Born in the USAID, Deep Deep Trouble, Customs of the Natives

Turkey has the best performing stock market in the world this year. In part, this is to do with how it has under-performed in previous years. But, as our duo point out, it's also to do with a country taking advantage of the present multipolar fracture. The classic trade and politics hinge-nation, Erdogan's Turkey is finally in a position to exploit its rich advantages. What makes an army powerful? Where's the Big Mac Index on military strength? Philip Pilkington has been digging deep into the data on who has what materiel, and what it's actually worth, and his findings will make for uncomfortable reading in the Pentagon. Is the West hooked on expensive high-tech gadgetry that might have been impressive in a Desert Storm-style campaign, but, as Ukraine shows, doesn't deliver on a brutal WWI-style battlefield? Finally, the Chinese have been on a charm offensive of both charm and offence - their top diplomat has been wooing Europe, and making special entreaties towards Britain - even as the Chinese foreign ministry has been publishing Mao-style denunciations of the Great American Satan on its website. Is there method in the madness? Or is this just diplomacy by confusion? Andrew Collingwood tries to piece together the inscrutability.

23 Helmi 202356min

In the week that Ireland is gripped by widespread anti-migrant protests, resident Celt Phil Pilkington explains why the present wave of populist sentiment might no longer be containable by the political elite. As Andrew Collingwood points out, the 1950s migration treaties that still run our world were designed for a post-WW2 world long consigned to history. Yet to national bureaucracies, they're still a fundamental part of the 'rules-based international order'. So will that order finally absorb the change, or will it simply crack first?A new Cambridge study unveils a world where Anglo-Saxon 'soft power' is dimming. In the great global popularity contest, the rising powers are beginning to win the hearts and minds of potential allies in developing countries. But does being liked ever actually matter in geopolitics? As Pilkington points out, popularity tends to follow events - not the other way round. As if to illustrate this, one of America's greatest allies in the Pacific has recently had a change of regime. With China fan President Duterte out, and the US-supporting Bongbong Marcos in, American bases are sprouting again in the Philippines. Yet even as Uncle Sam wins one back, the long-term trade trend with the country still strongly favours China. Who will win this tug of love?

16 Helmi 202345min

Like so many other social media addicts, our duo were in thrall to the rogue Chinese weather balloon over the weekend. But while the rest of the commentariat were fuming at the security implications, Philip Pilkington and Andrew Collingwood are far more mystified at all the performative screeching. As Collingwood points out: "A balloon is a hundred year old technology..." In Nigeria, an attempt to vault over its range of monetary problems by using a so-called 'stable coin' digital currency has quickly descended into farce: riots and bank runs. With the Fed and the Bank of England both on the stable coin bandwagon, the Multipolarity team are curious as to why central bankers the world over are trying to foist these imperfect solutions onto us. Meanwhile, one year on from the invasion of Ukraine, can we finally conclude that the much-heralded sanctions on Russia have not only failed, but given the West itself a bloody nose? And is the political establishment finally softening up the public to confront this unpleasant truth? Code: tYv3C8aT0EdQKS1b3sYm

9 Helmi 202356min

Philip Pilkington came of age in the shadow of the great Irish property bust of 2008 - it was one of the key reasons he became a macro-economist. Now, as he warns, history is about to repeat itself. The market indicators are flashing red on both sides of the Atlantic. As we hurtle down the real estate rollercoaster for a long-overdue correction, can the West deal with this reversal? Or are we now too over-leveraged to have any financial. weapons left in our arsenal? Meanwhile, in China, as the rest of the world founders, the challenge to growth is growing more acute. We dive deep into recent Chinese economic history, to locate a golden zone in the 1990s, to which the country may be about to return, and explain why the gamified approach of AliExpress may be finally reversing decades of sluggish domestic consumption. Finally, Andrew Collingwood picks up news of a major new investment pact between Russia and Iran that aims to outflank traditional trade routes by building a series of roads, rails and ports connecting Russia to India, via Iran and Azerbajain. As Philip Pilkington points out, longer-term, the economic implications may be dwarfed by the cultural ones.

2 Helmi 202348min

Latin America's giants have come together. The Brazilian Real and the Argentinian Peso are to be joined together in a prospective currency union - or at least a “regional unit of account". The prospect of one of the world's most consistent debt defaulters coming together with the often chaotic Brazilian economy has been greeted by some European economists as 'a terrible idea'. But as Philip Pilkington argues, the upsides of controlling inflation make this a very different prospect to the growth-crushing Euro. Meanwhile, Andrew Collingwood is just as interested in what this means for US hegemony over the region. Is the so-called Monroe Doctrine dead? Or will America retaliate, if this tiny seedling eventually sprouts? Whichever way this goes, it seems that getting off the US Dollar is becoming more feasible for emerging economies. We've ripped up the week's agenda to focus on currency unions: considered dead ten years ago, are they making an unlikely comeback?

25 Tammi 202352min

Andrew Collingwood and Philip Pilkington soldier gamely on in the second episode of Multipolarity - charting the rise of the new multipolar world order. This week: A new report suggests the Chinese might be about to bankroll a naval base in Argentina. As the green revolution takes hold, can the West even build the supply lines for the huge quantities of metals and minerals we’ll need for all those EV batteries? And: is the World Trade Organisation crumbling? The Wall Street Journal seems to think so...

18 Tammi 202345min

Philip Pilkington and Andrew Collingwood christen the pod by hashing over some of the week's biggest geopolitics stories. Just who is the enormous whale biting chunks out of the global gold market?Is China about to find a way to leapfrog the US advantage in high-end silicon chips? And then: most pundit predictions for 2023 seem to involve a minor recession - but are those analyses even over the target?

10 Tammi 202351min