of attack on people who are constantly blaming others for everything and if you aren't trying and iterating you're a [ __ ] loser go out and try something and whether it works or not X is a great place to then go and talk about it that's the cycle Sach your thoughts on the man in the arena well look I think speaking of crazy politically motivated witch hunts did you see this latest story today that now there's a new government investigation of Elon they're investigating him for supposedly Tesla was going to build him a glass

house which he has basically said is ridiculous it's not true so the administration you know I guess to turn a phrase people who live in glass houses shouldn't be investigating glass houses you have the Biden Administration now the latest Revelations is that Biden was using a pseudonym in email 5,000 emails and he was emailing Hunter Biden under the name Robert Peters why would you do that about barisma so this is how they were communicating first Biden said he said he knew level yeah well first Biden said remember yahoo.com first Biden said I don't know anything about my son's business then it turns out based on the

sworn testimony of Devon Archer who was Hunter Biden's partner that Biden participated in over 20 phone calls where he would call in when they were in the room with clients to quote be the brand and now we find out that Biden was communicating with Hunter about BMA using a pseudonym account basically a burner account under the name Robert all allegedly allegedly alleged okay but this is what the comr investigations turned up it's certainly not looking good and as you said my point people live in glass houses shouldn't be investigating glass hous here's the thing like if you're going to evaluate and and listen obviously I'm biased um but if

you're going to investigate Tesla over this like people can buy and trade the stock however they want like there seems to be some Biden Administration you know like Jihad against Elon they're going after him for this and totally well remember a week or two ago Summit I mean it's all I think that's where the whole thing started is that they wouldn't invite him to the EV Summit because they're not a union shop and then Elon spoke out about that remember Biden introduced the CEO of GM giving her credit for launching the whole EV Revolution so Elon criticized the administration for that but I think the main reason why they don't like him is because what he's done with free

speech on Twitter Twitter yeah this glass house investigation is the second one the one that happened last week is they investigating space acts for supposedly screening out foreign Nationals in the hiring process they they are saying wait a second that the doj is alleging that SpaceX was hiring too many Americans and they needed to hire more refugees my head's spinning even though even though thereal not refugees refugees refuges wait wait a refugee is some fleeing a country because of political persecution what what where did the term refugees come from no it is a term a refugee is somebody fleeing a country because of political pers persecution why would

they use that term the doj suit basx basically for Dei footfalls they said that there was not enough refugees and Asylum Seekers that were being adequately considered and being hired by SpaceX the problem with that as it turns out is that the OJ is not even allowed to hire Asylum Seekers I mean and refuges no no SpaceX is governed under the same laws because it's a rocket company as advanced weapons contractors course and they and the whole industry has been under the belief for many years that they could only hire American citizens and green card holders for these very sensitive jobs of course and what happened is earlier in the year the

Biden Administration released what they called a clarification here I'll post this Nick can you pull this up so the US dep us uh doj civil rights division released this again what they called a clarification how to avoid immigration related discrimination when complying with us export control laws the export control laws is what governs rocket companies and weapons contractors it's basically the companies that are involved in these sensitive National Security areas until now the government was pretty clear that you were only supposed to hire US citizens and green card holders the motivation here s explain to me the motivation crazy because they have this

crazy idea that that these companies these national security companies should be hiring more refugees and Asylum Seekers wait even though this is the definition of a national security risk but the really crazy thing so first of all I think this this update that they issued this is lawmaking okay they called it a clarification but this is a Biden Administration making new law through administrative agency I think this is a crazy law uh it's really the opposite of what we should want which is more Americans getting jobs but sax can I ask you a question but what they've done with this lawsuit is they're going back and remember the key here is that

that was only issued in April of this year they've gone back and said that from 2008 to 2022 SpaceX is governed by this new understanding so they're basically making it retroactive okay put putting aside this uh legal lease here for a second I just want to talk first principles if you were a foreign government and you wanted to infiltrate company like SpaceX or andrel or whatever would it not be easier to send a quote unquote Refugee to America espcially to get in versus flipping an American who already works there it's should be a much easier process makes no sense right because especially since all

you have to do is go to the hole in the wall in Yuma Arizona as RFK Jr showed and you just mentioned the word Asylum like the cartel has taught you to and all of a sudden you're a refugee you're in they give you a piece of paper that tells you're going to be in court in three years but you're in thousands of people tens of thou millions of people have done this also another pragmatic question freberg how many people who are coming in as Asylum Seekers have the advanced degrees or background to work at andral SpaceX I don't know pick a pick an aerospace weapons based company like what percentage of refugees do you think coming across the southern border or whatever border they're coming in

would actually have those qualifications so anyway this seems insane well and and so Jak you raised an interesting point because I think one of the really unusual things about this doj lawsuit against SpaceX is that the remedies they're seeking are unprecedented what they've said is anybody who was screened out as part of this process was entitled to back pay lost wages since they were screened out so in other words it assumes that every single one of those people would have been hired job they probably hire one out of a thousand or one out of a hundred applicants gets hired it's and if they could have gotten a job at SpaceX as we all know they bar

for hiring is incredibly high they probably didn't have damages because they could probably get jobs at 10 other companies as well oh my God the Bing Administration is just like self-inflicted wounds here this is so dumb what what a stupid approach is the Glass House thing a misallocation of funds claim like it's a Securities issue is that what it's a Securities issue that it was improperly disclosed and that they may not have filed the proper taxes because it would have been a paid benefit to Elon right right but I mean don't you feel like this is a stretch I mean they are stretching every law they can to go after this guy it's getting to

be a little bit Trum I hate to bring it up let's be clear here's what's happening I think that when Elon bought Twitter what effectively happened is the biggest scops Organization for the Democratic party was taken away from them and I think that they are increasingly feeling like if it really does if Twitter or X becomes a Town Square that's really bad for them and so they can't shape people they can't amplify the victimization they can't amplify the government's going to save you narratives and so this is the sort of Death By A Thousand Cuts approach that the blob has of trying to bring him down and so you see a doj lawsuit over here

it's you know nominal but whatever then you're going to see you know the SEC investigation over $50,000 of GL I mean the guy is worth a quarter of a trillion dollars and we're sweating the $50,000 glass purchase but the point is the goal is to tie him up and to distract him and to basically take resources away his mind share from working now we all know him so he's gonna do the exact not gonna work not gonna work Alex SPO is gonna have a job for the rest of his life that's his lawyer from Quin Emanuel and Alex is going to beat these things back and generally Alex will win most lawsuits I say most but not all but not all but anyways the point is that the point is that uh wellam I think you're

exactly I think you're exactly right about what's motivating this and what's going on but I I'll tell you when it All Began is that Biden had a press conference where he said that Elon needed to be looked at do you remember this and specifically Biden said well I I don't know that elon's done anything wrong but I think we need to look at his relationships with other countries so this was the signal to all of the ambitious appara chics in our law enforcement agencies who are looking for advancement that he's the target go after him find something now in fact they couldn't find anything so they look at his relation with other countries and

what you'd expect is that maybe he hired some foreign Nationals he shouldn't have but it was the exact opposite they didn't hire foreign National they make that the crime you it reminds me of the whole Alvin Bragg thing where Alvin Bragg made that case that Trump was required by campaign Finance laws to pay Stormy Daniels using donor money but you know you know that if they had found that Trump paid stormmy Daniels with donations they would have charged him with that it's like investigating the guy finding he did nothing wrong and then charging him with the opposite of what you no equivalency

between these and and Trump's Behavior but sure it's the weaponization of the justice system and show me the man and I'll show you the crime no incorrect with the last two I mean he he he committed a lot of crimes but we'll leave that off the docket for now we're going to agree to disagree on that one okay just very interesting media related story and finance you're giving Robert Peters too much credit I mean Joe Biden I'm listen Biden's got to go Trump's got to go we need a new platform I have announced that I am supporting Nikki Hy and Chris chrisy re that that would be my ideal ticket right now I want the only person freeberg who brought up

spending in either party Nikki H all right let's just agreee move on but I just want to also say we were wondering who won the um debate last week biggest increase Nikki Hy so what it look like I think she went from two to n seven to nine in different uh in different uh polls so it's somewhere between she trip it was not a huge bounce I think you went I think you're right she went two to seven there was one two to7 one 2 to n but any putting it aside Trump the Trump people are actually promoting it because they want Trump to be up against a bunch they want to be up against not against one yeah yeah yeah three people at 10 to 15% is better than one at 30 I I that's

probably correct could I just ask because I I haven't followed it this week what was the set like after it settled after the bounces and the spikes Saxy what where where we at now in the Republican race after this past week and having people having a chance to really figure out what happened in the debate yeah exactly yeah I think the consensus view just about is that the biggest beneficiary of the debate was V ramaswami by far yes Nikki Haley did get a little bit of a bounce but V got a much bigger one he's much better known to the base now and I think that it's V and DeSantis are now more or less neck and neck for number two Haley might be number three at this point but I think

it helped aake the most now it's also true that he got a lot of criticism but I think that's kind of where he wants to be I mean you want to be the center of attention and the people who are attacking him now are all these neocons it's basically the whole military-industrial complex it's all the bought and paid for politicians and think tanks who you know want America to be in these forever Wars so I think he's being attacked by the right people and that's going to help him yeah so saak you you see him like basically it's going to be Trump versus Vic if this continues well it's hard to say I mean I think the sance still is still in the

mix I think it's noteworthy that the top three candidates all have expressed significant either misgivings or opposition to our involvement in Ukraine uh Trump V and DeSantis with varying degrees of strength have basically all opposed Biden's policy and they are the leading candidates in the Republican primary I think that's telling you something very important Haley chrisy Pence Tim Scott they all would like to do even more in Ukraine and that is not where the party is so it's not where the country is nobody's there one other piece of uh debate Fallout that I thought was really interesting was that they interviewed Oliver Anthony you remember the the guy

who sings that song the the rich north of Rich because Fox News made the first question about his song and he clarified what the song was about what he said is the rich men he's talking about North Richmond are the people in DC it's the blob and people on the debate stage yeah well but what he said specifically was it was the it was the people who got us into all these endless Wars when I was growing up it was the Republicans who did specifically he was talking about Bush Cheney Republicans neocon he made that explicit and clear I'm singing more about like a lot of the older super conservative politicians that brought us into endless war through my entire

childhood those are Bush era neocons he said the people on that stage is who I'm talking about don't use my song this song is not a left or a right song it's about the people it was a song about his contemporaries is what he said not and he's talking about both parties and he said specifically it's the people on that stage I'm talking about don't use my song again okay let's go on to the next story there was a leaked document and we had this come up last week the leaked document was sent to chamath and it was about tiger globals struggles it had a line at the top that said this was a spiked or a draft of a New Yorker story

I think a draft is the way they said it and we had a little conversation about here we decided not to publish it we had a little discussion because we did not think in our private discussion that this was a real story IO grammatical errors in it Sach said we really can't publish something like this because it it's slanderous and we don't know the Providence of it and on Friday tiger sent a letter to its LPS in response to the document they wrote that they are being targeted quote targeted with a series of misinformation attacks anonymously using encrypted messaging platforms like signal we strongly believe these were written by a disgruntled form employee with whom we

parted ways unlike the anonymous cowards spreading this false narrative on the the internet you know who we are and we are here and ready to answer your questions rest assured our team remains highly focused on our Core Business which has been performing this year so chamath just your broad thoughts on the tiger Global non Story the fake faux Story by a former employee Chase is a incredible person I've said this before he helped me get into the business of investing he seated my first Angel fund I was pretty helpful I think in getting them on the cap table at Facebook many many years ago which helped them get going as well so I think

that he's a wonderful human being and I've had nothing but positive things to say about him Scotch Scher I don't know as well but he seems like clearly a hard charging person that's achieved quite a lot and so I'm glad that we didn't publish it or talk about it and if there is something to be said the story will be validated and people will get to the bottom of it what is crazy is I don't understand what this document actually serves except exactly as you said to a disgruntled person who has absolutely no economics meaning if you're an LP you don't want this document to be out if you're a partner that has carry you don't want this out

into the out in the wild either if you're a portfolio company you don't want this document out in the wild I tend to believe that this is just a disgruntled person again look I've had this experience as well so which is that there are all kinds of employees who work with you we try our best as Leaders of organizations to compensate them well but invariably what I find are people overestimate their contributions and people try to take way more credit they try to take credit for deals that they've done that they didn't actually do they try to take credit for

all of the internal workings and then invariably when the leadership decides that those folks aren't a good fit anymore mostly for cultural reasons and are exited they have a bone to pick and an axe to grind and they try to sort of distribute misinformation to other LPS to other GPS to portfolio company CEOs it's happened to me it's happened to chase it's happened to SEO it's it's happened to any of us that have been successful to grind people yeah like again it's just another example of like there are the people that are in the arena doing and then there are the people that kind of get kicked out and get really upset and lose track of what's important these

people instead of writing these missives should be working yeah I mean how how just gral saxs does a former employee need to be to put in this kind of effort to write a 10 page AG faux New Yorker style Expose and um you were the voice of reason I think in our group chat and just saying like I I don't even think we should talk about it in a meta kind of way we weren't going to cover the details of it but even a meta discussion of it you put the kabash on which we would have been first like kind of highlighting this craziness but you took a pretty hard stance your thoughts on it well it was written like it was some sort of journalistic article but a

journalistic article has a by line you know who wrote it you know who publishes it has provenance you know therefore who is liable if it's slanderous yeah this piece that was going around had none of those things and therefore my view was that we shouldn't discuss it and my view is we shouldn't even mention it because all you're then doing is drawing attention to something that again you don't know the Providence of and you don't know whether it's true or not and you don't know who's standing by it now what's happening in the last week is that tiger has issued a statement about it and that statement was covered by the

Press so I guess we can talk about the fact that they've had to respond to this I'm still not comfortable talking about any of the contents of it because again nobody's put their name by it so why even put them in the position of needing to respond to it yeah until somebody's willing to basically raise their hand say I this is what I think the piece that was circulated was a mix of both business criticism or business issues and sler and personal slander yeah so I mean are there business issues in there that we could discuss yeah I mean then they would be interesting but until we know that there's some authenticity to it I don't feel comfortable giving any attention whatsoever to this thing

personally I think even talking about it now is still kind of a waste of time freeberg any thoughts on it just as we wrap here no it's clearly a disgruntled person trying to cast a negative light on get a job bro all right d dollarization Corner bricks added six new members climbing to 11 total and uh bricks of course everybody knows Brazil Russia India China and South Africa these four countries make up 40% of the world's population 25% of global GDP joining the bricks block are Saudi Arabia Iran Ethiopia Egypt Argentina and the UAE new bricks and this is kind of being set up as like an alternative to G7 G8 I guess new bricks makes up almost 50% of the

global population with a third of GDP this is the first expansion in 13 years since South Africa joined saaks you've got some thoughts on the bricks and a little presentation here uh inform the audience all right so J like you said they added six new members Argentina Egypt Ethiopia Iran Saudi Arabia and UAE this on top of the original five members now you've described this group of countries as mid I don't know what metric you're using to make that determination if you look at share of global GDP in in purchasing power parody terms and we can debate whether that's the right method or not but a lot of economists believe that PPP is the right way to look at it the original bricks

were 32% of global GDP the new bricks bring it to 37% and there's a couple dozen more countries that have expressed an interest in joining bricks which would bring it to 45 the G7 is only 30% and that number has been declining over time back in 1995 it was all the way at 45% whereas the bricks were only about 177% you can see that decline or shift here in this chart going all the way back to the 1980s this is why I think a lot of Americans have this casually dismissive attitude towards the bricks is they're thinking that these countries are still living in the era of the 1990s of uni poity when the G7 was you know more than half of global GDP but now the bricks

are bigger than the G7 again in terms of PP the rest have risen and has become a very substantial part of the world economy if you look at Global oil production the new Bricks now have 54% of global oil production it's almost double what the G7 produces despite the US still being the number one producer of oil we're not the biggest exporter because we use it all o just to add to that point oil is of course a declining commodity with Renewables and nuclear and people are going to rely on it less so sure I don't think Renewables are anywhere close to be able to replace fossil fuels if bricks brick no hold on let me just to answer

to that it's cheaper now and chamath can speak to this to install solar wind than it is to do a lot of the um carbon based uh fuels so it actually has tipped economically uh where it's I think cheaper in 80% of cases 85% of cases to install Renewables is that correct Troth broadly speaking the cost of solar is effective now the the cheapest form of energy you on a kilow per hour basis great okay continue s well this isn't preventing Germany from sliding into a massive recession because they're not able to get cheap energy anymore yeah they turned off their nuclear that also supposes that you have the actual Supply

and to David's Point why Germany has such a difficult issues because they turned off KN gas they turned off the reactors and there's just not enough solar installed right now so you know you cloudy country what I just meant was more the level cost of energy which is if you had an installation here and an installation there of two different modes of energy generation solar is cheaper but D David is right like you know it's still going to take some time for the proliferation of solar so that yeah we all agree the US is already roughly energy independent we produce about 20 million barrels of oil a day and we consume about 20 million so we are roughly neutral with respect to the

world we're neither a net importer or net exporter as of now so I oil is still going to be a huge it's the number one global commodity if bricks adds Venezuela Algeria and Kazakhstan as they may do as soon as next year they'll control 90% of all oil and gas traded globally you're going to have an OPEC Plus Brick sort of symbiosis because Russia and Saudi Arabia basically run OPEC plus new bricks is also really strong in food production five of the world's six biggest food producers are now part of bricks China Brazil India Argentina and Russia the only other one is the US they have 46% of global population 36% of global land mass so my point is bricks isn't

just strong in global GDP they're strong in the production of what are currently the two most important Commodities in the world which is oil and food uh they also have influence over strategic trade routes so if you look at where these countries are located and I'm sure this went into the thinking of who they just admitted to Bricks because they had a lot of Cho choices they have something like 26 countries applied and these are the first six they've added so they now control the Arctic sea route which is basically as the polar ice cap starts to melt in the Arctic you're

seeing a new ability to create Maritime Roots north of Russia basically from Europe to Asia it's a much faster route than going Around the Horn of Africa or through the sus Canal you have this International north south Transportation Corridor which is basically a combination of Overland routes and some Maritime that connect Russia Iran and India you've got Belton Road these East West corridors you've got the Persian Gulf the Red Sea and the suest canal they're all now part of bricks and the point of that I think strategically is to bypass choke points like the straight of Singapore the straight of Mala the Bosphorus and the straight of Hormuz so the point here is that the US Navy has

very strategically over decades been encircling China with with military bases on you know Island chains around China this is going to basically neutralize that whole strategy because China will have ways of of securing its trade routes over land or again over sea going through the Arctic so this has huge geostrategic implications the other big thing that I think brics is doing is they have this five to 10 year goal of allowing bricks members to settle trades in local currencies I think that you guys may be seeing it the wrong way the go here is not to create a new Reserve currency it's simply to create a way to bypass the dollar complex they're trying

to break the Petro dollar Monopoly this is not an offensive organization and they're not necessarily trying to create a single alternative to the US dollar they are trying to create a way to not have to go through the dollar complex in order to do their trade when they're trading with each other and what China and Brazil are doing is a test case for this where they are setting up a Yuan clearing arrangement with Brazil and the goal to be clear saxs here is to have a voice versus the G7 uh which they feel they've a lot of these countries feel they've been left out of and to maybe not have as much dependency on the west and um form this block that has a bigger voice in the

world right that I go a little further and say this isn't just about them having a voice it's about them having economic sovereignty they do not want to be completely dependent on the United States to secure their economies and the Big Driver of this has been the weaponization of the US dollar and Swift yeah what we did to Russia with swift yes so in conjunction with this Ukraine war the USC's Russia's foreign reserves which were in dollars they've widely imposed sanctions we're now sanctioning dozens and dozens of countries and we are tactically limiting who can use Swift as part of this so if you are any of the bricks countries you're asking

yourself wait a second when I am doing business with another member of bricks why should the US be any part of that transaction yeah they do not want that transaction to be mediated by the us at all in a way it's like people buying crypto so that they don't have to deal with the US government they have a you know they have Bitcoin over here and and they're not subject to the rules of the US dollar right it's like a way of and having some Independence yeah I totally get it willing to play by the US's rules when they're trading with the us but they do not want to have to play by the US's rules when they're not trading with the us or the G7 and this is about creating that Independence I think it's

great that they haveth that there is a competitor to the US dollar because it makes us be more thoughtful about our spending ultimately and our balance sheet what are your thoughts on all this Jam I have a couple so if you go back to when the bricks was created this is like 20 plus years ago it was first just brick and with a small1 yeah and um and then it became bricks with a big S when they admitted South Africa I think the the fact pattern in that organization is pretty poor you know when they first got organized they tried to create a competitor to the IMF I think it's called the idb the International Development Bank that bank has not dispersed a

single Dollar in 23 years they tried to create a joint program to lay undersea fiber amongst these countries hasn't even started so I think it's good that this organization is growing I think the problem is that the actual amount of legislative coordination that these countries has been able to exhibit has been literally zero and the problem now is that they Regional rivalries are only growing so China and India which are the two anchor partners of bricks are literally in a land War there's a border that they fight over with with guns you have a growing anti-chinese resentment inside of both India and

Brazil Nick you can just throw up this little chart in India they've blocked a lot of apps they were about to block a bunch of imports but India sees China as as an existential threat the Brazilian population this is just a a poll that that the economist put in there's just a lot of anti-chinese sentiment so it's very hard to see folks that are such polar enemies actually working together even if they're part of an organization so I think that the the odds of legislative coordination in the future are probably less than what they were even 10 years ago so I expect even less and it's hard to expect even less when nothing has been done and then the second is I just

look at the data and if you look at Swift in July you know the Swift volumes on US Dollars was the largest ever and so it's kind of one of these weird things where I think that it's good that that organization exists don't get me wrong because I do think that if they could oh the other thing that I'll say about the bricks which is kind of odd is that unlike the G7 and unlike NATO where you have democratic ideals that underpin the organizational framework here it doesn't because you have China Russia Iran which are total Polar Opposites to Brazil and India in terms of democratic governance and I don't know enough about

Ethiopia or Egypt um to say anything so if they can challenged States at a minimum well no no I'm just saying they're not Democratic the way like NATO and the G7 are all democratically elected countries it's a very good point they don't share the same operating system the authoritarians and democratic nations put together so then the last thing is could you see a currency framework to compete against the US dollar and I think the Practical complexity is if you take all of these other issues land Wars and import controls and growing Chinese resentment and now try to boil that into an exchange rate mechanism where the rimi and the rupe and the ri can be

interchangeable I think it's very difficult to see because if you look at the last time that that happened the Frank the lra the pound sterling the deutschmark that was possible because all of those other factors were not on the table they were not fighting with each other there wasn't this anti- resentment in one country to another country they roughly held the same democratic deals so I think my comment is I think it's good that bricks is growing I think that if they can get some legislative or policy coordination wins it'll be great the track record is literally zero and the setup doesn't to me mean much yet but hopefully that something

happens who knows freedberg your thoughts I think the arguments about the pragmatism of non-dollar denominated trade and the progress that's been real realized or can be projected to be realized from current policy can be debated what I think is most important is the signal that's being given which is that there is a desire by a larger percentage of global GDP than is represented by the G7 to dollarize and so while these intentions may be difficult to translate into policy in the near term that signal says a lot about the influence and perhaps the policy of the US in addressing and dealing with a lot of these countries

and global economic actors but I don't think they want to dollarize that's not part of their they want to increase trade is the stated Mission and they want to collaborate on trade that that is that is the stated mission do you think the stated mission is dollarization or do you think the implicit outcome is dollarization no the local currency support initiatives are implicit dollarization I don't hear anyone saying we got to destroy the dollar because they're all very important trade Partners most of those countries are very important trade partners with the US and very dependent on on trade with the US it seems less that it's about hey we've got to hurt

the US and it's more about we have to be independent from the US we have to be independent implicit in that is independent from the US so and I think that that tone that signal says a lot about us economic policy and US foreign policy that there's something off with the unipolarity as sax has pointed out that it's not de facto anymore that there is intention here for there to be something different yeah that's very healthy that's very very healthy and I think that that opens up Avenues and paths that we're not thinking about today that all of a sudden we'll wake up and we'll be like whoops and we need to be thoughtful about that I think that's the most powerful part of

Sax's commentary is that it's a very firm establishment even of of the LA of the non- unipolarity of the world but the the thing that the bricks have to do is I I would just encourage them book a quick win there has to be some policy coordination that they could do to prove that there's something there that's more than just a get together once a year and that's been missing for 22 years so far and that would have a really important I think effect yeah I agree with you David I think that's the litmus test that hasn't happened yet let me partially agree with that and then partially

respond to what you're saying before chth so it's true that brics does not have an impressive record of accomplishment to date that's simply true however recent events I think have provided the motivation for this group of countries to now try and get something done in the past it was just so phenomenally convenient to be based on the US dollar complex because everything's priced in dollars easy to transact in dollars and when you run a trade surplus the US has an open Capital account and you can just park the money in us treasuries so there was never a reason for any of these countries to want to leave the US dollar complex

until more recently when again US foreign policy has militarized and weaponized the dollar and to try and make it a corve instrument to get these countries to do what the US wants and all those countries now are bristling at that and they want to maintain their sovereignty and so now they have tremendous motivation to get this done now the thing they've already agreed to and done as part of brics is that when you join brics you agree not to sanction any other member of brics that is a meaningful commitment and obviously it has a lot to do with this Ukraine war and the fact the US has been demanding it to the whole world sanction Russia and most of the world has not been

sanctioning Russia and that's why the sanctions have not been effective is the US has not been able to get that done the US will not be able to get it done in the future with respect to at least the countries who are members of bricks with regard to their trade with each other and as we saw in the percentage of world GDP bricks very rapidly once they add a few more members they're going to be at about 50% or world GDP so the US is only going to be able to influence call it roughly that half a global GDP where the us or the G7 is a major trading partner now what bricks will be lacking is the way on a technical level to bring about the sovereignty they want

so they need to have a way to settle and clear transactions and they need to have a place to park the Surplus that's created for net exporters and they haven't quite figured that out yet so for example there's a recent news item where Russia which is selling a huge amount of oil to India right now it was saying that they don't want to accumulate more rupees so they've got to figure out what do we do with all these extra rupees so there's a lot of pieces to to figure out here and that is why they're saying this is a goal they have over the next 5 to 10 years it's not one to twoe time frame it's 5 to 10 years but let them make they should make their

own Euro if they feel so strongly that they're a great voting block make a Euro and then they can all put into it and you can see what happens when a bunch of dictators and a a long taale of failed States now share a common c a common currency it's not going to work these countries each other yeah failed States who share very troubled States the way yeah their GDP has been going up like a rocket jcal that's the whole point inflation furore we Havey human rights yeah their goal is not to create a common currency like the Euro China and India and Brazil are not going to repace Yuan and rupes with some sort of new Euro like currency moreover they're not

trying to create a reserve currency that's going to be a currency for the man on the street this is about settlement of global trade flows and getting out from under the US dollar complex my point just to be clear freeberg is if if you were to think of it as a thought experiment these to chat's point these are culturally and strategically very different countries and I think what they have in common is that they haven't been included in the G7 and and really America's reaction to this should be to get India out of this and get them into the G7 and make that strategic decision that India is the most important country for us to have strong relationships with it's kind of

hard to put Saudi Arabia and to put UAE in this because they don't share the Democratic principles of the rest of the G7 but we should be trying to any democracy that's in the bricks we should be trying to include in the G7 that that's the Strategic chessboard that would make the most sense and then you would just leave bricks as all authoritarian dictators and they do not work well together they always wind up well you're forting that brazzil is still nominally a democracy no that's what I'm saying like getting Brazil I just said getting anybody who's a democracy and moving them towards democracy and getting them into the G7 should be our stated goal that's what

the West should do Lula who's Brazil's president is one of the most Ardent advocates for dollarization here's his quote every night I ask myself why all countries have to base their trade on the dollar yeah they don't they can they regime change him J Cal May the CIA will get rid of him that's that's stupid that that's a stupid statement nobody's saying that I just said the exact OPP there are people saying that but oh not me just to be clear you're put words in my mouth out of the exact opposite of what I just said includ my point is my point is this is not a simplistic dichotomy between dictators and democracies another way to consist by

the way South Africa is majority on a on just on a a population basis if you took India out and you got them into the G7 it would be majority overwhel majority percentage of citizens in the bricks living under authoritarian rule but India let me respond to that and then also CH India is the largest country in the world now I mean this is the that's the Strategic important piece here in my mind I think India and the US will pull tighter together in terms of security because of a mutual desire to balance the power of China so I think jamath is right about that however India also has a very strong

anti-colonial impetus to their politics and especially their foreign policy they do not like being told what to do by the west and the United States and in particular they do not believe and many of their politicians have said this we don't see why we should have to sacrifice for you we're going to do what's in the best interest of our own people and that is why India has rejected enormous pressure from the us not to trade with Russia India and Russia as bad as the relationship is between India and China is the relationship between India and Russia is very strong it historically always has been and Russia right now is supplying

half of India's oil and India has adamantly refused to play along with the US's sanctions rightfully so and rightfully so right yeah they should make their own best decisions yeah right so I think a lot of people are thinking that India's not here to be a boot licker to the United States [ __ ] that exactly exactly so look I think India will pursue its interests I think when it comes to security they will align with the US to balance the power of China but I think when it comes to Economic Policy India will pursue its own interest which I think has to do with maintaining their economic sovereignty 100 they need cheap oil they need cheap oil yeah they're developing

country right they need they need oil and that's the lowest priced oil another way to think about the framing is that the priorities for many of these countries for the last two decades have shifted going from a state of economic insecurity civil insecurity government insecurity and as you obviously establish systems and certainty in certain elements the dollar complex of sax frames it was very useful in helping them with that transition but as they start to move from Emerging Market to developing Market the developed Market the priorities start to shift and then the priorities become much more about sovereignty Independence institutional

Destiny Etc that kind of start to make this more realistic that maybe they don't have their their ducks in a row at this point but there's certainly a conversation or set of conversations that emerges when you're not worried about Civil War or you're not worried about economic strife and you can now start to think on a global stage and that's evidenced by the PPP data that that sack Shar where you know you've seen them become a much larger percentage of of global GDP share over the past 10 or 20 years that's a good metric for that General opportunity to say hey I'm going to shift my priorities now and that's why maybe now's the time to start to pay

attention to what's happening uh and think about us policy to participate in in some reconstruction that's necessary here I tell you what the most important thing here is all this all these conversations seem to come back to energy chth cheap oil Russian oil Saudis UAE all participating in bricks and then if you look at nuclear we just had a bunch of I think it was Senators signing a bill I think you might have tweeted it chamath of support of nuclear 21 nuclear power plants are being trued at this moment in China eight in India United States only has one which is kind of an extension in nuclear in goodro India just India India just turned on its

first home bu so just literally today so big big news inia if we really want to have a great relationship with India an incredible path and with some of these other countries would be for us to really invest in these reactors and help people build them and help them get energy independence from Russia's oil we should be building 50 reactors in India I don't know enough I don't know enough to know whether that's true or not and part of it is that like whether we should be building those reactors in quotes because I don't know what those means Gen 2 gen 3 Gen 4 reactors small modular reactors my big comment in my thread is

just more that I think that the regulatory support in the United States for nuclear is so constipated that it's impossible to get it done so you could have the greatest technology in the world I just don't see how the laws change fast enough and the zoning changes fast enough and the nimbyism goes away to make these things viable and so that's actually the the real question I don't know you know fre the United States what what I'm advocating for here Sachs is hey what if the United States policy was we're going to help India and some other countries they don't need our help grow their dependence they don't need they don't need our help they just turned on their

own homegrown nuclear reactor we haven't done one in 20 years yeah but our new I guess we call them Gen 2 Friedberg these these new reactors would that not be a possible path if we're spitballing here to help them get more energy independence from Russia wouldn't that be a great Long play they don't need our help I don't think you're understanding like it's like you're thinking like we we're like Michael Jordan and we're about to teach some kid how to throw free throws this is not what's happening no any help would be helpful I mean if people are trying to build a large number of directors you don't you don't you don't

need a numb nuts to come and help you build the product do you you don't hire some two- bit product manager to help you when something is is scaling and working India GDP is going to be 7% a year they're Off to the Races they're on a rocket ship they're doing everything right what what what can we do we can help them rewrite their to make them Byzantine so nothing gets done Z okay as a strategy if we had the ability to build nuclear actors in other parts of the world which is exactly China's policy that's the belt I think I think you in a nutshell right now summarizing why there's this dismissiveness which is like we can help them but what makes you think you're

better oh China has taken the same approach I'm saying copy China strategy which has been to go to other countries listen India might need less help other countries might need more but we have this capacity so what if we what capacity do we have we don't have any demonstrated capacity nuclear we have plenty of companies building these new nuclear reactors free bur none of them work none of them work you them work what do you mean none of them work none of them work okay none of them work when you talk to politicians from a lot of these countries what you describe as Americans coming in and helping they describe as

exploitation they call that's exactly China strategy or neo-imperialism yes they call it Neo Imperialism or neoc colonialism looking at it as collaborating on energy Independence broadly speaking so you're being dismissive I'm asking you to think of what do you want Zimbabwe do you want the zimbabweans to fly in and mutually collaborate with you to build something in America would you instead of trying to make jokes about me I'm proposing a stry joke I'm making it to a joke I have a very viable strategy here is which is to look at what China is doing and what China is doing in the belt and Road strategy which we've talked about here

on this program is trying to help other countries get more energy how could we do that we do I'll tell you listen to what Larry Summers said remember he said that when China goes abroad they give money for infrastructure Bridges and hospitals yes when the US goes abroad we give a lecture which is exactly if you want to accomplish what you're talking about stop this explosion of sanctions we're now sanctioning dozens of countries stop weaponizing the dollar stop militarizing the Dollar Stop seizing other countries reserves without any due process of law talking about Russia right now they're entitled to due process of law just like any other country the country that invade their

neighbor so you just get to steal their reserves oh I think it's a pretty I thought we're a rules based order oh I I think economic sanctions are much better than yeah starting a war yeah I think economic sanctions are great we're talking about we're talking about the seizing of another country's foreign reserves which is what the US did yeah I would say that's an extreme thing to do except in the case where people are invading other free countries and then it's prob Choice yeah this is the way that the administration reacted what you're doing right now is making up the rules that's what the rules-based order means to these countries is that Americans will make up the rules two

years ago foreign reserves were something that was not part of American foreign policy they were your reserves then this Ukraine war happens by it says ah nah you know those are ill gotten gay sees them those are the new rules in other words the rules-based international order is whatever Americans say it is and then the entire the entire West made this decision together to sanction Russia it wasn't just the usch characterizing that and you know what if Hitler was invading other countries or Putin or any dictator I do think it's fair game to seize their rest of the world do not buy into this narrative 70%

of the world does not buy into this narrative they understand are mact countri and those are majority dictator countries 70% of the world's population does not believe this narrative about the Ukraine war they understand that the US is at least equally responsible for this war laughable to say the US is equally respons country that is you are a spokesperson for Putin if you believe that that the US is 50% responsible okay you know what you can quote any polling you want the US believe this the US is not 50% responsible for Putin invading Ukraine that is laughable and disgusting every every country that wants you actually believe the US is 50%

responsible for Putin invading Ukraine unbelievable it's not about what I believe it's about what the world I'm asking you what you believe you said it so do you believe 50% uh where 50% responsible for Putin in Hing Ukraine that's insane I don't know what percentages I would ascribe but I believe this perent you had say 50% can I finish my point go ahead the way you're acting right now is exactly why all these countries want to create bricks they don't want to be subjected to this virtue signaling foreign policy by the United States we've discussed the way as many times the us could have avoided this war it didn't yeah

respectfully disagree Putin's responsible for the war this is why India does not want to be subject to the whims of people like you you don't have to say people like me I think the West made the decision that we needed to take action against the US decision and listen the w we don't get to make decisions for the UK and France and Germany we don't get to make their decisions respectfully they make their own decisions that's not really true okay the US runs the US runs NATO because we pay for it all these countries go along with the us because they like the defense and security that we provide the US calls the shot within the US the B

Administration calls the shots so basically a handful of people in the Biden Administration Biden newand blinkin Sullivan that's who makes the policy I do not and the rest of the world does not want to be subject to their whims I I respectfully I don't think Biden gets to choose what Germany and France and the UK do oh I think Olaf Schultz is eventually gonna be voted out and M EV be voted out because their people are waking up but absolutely they are the lap dogs of the United States uh would like to go on to any of other topics I want to talk about the summit next week really excited sure great we're coming in hot to the summit kicks off next Sunday really excited for

everyone that's going to join us obviously we'll be putting out videos of the content as quickly as we can jcal has I don't know saak and shamat if you guys are aware but he is in charge of the parties and he has gone well well beyond Budget on these parties they're going to be outlandish they're going to be out of control show the three posters let me show you the the posters explain everything night one is our 007 party are our bestie Royale if you will and here is bestie Royale presenting on Sunday night bestie Royale where where your best spy outfit you could be Austin poers you could be Daniel Craig you could be Sean connory you could be Charlie's Angels any spy you can be uh

and here is bestie Royale coming at you on Sunday night a little poker here is the closing night party we're going out of order bestie Runner cyber Punk Rave with the besties announcing Grimes will be DJing so we will have Grimes uh doing a set at the besti runner party that's awesome it's going to be fun and so wear your best cyberpunk it could be Fifth Element you could go with any cyber can say can I just say I give up right now because Claire's gonna win of course she is yeah she's whatever she's it's like it's not even worth trying well I'm just gonna come every day play Runner every day but we'll have some neon stuff for you to put on is it going

to be cold outside no this is inside and this is a occurring at a film studio so we have three warehouses at a film studio where Rec created part of the set of Blade runers some incredible Asian street food will be done that's awesome it's gonna be great and then Monday night is going to be absolutely blow the doors at It Fast Times at Barbie high and uh here we are wear your best Spicoli outfit your best surfer outfit of any kind or sorry will this be outside this is going to be outside we have a tent for the VIP party way works is you should you should well we'll see what the weather is it's gonna be warm it's gonna be warm so uh you can wear

your bating suit if you want just wear a trench coat over at chamath if you're going to do a thirst trap live and in person and Mick will be DJing again so the Dance Floor will be lit just because we went well over the budget we brought in some sponsors to help us cover the costs I want to thank those sponsors I connections which is actually running the app uh that we're using to coordinate the summit our Law Firm that does the legal work for us cool has agreed to sponsor and there's a group of entrepreneurs from South Africa started a company called House of macadamias they make macadamia nut snacks delicious they're they're sponsoring and they you know why they

they reached out because chamath and I eat salt and vinegar pistachio so they made a salt and vinegar macademia bag in our honor I love it oh great just and vinegar like this episode and then we've got a group called pavis which makes mineral based sunscreen and obviously they heard us talking about sunscreen so they reached out and Brew bird which makes a coffee brewing device came in and wanted to be a sponsor so a lot of the sponsors came to us having heard about us talking about something on the show and it was very helpful in helping us cover the cost of the event so I want to say thank you to all of thank you guys thank thank you to all of your sponsors thank you was very kind of them

yeah and then we're doing a high and low thing at we have incredible food trucks where we've elevated the food to like a higher level and so we want to pair these food trucks with some nice wines um and so they sent you a list list of all the different foods and then Bo is doing the steak at the first night Roku Sushi really great sushi place in La is doing the sushi the first night so we got some really great vendors and all the Asian street food in the blade runner part is going to be great so Asian the last night Steak and Sushi the first night and then these elevated food trucks uh when is my year

to do this uh your I'm three you're four yeah I'm 24 you're 25 I'm just going to tell you in advance that I'm taking full complete control all you will have to do is show up I don't want any intervention I don't need to be in my place after this year and last year please leave me out of it great I'm taking the Sachs approach I'm showing up where are you goingon to do it Jason I have three ideas where's the biggest grift Brooklyn exactly Tokyo well I'll take you through it Brooklyn my hometown is one so that that's in my mind my favorite city is Tokyo you know I love going to Japan so that's in my short list and then on the Griff side UAE might be great I have some Partners

there and so that could be amazing to do it in Dubai as a you oh Dubai would be nuts Dubai would be kind of crazy my friend Andrew Sasson is in charge of opening I think it's the Winds Casino there or is he in charge of all the entertainment and nightlife that would be incredible Sasson can light it up in Dubai see I I also took your off the table because I had the sense that chath might pck I'm 5050 I may I may no no no I may go to Oman I may but I'm going to go to do a destination thing which is going to be everybody will stay in the same place it'll be a much smaller number of people and it'll be endtoend curated and

750 500 people there'll be clothes there'll be everything okay for the sulan of science with his sunglasses on the dictator and the architect we'll see you all next time on all in podcast byebye let your winners ride Rainman David and instead we open source it to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it love queen [Music] of Besties are that's my dog taking your driveway oh man myit will meet me we should all just get a room and just have one big huge orgy cuz they're all this useless it's like this like sexual tension that they just need to release [Music] somehow we need to get mer [Music]

our I'm going all [Music] in