Great articles to read on the web

Balaji is incredibly smart and well-read; was a real pleasure listening to him…

E14: Balaji Srinivasan on Fiat Crisis, Russia, and China

Here are some notes I took…which not at all do justice to this interview –

What is happening with the Fiat Crisis?

• Sometimes the long run is now; it’s not a fire drill this time

• Multiple shocks coming at the same time: financial, political, technological

• Financial shock: govt sold assets and then consciously devalued them bankrupting banks. Banks have $2.7 trillion in unrealized losses. People are being misled about the banking crisis.

Balaji’s equivalent premises

• Premise 1: Can US govt print infinite money?

• Premise 2: Does US govt have an invincible military?

• Both look different but they are same: if #1 is true then you can fund #2

• “Dollar nationalists” believe both 1 and 2 are true

• Fiat currencies are backed by men with guns (Paul Krugman)

God, State, Network

• What’s most powerful: almighty God OR State OR encryption (network)

• Civic religion: constitution is venerated like a scripture

Hyperpower wars 1991-2021

• Ukraine was a “rebound” war after Afghanistan

• Ukraine war: China is a player at the table backing Russia

• 85% of the world continues to trade with Russia so it’s not choked out…

• Fact that Blinken is negotiating with China shows America’s weakness

Conspiracy theories

• I am not interested in your conspiracy theories tell me about your successful conspiracy practice

• Opposite of Conspiracy theory is “the official story”

• There is only apathy and panic…never calm preparation

• One man’s conspiracy theory is another man’s shelling point (coordination without coordination)

Russia vs Japan

• Japanese beat Russia in 1905, becoming the first non-white power beat a white power

• Japan became the champion of anti-colonialism for decades

• Japan was a strange mix of far right imperialist and far left anti-colonialists

• Russia’s loss in the 1905 war was a huge humiliation…they made their #1 priority of the foreign policy to pit US against Japan. Russia used its spy network to precipitate the fight between Japan and the US in WW2

• 1905 Russia-Japan is one the most important and the most underdiscussed events on the 20th century

View on China

• Ferocious adversary

• China makes 14x more steel than US

• “China would be Congo if US hadn’t sent the jobs there in the 70s” — that’s right wing version of the left wing fallacy…left wing fallacy is “rich are rich because poor are poor”…right wing fallacy is “other countries are rich because American made them rich”

Microsoft vs FB vs Google

• MS gave 1 B to FB in 2007 to fight Google

• Similarly, the US was a VC in China in the 70s because they wanted to create a bulwark against Russia

America and India

• History is running in reverse…India is becoming more like the US of 1950s…and US is more like the India of 90s

• America has a group of highly intelligent people ruled by a dysfunctional state…racked by communal violence and socialists…India is God and country America of 50s…

Blue America is at war with the world

• Elite democrats aka Blue America are ~1% of the world population and they are at war with he rest 99%

• In last 10 years they fought all out conflicts against Tech, Trump, China, Russia, and also alienated India, Israel, Saudi, Brazil and France

• They now suck at diplomacy and propaganda which used to be their forte

• They went from “winning everywhere without fighting to fighting everywhere without winning”