Comments by "LRRPFco52" (@LRRPFco52) on "Zeihan on Geopolitics" channel.

  1. They’ve crossed the river now: https://youtu.be/lfIfnSY0XWI
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  2.  @paperandmedals8316  I'm not talking about bias towards one philosophy, but the entire focus on various philosophies in general. Interesting that you jumped the shark on that one.
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  3. It has rained almost every day this year where I live in Utah. Utah is normally very hot and dry this time of year. We'll get flash floods, but never daily rain like this. We're enjoying it.
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  4. @ ROI is not only cheaper, but presents another source of revenue for us by simply reasserting control of the Canal Zone. Elevation and relief across Mexico is significant, and would cost tens of billions, maybe even close to $100 Billion, right through cartel-controlled regions too. ETA: The US already has a southern railroad route that extends from the port in LA to Mexico. It’s much cheaper to ship through the Panama Canal because the elevation and relief change is only through the locks.
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  5.  @abr00ky  What does he say now?
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  6. I've been following his analyses since the 2000s. He goes to the ground truth, after having a higher level education on geography, demographics, and history. For ground truth, he talks with actual petroleum, civil, construction, aerospace, electrical, and transportation engineers with decades of experience in their fields, as opposed to trying to figure it out like an academic. George Friedman used the ground truth approach at STRATFOR, where Zeihan was a senior analyst, along with former FBI, DEA, and other intelligence analysts. This is why their presentations were so different than anything you would see in the brainless media advertisement channels.
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  7. USSR collapsed, while the US and NATO did not. Russia went through a tumultuous transition of power if you recall, with the KGB taking over industry and becoming the oligarchs. They planted 3 Deputy PMs in Yeltsin's cabinet, then 1 of them was annointed to take over in Dec 1999, assuming office Jan 1, 2000. He then purged all the oligarchs that handed him power, and replaced them with loyalists who became billionaires overnight. His name is Vladimir Putin.
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  8.  @farnarkleboy  I just looked up the US DoD RDT&E Budget request for 2024: $144.979 Billion 2023: $140.1 Billion actual paid-out. That’s almost Russia and India’s entire defense budgets combined just for RDT&E in the US.
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  9.  @frenchydampier2209  US economy ran on tariffs throughout the 1800s. Foreign interests saw a giant cash cow, and co-opted the US financial system for their own benefit, skimming as much as they could off the US taxpayers, who didn't pay Federal Income Tax prior to 1913.
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  10.  @TrendyStone  Ditto. I've been in DoD aerospace on developmental and operational programs since the 1970s. I've tracked security of supply and strategic materials acquisitions and dispersments for generations now. Silicon Valley and other locations in the US are where the high-end chip technology is pioneered, developed, and produced. For military applications, we're looking at several different types of chips, not just processors in boards, but high performance SCs in sensors. You're confusing high performance chips necessary for the latest handheld devices with boards used in the quad-computing bank of the F-35's CNI, as well as the TRMs in the AESA and other antennae distributed throughout the airframe. These are entirely different chips when talking about iPhones vs what goes in F-35s. You actually don't need the latest high performance boards for the quad bank in JSF because you don't have the volume constraints of a handheld, and you have more volume and materials at your disposal to mitigate thermodynamics in the CNI. Civilian handheld electronics also don't need GaA or GaN TRMs, and don't have access to the security of supply in that space for those. Telecom uses some of that for antennae, but there are different supply tracks and DoD has priority on those radiating/receiver elements.
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  11.  @JinKee  Belt and Road initiative is probably one of the most ill-conceived concepts in trade and transportation in human history, doomed to utter failure on its own just because of geography.
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  12.  @Chris.starfleet  Temperate zone is always better than the tropics or tundra. Too much precipitation and soil nutrient deprivation in tropics, tiny windows for growing and harvesting in tundra. The US has amazing weather compared to most of the world. Europe’s placement is more north latitude, so averages colder temps. The US Midwest is the largest arable farmland on the planet with longer growing and harvesting seasons than anywhere else as well, right in the middle of the largest connected river network on the planet.
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  13.  @HKim0072  Have you ever lived in Russia by chance? It’s brutal-cold, like North Dakota or the uninhabited regions of Canada. Winter is deep and long, and when “spring/summer” comes along, everything turns to mud for several weeks. Then grandfather frost returns, and you’re back to freezing. Infrastructure is almost non-existent.
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  14.  @ForageGardener  Most of the US is easily-developed with pre-industrial era living and farming because of the connected river networks flowing down from 3 North-South mountain ranges and the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. It’s just that people, including most with Master’s Degrees, don’t know much about US geography. It’s not taught in schools, colleges, and universities for some reason. Even the high desert was inhabited in the early-mid 1800s by pioneers who fled from the East, which blossomed like a rose ever since.
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  15. ​ @randomname3109  You mean Putin coordinated with Raytheon in the early 2000s to enrich the MIC?
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  16. 😅😅😅😅😅😅
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  17. ​ @Alopen-xb1rb Government offshores business via punitive regulations and taxation. Companies actually prefer to hire local and build long-term legacies that provide goods, services, and employment.
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  18. ​ @cmanlovespancakes US Lend-Lease to Russia during WWII not only allowed them to defeat the Germans, but provided the biggest technological boost to Russia in history by providing samples of bombers, fighters, radios, trucks, tanks, enriched uranium, beryllium triggers, and other high-value products that Russia could never mass-produce on their own.
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  19. ​ @drsev61 It does though. I used to go to the movies regularly like anyone else, but then they just weren't entertaining anymore, and the content became more repulsive and diminishing vs uplifting. Same thing with Disney, Netflix, and Amazon Prime. I don't support child exploitation, degenerates, and people who hate America. Looks like I'm not alone.
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  20. Am I the only one thinking the 300,000 mobilized soldiers (mostly recently-trained conscripts and contract guys who did their time, then went back to civilian life in the past 5 years) are going to be used for a new Russian Winter Offensive? What orders does anyone think Putin will issue to them? Stand around and tickle each other waiting for something to happen? There is a high likelihood these men will be thrown into the meat grinder to pre-occupy and attrit Ukrainian combat power in some way or another, even if it means soaking up artillery, anti-tank weapons, and aerial-delivered munitions down to a level where the follow-on campaign can then press the attack again.
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  21.  @jakemon4550  No such thing as the petrodollar. There is an American USD with the backing of the North American continent and all that entails. Petrodollar is a misnomer fomented by the Soviets and repeated endlessly in US and Euro universities to impressionable kids, who get degrees from inexperienced professors and then think they understand economics.
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  22. @vigfusvigfusson5606  A billionaire doesn't need other people's money. How did you skip over that glaring obstacle to your theory?
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  23. ​ @Manders-q2y  America's revenue stream is mostly internal. Only 15% of US GDP are exports, and the US is the #2 exporter in the world. Europe actually enjoys about a $200 Billion trade surplus each year with the US. Lots of US products have 100% tariffs, while those EU countries sell their high value products in the US without penalties. These are leftover trade policies from a post-WWII model of structuring alliances.
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  24.  @davidjones6389  KGB didn't exist during the time of the OSS, but its precursors did with NKVD and other intelligence ministries. Those date back to Okhrana under the Tsars, then the Cheka under the Bolsheviks. Same buildings, same operations, different regimes. Within the Soviets, there was a divide between the internationalists vs Russo-centrists and nationalists in the different states.
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  25. ​ @helifanodobezanozi7689 PV cells degrade over time and need replacement eventually. Wind is kind of a sad joke with significant environmental impacts, maintenance issues, and inefficiency. Climate patterns shift, so regions you thought could be relied on for certain characteristics might not be like that just 10-20 years later. I live in the high desert/mountains. Over the past 2 years, we've experienced a lot of tropical-like rainstorms due to California wildfires, since California refuses to manage its forests with firebreaks and sound forestry anymore. We've had flooding as a result.
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  26. ​ @ZeZwede  Just the EU nations, not all of Europe, had a combined GDP of $17.1 Trillion in 2022. US 2022 GDP: $25.462 Trillion The US is also expected to provide security for Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Middle East, and the global trade routes, in addition to European security.
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  27. There aren't any economic models for the combined demographic contractions, withering global trade schemes, and dissolving security pacts all converging simultaneously. This is the basic summary of his work.
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  28. His main assessment of the UK is that under EU, they were still given clout resembling their previous status as a world leader, even though the metrics were concealing the fact that the UK is a Middle power at best. Brexit has forced the UK to accept that, with the only hope of enjoying the benefits of a big power being hitched to the US.
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  29.  @peteralund  I saw plenty of youth and young adults in Russia in 2008-2009, but I never saw families with more than 1 child that I can recall. I know they exist, but it is rare to see.
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  30.  @twin2482  Search: Russian Demographic Pyramid They have an arrowhead-shaped demographic stack. 1988-1999 really did them in, as that’s where the cavitation is. Putin’s policies actually started building the birth rate back up from 2000-2014, never reaching their 1983-1987 levels which were the highest since 1966.
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  31.  @kiwus87  He captured it exactly as described. How are you guys missing that?
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  32. "Soooo, the Russian Turkish Syrian Iranian Egyptian alliance has descended on Israel with a massive coalition army and wiped out half of Israel's population. The antichrist has entered the new Jewish temple in Jerusalem and desicrated it. But even here from Colorado in my mountain bunker, I can see a parting of the heavens, so it looks like things will be just fine in a bit!"
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  33. His command for us to ignore Tucker is not a good look at all. Tucker is not very focused on foreign affairs, although he’s more aware of them than the average cat due to his family’s wealth and travels, but he did a great interview, challenging Putin many times, and behaving more dominantly than Putin is used to seeing among anyone he’s met before, sans Trump. When he met Trump, Trump literally yanked him into him with a powerful handshake that told the judo “expert” that his manlet body was no match, even for an overweight guy like Trump who doesn’t work out. To me, it’s like Peter didn’t even watch the interview. Tucker challenged Putin throughout the sit-down, and did so on the edge of assertiveness and respect. He caught Putin many times with funny little quips like, “Should Hungary take back its 1650 territory in the region?”, and was very persistent about releasing Evan Gershkovich.
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  34. The US has had forward-basing in Europe, Asia, Central America, South America, Africa, and the Middle East for generations. I've spent a huge portion of my life living overseas, to include West Germany, Japan, South Korea, Panama, Kuwait, Finland, Estonia, etc.
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  35. Imagine believing a theoretical economist who never balanced a checkbook over a billionaire who did more in the economic sector in the 1970s than all of Peter’s associates combined in their lives. You don’t just accidentally become a billionaire.
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  36. "Does she have hairy legs?"
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  37. If you have ever worked with the Germans on a large defense program, things take forever. Breaks, holidays, endless regulations, and a bureaucratic labyrinth black hole of busywork non-decisions ensures lack of rapid progress. It's what you get after all the decisive, risk-takers were systematically eliminated in WWII, leaving only shop-keepers, self-doubters, and nosy neighbors to try to repopulate Deutschland.
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  38.  @youtubewatcher2  Germany's economic model is built largely on exports to its neighbors, who are all extremely vulnerable to economic instability prior to SARSCoV2, let alone Russian expansion into Europe.
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  39.  @youtubewatcher2  But how will Germany and her neighbor customers deal with the energy crisis, specifically? I outlined fundamental economic forces that are now being undercut. We can't just pretend they aren't real and that "somehow Germany will just pull through". What options are there? Even after Russia invaded, Germany continued with the nuclear reactor shutdown plan. That's a bad sign for solving the energy crisis.
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  40.  @jesan733  Tesla batteries are only warrantied for 8 years or 120,000-150,000 miles. That means if you have to replace outside of those terms, you're looking at $17,000-$20,000. Also, what are the long-term EMF effects on people inside the vehicle?
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  41. His analyses on Belt & Road when he was at STRATFOR were very funny, especially as he debated it with Robert Kaplan. Peter pointed out the costs associated with overland travel through the most warlord-infested regions of the planet, where Iran and Saudi Arabia will cooperate to let goods flow from China to the ME, Europe, and Africa, while the normal shipping routes are a dramatically-cheaper standard option for everyone else.
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  42. The US regularly tests all the systems from National Command Authority to the simultaneous detonation of the surrounding high explosives of a warhead, without a warhead present of course. The implosion device high explosives triggers are measured during these tests, as are the radioactivity of the warheads in their storage sites. Nuclear warheads are physically hot and have to be kept in special storage, including the ones in missiles that are ready to launch. They have an operational lifespan that is recorded so they can be replaced at the appropriate intervals. We regularly test that everything is in working order. The sealant on ICBM motors degrades and the SRMs have to be replaced at great cost as well. We have multiple types of delivery systems and warheads: 1. Silo-based ICBMs 2. Submarine -launched ICBMs 3. Air-Launched Cruise Missiles 4. Surface -to-surface cruise missiles 5. Gravity bomb nukes 6. Others
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  43.  @Brendan-tx3lg  Shifts and facility scale. If you have lots of smaller correctional facilities, you need more staff. Canada can build larger facilities with US automation and technology, whereas much of the infrastructure in Europe is out-dated. Remember that 15,000 correctional employees are not working 24/7 in just a few large prisons. Because of labor laws in Europe, people can only work so many hours so I imagine they have 3 shifts and rotate the employees through those shifts. If they have multiple smaller facilities, that also scales the management who don’t have hands-on interaction with the inmates.
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  44. ATF has been making their own laws/regulations for decades.
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  45. The military has a lot of Karen brigade entitled women who bought into the woman authority figure facade, which is caustic for military units and recruiting. As long as young men see more Karens in leadership positions, they will steer clear of that. Testosterone levels have been dramatically reduced due to birth control chemicals in the water system, toxic seed oils in the food, and xenoestrogen microplastics in everything. A young man who has higher than average testosterone will want to preserve his strength, not sacrifice it to some stupid Karen who was mistakenly given important leadership positions closer to or even within combat arms.
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  46. I don’t have an iPhone but from what I found: The iPhone’s display is made by either Samsung or LG in South Korea.  The flash memory and DRAM are made at Kioxia’s factories in Japan.  Gorilla Glass that protects the screen is made from a Corning factory in the USA, Taiwan, or Japan.  Apple’s A18 Pro chip is custom silicon-designed in California but manufactured by Taiwanese semiconductor company TSMC. Custom-made components like power management ICs, USB microcontrollers, wireless chipsets, and OLED drivers are sourced from large companies such as Broadcom, Texas Instruments, and smaller manufacturers in Southeast Asia. Apple is now moving a lot of their final assembly to Vietnam with Ear Pods, AirPods, AirPods Pro, and Apple is moving a significant percentage of iPad, MacBook, and Apple Watch production to Vietnam.
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  47. Because there are many different highly-specialized subsystems and technologies with stacked value-added supply chains under them in different countries. This includes precision glass and optics, Lasers, wafer boards, precursor chemicals, minerals, machinery, and engineers and technicians within each of those fields. It's similar to asking why an aircraft manufacturer doesn't have total ownership of the subsystem supply. The industrial revolutions have developed individual technologies in different regions over centuries now, with very specialized and narrow sectors of each market able to come together across the globe after Bretton-Woods.
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  48. Did you mean to use the word "reliable" vs "reliant"?
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  49.  @TheVeritas2100  Iraq had numerical superiority to the US with its tanks and tactical combat aircraft. Iraqis were better-trained than Russians as well, with far more experience than Russia. They got slayed for sport by US tankers and pilots.
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  50.  @gagamba9198  I'm Gen X with kids from 3 generations. It's a strange perspective to be able to saddle an understanding of the dynamics of my split Silent Generation father and Boomer foreign-born mother, my "cool kids" Generation, my older Millennial children, my middle Gen Z children, my younger Gen Alpha children, now watching my Millennials having their Gen Alpha children. My concern is pulled in different directions for Gen X mid-late employment in the wake of job-hopping trends over the last 4 decades, late-blooming millennials who face a totally different housing situation, with rising Gen Z getting ready to enter the workplace and facing housing and cost of living hurdles that require much more income.
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