Modi’s Failed Economic Policies: Conversation w/Jayant Bhandari! Part 1

Hey everybody and welcome to Geopolitical Trends. So excited to be with you as always. We got a great show this evening because I have an interesting guest who really carved out time for, for, for us here and, and you want to hear what he has to say. So of course his name was referred to me by some of you guys, uh, on, on, uh, in the show. I, I saw so many of you recommending this particular guest. And I said, why not? I'm going to reach out to him. And he was kind enough, out of given his busy schedule and so forth, he was kind enough to carve out time for, for us here. So you are in for a treat. Well, let me provide you a brief intro. Let me bring in the guest first here. There you are. Okay, there's a delay. Here you are. Hi, Gian, how are you?

I'm, I'm very well, David. How are you?

I'm doing great. And so first of all, like I always say to my guests, thank you so much for carving out time for us here because we want to really— my audience wants to learn more about what you have to say. Well, just for you guys, FYI, I did put a full intro of, uh, Giant right in the description. I'm gonna share with you an image here. This is a I wanted to show this headshot for John here. I like it, I like this picture. So, and as I mentioned, I put a full description for you including his book. There is a book that's called Disciplined Junior Mining Investing because he's part of his background, and he's going to mention to us briefly about his background so for you to know in addition to what I posted for you guys. So why, why don't you just give our viewers a brief intro about yourself, your background, your professional settings, and so forth.

Uh, sure. Uh, so David, thanks for having me. I grew up in India and I did my engineering degree from the central province of Madhya Pradesh. I went to the United Kingdom to do my MBA. That was 1991. And 1993, I returned back to India as country manager of a British company. I ran their office in India, developed and ran their office for 7 years. And then I did the same thing for a Swiss company for 3 years. I ran their Indian operations. I started their Indian operations. And then I was ready to leave the country. I applied for immigration to Canada. I got it right away. I moved to Canada and I changed fields. Once I moved to Canada, I started a food factory. 3, which didn't do well, and then I got into investment sector. So that's my background. I mostly focus on the junior mining sector, but I also look at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Singaporean Stock Exchange, and the Chinese Stock Exchange.

Well, that's very, very interesting, and it falls within the realm of what we talked about. We're not going to just focus on that, but we're going to look at the big picture. With India at the heart of the conversation. Of course, there are those— I've been criticized, Jan, that, you know, I kind of talk negative about India, which is far from the truth. All I was doing is providing facts on the table because I really like— I mean, given India's history, we can't ignore that. And I always wondered about— India has a lot of talent, especially when it comes down to manpower. And I always wondered, and I would like to have your inputs into all this, how may the current geopolitical landscape, with now the tensions in the Middle East, you look at the South China Sea, you look at the Ukraine conflict and so forth, how this is going to impact India's foreign policy, knowing that the economic development is at the heart of it?

Okay, so firstly, you said that India has a lot of talents, and I'm going to dispute that if we want— if discuss that thing later. But let's talk about the, the foreign policy of India. India has no foreign policy. The only policy Indian government and Indians have is expediency. Whatever works, whatever they think is materially beneficial to them is what they have. And that is the reason why India has always been a non-entity in the world affairs. No one really cares because India is always happy to be shoved around wherever the forces move them. All India cares about is acquisition of resources and how to fit in most comfortably and most luxuriously in the world. So if it helps them fit in with Russia, they would fit in with Russia. If they can cheap oil from Russia, they will adjust their foreign policies to get cheap oil. If there's a crisis in Israel, they immediately came out in support of Israel. And then very likely a few hours later, they got some messages from some other parties. So they immediately took the side of Palestinians. So India foreign policy, they moved around depending on whatever the forces are asking them to do.

So it's flip-flopping, basically, that's what they are going with.

Absolutely. All is convenience.

Yeah, but isn't that problematic, Jahan? Isn't that problematic if you keep, uh, acting like this on a global stage? You are sort of giving the wrong message you're sending about your lack of credibility if you keep wishy-washy from one policy to the next. I mean, I understand about strategic interest, but for India to be playing both sides, that's just not going to bode well in the long term. What do you think?

Well, so 1 out of 5 babies born on the planet is an Indian baby. Uh, Indian population is a huge chunk of the planet's population. We cannot ignore that. The problem is that there is no, no values driving that country. And that reflects in the foreign policies of that country. And that is why India is, as I said, a non-entity. No one really cares about India. Now, David, I go to a lot of investment conferences, and it's very interesting. There's usually an ending panel discussion in which people say, what are you most excited about? And the, you know, people pay, some people say they are most excited about India. And that is lip service because there's no other discussion, there's no other speech on India. They ignore India throughout the conference, but then they pay lip service. And exactly the same thing happens in foreign affairs, in the international media, in international forums. They talk, gloriously about India, but only to provide lip service just for political correctness, just to bash Pakistan, to bash China in a way. But mostly no one cares about India. If you look at what happened in South Africa recently during a so-called BRICS meeting in which no one gets along really, and the only person, only entity there is China, uh, Modi was, uh, you know, the The president came to pick up Xi Jinping from the airport in Johannesburg. However, they sent a junior minister to pick up Narendra Modi. Narendra Modi refused to get off his plane unless a more senior minister came to pick him up from the airport. So no one really cares. We have to beg for respect. And we are begging for respect. Please respect me. And that's what you see on the social media. Indians beg for respect. 'Look at our moon mission, look at this thing.' So look at all the CEOs of American companies. So we beg, but unfortunately, David, I can't beg respect from you. They are inherently— it's an inherently contradictory concept. It's an oxymoron to be asking, begging for respect, because respect is earned.

Uh, you're absolutely correct. Interesting, Giant, you brought up two key points there. You brought up China and you brought up BRICS. BRICS. You know, I've been having a lot of conversation with some, you know, close friends of mine, people who understand about geopolitics a little bit, and given my work, uh, previously in Washington, DC and so forth. And one key theme that's been coming up more and more about the BRICS as an entity— the argument has always been that India is the weak link in BRICS. In other words, India could be the one holding the progress of BRICS moving forward. What do you think? Is there some truth into this?

Well, India is, as I said, is a non-entity. India's influence on foreign trade, on the global trade, is minimal. India has a minimal, minimal amount of import and very minimal amount of exports. India imports about 50% more than what it exports, and this is all very minimal. The total exports of India is only about $400 billion, which is actually from the perspective of the planet does not really matter. Now, so the only thing in BRICS is actually China, there's nothing else behind it. Chinese don't like to be looking, be seen as China. They want to be— they want to diffuse themselves within a larger entity, just not to be seen as the, the bossy guy there. But the only country that I see in BRICS is China and nothing else. Maybe Russia to an extent, but they are the only two countries there. As I said, India is a non-entity. It does not matter. Their foreign policy has no value. Their imports are mostly oil and gold, so their imports don't value because they will import those things Anyway, these are fungible commodities, um, and, uh, their exports are very limited. Their significance in world affairs is minimal. India is a non-entity.

So when we hear about the India-China rivalry, that's nothing but hypes. No, because I don't see what kind of rivalry, what India has to offer for it to be in a rivalry with China. The economies are really different.

Well, I was in China for 3 weeks last month, and, uh, you know, I meet young Chinese people. I try to meet, talk with people in China. For Chinese, India does not matter. If you talk to a normal Chinese, he has no, no concept of India, uh, whereas in India, Indians are obsessed with China, China and Pakistan, uh, because they always want to compare compare themselves with others and how good they are compared to other people. Now, Chinese economy on per capita basis, uh, in the '70s and even in early '80s was worse than that of India. Today, Chinese economy is 5.5 times that of India on per capita basis, and this ratio continues to increase in, in the favor of Chinese. Now, you know, there's a border problem between China and India, and Indians go crazy talking about it. And virtually no Chinese I meet knows anything about that border problem, because the government of China is not driven by demagoguery. They are not driven by fighting a so-called enemy to prove itself superior. They have their border interests, and I, I'm no expert on which side the border should be. All I'm saying is the attitude of the government and the attitude of the people. And virtually every Chinese that I talk with tells me that, hey, uh, you know, you have so many senior members of managements in big companies in the US who are Indian. So Indians are geniuses. And they actually have a very positive expectation from the future of India. And when I tell them that that isn't going to come to fruition, they actually don't like hearing that because they want India to grow well. They want India to do well because my neighboring country doing well is always good for me, as is the case between Canada and the US. They want each other country to do well. Why should I not want India or Pakistan or Bangladesh or China to do well.

Yeah, I'm gonna go back a little bit in history here, uh, since you, you, when you went to school and all that, you were, you mentioned during the '90s and so forth. And at least to me, I remember at that time during the, if I am not mistaken, was the administration of, uh, Vajpayee. It was Vajpayee, and after him, I think, Mamohan Singh. You know, uh, to me it was like the idea of how I used to think about India back then and how I see India today. What am I referring to here? I'm referring here to the ethnic tensions that have always existed in India. Nothing new there. But what we have witnessed recently in Manipur was a little bit beyond what everybody has even expect from so-called democratic nation like India, and for the Prime Minister Modi not to even address this. Do you think this was by design for the Prime Minister not even to mention what's going on in Manipur?

So David Oualaalou, Manipur became an international issue because there were a lot of killings and a couple of videos of a few girls getting openly raped by a bunch of people came out in public. Otherwise, what has been happening in Manipur happens all over the country. I witnessed in my central province of Madhya Pradesh a child being sexually abused by the police last year, early last year. I reported to the police, I reported to the chief minister, but no one cares. So that is the situation with the country. If you get raped and if you go to the police station in the country, there's a very high likelihood that the police station people will rape you. Um, encounter killings is something very common in India, which means that, uh, if there's a case to be solved, they can easily find some innocent people, kill those people, and the police can claim that, hey, we have solved the case. So what happened in Manipur is nothing special. They were vicious when they were trying to control Kashmir and when they were trying to control Punjab and when they have tried to control people in other parts of the country. Now Sikhs will say that, hey, Hindus are bad. Manipuris will say, hey, mainland Indians are bad. The problem is that this is the attitude of an average Indian. Sikh are no innocent, Manipuris are not innocent, Indians are the main— mainland Indians are not innocent. So this happens all the time. Now remember, during the leadership of Modi, when he was running Gujarat, there was a genocide of Muslims that happened in Gujarat of about 2,000 people were killed, and his government forgave serial rapists and people who murdered, who extracted embryos from women's bodies and then raped the women. Those were in prison, they were let go by the current regime. So there's nothing special about it. There's a lot of viciousness about this country and let it not package it as a democratic country. Yes, it is a democracy, but it's a very vicious, savage, barbaric democracy.

Well, actually, since you mentioned democracy, I just read the report from the Freedom House, uh, because they downgraded India from free to partly free. So this is just the recent assessments that I read about, about this one here. Do you think— I mean, can this democratic, so-called democratic backsliding in India undermine its effort to play a role on the global stage? Because India mentioned that they wanted to be the spokesperson for the Global South. I don't see how that could happen. But with this democratic backsliding, do you think that it's going to contribute to that?

So I don't understand what you mean by backsliding because India has always been a savage place and it continues to be a savage place. The packaging was very glorified for the last 20, 30 years. And most of the reason for that packaging goes to, uh, Indians who have moved to America over the last 2 or 3 decades. Most of the Indians living in the United States moved to the United States over the last 3 decades, and they want to make India look good. And apart from that packaging The savagery has stayed the same. You can't undo that savagery. Now, what— again, I don't really see a status of India in the global arena. No one cares about India. You know, the— when you look at the international forums, when you— you know, Indian media wants to portray as if everyone in the world wakes up and thinks about Modi. Every leader— Biden, the first thing Biden does every morning according to Indians is call up Modi and discuss world affairs. Now the reality is no one really cares about Modi because they are non-entities. They are unanchored to any value system. And you can go back to the history as much as you want to, and you will see that things are not only, you know, things are getting worse. India never improved It's just that the reality of India, which was packaged into glorification over the last 3 decades, is getting undone right now, as I want to think. Although, you know, it's still in investment conferences in many places, people still say that the next emerging power is India, and that is completely a complete lie, actually.

Yeah, I don't see that happening either. So Speaking of investments, I'd like to move the conversation to what China just celebrated or held the summit about the 10th anniversary of the BRI, you know, and I would like to talk about this from an investment perspective given your professional background in this. Where do you see the opportunities of investments vis-à-vis the BRI as it moves to the next phase now? They move into the second phase of its existence?

Well, so David, I'm not a big fan of government building massive infrastructure. Having said that, I have— you know, China has done such an outstanding job of building infrastructure. Their airports, even airports of small cities, look better than the best airports, you know, look among the best airports in the world. The train stations look better than airports of the, the top, the best airports in the world. So China has done a fabulous job. Their roads don't have potholes, and their roads go on and on. Uh, their, uh, bullet, their, their super fast trains are fabulous. Service is great, extraordinarily clean. Uh, the law and order situation is extremely, extremely good in China. So I, uh, I think Chinese have done a lot of good things. But I think Xi Jinping has overspent on the infrastructure, probably, which has meant that as a part of GDP, government expense, if I'm not wrong, has gone up from something like 10% to 25% or 30%. So, so I'm not a big fan of government doing too much. I like the market to provide services rather than government providing services. Um, so, uh, I think a lot of BRI money will get wasted, and I don't even think China has the excess money available anymore to continue to, uh, to, to invest in infrastructure.

Wow, wow, wow, that's very interesting. And I never heard this perspective from any other, uh, individuals from before. I mean, the argument has always been Uh, at some point this is gonna have to come to head with the reality of where things are headed, given how the global economy is moving forward. So, and, uh, speaking of the global economy, um, I had a chance one time, uh, a company in Canada reached out to me to do a dedicated video for them about some investments in uranium. And the reason I, uh, decided to do this because I was familiar with the, uh, uh, the, of course, the tensions that's going on regarding Ukraine, uh, and Russia. And why is this important? Because Russia is a major, uh, uranium producer. And now with what took place in Africa with Niger revolution, and some countries in Africa now is stopping the shipment of uranium to Europe. Where do you see this is going, given that most of the nuclear power plants in Europe depends on uranium from either or either Africa or Russia. Even for us in the United States, we import most of our uranium from Kazakhstan and Russia to a degree. And I think another country in Africa, I couldn't remember the name.

Well, a lot of uranium, a lot of uranium also comes from Central Asian countries. And I think Kazakhstan continues to be one of the major suppliers of uranium. I, you know, I have worked in commodities market for the last 17 years, and I have consistently seen that because commodities are fungible, they always find a way around any restrictions because you can't really pinpoint where that certain commodity came from. For example, Russian oil, when embargo was enforced on Russian oil, what happened was that oil price went up and it normalized very quickly because Russian oil found a new way to go around, uh, you know, find a new exit path. They now— Russian, Russian oil ends up going to India. And look at these numbers: $100 billion worth of oil is imported by India, and half of that is exported back by India. Now, where does it go to? A lot of that goes to Europe. So Europeans think that they are buying oil from India, but they're actually buying— still buying oil from Russia. So, and, and, you know, Russians— Indians don't care. As I say, as I said earlier, Indians are not anchored to a value system. Now, I'm not saying they, they, they should or shouldn't do something. All I'm saying is that you should or shouldn't do something based on certain values you hold. Indians don't have any values. They just do what is convenient, what makes them money. So they have found a way around it. So, you know, I think the same thing happens with uranium. Uranium price has shot up recently. I think it will normalize back again. And people, you know, a lot of investors go absolutely crazy, very greedy for projects to do with uranium because then they want to make their money 10 times by investing. And I think greed, greed takes them on a wrong path. And my guess is that uranium will normalize very quickly.

Interesting. Just to remind our viewers, if you're just joining me here, I am having a conversation with Jayant Bhandari. So this is my guest today and this is what we are addressing, a host of issues. And by the way, We will be taking— I'll be taking 2 or 3 questions for our guest later on in the show. I also like to, uh, express my thanks to Stupid Aussies for your super sticker. Thank you very much for the super sticker. You wrote, India think they are part of the West. Very interesting, very interesting. Thank you. So, uh, let's go back to, uh, I, I do find it very interesting to go back to BRICS because I, I'm just seeing some dynamics going on with BRICS. You're aware, I am certain you're aware, John, of the expansion of BRICS, the 6 countries that BRICS invited for next year. What took my interest about it is the 3 countries from Europe— from, I'm sorry, from the Middle East: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and United Arab Emirates. And they all share one thing in common: energy production. Where do you see this is moving?

Well, again, I think America is certainly losing its predominant position in the world. And that's all it means to me. So there's mostly an issue between China and the United States. And a lot of people are figuring out whether they want to depend on the United States or depend on China. And it seems that China is attracting certain people. So I don't want to think about this as a NATO, United Nations versus China, or US versus BRICS. It basically boils down to United States and China. And China— Chinese government and Chinese people are very practical people. They want economic growth, they want security of their resources, and they will, uh, and, and, and as a result, uh, I, I have, uh, you know, because they are not ideologically driven in the international arena, it is more likely than not that they are, uh, they want stability, uh, more than an ideological war with other people. They don't want to necessarily interfere in the cultures and societies of other countries. What you do in, uh, sub-Saharan Africa or what you do in the Middle East is your business according to Chinese. Whereas, uh, I think Washington bureaucrats think that, uh, even though they might never have lived or gone to the Middle East, they think that what they know is the, is the way people in the Middle East or sub-Saharan should live. Now, I am more inclined to living the way people in Washington live, and that's why I live in the United States. But at the same time, that's not what works for other people. And I think because China is more easygoing about these things, there will be, there will be a continual movement of other countries into the Chinese sphere of influence, but also Remember, that's exactly how the Western powers behaved when they colonized the world. They did not influence the local cultures as much as the Washington bureaucrats like to do. So Chinese are open-minded about it. They want to do a bottom-up change rather than top-down change, and they want to get into win-win relationships with other countries. And, uh, I think as a result, United States is losing its power and China is certainly increasing in power.

Interesting perspective. Just follow up on that, on that particular point. Is that means that the new multipolar system, uh, will not be driven by ideology but rather economics? Would it be fair to say that?

Well, uh, you know, Western countries are certainly becoming increasingly ideological, I guess. I think if, if you look at the, the, the The way the people vote in the Western society, it's very ideologically driven. And that is why the economies of the West continue to suffer. You know, the educational system is suffering in the Western society. I read recently somewhere that Caltech removed requirement for knowing advanced mathematics and calculus for certain kinds of people. Now, you can't create a meritocratic society by removing necessarily requirements for certain ideological purposes. So, you know, this whole thing called diversity, inclusion, equity, woke ideology, which is what I call, is actually ramping up in the West. And that is not happening in East Asia, where people are still driven by very strong sense of meritocracy.

Yeah. Is this why we are noticing now, uh, some countries, for example, if I am to give the example of ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and I am thinking in terms of their, uh, how they are approaching the, the current global tensions that exist, okay? And to some countries, I, I, I could name, for example, Singapore. I could be wrong, of course, but What they wanted to do is they wanted to maintain neutrality vis-à-vis the tensions between the US and China. But you look at other countries within ASEAN, like Philippines, that's being sucked in into the US orbit and might end up doing the bidding for the United States within ASEAN. Do you see this moving forward as creating some sort of a rift between some of those entities and China?

Well, so as far as Singapore is concerned, I, I, I'm a big, big fan of Lee Kuan Yew. I have read his books and I absolutely love, uh, you know, I get hold of any speech that he has given or any article or book he has written and I want to read about it because the guy, he created a masterpiece of, uh, as a nation. He created a nation which is probably the best-run nation, they have been very close to the United States. There's an American base in Singapore, and they have been very close to United States. But because of an objective anchoring that they have, and because that they don't want to interfere in other people's business, they have maintained good relationship with the surrounding Muslim countries like Indonesia and Malaysia. They have good relationship with the Western countries, and they consistently encourage the United States and Western countries to open up their minds about China, because China is here to stay. China is not going away. If you bitch about China, that isn't going to reduce the importance of China. Now, I don't like a lot of things to do with Xi Jinping, for example, or some of the things China is doing, but at the same time China is an emerging market. It's, it's, it's a force to reckon with, and you better work with them rather go against them or fight with them. So, um, so Singapore, I think, wants to bring, uh, East Asia and the West together because we actually have very similar values, contrary to how this rift projects, um, uh, China as being very different. Chinese actually, at the end of the day, want to copy the Western way of life, lifestyle. Yeah. Um, uh, but, uh, yeah, this war, the, the international conflicts are clearly increasing. And I think the problem, the big problem is the naive people who, who rule so many countries in the world who don't really understand what they are up to. They don't understand the complexities They don't understand how what they start might snowball into something much bigger. Because they don't understand these things, we are headed for a global— we are in a global chaos right now.

Yeah, but there are some who have argued that Singapore could be considered as a police state. And I was really— I was taken when I heard that first. Then I took a step back and tried to think logically. There must be a reason why such a statement was made about Singapore.

So, David, I lived in Singapore 10 years back for a couple of years. So I have a firsthand experience of Singapore, and I have consistently gone to Singapore. Now, you know, no state is perfect. Governments are governments, they are bureaucratic, they are slow. But at the end of the day, in my perception, Singapore is far less of a police state than virtually any other country I've been to. Now, they don't like you to be chasing down teenage girls, they don't like to do, you know, they don't want you to be shoplifting, they There is a— there are consequences associated with being criminally minded in Singapore. Now, if you call that police state, it's your problem. But America was founded on the same basis, and that's how America operated until recently. If you did a crime, you suffered punishment from that. Uh, now if you steal something worth— I think it's $999 in California They don't even charge you for it. Now, in Singapore, if you steal, you go to prison. It's as simple as that. So I don't call it the police state. If you want liberty, you have to punish criminals, otherwise you won't have liberty. You can't have liberty to be criminally minded, which is what some people who call Singapore police state, uh, that's how they think.

Yeah. I was just— I was taken by that statement when I heard it the first time because I had some colleagues that have been stationed in Singapore and they told me they enjoyed it. Very, very nice, nice place. I've never been there. So this leads me to talk also, while we are in that part of the world, about Indonesia and Malaysia. But specifically, I will take Malaysia given the recent decision for them to a sort of move away from the US dollar. What can we read into that? What are they heading for?

Oh, I, I don't know anything about it, David. I, I didn't know that they were moving away from the US dollar. But I, you know, you're talking about moving away from holding US dollar as reserves?

That's correct.

Yeah, but everyone is moving away. Everyone is reducing its, uh, own, uh, its US dollar reserves right now. Because why is that?

Why is that, Jazan? Why is that? Is this something coming up down the pipe that governments are preparing themselves for?

Well, American dollar is overpriced. America continues to print a humongous amount of cash. They, you know, and they have depended on importing stuff into America for zeros and ones on the computer. So they have got— they have been importing stuff for free for a long time. There's a lot of American dollar floating around in the world, and people can see that when that US dollar starts coming back to the United States, there will be a massive amount of inflation. And there has been a lot of inflation over the last 2 years. And there are clearly, you know, a whole area that is emerging as more better rooted to economic fundamentals and meritocracy. Which is East Asia. They are better rooted, and I can clearly see that some countries want to hold other currencies as their foreign reserves rather than the United States, which continue to fall in their portfolio.

Yeah, could we make the argument about Europeans as far as the euro, that they are also— some European countries have mentioned that they wanted to reduce their reliance on the US dollar? Could it be that they are seeing the same trend as two countries in Asia, for example?

Well, it certainly could be, although I'm not sure what is the back-office force that America applies on European countries to keep US dollar in their foreign reserves. So I don't know what European countries will do. But again, my view is that Western countries are increasingly ruled by woke factors. The extreme radical leftist that is increasing in the West is leading the Western countries to make wrong decisions on a daily basis. And that's actually going to continue to mean that the rest of the world will own less and less of their foreign reserves because they, they are institutionally becoming weaker, the, the Western countries.

So will it be fair to say, are we going to be looking at a new currency per se down the road?

Well, I, I, well, you know, I live in the United States. I think it's still the best country on the planet. It's fabulous place. There's a spirit in America, there's a spirit, and there's a kind of liberty-oriented spirit among the Western people, which is very unique in the world. I think the Western countries will continue to lead the world for at least the medium term. The unfortunate part is that because of this emergence of wokeism and radical leftism, the Western countries will continue to lose their power as time goes by, and that power will shift towards China. And that is baked in the cake. I don't think you can undo that, that problem. East Asian countries don't have the social problems that the Western countries have today, the rioting, the, you know, the protests that happen in the Western society. You know, irrespective of which side you belong to, you have brought in the world's problems into the Western society. So just in the last one month, David Oualaalou, I'm a Canadian citizen, there have been Sikh and Hindu conflicts in Canada. There have been massive riots among Eritreans in, in British Columbia and in Ontario. Um, there have been massive protests, uh, related with the Israeli and Palestinian issue in Canada. My question is, why did they import all these problems into Canada? They have weakened themselves significantly. Now, it does not matter which side you take. The problem is those problems should have stayed where they, where they rightfully belong. They don't belong within the borders of Canada. So Western countries have been very silly, very naive about cultural issues. They have brought in a lot of problems, and this is getting worse. You know, Trudeau is now bringing in even more people than the million people he brought into Canada last year. He's diluting Canadian population by 2.6% every year. Now, that's— and you know, it's a mind-boggling number, but the Western society is weakening because they are run by naive, um, silly people.

Yeah, well, Justin Trudeau, I have no respect for the guy for where he's taking Canada. I'm very familiar with Canada still. I was just there 2 months ago, and I used to live in Canada back then. But, uh, yeah, you're absolutely correct. But the same arguments could be made in some— in about some Asian nations, like for example Japan and South Korea. And when I say this, I am not referring to the people, I am referring to the government, that they want to more be associated with the West than they want to be with Asia. Same thing can be said about Australia. You look at— I never heard about Australia wanted to be identified with Asia. They wanted to be identified with the Anglo. Oh yeah, it's kind of— why? And now I find it very, very perplexing that NATO is going to be opening an office in Tokyo. What for? What's the plan over there, given how we contributed to the demise of the Japanese economy back in the '80s? We all know what we've done with the currency back then. So, so do you foresee that, for example, with the approach of those countries like that and the tensions trade tensions— I'm not referring to any other thing else— the trade tensions between the United States and China will only contribute or exacerbate this kind of shift from those countries like Japan and South Korea towards the US.

Um, well, uh, I, I think the, the tension between China and the US is going to bring people more and more towards China because China is the supplier of goods. China is the supplier of Chinese, 50% of everything around you was made in China. The microphone you're speaking into, the computer you're talking into, a lot of things, even the lamp behind you is very likely made in China than elsewhere. So China is real. People have come to think that China is a paper economy. But despite that, everything around them, or most of the thing around them, was made in China. And this real productivity, the meritocracy that continues in China, will bring in, uh, rest of a lot of the world towards China. Now, a lot of these values were imported into East Asia from Western countries. These are Western values, but Western countries have, for whatever reason, in the last 50 to 70 years increasingly given up on the Western values that other people adopted. I mean, Japan became a westernized society because of, uh, Meiji Restoration that happened in 1860. They brought in the Western ways of institutions to Japan. Uh, so I, I think, uh, East Asia will continue to look at Western countries in many ways because Western countries are still by far the best places, but they have lost its steam. They are now getting worse by the day. They are decaying because of wokeism and because of bad factors that have come into the institutions of the West. So, slowly there will be a shift towards East Asia in my view.

And that's because also given how the wealth is already shifting from the West to the East. It's a reality. A lot of people know about this, given how, uh, the, the shifting in the global economy, uh, moving towards Asia is going to be the center, the economic hub, if I may use the term. And the way I look at this, my, my reason for reaching this conclusion based on my own research is when I notice, for example, certain countries in the Middle East like Saudi Arabia that has shifted most of its, uh, oil shipments towards China because they believe that that's where the next economic hub is going to be centered. And this is why they were able to achieve, uh, or reach that deal with Iran that China was able to broker, which we couldn't do for, for decades, for a reason. We never wanted to, uh I want to ask you, Giussana, about one particular, uh, topic. Has to do with commodities. I'd like to know what will become of gold and silver moving forward, because we're noticing now that the price of gold is going up, oil prices going up, the dollar still holding its value. But for the gold and silver, I like to get your perspective on where, where is headed.

Well, I, I think gold, uh, must do well over the medium term, and the reason is that, uh, they— you can't really trust these paper currencies, the fiat currency system that we have today. They, they are backed by nothing. When you read your banknote, it says that The bank will only return you a copy of the same bill when you take it back to the bank. So they don't really promise you anything real in exchange for that banknote. Those banknotes were mostly backed by gold or silver until about 50 to 70 years back. So because that backing is gone, people will eventually come— you know, people are already slowly realizing that they are there's a lot of— there are a lot of risks associated with holding that fiat currency. Now, the nominal interest rate is very nice in the United States today, about 5%, but the reality is that when you convert that into real interest rate, it continues to be either marginal or negative. So people are still losing money in real terms by holding that paper. So you have to hold on to something real, which— and gold is one of those things. Now, I, unlike other people, I don't think gold will become money again. Those days are, are in the past, and they are never going to return back. But I see gold as a lifeboat when the monetary system comes into huge stress and probably crash, gold will become the lifeboat. Gold will be one of the things that will become lifeboat for people, uh, going thereon.

What about natural resources? Will an investment in natural resources make more sense also, given the need for how many countries gonna now depend on having access to natural resources?

Um, well, uh, one has to be very careful what you mean by natural resources, whether you own those commodities or whether you own companies that produce those commodities. And these are completely two different things. Um, historically, you have— if you compare the action of commodity pricing and the action of stock prices of companies, uh, mining companies, you realize that mining companies don't really perform go up correlated with the underlying commodities. And the reason is that when the commodity price goes up, the cost of manufacturing those commodities go up as well. So the profitability of these companies gets squeezed. So you have an issue with commodities. If you believe You can't think about mining companies as a way to protect yourself from inflation or to protect yourself from something happening to a particular commodity. But I don't like using commodities to protect myself much because commodity prices continue to fall. They have continued to fall historically. And, you know, commodity traders don't like to take the risk of holding on to commodities even for a short duration of time. They play with the futures and options to hedge themselves against commodity pricing shifting. So I think you shouldn't really invest in commodities to protect yourself because you will more likely to suffer than benefit from it.

Wow, that's, that's, that's very, very interesting, Persuade, because I've been thinking in terms of, uh, now you're seeing with the global shift moving in different direction, most countries will be thinking in terms of investments in having access or securing access to natural resources. I'm seeing China—

so yeah, and that makes a lot of sense. So securing Access to natural resources for political reason is perfectly fine. I can understand that. I can understand why China might want to buy farmland in Ethiopia or in the United States because they want to protect their supplies, and I can fully understand that. But that is a political decision, that's not an economic decision, and these are two different issues.

I say perfect point. Yeah. Is the world— and I'm going to ask this directly here— is the world headed towards a recession, a global economy, that is, in your opinion?

Well, I think yes. And moreover, I think we are headed towards a major global chaos. And the reason is that America continues to become weak. And, you know, you see, we have had about 4 to 6 coups in, in Africa recently, in the last few months. The media wouldn't report it much because no one cares about Sub-Saharan Africa anymore. But the third world countries who have been relatively stable, not because of their democratic systems but because of the influence of the United States, are going to become increasingly unstable because United States is no longer in a position to exert its influence on Ukraine and on Israel, on the rest of the third world. So these countries like India and Pakistan, you know, Pakistan is crashing as well. India will fall apart as well, uh, sooner rather than later. And that is mostly because United States can't— can no longer pay attention to these third world countries. And I think that is going to lead to a massive amount of social chaos. And the same is increasingly happening in the Western world. We have a lot of ideologically driven young people, particularly who I call woke and, you know, radically leftist, who grew up in a defined, secure environment, who suddenly have come to realize that the world will stay, you know, there will always be electricity, there will always be water. You know, I grew up in a third world hellhole, and I know that there's no guarantee that there will be water tomorrow morning.. And these people will eventually come to realize it because they don't unders— understand that these things are not provided by nature. You have to produce these things through civilizational mechanism, of which merit is an extremely important part.

What an interesting perspective. Hey, I want to share with you, uh, giant, I want to share with you this comment right here on the screen. This is from Hilal Sharif. He said, and I wrote, uh, he said, and I said, and I quote here, "Giant is frank and realist, a lot to learn from him." Indeed, indeed. So guys, prepare a question or two for Giant before we let him go because he's busy, and we are so grateful and thankful. Any final word, Giant, before I let you go, or answer at least a question or two?

Well, you know, I hear a lot of people talk about China, and they, this, you know, there's something, uh, David, I often get asked I'm asked by people, they say, Jayant, what about how should they prepare for the social credit system in China? And I've been going to China for 17 years, and I was in China last year. I have yet to come across the social credit system in China. People have come to believe that China is this massive police state, massive surveillance state. Now, I'm not saying it is not. All I'm saying is it's— there's nothing more worse about China than, let's say, about the United Kingdom, which has a lot of cameras all over the country, or the United States, where there is a no-fly list as well. So, you know, go to China before you form an opinion about China, and go to Singapore and before you form an opinion about Singapore, and see how free, particularly women, free feel in, in East Asia, because there are You know, South Korea, Japan, China, they're extraordinarily safe for women. They can go out at 2 o'clock in the night and they feel reasonably safe.

Interesting, interesting. Well, where, where can my viewers find you? Where can they find you?

Well, uh, my, my website is jayanthpandhari.com and my Twitter handle is jayanthpandhari5.

Okay, and I will, guys, I will put this for you in the link because I, I am aware of John's Twitter account, so I can just see him there. I'll post this for you. And yes, I will have him back here. You have my word on this. So we'll, uh, we'll coordinate some other time and I'll, uh, I'll have you here. Well, I can't thank you enough for really carving out time for us to learn from your insights. It's very, very informative and I truly appreciate you doing this for us.

So thank you very much for the opportunity.

My pleasure, my pleasure. Well guys, I hope you did find, uh, this, this interview with Jant very, very informative because you won't hear this anywhere else. And that's why I was very excited when I received an email back from him saying, sure, I'll be happy to do it. I mean, I'm aware of how busy those people can be when you deal with investments and so forth. You don't have much time. And it was kind enough of him to carve out time for me to come here for you guys to get some top-notch information, because you're not going to get anywhere else. So, so I hope you find it very informative, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow during livestream. I'll be talking about the, uh, uh, speech of President Xi, and I'm gonna break it down for you with some, uh, relation to a decision that was made between Iran and China, that China will allow now Iran to use the Beidou GPS system. So very fascinating. So I hope you guys find this very informative, and I look forward to seeing you next time. As always, remember, geopolitics impact your daily life in more ways than one. Till next time, bye-bye.