00:01 I've been thinking about the decline of the United States and uh it's really a decline along uh four dimensions um let's start from the economy in 1945 the United States uh uh GDP was 40 was 50% 50% of the world's GDP roughly and uh in 2025 uh it's 16% uh in uh uh PPP um maybe a little more in nominal value um China is 19% officially if you believe Chinese statistics anyway the United States share of the GDP is obviously much smaller um now if you ask Economist they will tell you the United States has the 00:52 best economy uh in the world in the developed World um and uh so that sounds like a contradiction well it's not because um everything is relative and I will keep saying this uh uh for other uh kind uh for the other kinds of decline um right now China is in a is in a worse much worse uh economic situation and Europe is uh is a congenital U mess but the United States has l lost um the economic power they used to have uh more uh more important for me and for many historians is that the government debt of the United States is $36 01:44 trillion and there's no sign the politicians of either party uh who want to stop um overspending um they staying power pretty much by buying uh V of um of the people um history teaches us that great Empires collapsed uh because of government debt I look at Spain um I look at France and look at Britain so that's uh that's the most uh in my opinion the most significant significant economic Factor um when you analyze uh uh the economic U decline or Ascent of a country now second kind of decline is uh 02:41 just power um uh again you um you can think uh that it is not true but everything is relative um the United the decline in power of the United States is not visible because the decline of power of the power of China is um um equivalent or even uh even worse and the decline in power of Russia is uh very rapid and uh then if you look around the European Union has largely largely withdrawn from uh the world scene um and um Latin America never matter much and um the Islamic world that is congenital mess um I I'm very skeptic it 03:38 will ever it will ever uh return to be what it was a thousand years ago um India is um is a longest story but anyway right now it doesn't exert power outside its borders so then then it feels like the United States is still the world power but it is uh uh but its power is declining um and this is actually sometimes it's better to have a simple explanation for complex uh issues in my opinion a major reason for the decline of United States is just the president uh the United States uh had some great 04:21 presidents in the past um certainly between um Rosevelt and um George H bush the first Bush and we can argue and you may like or not like some of the policies of these presidents but I think they had a view of the world and um and you know that view the world um somehow worked and again we can have different opinions I have never been a fan of Ronald Reagan I think he caused a lot of problems uh he supported Saddam Hussein uh in Iraq um under his watch the United States funded um Islamic fundamentalists in 05:08 Afghanistan who were fighting the Soviet Union uh he's the one the first one to Grant immunity to millions of illegal immigrants I can go on and on but anyway between Roosevelt and Bush one the presidents did a pretty good job of preserving and increasing the the power of the United States um of course the collapse of the Soviet Union uh probably represents the peak of politic of power world power of the United States and then you had Bill Clinton who was just lucky uh he inherited the world without the Cold War 05:53 um and then uh ge W Bush was one of the worst ever in my opinion um a man with a very low IQ um then Obama in my opinion was a good man but uh mediocre and then you had um you had Trump uh probably the worst of all of them for many reason U and Biden didn't didn't really change my opinion on the decline of the quality of US president so that's a very simple reason why the decline of the presidents of the United the world power of the United States happened now um let me mention right away something uh important uh 06:42 Bill Clinton was actually elected with uh less than 50% of the votes um there were three candidates and because of the way the United States elects president he became president without having 50% of the vote and then uh uh his successor was George W bush uh um Bush to uh who lost the election to um Al Gore uh today by the way we know uh many studies show that actually that election was really stolen but anyway uh he lost even without the stealing in uh in Florida which is a long story um Bush became president on a technicality 07:30 of how the United States elect President but he got fewer votes than Gore and nobody ever uh disputed this and then you had Trump in 2016 he became president even if he lost the election by I believe 3 million votes which is a a gigantic loss so that's something will we have to analyze because it's one of the main reasons for the decline of the United States in every sense the Constitution of the United States is undemocratic uh the the Constitution of the United States was written by about 50 wealthy white 08:13 men uh who half of them were uh slave owners um they they had no intention of giving women the right to vote and certainly no intention of giving blacks the the slaves the right to vote um and it has [Music] some uh some weird things in it I'll say I'll say in a second why I can say it right away why why for a long time we thought the United States Constitution was such a an amazing achievement because everything is relative and relative to the rest of the world the United States had the best Constitution uh for for a long time so 08:58 it worked very well anyway um uh the United States uh is a non-democratic country from the beginning because of many uh technicalities so the first one and now very famous is the Electoral College which uh before Trump I think people didn't even know uh this uh this issue the United the one who gets the most votes doesn't necessarily become president there's something called Electoral College uh each States um gets a number of uh let's call them Grand electors and and they are the ones who elect the 09:41 president and so because of this uh depending uh and each state uh Most states assign all their grand electors to uh the one who gets the most votes within the state so it's a it's a strange algorith but the result is that the one who losers could win uh in the previous 200 years it happened rarely uh in the last uh uh in the 21st century it has already happened uh twice um and then there's the Senate uh the Senate is another bizarre algorithm it assigns two senators to each state and when the United States was born that 10:27 made sense because the states were roughly the same size uh today you have Wyoming that I believe has 600,000 people maybe even fewer um Alaska 700,000 Montana 1 million California 40 million um well Wyoming gets two senators California gets two senators so uh a citizen Wyoming is about 80 times more powerful in the Senate than a citizen of California wildly undemocratic and the Senate creates all sort of issues the rest of the world is puzzled when the United States passes laws that seem to be 11:18 prehistoric uh but that's because the Senate represents states that are not exactly Progressive small rural States and um they have a lot of power and uh then the Supreme Court which is another incredibly uh bizarre thing uh the the judges the Supreme Court Supreme Court is very important it decides it's the ultimate uh decision maker about laws and the judges of the Supreme Court are appointed basically randomly the algorithm there is really random um it depends on who is president president when one of the judges dies or retires 12:03 that's it and recently it's been deaths so a judge dies whoever is President gets to nominate um a new judge so Trump I think uh had three uh Obama had I remember one random it's um depends who is president uh at the time and then they they they are in charge for the rest of the life potentially unless they retire so anyway the Constitution of the United States is undemocratic now the there's a reason the founding fathers of the United States were afraid of democracy and some of them put it in writing it's not just 12:46 my opinion um but it worked very well for a long time it worked very well uh but again Everything's Relative uh it worked very well relative to uh the forms of government that the rest of the world uh had now the effect today is um what we see um um there's this General erratic casual sometimes a crazy approach to government and um the the the consequences of electing presidents in this way is uh is uh catastrophic think of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 I was no fan of Saddam Hussein I was I was happy 13:36 when Saddam Hussein was removed but the whole war in Iraq started in 2003 because Georg Bush was president and he was President by accident he had lost that election but the Electoral College made him president so this undemocratic technicalities have a huge impact and um today Donald Trump uh is escaping prosecution because the Supreme Court was basically is basically basically works for him why because he appointed three of them so the the the undemocratic Constitution of the United States has consequences that that 14:22 can be really grotesque now the United States became a democracy even if the Constitution so the founding fathers didn't believe in democracy they were afraid many of them were afraid of democracy and they had a point in fact the history of the United States has proven that they were right about being worried uh the the so if you go back uh how did the parties pick uh their candidates well it was probably kind of a meeting more or less secret meeting in a club of the elite and they would pick somebody then uh the United 15:11 States launched the primaries where people get to vote people uh people registered for each party get to vote and pick the the candidates and this has resulted in a very extreme uh the one who wins tends to be the one who has extreme views because before he or she can win the election in the country she or he has to win the election within the party and so it's more radical [Music] um it sounds weird but the more you democratize the country the more candidates tend to be extreme not neily competent and certainly not necessarily 16:01 looking for compromise if you if you in a primary if you say I want to compromise most likely you don't get nominated you don't get picked as a candidate um another thing that in my opinion is uh weakening uh government not only in the United States also in Europe and pretty much all the count all the democracies increasing ly um is that democracy has an effect on the rural law the United States has really become a country of the rule of law and so as Europe uh now I know this will sounds uh uh 16:48 unpleasant um but before when the rule of law was not really enforced when there was a lot of corruption um smart people had the motivation to become politician you could make a lot of money being a politician you your friends your family your tribe um as you enforce the rural law politicians become just uh salaried employees of the State uh this actually reduces the motivation for bright people to become a politician uh if you want to get rich don't become a politician um launch a a tech startup or 17:32 quite simply become a dentist a lawyer uh there are many professions where people become much richer than uh than in politics so a side effect of uh the rural law that we all love I love it um is that it's hard to motivate bright people to become politician and then you have you have this class of politicians both in the United United States and in Europe and in Canada who are fundamentally mediocre they are not very intelligent even if they are intelligent their motivation to to act for the long-term good of the 18:15 country is low their motivation is to be reelected that's their job their job is the politician and they want to preserve their job and uh the most effective way to preserve your job is to do do something that gives results short term very short term because the elections are in two years um so that's uh uh the issue myself I made proposals to politicians and the people involved told me what is his short-term benefit what does it get next year when there are elections and so whether proposal was 19:00 good for Society for the country for the future of the human race that's irrelevant the only the the most important thing is will it get him reelected now coming to Trump trump uh won this time he really won it was I admit it I wrote an article about it the greatest comeback political comeback uh in in uh in recent times um now one thing to remember he won twice against women okay he lost big time when he was running against the white man Joe Biden who was not exactly the most popular politician in 19:44 the country but Biden won against Trump a white man won against Trump two women Hillary Clinton Kamala Harris uh didn't make it Trump prevailed so again sometimes I like simple as explanations for complex problems um remember this maybe just the United States is not is not a country ready to have a woman as um as president and I think Kamala Harris knew this she knew that a woman starts with a with a handicap of 3% maybe 5% yeah why she why I know she knew because she never wore a skirt she was always wearing pants 20:29 anyway um that's besides the point now um um before I get really into Trump let me say something more about democracy I made a note for myself then I forgot um why democracy has obviously limitations and now that we have a real democracy both in the United States and Europe we pay a price think think of the creation of wealth I mean everybody cares so much about the their economic conditions but it's hard to name a creation of wealth that happened because of a referendum uh in fact the opposite many 21:17 referendums um once you let people decide in a referendum you have to be careful it's uh people make decisions that can be really really harmful in the long term um any country that had a referendum on nuclear power uh lost I mean the the anti-nuclear movement movement always wins there referendums I mean it's and that's debatable if that's good for I mean my my native country of Italy is in big trouble and has probably the most expensive energy in the world because twice the government let them decide on 22:03 nuclear power and twice they voted against it the result is that now Italy buys nuclear power energy produced by nuclear power plants in Switzerland maybe France and so on so on the other hand think of the creations of wealth that happened in the world Silicon Valley or Detroit go back to Detroit did anybody ask the people of Detroit do do you want to have a car industry did anybody ask the people of Santa Clara Valley do you want to have the semiconductor industry no if they had probably the people of Santa Clara Valley would have 22:45 said no we want something to help the existing or charts so it's hard to find the creation of wealth in the world that was due to democracy um in the in the Free World it was usually individuals and we can discuss I mean the contribution of scientist uh inventors and so on um in the in the world of dictators um think of a recent success story China the biggest economic boom of the of the last 40 50 years um except for the for the last few years well that everything was decided by the Chinese Communist party but the dictator not not 23:37 through a referendum uh not by the 1.4 billion uh citizens of China um and and think of the effects of democracy this uh the the widespread disinformation um we thought the internet would democratize many things and uh the internet has become precisely because it is so Democratic has become a place where uh fake news Prevail and we're really going back to the world Medieval World of Legends and superstitions um uh with a more democratic world that you have a more politicized uh uh Society where 24:25 everything everything becomes politicized even uh wearing uh masks um the vaccines uh the very existence of the covid uh of the virus uh was politicized the many right-wing organizations said it's a ox it doesn't exist anyway uh back to Trump um I see I see I see first of all I see it as the moment Caligula was a a mad Roman Emperor and after Caligula came narrow there was somebody in between u i see that as as the caligola moment of the United States Empire uh eratic mad um and um okay we'll talk about the Roman 25:25 Empire later um Trump is uh ignorant is not patriotic megalomaniac megalomaniac um easily bribable uh vindictive uh resentful of the rule of law uh in my opinion he has no world view he just uh cares mainly cares about himself in very strange ways because I don't think uh he's completely sane um so what's going to be the effect of the Trump presidency well number one I fear that the United States will become a kleptocracy a Putin style kleptocracy I fear that money look at the people of trump appointed um one 26:18 billionaire after the other U money uh is basically staging a coup taking over the government of the United States and proximity to Trump will determine what the money uh goes uh second the United States has become a world power because of its alliances uh if you look carefully the United States never won a war without its allies lost in Vietnam lost in uh um Korea lost in uh Afghanistan um it won World War I World War II um because it had this um it was part of an alliance with Britain and France many other countries he won the 27:02 Cold War against the Soviet Union because NATO was such a colossal um Alliance um so one thing that um so Trump is going to weaken the alliances one way or another he's already done it I mean I'm sure that the the best European politicians already thinking how to get out of NATO uh and uh and nobody trusts the United States anymore as such just uh doesn't matter what Trump does today for your country it's obvious it doesn't have uh moral values uh anyway um the other thing that Trump uh will probably do is weaken the Deep 27:50 State he has been attacking the we the we the Deep State since the beginning now that that's one of those funny things uh where where the left become the right the Deep state was um uh the paranoia the enemy of the left of the the Socialist um and and now it has become the paranoid of the right well the Deep State actually was good mostly uh because the Deep state is simply a big u a big you can see it as a big Corporation um where most people um are competent honest uh they do their job and by the way they're not 28:36 reach they paid relatively little they're not corrupt and they they really the Deep State represents the institutions that made America work and for example the Deep state is the one that cares about the alliances because the people within the Deep State know what I just said that the United States is only uh a big nuclear Mexico without its Alliance without its allies um and I can go on the Deep state is actually useful it's a a great countries have great bureaucracies and U countries with weak 29:20 uh bad bureaucracies don't have a future anyway um then Trump will have another effect on the freedom of press I fear uh you can see it you I mean obviously Twitter X and now Facebook and um they're all quickly aligned themselves with Trump uh even the my favorite comedians uh I I watch their TV shows and U except for one or two suddenly they're not so uh they're not targeting Trump as much as he deserves because he keeps saying incredibly um uh stupid things they lend themselves to uh comedy but they don't do it 30:05 anymore um by the way another example of how presidents who don't trust the Deep State can make big mistakes is is China when when Trump decided to go after China in my opinion simply for to distract from his collusion with Russia but anyway when he decided to go after China he left the sanction which um the tariffs on China which basically are a are a tax on the United States consumer and certainly were one of the causes of inflation with the government debt those were in my opinion the two biggest uh causes of inflation but then 30:48 also um that that was the spuck moment moment for China uh China for decades had been very happy with letting the United States do all the research take all the risks in research and China was very happy to Simply use the result of the research and um when Trump attacked China China suddenly realized uh we need our own research and they started doing their own research and guess what now they're making their own chips which are almost as good as the chips of Silicon Valley and they in my opinion they make 31:27 better Electric Vehicles than Tesla um they taken over the solar um the whole green tech industry so I we I can go on and you will see more and more success of China in uh in in in basic research so I think the Deep state would have been much more careful than Trump was we literally woke up the giant that was sleeping anyway um so what's um uh what's the the the so what what's the risk ultimate risk I I I always smile when I hear United States uh uh gurus you know people on uh um pundits on um TV talking 32:22 about the problems of the European Union or preaching the European Union Trump is one of them when the United States has much bigger problems I said they say the European Union is a weak Federation of States my God the United States risks splitting in two uh blue State and red states have such fundamentally different views of the world of the future of even moral values um the polarization the United States is way bigger than Europe I mean this I mean in Europe people switch from rightwing left wing overnight in the 33:01 United States is becoming uh really almost religious belief um then United States is my opinion bigger GD lock than than Europe it's really hard to pass any kind of uh reform think think of immigration reform um primary education in the United States is collapsing uh the universities are still the best the world not for long because China is catching up again because of the Sputnik moment caused by Trump uh but anyway I mean uh um the children of the United States don't compare in education with the 33:43 children of Europe of Japan of China and United the United States will pay a price at some point then you have the problem by the way I don't want to get into abortion but the United States is going backwards compared with the with the rest of the world uh then you have the problem of guns which make the United States Society less and less appealing not many immigrants want to move in a country where you are 40 times more likely to be murdered than in some European countries uh government debt um 34:18 again is escalating it's not as big as in some European countries but the Europeans get something out of that government debt and they get very good maybe two good um benefits um you know free health care is the most famous but not so many by the way high-speed uh trains the United States still lives in the age of the airplane um so um and then um yeah then then people were making fun that the Europe had this wave of right-wing parties um the one that that that uh is in power uh is in Italy and 35:02 Georgia melon is definitely not a fascist as she was described in the in the United States press um and uh the one in Europe who is a little dictatorial is Orban in Hungary but that's peanuts compared with Donald Trump the United States now has the most right-wing in my opinion Neo fascist um uh political leader now the decline of the United States is not good news uh because it will probably cause more Wars why I say that because the great periods of Peace are always when there is a superpower that makes 35:43 War uh unlikely um and um and not uh not convenient um so that's the case of the British Empire um British Empire French Empire uh you could travel around the world with just a business card um the Mongol Empire you know you could travel from China to to Europe uh relatively safe um that was the case of the United States after World War II you know Europe hasn't had a war um the European powers haven't been a war since uh World War II because of the United States Empire um if the United States uh 36:30 declines and there's no superpower that takes its place and I don't think there is uh because the others are declining faster then I think the chances the chances for war will increase um incidentally I skipped India one point uh watch watch out for India um I was asking a friend U um what would you do if China um country with 1.4 billion people um cracked down in its um Muslim population um arrested the main opposition leader uh assassinated a dissident in Canada tried to assassinate another one in the United States uh 37:19 crack down on separatist movement I don't even know how many um um violated the violated the Russia the sanctions against Russia basically helped Russia avoided the sanctions and uh had already fought a number of Wars three with Pakistan one with China uh sent troops in Sri Lanka and so on and of course the reaction well if CH China did that we would take action Well India did that okay India Modis India has done all of this and it is now the the most populated country in the world 14 billion people now what are 38:10 remed the remedies to to what I said well first of all the decline of the United States is not inevitable in fact at one point I wanted to talk about the Roman Empire but it's a long story uh after Caligula and um and um Nero the Roman Empire had U um um three great Emperors at least three of the of the famous five um and then probably the maximum extension so it's not inevitable but something has to change of course and in um in a democracy I think that's that's that's the difference the Roman Empire 38:51 was not a democratic uh system um certainly there's something weird in the World think of the United Nations which is a paradox you know this this countries that have VTO power think of France and Britain tetiny countries the VTO power uh Japan doesn't Germany doesn't third or fourth largest Economist in the world Russia has uh VTO power India doesn't 1.4 billion people doesn't there's no Muslim country that has v power um so that's there something of course weird in the United Nations um the European Union uh is um a 39:38 hope uh because I see moral values uh Stronger stronger in Europe uh by the way I didn't say that uh yeah I'll say that shortly um the European Union I see a stronger stronger values and um um better world view um I my op in my opinion should keep enlarging uh so not only Ukraine but uh some Visionary politician in Europe should start talking about expanding to the Middle East Israel turkey the Ottoman Empire Northern Africa and uh Lebanon Syria um maybe even Iran I feel that their regime in Iran is so weak and if 40:29 Iran if the regime collapses I think U um Iran will become a westernized country um the the the other decline I didn't discuss was the moral decline in the United States um uh there was a great generation uh now we have a little Generation Um the United States if you look um when the United States was fighting fascist about 60% of the country was very committed to fighting fascism when the United States fought communism it was was 80% I don't know when it was everybody right and left yes even even the left and now that there 41:13 are actually bigger threats to the United States um climate change um that's their commitment is very low climate change is a favorite example because uh the consumption of single use plastic and uh and air conditioning uh all these things gazoline they skyrocketing actually the the luxuries of the previous generation becomes become the necessities of the new generation so there's also um a clear decline in the in the willingness of the United States to sacrifice for an idea anyway it's not inevitable