for use on sustenance, but even now we see that the extending to hand of so the data t to the african continent, and that is how address she has always related to the african continent. well, that wraps up this and use our checkout. i will department with from a breaker will be back with leo. ah mm hm. hello and welcome to well, the part of the economist stupid has been the actual off american in western political thinking even before it helped bill clinton. when the 9 to 92

presidential election, the pursuit of money and profits above everything else has guided the u. s. s development and global expansion since the nation's gratian. but to the dollar system now reaching is objective limits. what may possibly come in its place. well, to discuss that i'm now joined by alan freeman, co director of the geopolitical economy, research group at the university of manitoba. mr. freeman as brave pleasure to talk to you. thank you very much for your time. my pleasure. now i was initially intending to discuss with you the warrant in ukraine, and i still hope we can touch upon it in the 2nd part. but before we go there, let us know, look at the recent banking collapses in the united states. and i wonder if you see any connection between these seemingly isolated and domestic advance with the larger u. s. policy, both monetary and foreign policy. there is a connection,

but it may go in the opposite direction to your view as my think, which is i don't think this the banking collapse is coolest. 5 ukraine war. i think you war is caused by the banking collapse. and the reason is that this collapse like this occurs every 10 years it's, it's just last climate, 2008 in 2000 was the dot com in 1992 is the so called oil crisis. it is a feature of the way that this economic system works. and the curious thing is, every time it happens, people think there's a new reason for it. so there's always, oh, this was caused by toxic house is. this is goes, well, no, it's, it's, it's the system dummy. as though clinton mine probably would not have said. and the system is one in which the m. assets that should be invested in production are increasingly being diverted into speculation and finance. the reason for this

is the systemic weakness of the economy. if you look at the long term performance of the u. s. economy and those of the global japan and europe it's, it's no different. you'll find that there has been a systematic study, what we call a secular decline. really, since 960 s economy received a huge boost from the war from the 2nd world war. and it's gone down ever since. it's now got to the point where it is no longer profitable to invest in production . so people invest in these risky financial assets. and each time in the cycle, the us, it's over valued. and then there is a crash and a credit ukraine worries is a response to that weakness. now the connection that i see and let me know if i'm wrong here has to do with the united states. once again, i exceeding its death sailing of over $31.00 trillion dollars. but instead of

closing the government as required by the law of the federal reserve for the treasury, and now engaging in various what they call extraordinary operations that allowed the government a certain lifeline but dry on the liquidity on the market, which may have contributed to the collapse of some banks and service difficulties at other banks. the fact that the american government has to use all these extraordinary measures instead of just printing out money as they've done before. isn't it a sign of the dollar economy? exhausting itself is very simple. if you can, ford dead, somebody has to buy it. and the solution way, the u. s. has worked well is confronted to crisis. since 1927. 1997 was very typically ation belt. you false foreign people to buy your stuff. that's what you do. because america is in this unique position, that is, currency is a world currency. what we're now beginning to see is

a systemic crisis caused by the difficulty of maintaining a domestic currency, which is also world carts. now there are 2 things happening. first of all, increasingly american days being financed by americans, cause russia and china and all the people who are forced to pan even who are forced to accept american debt. i'll no longer accepting or reducing their exposure of the 2nd thing that's happening is that the, the situation when you have a, an asset. when assets are overvalued, you have a terrible choice. you either have to increase the federal interest rate in downtown inflation. and you then basically encourage people to speculate in financial assets, or you have to reduce the interest rate in order to downtown, the speculation, but then inflation will go. so it's more of a dilemma than a knockdown crisis. i think there's a famous saying that used to be said to marxists that they, they predicted 5 of the last 4 crises. the, you know,

we're always sort of those of us who are a bit traveling. florida with the american difficulties tend to say, it's all terrible really, this is dilemma now. what i think is now happening is that the fed is going to decrease interest rates and that will allow them to dump down speculation. and to some extent, i think it's, it's yet to be seeing the extent of this ridge. i don't think we're looking at a lot down crisis. the difficulty will be that there will be inflation. and that will promote provoked domestic descent because it will affect poor people and poor people in america have for a long time, increasingly being the target. along with the global south ushered china of american iowa. so i think that the, the, the fact that we can be certain off isn't it will increase domestic discontent within the united states of america. now i heard you saying that the western are elite views on economics have become a sort of and religious system in

a sense that everything starts and ends with money and accumulation of profits. but any sustainable religious system requires a some humbling rituals and a certain amount of self discipline, specifically aimed to kim, the practitioners ego in place. isn't that the main problem with the western driven, a kind of economic center worldview, that it's simply incapable of limiting its appetites, even that for its own sake, i think they're very disciplined. they discipline people to do stupid things, and people carry out those stupid things in a very disciplined way. and they also are particularly disciplined perpetuating their teachings. so i'd interesting out of the 2000 and a crash on greenspan. i think it was, came on, testified to congress. this is challenged, actually everything. i know everything we thought was wrong. 3 years later he

produces a book in which he says, no, it was all right, we just start to tweak a few things. that to me is, this was jesse with, if you want religious analogy, which circuit is a few problem, but we can patch them out with sophisticate reasoning. and thus, while they do, they don't acknowledge the fundamental things that are on the economy, which is this long term decline, its tendency to decline processor financially zation imperialism. the, in the unsustainable lity of the imperial will loader, that they, they don't recognize as from my only tweak tweet the edges now and, but in department of the years congress analysed recently that by 2032 and within a decade the american casa servicing its dad, who will talk to you as defense expenses, which i humongous. i think there are more than 10 other countries you know, combine. what do you think it would mean in practical terms, both for the united states or what a larger west and for the world?

as natalie, i don't to be rude but almost suits i, i'm very i used to work with practicing economists to live taught the only one thing is that in the words, as the famous u. s. baseball player never predict anything, especially the future. so it's very dangerous to say, oh, this is immediately going to lead to a meltdown, i think, or the task of what writing her nyqold political economy will do is to analyze the social and political consequences rather than try and call every immediate and major economic happenstance what will certainly happen is that the burden of this will fall on everybody that the american elites don't want my pay for it. then making the germans pipe. that's why they blew up no with string. they're making the europeans pay. that's why they're forcing them to actually send over to ukraine. they're not sending their own on the whole month. so they're finding that increasingly difficult. but they will now try and be forced to take out some of

these difficulties on the american people. i mean, the end of the day is to say the debt burden is increasingly falling on the shoulders of americans. less and less other countries excepting that they will hold american to pay for. therefore, more and more. and this is, i think what the lease in america are really frightened. they will have to confront the anger of their own people. so, so that's the consequence that i would draw from, from the, rather than i have no, i don't know a bank, right? i have no idea what to do. some people have extraordinary debt. japan isn't extraordinary to us. the percentage of g d, p l and the company just so plug so low. so i would be hesitant to say, like maybe you know that this is the ultimate, not down crisis. so don't look at things in that. well, when i'm asking you this question, i'm not looking for sort of, you know, the collapse of the years dollar system. i response, i think the,

the most typical answer i heard from russian economist is that the american currency will transition from being the world, the world main reserve currency to being a regional currency. and you know, one of many, but still a stronger once a stronger was supported by the strength of the american industry by the western industry. now, do you think that's a sustainable ass scenario for the western world? because as you pointed out in many of your articles, the western economic dominance has been based over the last couple of centuries on centrally sucking resources from the rest of the world and redistributing it among its own allies. can the western count, the western part of the world sustain itself only by all means without a exploiting the rest of the world and in such a matter and measure it it's been accustomed to but i think that's a really interesting question under i, i agree with the analysis that you quoted,

that what we're seeing is the end, the beginning of the miss a long drawn out process of the capacity is the us dollars to function is the world's currency. but when you have something that is being dropped, something has to replace it. so the issue is not just whether the u. s. cannot function as the world's currency, but what is put in its place. now what you're beginning to see is arrangements whereby either through a currency swamps, for example, the relation between russian, the india, they trading rubles, and rupees. they don't have a joint currency or anything like that. but in other places, this proposals of foot to create a bricks, currency, i believe, certainly in latin america now, i think mexico, maybe it was really correct me if i'm wrong, but the idea is certainly being voted of latin american free trade zone and currency sense. but to put these and trying are, is obviously developing swap arrangements with other countries. but what would be

dangerous for, let's say china would be for its currency to become a world currency like than it would be in the same mess that america has got into. so i think one should see it move to of a system of regional currencies without any single hedge him on. if you do that, then you have to make defined kind of arrangements. the keynes proposed of bretton woods and he was defeated by the americans for a profit system of international settlements in which the priority is to secure the growth of the poorest countries rather than to mountain poorest countries for what the rich countries are doing. and that's the way out, this is a long process. it combines economic, political, and geographical activities, the formation of regional blogs, the creation of workable trading arrangements. avoiding over exposure of currencies to the kind of dangers that the u. s. is being exposed to and so on. ultimately,

therefore, it's as much about the way the imperialism is declining, as it is about the specific a reference to the maiden. now, the 3rd world countries, china, russia, india, has to work together, actually to create an alternative, to the trade to the u. s. dominant, dominate trading, sold and i think they're already doing that. and the american sanctions are helping that a great deal. but let me reiterate that question. once again, do you think the west itself can lead to leave and sa chair, an arrangement when everybody is treated more fairly and then you know, when trade can be done in a way that is mutually beneficial rather than politically condition? well, of course we must all wish for that i've so until now the prospects have not been particularly bright. um, and this is a puzzle, one of the things that exercises me because the me,

the issue in understanding what's going on in the west is in a certain sense, i'm not understanding how stupidly they're behaving because that's where you'll be as you only have to look at 3 graphs, tell you what that what they're doing wrong. the real problem is why don't i understand it? and i, i am i, i have this little quote that i love from bastere, where he, he says, i'm a great fan of nasty, i, because we would reactionary, the french revolution is when plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society over the course of time they create themselves a legal system that authorizes a moral code that glorifies it. now that's what they've done, they've created and i think is a mythological system in which they don't understand that their wealth rests on robbing the rest of the world. they literally don't understand it because it's not a pleasant thing to admit that you're a bandage. all right, so what they do is they create a mythology in which they say, the reason we're wealthy is because with superior,

as long as you think your superior, you're not going to get your problems right. it's a superiority complex until you understand why you don't understand. it's almost like friday and, you know, the patient has to confront her with his own neurosis before he or she can put it right. and they're not, they're not doing mr. freeman, i have to confront our own fascination of with, with this conversation in order to take a short break, but we will be back in just a few moments that you, ah ha opperation aerodynamic began short after world war 2 and lost it almost 3 decades. it wasn't a major effort to try and split the ukraine off from the soviet union, u. s. intelligence, together with hypnos, executioners, drain hundreds of savages to be deployed in the soviet union. risk focused on the

east of monday. so we'll have started with today's security service of ukraine use is not only the statistic methods, but also the ideology of the nationalist a with ah

welcome back to wells fargo with alan freeman, who director of the geopolitical economy research group at the university of manitoba. now mr. freeman, let's now turn our attention to. busy to the war in the ukraine, and in one of your recent articles you posed a question that i think doesn't have the right to exist in the western universe. you ask if nato one in ukraine than the, the russian army was driven back to the border. would there will be a better or worse place, and i'm sure it looks like can hold brain there to most of your countrymen why even asking a thing like about isn't that anathema to a western ear? i asked a question because of the defect in the western so called left even the fall last, even the people you'd expect would be very revolutionary and against nato,

because they have fallen prey to, i think, an illusory way of thinking, which is they think that russia is an imperialist power. i think the china isn't period is power. that's the day when the united states is not still right. yeah. i mean, the, what they get wrong is very simple. imperialism is not what a single country does imperialism system. and, and present, put in, put it there way i would agree with. i don't always agree with peter. don't agree with him on this. that he says that essentially the colonial attitudes to shape the world. the colonial methods have been in place since 1492 and they're just being continued so they don't understand that. so what i was trying to say is, we'll look, you say you're against russia. okay. i'm not going to stop you being against russian. probably not going to stop, you do anything because it's very stop it. very difficult to stop stupid people being stupid, but i said, well, think what will happen if nato wins, do you think this will be a good outcome? and the answer is no. and the reason is because the motivation of very of the nato

pals is fundamentally racist. now, racism least a genocide 1st truthful would they believe that they are superior. if you think that you are superior and that's why you are rich, why's everybody else poor? you shut out of your mind, the idea that they are poor because you are making them, by robbing them by getting to buy your food stamps and all the rest of it. and you think no, it must be because they are inferior people. what do you do with inferior people get really good of the stuff, the attitude of the americans to black people thus ever can attitude to russian, people on trade to chinese people. and so this is clear and ukraine because of the cause of the war, which is this is a civil absolutely clear. you have a country in which 43 percent of the pay people, their native language is not ukrainian. and you tell them they've got to talk ukrainian or, or break the law. they can't, they can't do it because then what about the,

telling them to learn the language of a nation? it's actually specifically making russian this message, your rational cultural heritage. and, you know, being seen as incompatible with the ukrainian civic identity. it's not something that you should be ashamed of. it's something that you can be killed because of and i heard you say, suggest that it's i came to the united states banning spanish or canada, banning french, and indeed seems inconceivable in the western context. and yet, when it comes to the rational language, not only in ukraine, but let's say in the baltic states, why do you think that practice of you know, explicitly deliberately suppressing the russian language, the russian culture, the russian mentality, why do you think it's been acceptable to the west i think that in, in, in 2014, i visited crimea, and we met with people who had just been in the odessa massacre, you know, and they were put into a traded german intro, trading and building,

which is in center in the life yeah, until i was struck me was, i mean, cushions, it's horrible thing, but accidents can happen. but at the right wing, ukrainian groups then posted pictures of the child bodies on the social media networks. and i spoke to the people there and it was absolutely clear that what was in process was the general final process was a violent assault on people at the ukrainian fascist group. far right. i'm there is a left in ukraine. it's deeply suppressed. but there is a lesson it, you know, i think that the opposition party admitted chic was who 2nd in the pulse before he was suppressed and later prisoner. right. ok. so they think that the russian people don't belong there. when zalinski says he wants to take back crimea, he doesn't mean he wants to cry me and people you can't take over a place in which 90 percent of the population hates you. and is of the different civilization and culture because they kind of fight. right? so what do you do killed it's intrinsically genocidal. this attitude that the only

way that you can live in the territory which you crying claims for itself is to be a ukrainian leads to the conclusion that the people are not ukrainian should be eliminated. so it's a deeply resistant, it's entrenched in it. the question of why america supports it. i think in 2014, when victorian newland was caught by the finish. and it was the finish intelligence authorities, telephoning and saying to ukraine, exactly who they could have in their government. right. in other words it's, this was a gum construct. one can debate whether it was a co or not. okay? but what is indisputable is that that gun was appointed by the united states of america know by the people of ukraine. and i think that was the decision of the new kong. we are can politics, that it was not possible to pursue american ends by so called democratic liberal means they would need to make alliances with fascists. to do so,

and i think there is now a very conscious awareness among certain sections that the american elites, not all of them well, that they actually have to be in alliance with explicitly racist genocidal and fresh forces. if america is to prevail in the world which know that, that's their insane view. now are on that specific point, according to the russian view, or what the kremlin essentially did with the launch of the military operation in ukraine is to bring that proxy war that the west has been waging against russia for at least the past 15 years into the open and that was made not only for strategic, but for tactical reasons because lead in, put in supposedly calculated. and the clash with native was inevitable that a, waiting for a longer or trying to solve it diplomatically would not avert the confrontation. i wonder if that was your view as well. prior to the launch of the russian offensive

. did you think before that, that russia and the west inevitably would confront each other in some way or another? it kinetic lee. i don't like to get into reached in conversations about internal politics of other countries. so i don't like to speculate too much about what my motivated route. i will so this i think that both sides were personally aware be from 2014 onwards. good, good, a confrontation was enough of some kind. and there was a gearing up. i think that what seems to have been the belief in russia was that there was a peaceful way out. and they thought there was a peaceful way out because i thought european civilization would accept them. and i think this was a profound error because european civilization is not settlers, asian, it's an empire. and they would never have allowed rusher, and they could never have allowed russia to become an influential part as

a sphere of european politics. and i thought, what was very interesting about the speech that sir, let me put in gave it to. val di club was that he specifically spoke, what is europe? and, and he spoke of the 2 europe's, and i think the vision of your, of the house is the correct vision, which is that there is a eurasia on within that europe could play it's part. so at fun, some future time. i think that it should be a general come coming together of the ration nations, let's say, in a polity which might include europe. but the idea that this could be achieved, and i spend a lot of time in turkey, turkey for many years so that they would be accepted as the european union. there was no why the european union could accept a country that has a bigger army than anybody else in europe or that they couldn't have accepted it. so this illusion that european civilization will let you in was

a danger. and i think that was the problem. europe is a fortress, that's what it dr. freeman. and when you talk about european civilization that way, when i think about this term, it includes spirituality, it includes culture, it includes varying diverse history. it includes 2nd diplomatic tradition like for example, the european cancer, and it's, it's a massive heritage than both russia and turkey. i have benefited from and that some could argue that they actually, and the 2 preserves of that heritage. and i think put him in his vaal, they speech on the line that despite this current conflict with the western financial and political and military and leads, russia remains a truly european culture or country by persuasion. and i like some european nations, we're not going to bad european coltrane. i see a lot of investments now going into the ancient greek r as into our various european cultural tradition. so hopefully this

war, or this existential crisis that we are facing right now will allow, at least some of us to preserve certain amount of european heritage. anyway, we have to leave it there, but it's been a great delight for me to talk to you for meals. thank you so much. and thank you for watching hope to syria again. well, the part, ah mm hm. mm hm. mm ah

. on ship energy coming from russia, russian gush shape. and she bows. affordable and shit. you are in the stable which has been both. not the case. did you say will that this is no longer there? a it's a so phone. if i can pick on your shouldn't need to pick the water but saunders their muslim, most reports. but what about you dealing me when you bought used to bunch of money and you can probably discuss questions like me even. i'm not sure who you are, who you are. why do you decide on sanctions, your sanction country? a section of the person, because you want to change the behavior of government person. why that hasn't

happened? sanctions hasn't function with as china and russia both to the strategic friendship during the shooting things visit to moscow. the worst scenes, the worst nightmare coming for iran calls on the french authorities to stop by packing protesters who are speaking out against pension reform. iran says violence against protest is a violation of the principles of democracy in european bangs plus made to as a credit suisse is bought for domestic rival, u b. s. and the government back to rescue deal with.