EXPERIENCE 219 | Geopolitics, Russia-Ukraine, Regional Economics, and Competitive Advantage in Business and Life with Constantin Gurdgiev, Ph.D. and Associate Professor of Finance at the Monfort College of Business at UNC.

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In this episode of the Loco Experience Podcast, I hosted Constantine rggi, PhD and associate Professor of Finance at the Montfort College of Business.

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Constantin outlines his work in the fields of economics, geopolitics, and finance, sharing insights from his research on geopolitical risks, tariff impacts, and financial market volatility.

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He also discusses his teaching and research positions in the United States and Ireland emphasizing his efforts to integrate real world applications into academia through internships and student engagement.

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Stanton delves into the complexities of the Ukraine Russia conflict, drawing on his expertise in Russian and Irish economics, he discusses the historical and geopolitical context that has contributed to the ongoing tension and critiques, the Western approach to handling the situation.

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The conversation also touches on broader themes like the weaponization of economic systems, challenges to US economic hegemony and the multidimensional nature of modern global conflicts.

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Constantin also reflects on regional development issues specific to Northern Colorado, including regulatory burdens, the high cost of living, and the need for regional cooperation between cities To maintain competitive advantage, he suggests practical steps such as reducing state level taxes and regulatory burdens to foster business growth.

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The episode concludes with personal reflections on his family and life experiences.

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It's an intriguing journey and I hope you'll join me in enjoying my conversation with constant.

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Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast.

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My guest today is Constantin IV and he is an associate professor of economics, among other things at UNC.

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And I saw him speak at a Biz West event last fall, I guess, or early in the new year.

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Early in the new year.

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Exactly, Kirk.

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Yeah.

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So thanks for taking the time to be here.

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My pleasure.

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My pleasure.

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And uh, for probably the most of my listeners that have never heard of you, uh, could you just set the stage a little bit?

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Uh, it looks like you got your fingers in a lot of pies.

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Uh, I don't know about whether the, whether they're pies or mouse traps.

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This is a big question always, isn't it?

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Uh, so first of all, little correction.

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Yes.

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So I'm associate professor of finance, oh, finance.

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Actually, I Montford College of Business at UNC.

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Uh, that's my main job.

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Economics is a part of UNC as well, but they're not part of MCB.

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I am a economist by trading.

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So my PhD is actually, you know, for my scenes is macroeconomics and finance.

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Okay.

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Theoretical stuff.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Um, so I used to study economics.

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I do some economic analysis these days because I'm kind of in a weird area of finance that a lot of people miss when they are operating in a local economy.

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Um, I, I work in a geopolitical.

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Risks and geopolitical uncertainty.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Part of finance.

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So it's macro stuff.

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So we look at the, you know, whole country's moving, the whole market's moving, um, wars, conflicts, sanctions, um, all these things.

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Tariffs.

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Tariffs, yes.

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More on, this is more of a trade factor, but then of course, how does that impact finance?

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In fact, I have a couple of graduate students currently doing some work.

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So in addition to teaching at UNC, I also have a visiting position in Ireland, in change college, Dublin.

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And I have graduate students there.

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So they do a lot of work with me, uh, in terms of the research and tariffs.

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Yes, absolutely.

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Like out of 15 students that I supervised this year, there, two of them actually are doing work on tariffs.

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Hmm.

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So it's a pretty big deal.

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It is huge deal, of course.

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I mean, look, look at the markets.

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Yes.

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I mean, uh, we've had an absolutely amazing period.

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I don't remember who said it.

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You know, that, you know, sometimes, you know, nothing happens in decades and then decades happen in one day or one week.

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Yeah.

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We had that one week.

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Exactly.

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Uh, last week was unprecedented by any comparatives.

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But then again, when you think about the beg from the, the last 25 years or so of our history are very much unprecedented.

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You have the global financial crisis, which was out of traditional sync for the traditional crisis type of things, or market reactions to things.

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Uh, it was systemic.

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It was very deep.

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Uh, then we went, was financed, uh, deeply.

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Exactly.

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Yeah.

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Not only finance, but real economy.

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Yeah.

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I mean, the great recession, um, you have to go back in nomenclature to great depression.

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Mm-hmm.

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To see something like that.

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So it's once in a hundred years event.

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Then we had covid pandemic.

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I mean, my God, if you war in my field, supply chain descriptions would actually kind of think like.

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How can we contrive something that great.

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This is so good to study.

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As terrible as it is, it is.

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Exactly.

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You're correct.

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You know, we study things which are dismal, you know, and this was pretty dismal event.

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And then of course we have geopolitical crisis going on since then.

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2022 Ukraine, Russia war, um, you know, you have the 20 16, 20 17, 20 20 periods in terms of the elections.

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Um, and then we have new election this year, last year, 2024, uh, which are historically unprecedented.

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Yeah.

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Whether it is a political science history, it is history, history, uh, its economic policy, history, it doesn't matter.

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So when we entered the last probably three weeks span of time, there were some indicators of what was happening.

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Some of the market participants started reacting in anticipation of that.

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In other words, they took the administration on this, you know.

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You know, for what they were saying, okay.

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Mm-hmm.

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As being truthful and intending to do these types at that roughly speaking scale and all, but by and large, even those market participants who had this kind of, you know, foresight Yeah.

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Could not expect the level and the uncertainty and the volatility of the decision making that we have witnessed.

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Right.

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Oh, and it's on, it's off.

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It's on, it's on, it's off.

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Yeah, exactly.

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I mean, it's delayed for 30 days, it's delayed for 90 days.

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Yeah.

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If we wore a piece of steel, we would turn into Damascus quality steel, you know, uh, the Epic stuff.

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Yes.

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What was that?

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The Samurai Sword Arian or something like that from the Game of Thrones.

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Yes.

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I forgot the name.

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Uh, that they use there.

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But we're not still, we're human beings and so we are scared.

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We are uncertain.

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We are panicked.

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Yeah.

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Um, behaviorally we are imperfect our decision making in kind of circumstances as you can see from markets that go like this.

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Correct.

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Absolutely.

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Yes.

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And we kind of think of the markets as more rational than the average agent.

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Well, we kind of saw that, you know, they're not fair enough.

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I, I was actually listening to Dave Ramsey on whose podcast?

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Oh, uh, Sean.

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Sean Ryan Show.

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Okay.

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I think, yeah.

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Yeah.

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I think something like that.

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Um, something Ryan.

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Anyway, uh, and he was talking about how kind of the, the Reagan pull pulling us out of the, the recession of the late seventies a little bit was so much more about.

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People's mindsets shifting than it was actually about this regulation or this tax or this thing.

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Um, and he was optimistic that once we can stop the gyrations, maybe people will kind of, you know, sentiment is huge.

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Yeah.

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Absolutely.

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Beyond the doubts, we as humans react to that, that's called leadership.

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Uh, in fact, most of the politics, most of the political leadership, when you go back in history and look at it, it's not about capability, it's about projection, it's about message.

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Reagan had happened to have the correct message.

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If you look back today at what Reagan was saying about, say, for example, immigration policies, uh, what he was saying about economy, what he was saying about the balance and act between the winners in the economy and the losers in the economy.

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And then you lay the path beyond Reagan because of course eight years of Reagan have been transformative.

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And they laid the foundation for the kind of what we call compassion conservatism.

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Mm-hmm.

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Of the early 1990s.

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Of course it all dies in the mid 1990s.

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He has with new Gingrich revolution and compassionate part disappears.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Um, and then, you know, so when you look at that progression, Reagan really strikes a great comparative.

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He is a big transformative type of a president who was mostly not.

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Not resting on the competency of execution, but rather on the quality of messaging and conviction.

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Hmm.

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Um, we Ms.

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Reagan today.

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Definitely.

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Yeah.

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Um, and I'm not saying that because I would approve of Reagan's policies being deployed today.

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Some of them are meaningful.

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Again, remember that Reagan was the last president we had who have enacted substantial enough, fundamental enough immigration reform.

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Hmm.

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Which was an immigration reform, which reinforced our ethos of this nation.

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Yeah.

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The ethos of the melting pot.

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The ethos of opportunity land.

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Yes.

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Um, and then did it, like, was it restricted from there?

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Or just too many people wanted to sign up for it over time and No, it's not that.

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Where did the system break down?

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I mean, the system broke down because it became, there's no, no perfect system can survive through the test of time because time changes things.

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Mm-hmm.

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The flows have changed of migrants.

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The objectives of the migrants have changed.

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We needed to keep the system adjusting to that.

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We needed reforms after Reagan.

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There was no reform of the immigration policy at all.

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We had kind of patchwork, you know, kind of in a old where it was clearly broken.

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Yeah.

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Correct.

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Yeah.

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We were, you know, we were first put in plaster on basically, you know, like razor cuts.

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Yes.

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Uh, then on shark bites.

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Yeah, the plaster didn't change.

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We still were applying.

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It just wasn't up for the job anymore.

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No, no.

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You couldn't hold that.

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Uh, we knew that because the entire immigration reform has ended, culminated in daca and you know, it culminated in basically if you use the parlance of the 1990s Bill Clinton's policies.

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Yes.

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Don't ask, don't tell.

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We have these people here.

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We would like to normalize them.

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We can't normalize them.

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They deserve to be normalized.

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Right.

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We can't normalize them.

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They should be here.

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We can't normalize them, but let's pretend that that's okay.

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Right.

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You know, and so, you know, in the end, the dreamers, you know, um, and in the end that was the effectively the nail in the coffin of the, in my view as an outsider coming into the United States of what was the great promise, the shining, you know, city on the hill, um, the torch that has led the countries and societies to transformation, not only in terms of the outward mobility of people sending them to the United States, but also internal mobility of people and internal political changes as well.

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So.

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It seems like our populations in the US have become, you know, and maybe it's for lack of recessions and things, uh, but more reluctant to move around for opportunities and to leave the inner city crappy economies.

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One of the things that's move to North Dakota and working on oil well, you know, whatever.

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Well, it's not so much moving to North Dakota and working on an oil well.

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Okay.

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I mean, you, you are striking something.

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You're touching upon something that is empirical regularity, which has transformed or changed the balance of economic power and economic dynamism between the continents, uh, over the last say 50 years.

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If you go back to the 1990s, United States is an example of the high internal mobility of people, as you mentioned, people looking for opportunities.

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Yeah.

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It doesn't mean going to North Dakota, it means a doctor moving from, say for example, rural Texas to the urban, uh, yeah.

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New Jersey.

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Okay.

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Bringing Fort Collins population Correct.

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Up from 50 to 150.

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And, but, but also when you talk about the population numbers, it is a mobility which was driven by opportunity.

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Mm-hmm.

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It was mobility of the younger middle class.

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Yeah.

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Lower middle class.

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Okay.

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That go west young man mentality.

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Exactly.

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Bingo.

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You've got it.

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Okay.

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What happened in this century is that with the Great Recession and even before the Great Recession, with the cost of housing rising mm-hmm.

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With the pressures in the cost of living, um, pressures of a cost of education.

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And healthcare.

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All of those three major expenditures that happen over the life cycle that we have have depressed mobility of people, a depressed social mobility of people and economic mobility of people.

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Fewer people move today from the lower middle class to the upper middle class than before.

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Fewer people move today from, say, for example, the one location to the next location.

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Yeah.

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Covid Pandemic a little bit disrupted that, but that kind of was very short term.

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Well, and the ability for remote work and stuff, you know, that's where Covid moved Oklahoma Covid for the cheap living, but keeping their job in San Francisco.

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Uh, exactly.

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Um, and that, that was the only part of the departure.

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When you look at other continents, where you look at Asia Pacific, for example, where the kind of the breakdown, economic reduction of the.

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Ancy of nationalism mm-hmm.

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Has led to the greater mobility of people.

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You look at Europe where the European unification process and the European Union has fostered, it's not just European.

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Yeah.

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It adds a lot of liquidity to their opportunities.

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Bingo.

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Exactly.

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But it's also liquidity to ability to move.

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Mm-hmm.

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She zone the polls all go to Germany for college.

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Correct?

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Correct.

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And I remember I was in European Union at the time, living, um, when Poland became the part of the European Union and the debate that was happening right before, before that session, uh, before 2004, where the people from those countries come in should be allowed all of the rights of working privileges, ability to, you know, access social welfare nets and supports and healthcare supports and things like that.

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And I was at the front of that debate as well in Ireland, where we were kind of caught in between, uh, as a society In the end, Ireland made that decision that people coming into European Union should have immediate to all of the benefits of being a part of the European Union.

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It Great.

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Gave a huge boost to Irish economy.

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Sure.

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And you had so much skills coming into the country.

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So much.

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Oh, their standard of living has like Yeah, crazy.

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Exactly.

00:14:20.068 --> 00:14:21.778
Increase of course, 30 year period.

00:14:22.198 --> 00:14:22.798
That's true.

00:14:22.798 --> 00:14:24.614
But that was, you know, but they were super poor before that.

00:14:24.688 --> 00:14:27.958
There's a lot of, there, there's a lot of changes that have happened before.

00:14:27.958 --> 00:14:36.389
So the ES of 2004 and subsequent additions to the European Union and the mobility within the European Union has benefited Ireland beyond any belief.

00:14:36.964 --> 00:14:37.594
Any belief.

00:14:37.653 --> 00:14:37.923
Yeah.

00:14:37.984 --> 00:14:49.563
When you look at actually microcosm of Colorado, in a way, the history of Colorado compared to, say, for example, the history of Wyoming, um, is indicative of exactly the same dynamics you have.

00:14:49.984 --> 00:14:56.403
Colorado has always been more open to the economic development, to the mobility of people, more welcoming to people coming in.

00:14:56.403 --> 00:14:56.404
Yeah.

00:14:56.409 --> 00:14:57.693
Well, the weather's way nicer building here.

00:14:57.994 --> 00:14:58.443
Well, yeah.

00:14:58.443 --> 00:14:59.224
Mountains are better.

00:14:59.224 --> 00:15:01.354
And I look, don't, you know, fly fishing is better.

00:15:01.594 --> 00:15:02.673
I can talk about that.

00:15:02.673 --> 00:15:02.974
Yes.

00:15:02.974 --> 00:15:04.864
That's, there's a reason I live in Colorado as well.

00:15:04.864 --> 00:15:05.104
Yes.

00:15:05.433 --> 00:15:12.033
Um, but beyond everything else, there's one thing that you want, you want people to come in on the basis of the merit selection.

00:15:12.063 --> 00:15:12.153
Mm-hmm.

00:15:12.484 --> 00:15:14.854
You want people to come in to pursue the dream.

00:15:15.303 --> 00:15:20.403
You want people to come in to build their own, build new things, add value.

00:15:20.943 --> 00:15:20.974
Okay.

00:15:20.979 --> 00:15:20.999
Yeah.

00:15:21.153 --> 00:15:21.333
Yeah.

00:15:21.333 --> 00:15:24.453
And we've benefited through that in Colorado's history in the past.

00:15:24.964 --> 00:15:28.953
It's changing today's migration in the last probably say three to four years.

00:15:28.984 --> 00:15:29.104
Mm-hmm.

00:15:29.344 --> 00:15:30.484
We can see the pivotal change.

00:15:30.484 --> 00:15:33.453
We have more over all the community coming in.

00:15:33.458 --> 00:15:33.528
Mm-hmm.

00:15:33.783 --> 00:15:36.514
The younger community has been pushed out to the east.

00:15:36.933 --> 00:15:40.803
Um, and problem people's kids have moved here from California.

00:15:40.833 --> 00:15:41.014
Yes.

00:15:41.014 --> 00:15:42.364
And now they have kids of their own.

00:15:42.364 --> 00:15:44.528
So the grandparents moved here from That's okay.

00:15:44.769 --> 00:15:44.849
Whatever.

00:15:44.854 --> 00:15:45.724
That's not the problem.

00:15:45.813 --> 00:15:49.653
The problem becomes when the people's kids start moving out of Colorado.

00:15:49.683 --> 00:15:50.014
Mm-hmm.

00:15:50.288 --> 00:15:50.553
I see.

00:15:50.764 --> 00:15:52.953
And that is something that we're witnessing today.

00:15:52.953 --> 00:15:53.943
It's already starting.

00:15:53.943 --> 00:15:54.214
Okay.

00:15:54.214 --> 00:15:55.234
We already have it.

00:15:55.234 --> 00:16:01.969
Say for example, PSD school district there reductions in terms of the kids enrolls, you know, they overestimated the impact.

00:16:01.969 --> 00:16:02.464
They kind of.

00:16:02.528 --> 00:16:05.048
Got too cautious in their own planet.

00:16:05.109 --> 00:16:08.469
So that's a little bit of a correction there, but you can see that trend happening.

00:16:08.649 --> 00:16:18.639
The problem when that is repeated, when that process continues over, say decade plus, we going to where risk can get to the point like the rest of the United States that we become ossified.

00:16:18.759 --> 00:16:19.058
Yeah.

00:16:19.599 --> 00:16:25.089
And when you become ossified, you become less and as competitive and measuring that is hard.

00:16:25.298 --> 00:16:26.708
Measuring the competitiveness is hard.

00:16:26.708 --> 00:16:28.899
What is Colorado doing wrong, if I may interject?

00:16:28.958 --> 00:16:30.729
Oh, oh, well, I mean, uh, okay.

00:16:30.729 --> 00:16:32.254
Or is it just running out momentum?

00:16:32.254 --> 00:16:39.639
I it's not so much, I know, I don't think it's so much as something that is what Colorado is doing wrong, but rather from my perspective, what Colorado is not doing.

00:16:40.149 --> 00:16:42.969
So we were driving from Salt Lake City this weekend.

00:16:42.999 --> 00:16:43.089
Mm-hmm.

00:16:43.089 --> 00:16:44.048
It's a long drive.

00:16:44.053 --> 00:16:44.293
Yeah.

00:16:44.349 --> 00:16:44.649
Yeah.

00:16:44.798 --> 00:16:46.538
Should have been listening to the Local Experience podcast.

00:16:46.538 --> 00:16:51.249
Well, you know, it's kind of my, you know, my better half is kind of my local experience podcast.

00:16:51.399 --> 00:16:52.693
So two of us were talking about this.

00:16:52.693 --> 00:16:53.139
She keeps you busy.

00:16:53.589 --> 00:16:57.129
Um, we were talking exactly about this and she's a professional in marketing.

00:16:57.219 --> 00:17:01.389
Um, you know, she does strategical marketing advisory in the beverages industry.

00:17:01.479 --> 00:17:01.719
Okay.

00:17:01.778 --> 00:17:07.509
And so the two of us were talking about this, I'm a big fan of organic local growth.

00:17:08.499 --> 00:17:20.949
What we mean by this is that it is growth, which starts on the basis of the demand locally, and it organically finances itself instead of attracting high speed growth rates.

00:17:20.979 --> 00:17:21.128
Yeah.

00:17:21.219 --> 00:17:29.138
By bringing in cap capital from the outside, it organically gradually grows, but it grows at fast enough rates to actually.

00:17:29.568 --> 00:17:32.989
Escape the velocity or escape the pool or the gravity rather.

00:17:32.989 --> 00:17:33.078
Mm-hmm.

00:17:33.318 --> 00:17:37.699
To gain escape velocity, to escape that gravity of the immediate local market.

00:17:37.703 --> 00:17:37.953
Yeah.

00:17:38.179 --> 00:17:38.479
Yeah.

00:17:38.598 --> 00:17:49.969
And what I think of Colorado is not doing enough, is that it is not creating the momentum in the core sectors where we can be super competitive and super innovative.

00:17:50.598 --> 00:17:52.848
Um, and I'll mention those sectors that I think, you know, please.

00:17:53.058 --> 00:17:53.209
Yeah.

00:17:53.479 --> 00:18:01.009
Um, in terms of growing internal, local talent and in turn local, um, enterprise.

00:18:01.068 --> 00:18:01.278
Yeah.

00:18:01.519 --> 00:18:04.308
Whether it is for profit enterprise, for non-profit enterprise.

00:18:04.878 --> 00:18:08.808
So the sectors, I mean, I actually AgriFood it's very important.

00:18:08.989 --> 00:18:13.189
High value added tremendously, big universe of AgriFood.

00:18:13.189 --> 00:18:16.818
We think of AgriFood as farmers, but it isn't, it's not just farmers.

00:18:16.818 --> 00:18:18.288
It's, its a processing of food.

00:18:18.439 --> 00:18:18.648
Yeah.

00:18:18.739 --> 00:18:21.709
It's the creation of new types of food.

00:18:21.769 --> 00:18:24.288
It is also research and development.

00:18:24.828 --> 00:18:28.368
It's associated marketing, it's associated biotech.

00:18:28.548 --> 00:18:28.699
Yeah.

00:18:28.729 --> 00:18:36.078
You start going through the lines of enterprises and areas that support the proper AgriFood sector.

00:18:36.618 --> 00:18:39.979
Again, I fall back on Ireland because I spent 16 years there.

00:18:40.159 --> 00:18:41.028
Great example.

00:18:41.209 --> 00:18:52.608
High value added agriculture, high value added food production, the country, which started with having effectively no cuisine of its own to be in a heavyweight in global markets.

00:18:52.608 --> 00:18:56.179
You can buy Irish AgriFood products today in the shelves.

00:18:56.463 --> 00:18:57.933
In the, in Colorado.

00:18:57.963 --> 00:18:58.294
That's it.

00:18:58.294 --> 00:19:00.423
You can't buy Colorado goods out there.

00:19:00.634 --> 00:19:01.594
Yeah, that's the problem.

00:19:01.653 --> 00:19:03.544
Okay, so that's one stepping stone.

00:19:03.544 --> 00:19:05.403
But there is other associated sectors.

00:19:05.403 --> 00:19:07.324
So for example then food retailing.

00:19:07.354 --> 00:19:07.594
Right.

00:19:07.713 --> 00:19:09.663
And transportation restaurants.

00:19:09.903 --> 00:19:10.023
Yeah.

00:19:10.023 --> 00:19:10.473
Okay.

00:19:10.773 --> 00:19:11.644
Transportation.

00:19:11.644 --> 00:19:12.723
You right, completely.

00:19:12.874 --> 00:19:14.374
There's associated things with that.

00:19:14.374 --> 00:19:15.094
Hospitality.

00:19:15.094 --> 00:19:15.153
Yeah.

00:19:16.179 --> 00:19:17.219
Entertainment sector.

00:19:17.223 --> 00:19:17.973
Okay.

00:19:19.023 --> 00:19:24.394
Integrating our natural assets such as mountains, for example.

00:19:24.423 --> 00:19:24.693
Yes.

00:19:24.933 --> 00:19:25.023
Mm-hmm.

00:19:25.263 --> 00:19:31.864
And everything that goes with it together with the food sector, with the drink sector, which we have very healthy in terms of beers.

00:19:31.864 --> 00:19:32.614
Mm-hmm.

00:19:32.615 --> 00:19:39.423
We are, we have a very nation weak, but trying to rise wine production sector, which is very interestinghmm.

00:19:39.844 --> 00:19:41.013
I'm fascinated by that.

00:19:41.013 --> 00:19:50.074
And again, because of my better half, I am blessed to be able to go to the Governor's cup, love and enjoy and meet people who are passionate, who are great.

00:19:50.074 --> 00:20:01.923
They're trying, they at the very beginning compared to, say for example, the French Italians, you know, the Californians, they're not there, but can they get to that level?

00:20:01.953 --> 00:20:02.523
Yeah, they can.

00:20:03.034 --> 00:20:05.433
Because they have passion, because they have talent.

00:20:05.463 --> 00:20:05.824
Yeah.

00:20:05.824 --> 00:20:05.825
Yeah.

00:20:05.884 --> 00:20:07.294
It will take generations.

00:20:07.503 --> 00:20:12.993
So supporting this type of the organic development, organic growth that starts small, starts locally anchored.

00:20:12.993 --> 00:20:13.144
Mm-hmm.

00:20:13.443 --> 00:20:15.273
You travel to somewhere.

00:20:15.663 --> 00:20:17.463
There, you know, there's couple places.

00:20:17.463 --> 00:20:17.464
Yeah.

00:20:17.464 --> 00:20:17.949
Those wine reasons, Palisade.

00:20:17.949 --> 00:20:18.068
Exactly.

00:20:18.068 --> 00:20:21.453
They weren't selling anything outside of Colorado 10, 15 years ago mostly.

00:20:21.483 --> 00:20:22.144
And that's fine.

00:20:22.324 --> 00:20:23.044
Yeah, that's fine.

00:20:23.044 --> 00:20:30.034
But now they are let people come in here and that's how a lot of, for example, if you take big production regions, like say Pa Robles in California.

00:20:30.993 --> 00:20:31.114
Mm-hmm.

00:20:31.115 --> 00:20:40.624
Pa Robles started by selling grapes to Napa and to Sonoma producers because they could grow great grapes, but they couldn't make great wine necessarily.

00:20:40.653 --> 00:20:40.743
Mm-hmm.

00:20:40.983 --> 00:20:41.884
Though, right.

00:20:41.973 --> 00:20:48.784
A joint in Pastor Robles is Shalon, you know, which was a part of the, you know, um, challenge of the, of Paris, you know?

00:20:48.788 --> 00:20:48.949
Okay.

00:20:49.084 --> 00:20:53.943
Um, you know, of course, you know, so you have kind of some individual producers like that.

00:20:54.739 --> 00:20:57.888
But by growing grapes, they started acquiring the expertise.

00:20:58.128 --> 00:21:02.719
So by, I would say eighties, they start getting to production of their own wine.

00:21:03.199 --> 00:21:04.939
They start with small volumes.

00:21:05.148 --> 00:21:09.949
They start organically selling it at the vineyards and to their own clients lists.

00:21:10.249 --> 00:21:12.229
You had to travel there to discover them.

00:21:12.229 --> 00:21:14.628
Once you traveled and discover them, you became the customer.

00:21:14.689 --> 00:21:16.189
The word of mouth and things like that.

00:21:16.193 --> 00:21:16.284
Mm-hmm.

00:21:16.638 --> 00:21:19.459
It's now a multi-billion dollar industry there.

00:21:19.519 --> 00:21:19.638
Mm.

00:21:19.669 --> 00:21:24.348
It is a rival to the major producers like Monterey, for example, and Central Coast.

00:21:24.648 --> 00:21:28.939
It is the, certainly has beat, you know, I think Santa Barbara area.

00:21:29.058 --> 00:21:29.148
Okay.

00:21:29.298 --> 00:21:33.739
Um, and it is kind of the third largest producer on the west coast.

00:21:33.739 --> 00:21:33.828
Yes.

00:21:33.828 --> 00:21:33.888
Yeah.

00:21:33.888 --> 00:21:34.098
That's neat.

00:21:34.308 --> 00:21:36.199
But it's also the quality of the production.

00:21:36.318 --> 00:21:39.469
So for example, if you think about kind of the scale of things.

00:21:39.469 --> 00:21:39.739
Yes.

00:21:40.098 --> 00:21:47.838
Uh, back in the 1970s, you would buy maybe a vineyard or 1980s, uh, a vineyard there for 3 million,$4 million.

00:21:47.959 --> 00:21:48.199
Okay.

00:21:48.648 --> 00:21:54.439
Uh, I think last year there was a, Dow Brothers sold the vineyard for$900 million.

00:21:54.618 --> 00:21:54.648
Oh.

00:21:55.278 --> 00:21:57.679
And it's not a huge vineyard and you can't even get one for 20 million.

00:21:57.993 --> 00:21:59.193
No, no, I mean, no, no.

00:21:59.193 --> 00:21:59.554
Forget it.

00:21:59.558 --> 00:22:01.923
50, 1500 you might get like a backyard for 20 million.

00:22:02.074 --> 00:22:02.493
You know?

00:22:02.794 --> 00:22:06.394
I mean, you might park the tractor, you know, half an acre.

00:22:06.483 --> 00:22:07.473
Yeah, exactly.

00:22:07.473 --> 00:22:07.834
Okay.

00:22:08.074 --> 00:22:16.324
So it's not, Dow Brothers is not a very big, huge kind of buy if you want footprint, but you can buy their stuff everywhere.

00:22:16.354 --> 00:22:18.153
And it is a high end wine.

00:22:18.153 --> 00:22:19.594
It is a high quality wine.

00:22:19.834 --> 00:22:22.473
It's a rival to the big European producers can.

00:22:22.653 --> 00:22:23.854
Is there that much margin in it?

00:22:24.034 --> 00:22:29.749
I guess if you got the really good reputation, it doesn't cost that much more economic, more economics of wine making a very, kind of very complicated, right.

00:22:29.749 --> 00:22:32.338
If you can sell it for 200 bucks a bottle as well, you know, that does a lot of margin.

00:22:32.558 --> 00:22:36.364
You can produce some things for 200, uh, dollars a bottle.

00:22:36.693 --> 00:22:42.933
I think the kind of the bulk of it would be in a 50 60 territory, which is sufficient enough margin, you know?

00:22:42.933 --> 00:22:43.298
Yeah, yeah.

00:22:43.473 --> 00:22:48.364
Um, but it is also, a lot of that is based on auxiliary additional sales.

00:22:48.364 --> 00:22:48.453
Sure.

00:22:48.663 --> 00:22:51.364
You know, beyond wine, there is events and things like that as well.

00:22:51.753 --> 00:22:54.513
Um, a lot of it is based on a brand reputation.

00:22:54.903 --> 00:22:56.493
Uh, brand reputation is important.

00:22:56.493 --> 00:22:57.933
Brand capital is super important.

00:22:57.933 --> 00:23:03.094
In finance, for example, we have difficulty valuing those things because we always need to attach the dollar amount.

00:23:03.153 --> 00:23:03.243
Mm-hmm.

00:23:03.544 --> 00:23:06.183
Uh, that's something that I love working with my students.

00:23:06.513 --> 00:23:12.993
You know, own and give them the appreciation and understanding of how complex the forms of capital we really face today.

00:23:13.144 --> 00:23:13.203
Yeah.

00:23:13.203 --> 00:23:14.644
It isn't just about a loan.

00:23:14.913 --> 00:23:18.243
It is about what is the underlying asset supporting network loan.

00:23:18.243 --> 00:23:18.334
Yeah.

00:23:18.394 --> 00:23:19.354
What are you acquiring?

00:23:19.713 --> 00:23:23.284
We used to think in terms of buildings, we used to think in terms of machinery and equipment.

00:23:23.284 --> 00:23:23.584
Sure.

00:23:23.824 --> 00:23:24.513
Not really.

00:23:24.513 --> 00:23:29.163
We now think in terms of the brands, we now think in terms of the access to the capital.

00:23:29.163 --> 00:23:30.094
Think of Nvidia.

00:23:30.094 --> 00:23:30.423
Yes.

00:23:30.429 --> 00:23:30.993
Yeah, yeah.

00:23:31.054 --> 00:23:32.253
Nvidia is a great example.

00:23:32.284 --> 00:23:33.213
Doesn't have factories.

00:23:33.784 --> 00:23:34.023
Yeah.

00:23:34.864 --> 00:23:36.483
It's entire value.

00:23:36.489 --> 00:23:42.034
Contractors is in its own designs, in its own patents, its own intellectual property.

00:23:42.784 --> 00:23:43.713
You can't touch that.

00:23:44.163 --> 00:23:44.493
Right.

00:23:44.884 --> 00:23:49.624
You can't really physically move it from one file to another file.

00:23:49.713 --> 00:23:49.773
Yeah.

00:23:49.773 --> 00:23:51.844
From one side of the room to another side of the room.

00:23:52.054 --> 00:23:57.124
You can ship it though across the borders, and you can find locations in domiciles for it.

00:23:57.124 --> 00:23:59.134
Where you would extract the greatest value.

00:23:59.644 --> 00:24:08.763
And again, you know, you think of, say for example, Ireland, Holland, Denmark, these are big traditional locations for the offshore and domicile of intellectual property.

00:24:08.763 --> 00:24:08.854
Mm-hmm.

00:24:09.334 --> 00:24:12.513
They hold vast amounts of intellectual property for pharmaceutical companies.

00:24:12.723 --> 00:24:13.023
Sure.

00:24:13.023 --> 00:24:16.324
For the companies like Nvidia, for other tech companies and so forth.

00:24:17.074 --> 00:24:29.838
I mean, Colorado, actually, by the way, when going now, from the hospitality sector, from things that we kind of think of traditionally, oh, this is just past services, which is not true, should not be seen as such because it is high value added service.

00:24:30.169 --> 00:24:34.038
It can be high, not just high margin, but also significant volume.

00:24:34.038 --> 00:24:37.098
So the revenue streams from it can be significant employment effects.

00:24:37.338 --> 00:24:45.828
We can go also to the more modern economy and we can look at where Colorado is really successful and so far has been competitive, but it's been pressured.

00:24:46.009 --> 00:24:46.159
Mm.

00:24:46.189 --> 00:24:47.328
Airspace, for example.

00:24:47.328 --> 00:24:48.469
Mm-hmm.

00:24:48.470 --> 00:24:48.471
Okay.

00:24:48.471 --> 00:24:51.169
Um, in the aerospace area, we're competing with the likes of Texas.

00:24:51.169 --> 00:24:57.858
We're competing with the likes of, say, California, how we're going to compete when the scale in those two locations alone.

00:24:57.888 --> 00:25:04.009
And then of course we also have the Washington State of Washington where the scale there is so much greater, bigger Right.

00:25:04.038 --> 00:25:04.999
Than it is in Colorado.

00:25:04.999 --> 00:25:07.368
And that gravity just kind of draws those Exactly.

00:25:07.368 --> 00:25:08.598
Smart people to that place.

00:25:08.719 --> 00:25:09.318
Yes.

00:25:09.499 --> 00:25:10.308
Partly that's true.

00:25:10.308 --> 00:25:12.229
And they also have policies to do so.

00:25:12.288 --> 00:25:14.269
Well, California, less so Texas now.

00:25:14.269 --> 00:25:19.489
Much more so of course, you know, we have Georgia for example, which is trying to incentivize that Alabama.

00:25:19.818 --> 00:25:19.939
Yeah.

00:25:19.939 --> 00:25:23.419
You know, you have, there's a heat and competition Yeah.

00:25:23.419 --> 00:25:24.858
Around the United States.

00:25:24.858 --> 00:25:26.088
Well, like I just came back from Hollywood.

00:25:26.088 --> 00:25:29.659
I was in Orange County over the weekend and we went up to Hollywood for the, or LA for the day.

00:25:29.659 --> 00:25:29.749
Yep.

00:25:29.778 --> 00:25:32.628
And walked the, the, the boardwalk there and stuff.

00:25:32.628 --> 00:25:34.999
And it was like, just thinking about how.

00:25:35.959 --> 00:25:39.048
Hollywood can keep its mojo at this point in time.

00:25:39.048 --> 00:25:46.338
You know, you got states like Georgia states, like Montana and Idaho bidding to have films and crews there.

00:25:46.548 --> 00:25:52.818
Their actors are a lot cheaper and a lot more eager to sign on for nondescript roles and stuff.

00:25:52.818 --> 00:25:57.108
And so the, the monopoly of Hollywood is, seems like it's at least being threatened.

00:25:57.169 --> 00:25:58.999
Hollywood doesn't make money by shooting movies.

00:25:59.118 --> 00:25:59.419
Right.

00:25:59.479 --> 00:26:03.679
I mean, Hollywood makes money by having intellectual property in those movies.

00:26:03.739 --> 00:26:03.888
Mm.

00:26:03.919 --> 00:26:06.919
This is why Hollywood doesn't make movies inside Hollywood anymore.

00:26:06.949 --> 00:26:07.909
They're all over the place.

00:26:08.148 --> 00:26:16.969
From our point of view though, it's really great to see that finally we're starting to recognize that the idea that we have the Rocky Mountains in the movie, but it's really in Canada film.

00:26:16.973 --> 00:26:17.568
Right, right.

00:26:17.568 --> 00:26:19.459
It's really something fundamentally screwed up.

00:26:19.459 --> 00:26:19.788
Yes.

00:26:19.999 --> 00:26:28.608
So I'm really glad that we're bringing, trying to bring more and more incentives, more proactive incentives in terms of supporting film production here in Colorado.

00:26:28.878 --> 00:26:34.969
Again, a great sector which can be again scaled if you just a location for production, that's one thing.

00:26:34.969 --> 00:26:35.568
Fulfillment.

00:26:35.989 --> 00:26:37.338
You need to have production.

00:26:37.338 --> 00:26:38.239
You need to have studios.

00:26:38.239 --> 00:26:39.169
You need to have compute.

00:26:39.409 --> 00:26:39.888
Compute.

00:26:40.219 --> 00:26:40.939
People know how to do that.

00:26:40.939 --> 00:26:41.388
Facilit.

00:26:41.959 --> 00:26:42.409
Correct.

00:26:42.409 --> 00:26:43.459
You need to have talent.

00:26:43.638 --> 00:26:45.318
We have computational facilities.

00:26:45.499 --> 00:26:47.358
We have ability to bring more of those.

00:26:47.358 --> 00:26:49.489
So for example, things like data centers.

00:26:49.548 --> 00:26:51.828
Data centers, we always think of, Hey, that's it.

00:26:51.858 --> 00:26:52.338
Yes.

00:26:52.489 --> 00:26:54.618
But without data centers, you cannot have processing.

00:26:55.023 --> 00:26:55.324
Yeah.

00:26:55.413 --> 00:27:01.683
Shipping it, sending it across the satellite networks is time consuming, lag dependent.

00:27:01.683 --> 00:27:01.773
Mm-hmm.

00:27:02.013 --> 00:27:02.733
And expensive.

00:27:03.064 --> 00:27:08.913
So having the support of the backbone of the infrastructure here probably is a good idea.

00:27:08.973 --> 00:27:13.683
And if you start with the, with that, you start going down, of course, how do we provide water for cooling?

00:27:13.804 --> 00:27:13.983
Mm-hmm.

00:27:14.223 --> 00:27:14.673
Okay.

00:27:14.913 --> 00:27:16.054
How do we provide energy?

00:27:16.653 --> 00:27:18.153
What sources of energy we're using?

00:27:18.153 --> 00:27:18.213
Yeah.

00:27:18.213 --> 00:27:19.144
What the cost of energy.

00:27:19.263 --> 00:27:25.773
So all of a sudden these traditional sectors were always thought of, Hey, you know, like this is a dirty industrial stuff behind the scenes.

00:27:25.773 --> 00:27:30.064
It becomes closely aligned with modern sectors of production and investment.

00:27:30.064 --> 00:27:30.364
Yes.

00:27:30.753 --> 00:27:35.253
So it is a part of the economic development that is very hard to crack.

00:27:35.673 --> 00:27:50.134
One of the things I've, uh, said a, a number of times over the last few years is that in, in these days, especially during like Covid, when they created so much money, you know, flooded the system almost with it to keep the liquidity going and whatever.

00:27:50.614 --> 00:27:54.963
But energy is more like money than money is like money anymore.

00:27:54.963 --> 00:27:59.884
Because you can't just print energy, you gotta pull it outta the ground or suck it outta the sun or whatever.

00:28:00.634 --> 00:28:10.114
And all those data centers and things like that, you know, computers sound nice and clean and stuff, and all the little stuff that happens behind the screen when I push buttons.

00:28:10.534 --> 00:28:16.263
But it's really, you know, a bunch of coal and natural gas mostly being burned so that those data centers can spin.

00:28:16.413 --> 00:28:16.894
Tremendous.

00:28:16.894 --> 00:28:17.584
Yes, absolutely.

00:28:17.584 --> 00:28:21.183
And the, uh, energy mix in, uh, here in Colorado is very problematic.

00:28:21.183 --> 00:28:21.453
Yes.

00:28:21.604 --> 00:28:23.013
Because of course, us using.

00:28:23.328 --> 00:28:27.888
To reduce the cost of energy using coal, um, is definitely questionable.

00:28:28.098 --> 00:28:32.959
We have natural gas, one of the very big producers, we should be using that.

00:28:32.959 --> 00:28:33.648
More of that.

00:28:34.098 --> 00:28:42.739
Um, there's a big concern from our point of view that the scale of the, say for example, AI quantum computing, um, and general computing as well.

00:28:42.798 --> 00:28:43.009
Mm-hmm.

00:28:43.249 --> 00:28:46.848
Uh, scale of use and demand for energy is so much higher Right.

00:28:46.848 --> 00:28:53.058
Than anything we have experienced before, that really you're looking at the base generation, which has to rely on nuclear.

00:28:53.328 --> 00:28:53.778
Mm-hmm.

00:28:54.019 --> 00:28:58.368
You can't use either fossils or intermittent, you know, kind of need to bring more base.

00:28:58.368 --> 00:29:02.628
You have to bring big base and you have to bring nuclear problem.

00:29:02.628 --> 00:29:04.788
From our perspective for nuclear is cooling.

00:29:05.148 --> 00:29:05.358
Yeah.

00:29:05.808 --> 00:29:10.459
And that is, but that is something that we are overcome as a technology develops.

00:29:10.459 --> 00:29:10.759
Yes.

00:29:10.969 --> 00:29:17.388
So, for example, things like small modular reactors, much less, uh, scaled, you know, cooling.

00:29:17.388 --> 00:29:20.479
Cooling, you can have coolant, which is based on the basically reservoir.

00:29:20.628 --> 00:29:20.808
Yeah.

00:29:20.808 --> 00:29:22.578
As opposed to the traditional cooling.

00:29:22.578 --> 00:29:27.584
You have to have a massive river or you have to have a massive supply of ocean water or something like that.

00:29:27.584 --> 00:29:28.189
Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

00:29:28.429 --> 00:29:31.128
So, um, that gives us a little bit of an advantage.

00:29:31.128 --> 00:29:32.719
So we should start thinking about.

00:29:33.243 --> 00:29:37.773
How do we integrate the modular reactors into the energy production and grid here?

00:29:38.403 --> 00:29:42.453
If you look for example, also at the other sources, like say water again.

00:29:42.574 --> 00:29:42.814
Yeah.

00:29:42.903 --> 00:29:51.544
We should start thinking more proactively how do we create the water sources and access to water and quality of water, which is filtering of course.

00:29:51.544 --> 00:29:55.173
And bringing it up to standards that can support modern technologies.

00:29:55.624 --> 00:30:01.743
For example, fab manufacturing for the processors, microprocessors chips and things like that.

00:30:01.743 --> 00:30:02.013
Yes.

00:30:02.344 --> 00:30:02.614
Yeah.

00:30:02.614 --> 00:30:03.608
It require a lot of equivalent.

00:30:03.608 --> 00:30:03.810
All of them.

00:30:04.054 --> 00:30:06.183
A lot of them are going into Arizona.

00:30:06.634 --> 00:30:06.814
Mm-hmm.

00:30:07.173 --> 00:30:08.163
Where there is no water.

00:30:08.403 --> 00:30:08.644
Yeah.

00:30:09.364 --> 00:30:09.423
Why?

00:30:09.423 --> 00:30:18.423
Well, I mean because of the incentives, they have very strong incentives and because they now have developed the processes where it's almost like sealed loop use of water.

00:30:18.429 --> 00:30:18.648
Okay.

00:30:18.648 --> 00:30:20.794
So you do not have to rely on a continuous.

00:30:20.943 --> 00:30:25.653
Well, and I suppose evaporative cooling is actually pretty efficient there when it's a hundred degrees and Exactly 6% relative.

00:30:26.253 --> 00:30:28.773
So we should be at that race as well.

00:30:28.773 --> 00:30:30.483
We should be at those games as well.

00:30:30.544 --> 00:30:33.723
We got the quantum computing corridor here, which is awesome.

00:30:33.963 --> 00:30:35.044
Which is great to have.

00:30:35.044 --> 00:30:36.213
Okay, great.

00:30:36.213 --> 00:30:39.273
Win to the governor, great win to the people in Denver.

00:30:39.874 --> 00:30:40.503
Fantastic.

00:30:40.503 --> 00:30:49.894
But we now need to branch out of it to provide the support for computational facilities, for not just quantum computing, but all of their a joining and related industries.

00:30:49.898 --> 00:30:49.969
Yeah.

00:30:50.104 --> 00:30:50.223
Yeah.

00:30:50.253 --> 00:30:53.223
So you can see how many opportunities we have.

00:30:53.374 --> 00:30:53.523
Yeah.

00:30:54.183 --> 00:30:57.094
Exploring those opportunities is, we're blessed with them.

00:30:57.183 --> 00:30:57.544
Okay.

00:30:57.663 --> 00:31:02.463
Exploring those opportunities requires certain way of changing the way we do things.

00:31:02.778 --> 00:31:10.068
One of the things that I observed here, and I observed that on the relationship between, say, for example, within the northern Colorado, between the cities mm-hmm.

00:31:10.308 --> 00:31:11.358
Within the northern Colorado.

00:31:11.568 --> 00:31:11.628
Yeah.

00:31:11.808 --> 00:31:24.769
Um, we were exploring a possibility of getting an NSF grant, uh, to support the kind of ideation stage of the policy formation for the integrated development of infrastructure systems within the northern Colorado.

00:31:24.858 --> 00:31:25.098
Yeah.

00:31:25.638 --> 00:31:31.519
And, uh, the whole thing came to a screeching halt because the different cities don't wanna talk to each other.

00:31:32.808 --> 00:31:35.989
It's almost like we want to build our own little empire.

00:31:35.989 --> 00:31:36.048
Yeah.

00:31:36.048 --> 00:31:45.203
And then the little empire becomes, I used kind of the example of Pueblo, uh, used to be a larger city in Colorado is Colorado, is that right?

00:31:45.203 --> 00:31:48.769
Yeah, it was, it was actually bigger before than, um, Colorado Springs.

00:31:48.949 --> 00:31:49.489
Is that right?

00:31:49.489 --> 00:31:50.239
Yeah, that's right.

00:31:50.509 --> 00:31:58.483
Um, and it kind of decayed over a period of time due to internal and external neglect effectively.

00:31:58.699 --> 00:31:58.969
Okay.

00:31:59.328 --> 00:32:01.159
It became a kind of, you know.

00:32:01.173 --> 00:32:04.743
Uh, kind of a spot for high unemployment, for example.

00:32:04.743 --> 00:32:04.923
Yeah.

00:32:05.374 --> 00:32:12.723
Um, it also became a city where there was much less of the different diverse development in terms of the economic development.

00:32:12.723 --> 00:32:12.844
Yep.

00:32:13.324 --> 00:32:18.753
Um, more linked to the combination of the kind of, you know, traditional sectors.

00:32:18.903 --> 00:32:18.993
Mm-hmm.

00:32:19.324 --> 00:32:22.054
And then the Colorado Springs took the wind out of it completely.

00:32:22.058 --> 00:32:22.804
Right, right.

00:32:22.804 --> 00:32:22.834
Okay.

00:32:23.134 --> 00:32:27.034
So, well, and do you think being closer to Denver helped Colorado Springs anyway?

00:32:27.094 --> 00:32:27.844
Of course it does.

00:32:27.903 --> 00:32:28.114
Yeah.

00:32:28.144 --> 00:32:30.663
Beyond the doubts, but can you pair that?

00:32:30.663 --> 00:32:32.763
Can you respond to that?

00:32:33.544 --> 00:32:33.663
Yeah.

00:32:33.663 --> 00:32:40.114
Through the more coordinated, I wasn't actually suggesting that Puebla should have competed with Colorado Springs directly.

00:32:40.564 --> 00:32:44.104
I'm saying Colorado Springs and Pueblo should have cooperated more.

00:32:44.733 --> 00:32:44.854
Mm.

00:32:44.913 --> 00:32:49.923
We are beyond that kind of economy where you can have a very competitive, adversarial relationship.

00:32:50.044 --> 00:32:50.253
Yeah.

00:32:50.763 --> 00:32:57.604
It is more about the economy, where you have to find mutual ways to build added value, create added value.

00:32:57.844 --> 00:33:09.693
So my argument has been, for example, that in order for the northern Colorado to thrive and survive into the next, say couple of decades if not longer, beyond that, we have to compete with Denver.

00:33:09.693 --> 00:33:11.824
We have to compete with Denver Boulder corridor.

00:33:11.884 --> 00:33:12.094
Yeah.

00:33:12.243 --> 00:33:17.973
In order to do so, we can afford not to cooperate across the border with Cheyenne.

00:33:17.979 --> 00:33:18.189
Mm-hmm.

00:33:18.453 --> 00:33:24.153
We cannot afford not to cooperate with the likes of, between the Fort Collins, Greeley, and Loveland.

00:33:24.394 --> 00:33:24.723
Okay.

00:33:25.054 --> 00:33:30.094
And we need to start building concerted cooperative channels of infrastructure.

00:33:30.394 --> 00:33:32.673
Transport, infrastructure, roads, infrastructure.

00:33:32.673 --> 00:33:33.064
Sure.

00:33:33.334 --> 00:33:33.544
Yeah.

00:33:33.574 --> 00:33:33.784
Okay.

00:33:33.963 --> 00:33:41.493
But also energy infrastructure, water infrastructure, and also intellectual property infrastructure, intellectual mobility, infrastructure.

00:33:41.733 --> 00:33:41.763
Mm.

00:33:41.824 --> 00:33:45.604
We need to have a high quality connectivity between the different areas.

00:33:45.844 --> 00:33:55.503
We need to have the interlinked and coordinated policies between the universities here, community colleges here, all the way down to middle schools.

00:33:55.648 --> 00:33:55.729
Hmm.

00:33:56.493 --> 00:34:02.253
We need to have, we need to stop building little empires and start focusing on the region.

00:34:02.259 --> 00:34:02.328
Yeah.

00:34:02.344 --> 00:34:02.554
Yeah.

00:34:02.614 --> 00:34:13.563
Overall, I think the, my sense is that the chambers of commerce like each other quite a bit within those three cities, but that the, the city, the government authorities are a little different game in some ways.

00:34:13.563 --> 00:34:14.103
It's very interesting.

00:34:14.103 --> 00:34:14.373
Yeah.

00:34:14.373 --> 00:34:20.974
I kind of, I get that feeling that there is a bit more cooperation when you start talking to, say, for example, people responsible for economic policy.

00:34:21.153 --> 00:34:21.454
Yeah.

00:34:21.753 --> 00:34:29.523
But that's because in every textbook they know cooperative game comes zero with a better outcome than non-cooperative game.

00:34:29.583 --> 00:34:29.884
Fair enough.

00:34:29.884 --> 00:34:29.885
Yes.

00:34:29.889 --> 00:34:30.128
Fair enough.

00:34:30.184 --> 00:34:31.983
I mean, you don't want to have prisoners dilemma.

00:34:31.983 --> 00:34:32.224
Yes.

00:34:32.583 --> 00:34:38.344
And we have enough common, if you want vocabulary to kind of say, yeah, we don't, we know what prisoner's dilemma leads to.

00:34:38.463 --> 00:34:38.704
Yeah.

00:34:38.708 --> 00:34:39.608
We rise together.

00:34:39.608 --> 00:34:39.768
Yeah.

00:34:39.844 --> 00:34:51.184
But when you take politicians today, and this is very interesting, I think it's very astute observation because I think it also is the mark of our times, which you are putting your finger on, is exactly that, that politicization that we have.

00:34:51.304 --> 00:34:51.603
Yeah.

00:34:51.693 --> 00:34:59.974
In a policy spectrum comes from the political spectrum polarization and the political spectrum polarization is evident all the way to the Washington dc.

00:35:00.634 --> 00:35:03.304
How much cooperation does the Congress today achieve?

00:35:04.233 --> 00:35:05.103
Almost zero.

00:35:05.253 --> 00:35:05.824
Exactly.

00:35:05.824 --> 00:35:19.173
When you go back in history, has there been a transformational president in the United States history who has not become transformational president by achieving consensus and achieving the, you know, or leading the majority within Congress?

00:35:19.179 --> 00:35:19.208
Yeah.

00:35:19.264 --> 00:35:19.384
Yeah.

00:35:19.384 --> 00:35:19.923
Of course not.

00:35:20.134 --> 00:35:20.764
Would think not.

00:35:20.764 --> 00:35:21.514
Yeah, exactly.

00:35:21.873 --> 00:35:27.364
So we can't do anything because we have these kind of politics of extreme polarization.

00:35:27.393 --> 00:35:27.724
Yeah.

00:35:27.813 --> 00:35:28.114
Yeah.

00:35:28.744 --> 00:35:34.143
Um, I want to, we've spent a fair bit of time on Northern Colorado, which has been super interesting, but Cool.

00:35:34.173 --> 00:35:35.523
I wanna zoom up a little bit.

00:35:35.523 --> 00:35:35.554
Okay.

00:35:36.063 --> 00:35:45.634
Um, your, your LinkedIn profile suggests you're kind of an expert in, uh, Russian and Irish economic factors and things.

00:35:45.634 --> 00:35:53.344
And like, I wanna talk about like financing war, financing economies.

00:35:53.434 --> 00:36:05.313
Um, you know, part of what I've said, I'm an, uh, libertarian minded guy for a long time and, uh, one of Reagan's old quotes I think is, you know, tax what you want less of and subsidize what you want more of.

00:36:05.599 --> 00:36:08.494
And, and I generally abide by that notion.

00:36:08.494 --> 00:36:26.224
And so if we could get to a, a less, um, income tax financed economy, government function in the US and do so through some combination of tariffs and, uh, I've been a fan of the fair tax fair tax.org.

00:36:26.583 --> 00:36:26.793
Okay.

00:36:26.793 --> 00:36:32.494
Kinda a consumption tax'cause we kind of want less consumption anyway, according to all the, you know, the climate.

00:36:32.989 --> 00:36:35.898
Uh, people and stuff like that.

00:36:35.898 --> 00:36:42.679
And so like, instead of trying to get people to hide their income or not make any income, like let's just tax consumption.

00:36:43.188 --> 00:36:43.579
Yeah.

00:36:43.579 --> 00:36:44.298
That's, you know.

00:36:44.298 --> 00:36:44.628
Okay.

00:36:44.628 --> 00:36:47.568
Look, there's a, there are different ways of taxation.

00:36:47.599 --> 00:36:49.909
There are different, uh, tools for taxation.

00:36:50.088 --> 00:36:54.648
Uh, it, some of it has been tried in different jurisdictions and generates different results.

00:36:54.918 --> 00:36:56.329
Consumption tax is very interesting.

00:36:56.329 --> 00:36:56.628
Yes.

00:36:56.958 --> 00:36:58.909
We have a sales tax in the United States.

00:36:58.909 --> 00:37:03.829
Sales tax is non-discriminatory in so far as it is applies to say, for example Yeah.

00:37:03.829 --> 00:37:05.268
Where you manufacture mm-hmm.

00:37:05.329 --> 00:37:06.588
The goods or services Yep.

00:37:06.739 --> 00:37:07.579
Where you produce them.

00:37:07.998 --> 00:37:12.108
Um, it is also non-discriminatory in so far as you know, which components you use.

00:37:12.679 --> 00:37:12.708
Okay.

00:37:12.713 --> 00:37:12.873
Mm-hmm.

00:37:12.878 --> 00:37:13.849
In the production.

00:37:13.849 --> 00:37:14.148
Yes.

00:37:14.478 --> 00:37:19.159
So it is more of a tax on the actual consumption rather than a tax on the value added.

00:37:19.489 --> 00:37:19.699
True.

00:37:19.759 --> 00:37:20.059
Okay.

00:37:20.478 --> 00:37:25.039
In the European Union, for example, in the rest of the world, it is mostly the value added tax.

00:37:25.039 --> 00:37:25.039
Mm-hmm.

00:37:25.114 --> 00:37:34.668
Which is again, not as discriminatory on the basis of where the things are made, but rather on the basis of who adds value pays the tax.

00:37:34.759 --> 00:37:34.998
Yes.

00:37:35.003 --> 00:37:35.114
Yeah.

00:37:35.568 --> 00:37:38.059
So there's a lot of interesting things which go with both of those.

00:37:38.179 --> 00:37:40.369
There's some advantages, disadvantages for those things.

00:37:40.458 --> 00:37:40.789
Okay.

00:37:40.818 --> 00:37:48.139
But when we go towards greater automation, when we go towards a greater contribution to, of technological capital in the production mm-hmm.

00:37:48.144 --> 00:37:50.179
And in the value added, you are right.

00:37:50.208 --> 00:37:55.278
We want to go away from the idea of income tax because income tax penalizes work.

00:37:55.608 --> 00:37:55.759
Yeah.

00:37:55.759 --> 00:37:56.268
By us.

00:37:56.389 --> 00:37:56.659
Yeah.

00:37:56.898 --> 00:37:59.478
Whether it's work when we invest in ourselves.

00:38:00.079 --> 00:38:05.929
Our parents invest in us by educating us, or it's a work that we pursue ourselves.

00:38:05.929 --> 00:38:05.989
Yeah.

00:38:05.989 --> 00:38:06.409
Turning or whatever.

00:38:07.639 --> 00:38:12.949
Or it is a physical work that we do, literally spending hours on the job doing whatever we do.

00:38:13.188 --> 00:38:13.489
Okay.

00:38:14.389 --> 00:38:18.048
It's, it's the effort which you actually want to reward rather than penalize.

00:38:18.079 --> 00:38:18.378
Yeah.

00:38:18.559 --> 00:38:23.449
So I would be all in favor of moving away from the income tax based economy.

00:38:23.719 --> 00:38:23.989
Okay.

00:38:24.588 --> 00:38:26.869
The United States is not quite an income tax based economy.

00:38:26.869 --> 00:38:28.278
It's mostly debt based economy.

00:38:28.278 --> 00:38:28.728
Right.

00:38:28.938 --> 00:38:31.369
So we're not taxing Yeah.

00:38:31.369 --> 00:38:32.748
Good thing we don't tax our people.

00:38:32.748 --> 00:38:40.068
What it takes takes, I would be in favor of shifting completely towards the consumption, taxes and wealth taxes and the reason why wealth taxes are important Okay.

00:38:40.123 --> 00:38:45.199
Is'cause you have to realize that a lot of wealth at the high level, not the level that you and I are familiar with.

00:38:45.588 --> 00:38:45.858
Okay.

00:38:45.918 --> 00:38:48.168
But at the level of say billionaires Yeah.

00:38:48.168 --> 00:38:50.869
And multimillionaires, a lot of that wealth is the income.

00:38:51.349 --> 00:38:53.298
These people don't need to pay income taxes at all.

00:38:53.298 --> 00:38:53.628
Right.

00:38:53.838 --> 00:38:56.478
Because they're living off or leveraging their wealth.

00:38:56.539 --> 00:38:56.929
Yeah.

00:38:56.934 --> 00:38:56.943
Okay.

00:38:57.318 --> 00:39:04.248
So we can introduce a tax on wealth, which is not prohibitive to the general upper middle class and below.

00:39:04.309 --> 00:39:04.398
Mm-hmm.

00:39:04.639 --> 00:39:05.748
Part of the population.

00:39:06.079 --> 00:39:07.818
We can tax the 1%.

00:39:07.818 --> 00:39:14.478
I'm not saying I'm not in a territory of the, you know, Sanders kill the rich, you know, Bernie Sanders or anything like that by any possible means.

00:39:14.478 --> 00:39:17.208
I come from the libertarian traditional thinking as well.

00:39:17.568 --> 00:39:20.148
Um, just like yourself, especially on economic side.

00:39:20.208 --> 00:39:26.268
I mean, you know, you know, have background studying under the, you know, university of Chicago School of Economics.

00:39:26.659 --> 00:39:27.018
Um.

00:39:27.648 --> 00:39:29.389
So I would be in favor of that.

00:39:29.568 --> 00:39:41.478
Let's also add to that another tax, which is, you know, I've done some work in an Irish context because it was a part of the International Monetary Fund, uh, review of the Irish taxation policies after the global financial crisis and so forth.

00:39:41.869 --> 00:39:43.608
And that's the tax on land.

00:39:44.148 --> 00:39:44.418
Hmm.

00:39:44.509 --> 00:39:46.728
Site value tax or land value tax.

00:39:46.728 --> 00:39:46.878
Mm-hmm.

00:39:47.268 --> 00:39:52.759
Practiced in some parts of, say for example, Pennsylvania in the United States, some other parts as well in the United States.

00:39:52.909 --> 00:39:56.449
You know, and it's a very kind, this is different than property tax.

00:39:56.449 --> 00:39:56.989
It's different.

00:39:57.048 --> 00:40:00.858
It is assessed against the value of the site on which the property sits.

00:40:00.858 --> 00:40:04.398
So you and I can make an effort for the land, not the improvement and improve the land.

00:40:04.608 --> 00:40:04.938
Okay.

00:40:04.998 --> 00:40:05.088
Mm-hmm.

00:40:05.329 --> 00:40:07.369
But our own improvements are not gonna be taxed.

00:40:07.489 --> 00:40:07.639
Hmm.

00:40:08.358 --> 00:40:19.219
What will be taxed if, say, for example, a local government decides to put a school nearby the, you know, nearby your site and that increases the value of the site without you doing it.

00:40:19.248 --> 00:40:19.518
Hmm.

00:40:19.998 --> 00:40:20.358
Interesting.

00:40:20.358 --> 00:40:22.489
That value then will be captured in the value of land.

00:40:22.579 --> 00:40:22.668
Sure.

00:40:22.998 --> 00:40:27.498
Not in the value of the structure that you have with the garden that you have there growing or whatever else.

00:40:27.498 --> 00:40:27.559
Yeah.

00:40:27.574 --> 00:40:27.693
Yeah.

00:40:27.768 --> 00:40:28.009
Okay.

00:40:28.429 --> 00:40:35.148
So alternatively, of course, what happens when the government decides to put a highway next to your, your house, right?

00:40:35.418 --> 00:40:41.239
In which case your value of the land drops and you get effectively partially compensated through the lower taxation.

00:40:41.298 --> 00:40:41.509
Yeah.

00:40:41.568 --> 00:40:42.018
Interesting.

00:40:42.228 --> 00:40:49.068
So, I mean, again, you know, there has been research done in the United States on that, primarily actually on the Georgia society and the likes, you know?

00:40:49.099 --> 00:40:49.398
Okay.

00:40:49.429 --> 00:40:51.588
Um, and there's a lot of interest in that.

00:40:51.679 --> 00:40:54.333
So go, go back to, uh, the wealth tax with me.

00:40:54.333 --> 00:40:54.574
Mm-hmm.

00:40:54.653 --> 00:40:55.728
Is that something that would be.

00:40:56.853 --> 00:41:03.063
Like not, not on a transfer of wealth, like an inheritance thing, but more like a pay 0.5% every year.

00:41:03.063 --> 00:41:09.034
Yeah, no, it would be actually based on the actual value of wealth, uh, you can have it on an annual basis.

00:41:09.333 --> 00:41:11.853
I think inheritance tax will already have that.

00:41:12.034 --> 00:41:12.333
Right.

00:41:12.603 --> 00:41:12.934
Fine.

00:41:12.934 --> 00:41:13.384
With me.

00:41:13.773 --> 00:41:19.893
I think, you know, you have, just like with say for example, flat taxes, you have a very generous upfront deduction.

00:41:19.923 --> 00:41:20.014
Mm-hmm.

00:41:20.253 --> 00:41:22.503
So again, you're not snaring into the net.

00:41:22.719 --> 00:41:23.344
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:41:23.344 --> 00:41:28.474
People who are, if I've got a$300,000 house, I shouldn't have to pay an extra$5 a year.

00:41:28.474 --> 00:41:28.534
No.

00:41:28.773 --> 00:41:29.614
Yeah, no, absolutely.

00:41:29.733 --> 00:41:30.184
Of course.

00:41:30.244 --> 00:41:35.943
Or you have, you know, if you inherit a house, which is, you know, family house, which is$2 million, don't pay anything.

00:41:35.943 --> 00:41:36.034
Right.

00:41:36.119 --> 00:41:36.239
Right.

00:41:36.244 --> 00:41:36.903
That's fine with me.

00:41:36.903 --> 00:41:37.143
Okay.

00:41:37.474 --> 00:41:41.583
You don't use this taxation in order to generate revenue alone.

00:41:42.094 --> 00:41:46.023
You use this taxation to reorient the society's values.

00:41:46.028 --> 00:41:46.318
Yeah.

00:41:46.594 --> 00:41:46.864
Yeah.

00:41:47.014 --> 00:41:59.373
You want to have the value in a society where people not accumulating houses as well, but rather accumulating other things like businesses, like, you know, ideas like human capital.

00:41:59.704 --> 00:42:06.034
Um, so when you think about it, do we want to encourage formation of fixed capital formation in this economy?

00:42:06.483 --> 00:42:07.833
Probably not so much, right?

00:42:07.833 --> 00:42:08.043
Yes.

00:42:08.043 --> 00:42:09.873
We want to have good infrastructure.

00:42:09.873 --> 00:42:16.954
The high level of course, at a high kind of, if you aggregate level, yes, sure wanna have good roads, we want to have good communications and so forth.

00:42:17.313 --> 00:42:22.083
But, you know, apart from that, we want to have usable real estate that we live in.

00:42:22.623 --> 00:42:29.434
It doesn't require a huge amount of the parts of GDP invested on an ongoing basis.

00:42:29.434 --> 00:42:39.153
Some of our policies, like I was just thinking about the interest deduction on your home mortgage or your rental property, mortgage or whatever, you know that's an incentive to carry debt, correct?

00:42:39.153 --> 00:42:39.514
Really?

00:42:39.514 --> 00:42:39.603
Yes.

00:42:39.664 --> 00:42:42.753
And they, I don't know why we should have taxes that necessarily incentivize that.

00:42:42.753 --> 00:42:54.454
We do that, not because we want to incentivize the carrier of the debt where it's originated from, but today it's because we can't abolish that because if we abolish that all of a sudden doesn't wreck a of affordable houses.

00:42:54.619 --> 00:42:54.708
Right.

00:42:54.918 --> 00:42:57.318
Are going to become unaffordable instantaneously.

00:42:57.498 --> 00:43:03.108
So we in a way kind of create, it's, it's, you know, if you go back to the philosophy, you can't really white sheet it.

00:43:03.318 --> 00:43:03.498
Yeah.

00:43:03.498 --> 00:43:04.338
Like in the physics.

00:43:04.338 --> 00:43:04.583
Yes, yes.

00:43:04.583 --> 00:43:07.998
In the old days, you know, in the, you know, uh, kind of world.

00:43:07.998 --> 00:43:08.268
Yes.

00:43:08.539 --> 00:43:11.268
You had to draw these weird things called epicycles.

00:43:11.298 --> 00:43:11.478
Yes.

00:43:11.478 --> 00:43:17.898
The force fields, which didn't exist in order to counterbalance the planets so as to make the earth the center of the universe.

00:43:17.898 --> 00:43:18.108
Yes.

00:43:18.588 --> 00:43:25.818
And sooner or later you started to come to the point where those epicycles are the descriptors of everything and you know, they don't exist.

00:43:25.909 --> 00:43:25.998
Right.

00:43:26.449 --> 00:43:30.648
So you got a problem the same without tax and subsidies policy.

00:43:30.648 --> 00:43:32.028
And this is a painful day to day.

00:43:32.028 --> 00:43:32.418
Of course.

00:43:32.418 --> 00:43:32.748
Yes.

00:43:33.018 --> 00:43:37.909
I mean, because we're talking on the 15th of April, you're talking about, it's a great example.

00:43:37.938 --> 00:43:38.239
Okay.

00:43:38.449 --> 00:43:44.838
You can have a middle class family like my, my own where your tax forms amount to about 170 pages.

00:43:44.869 --> 00:43:45.108
Yeah.

00:43:45.378 --> 00:43:46.188
It is insane.

00:43:46.699 --> 00:43:47.744
It's literally hundred insane.

00:43:48.108 --> 00:43:48.349
Right.

00:43:48.559 --> 00:43:53.869
So taxation system in the United States, and I'm not kind of, you know, the burden of doing your taxes Correct.

00:43:53.869 --> 00:43:56.148
Is almost as bad as the taxes that you actually pay.

00:43:56.148 --> 00:43:59.208
It's, it's a total industry and it holds us hostage once a year.

00:43:59.208 --> 00:43:59.210
Yeah.

00:43:59.215 --> 00:43:59.423
Okay.

00:43:59.423 --> 00:43:59.623
Yeah.

00:43:59.688 --> 00:43:59.809
Yeah.

00:43:59.809 --> 00:44:01.909
And if you're in business, it holds you hostage more often.

00:44:01.909 --> 00:44:02.179
Every quarter.

00:44:02.418 --> 00:44:02.824
Yeah, exactly.

00:44:02.824 --> 00:44:04.009
Every, every payroll.

00:44:04.039 --> 00:44:04.548
That's right.

00:44:04.548 --> 00:44:04.849
Yes.

00:44:05.028 --> 00:44:12.528
So, I mean, the insanity of it is that we don't even think about the fact that we have all of this infrastructure that creates no value.

00:44:12.813 --> 00:44:18.603
Yeah, and we can have a simplifying reforms and we can have a change, as you said.

00:44:18.603 --> 00:44:22.474
For example, a good example would be moving towards more consumption based taxes.

00:44:23.164 --> 00:44:30.603
Uh, a good example would be to remove as much as possible and flatten out the, after the structure of say, income tax.

00:44:30.634 --> 00:44:30.724
Yeah.

00:44:30.724 --> 00:44:32.074
Maybe a 12 page tax return.

00:44:32.494 --> 00:44:32.793
Yeah.

00:44:33.213 --> 00:44:45.034
Well, we shouldn't, you know, like if you are working, say for example, if you have one source of income, active income, and maybe one source of passive income, you should not be filing the form, you know, more than say two, three pages.

00:44:45.634 --> 00:44:45.813
Agreed.

00:44:45.813 --> 00:44:47.673
Who the hell needs all of that stuff?

00:44:48.213 --> 00:44:49.804
Who the hell actually checks?

00:44:49.804 --> 00:44:50.643
All of that stuff?

00:44:51.034 --> 00:44:52.278
Who manages all of that stuff?

00:44:52.278 --> 00:44:55.744
There's a lot of jobs reliant upon having all those pages to check.

00:44:55.744 --> 00:44:59.494
I guess to, to be honest, personally, I think that most of those jobs are pretending to do the job.

00:44:59.523 --> 00:44:59.974
Oh yeah.

00:45:00.094 --> 00:45:17.704
And in the end, there is an outcome and everyone is sitting and praying that nobody will check, because to be, to be frank, I don't think there is a possibility of, you know, fully completing those hundreds of pages of tax forms without missing something.

00:45:17.853 --> 00:45:17.914
Yeah.

00:45:18.903 --> 00:45:19.563
Somehow.

00:45:20.074 --> 00:45:22.623
I mean, it's, but then that's tax fraud and they can throw you in prison.

00:45:22.833 --> 00:45:25.059
Well, of course, if it is intended, if it seems like you tried it.

00:45:25.378 --> 00:45:25.539
Yes.

00:45:25.539 --> 00:45:25.739
Yeah.

00:45:25.958 --> 00:45:27.724
If it is intended, it's tax fraud.

00:45:27.724 --> 00:45:32.643
But I mean, again, the separation between what is the tax fraud versus the tax mistake.

00:45:32.704 --> 00:45:33.005
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:45:33.094 --> 00:45:36.483
Is kind of, you know, a little bit more arbitrary than I would like that to be.

00:45:36.844 --> 00:45:57.034
But I can tell you that, you know, I was talking to a colleague of mine who is a professor of finance here in the United States, not in this state, uh, you know, today, and we were both, you know, kind of was supposed to be working on the paper, uh, that we are supposed to review, and both of us can't actually review the paper because we are both mired into taxes completely.

00:45:57.753 --> 00:46:03.153
I mean, this is, you know, these are two people with the PhDs in economics and finance who are struggling.

00:46:03.423 --> 00:46:03.634
Yeah.

00:46:03.693 --> 00:46:05.764
And we have advisors hired for that.

00:46:05.824 --> 00:46:06.244
Right.

00:46:06.244 --> 00:46:09.664
So it wasn't like, you know, struggling, you know, by ourselves, you know, doing it.

00:46:10.083 --> 00:46:12.333
So there's something fundamentally wrong.

00:46:12.768 --> 00:46:14.418
With a system that we have.

00:46:14.539 --> 00:46:14.659
Yeah.

00:46:14.659 --> 00:46:17.478
It is not incentivizing things we want to incentivize.

00:46:17.509 --> 00:46:17.748
Yeah.

00:46:18.139 --> 00:46:20.778
It is penalized quite often effort by people.

00:46:20.838 --> 00:46:21.139
Mm-hmm.

00:46:21.469 --> 00:46:28.849
Um, it is penalized and it over decades and generation, that translates into the change in culture, in preferences.

00:46:28.849 --> 00:46:29.028
Yeah.

00:46:29.028 --> 00:46:29.030
Yeah.

00:46:29.030 --> 00:46:29.030
Yeah.

00:46:29.148 --> 00:46:40.668
And once you get to that territory of kind of change, you know, the Roth is so deep that changing it and the reversing it is not impossible, but so daunting that a lot of people give up.

00:46:40.759 --> 00:46:41.393
Yeah, yeah.

00:46:41.393 --> 00:46:41.554
Yeah.

00:46:41.659 --> 00:46:46.128
I think there's a lot of young kids right now even that are like, no way I'll ever buy a house, you know?

00:46:46.128 --> 00:46:46.458
Correct.

00:46:46.608 --> 00:46:46.909
Yeah.

00:46:46.914 --> 00:46:53.809
And you know what, if you save 10% of your income and live like a coyote for a long time, that's a lie.

00:46:54.168 --> 00:46:54.259
Yeah.

00:46:54.259 --> 00:46:56.059
You'll be able to eventually, you know?

00:46:56.539 --> 00:46:56.929
Yes.

00:46:56.929 --> 00:47:02.688
No, I mean, again, it's hard to, first of all, we, we expect the young people.

00:47:02.688 --> 00:47:06.679
I have two kids, you know, one is 18, uh, another one is 14.

00:47:07.068 --> 00:47:13.099
Um, and you know, it's very hard to expect from those kids to behave the way we want them to behave.

00:47:13.128 --> 00:47:13.309
Yeah.

00:47:13.338 --> 00:47:26.418
Because we, our generation has created for them the trappings of social media, of peer pressure, um, of kind of, you know, of high expectations, compliance, you know, they're all carrying thousand dollar phones in their pockets.

00:47:26.418 --> 00:47:27.199
Correct, correct.

00:47:27.259 --> 00:47:28.009
Uh, right now.

00:47:28.009 --> 00:47:31.219
Um, so you can say things like, you know, you shouldn't be doing that.

00:47:31.219 --> 00:47:34.338
And they turn around and say, but dad, you work for that.

00:47:35.358 --> 00:47:39.139
You create that, you use that yourself all of the time.

00:47:39.378 --> 00:47:40.759
So in a way.

00:47:41.224 --> 00:47:51.244
It is very hard to see how we're going to get out of this, you know, the problem and predicament that we have that has grown over the last, say 25 years or so.

00:47:51.244 --> 00:47:54.873
And I'm using Millennium as a breakpoint, but started of course, before the millennium.

00:47:54.873 --> 00:47:55.143
Yes.

00:47:55.653 --> 00:48:02.673
Uh, how we're going to go, not so much back but forward towards the values that we have lost mm-hmm.

00:48:02.914 --> 00:48:04.534
That we would like to have.

00:48:04.923 --> 00:48:06.333
We know we should have.

00:48:06.963 --> 00:48:11.344
And yet we have worked so hard to dismiss.

00:48:12.664 --> 00:48:16.864
Talk to me about, uh, by the way, I didn't even ask you, you've got an accent, it seems.

00:48:17.103 --> 00:48:19.563
You're from somewhere eastern European.

00:48:20.583 --> 00:48:20.914
Yes.

00:48:20.914 --> 00:48:20.916
I would guess.

00:48:20.918 --> 00:48:24.483
Oh, I like, I I'm a mix of pretty much everything under the sun.

00:48:24.483 --> 00:48:26.733
Very trying to be very quick.

00:48:26.733 --> 00:48:27.664
You know, just tell you the story.

00:48:27.934 --> 00:48:31.083
I I, I was born and raised in Soviet Union Okay.

00:48:31.114 --> 00:48:31.713
In Moscow.

00:48:32.164 --> 00:48:35.554
Um, I'm of, um, Russian and Armenian descent.

00:48:35.614 --> 00:48:35.914
Okay.

00:48:36.003 --> 00:48:40.474
Um, I immigrated into the United States, um, in 1990.

00:48:40.474 --> 00:48:44.554
So like Armenian because your, one of your parents like got Yeah.

00:48:44.554 --> 00:48:48.275
Pushed out from the genocide there in Turkey and stuff, or is that, was it common for people?

00:48:48.280 --> 00:48:49.139
People go It was a little before.

00:48:49.204 --> 00:48:49.923
It was before, yeah.

00:48:49.923 --> 00:48:50.403
It was common.

00:48:50.403 --> 00:48:50.824
Yeah, of course.

00:48:50.829 --> 00:48:53.373
Because, well, and there's a little enclave of Armenia up there in.

00:48:53.884 --> 00:48:55.503
By Lithuania or something too, right?

00:48:55.563 --> 00:48:56.103
Or somewhere.

00:48:56.148 --> 00:48:56.914
No, no, no, no.

00:48:56.914 --> 00:49:02.224
You think about there's you, Azerbaijan, there's a, that's a whole war, but that's, that's the Soviet created that mess.

00:49:02.253 --> 00:49:02.824
Uh, okay.

00:49:02.914 --> 00:49:03.963
So, um, yeah.

00:49:04.324 --> 00:49:05.974
You know, there's a war going on there, of course.

00:49:05.974 --> 00:49:06.213
Yeah.

00:49:06.423 --> 00:49:10.804
Uh, but, uh, Armenia always kind of had link, link ups Okay.

00:49:10.804 --> 00:49:13.353
With Russia because of the orthodoxy, because of the religion.

00:49:13.443 --> 00:49:13.594
I see.

00:49:13.594 --> 00:49:15.724
'cause of course, you know, cultural as well.

00:49:15.813 --> 00:49:23.134
So my, you know, predecessors from Armenia moved to Russia proper back in the 1840s.

00:49:23.193 --> 00:49:23.253
Oh, okay.

00:49:23.253 --> 00:49:23.434
Gotcha.

00:49:23.824 --> 00:49:26.284
They, hence my last name is ified.

00:49:26.313 --> 00:49:26.344
Okay.

00:49:27.123 --> 00:49:31.923
Back in the days, if you went to Imperial University, you had to rectify your name and accept Christianity.

00:49:32.103 --> 00:49:34.773
Of course, they already were Christian and they crucified the name.

00:49:34.773 --> 00:49:36.168
So that's kind of the Fair enough.

00:49:36.228 --> 00:49:37.443
The etymology of it.

00:49:37.653 --> 00:49:39.153
So I was born in Soviet Union.

00:49:39.153 --> 00:49:42.094
I grew up in the Soviet Union, and, uh, in my.

00:49:42.873 --> 00:49:47.554
Year 21, uh, of my age, I moved to the United States Oh, wow.

00:49:47.853 --> 00:49:48.813
Uh, to California.

00:49:48.873 --> 00:49:51.423
And I spent 1990s in the United States.

00:49:51.423 --> 00:49:55.173
For education, or No, I first even, no, I moved venture because I had a, yeah, I had a business.

00:49:55.173 --> 00:49:55.204
Okay.

00:49:55.264 --> 00:49:59.943
I had a business that was started with two American, uh, uh, partners.

00:50:00.003 --> 00:50:00.333
Okay.

00:50:00.393 --> 00:50:01.264
Uh, from California.

00:50:01.293 --> 00:50:05.224
They registered in California and then sooner or later, because they had their own businesses, they had to run.

00:50:05.463 --> 00:50:08.434
Um, I had to come to LA to run the business.

00:50:08.438 --> 00:50:08.608
Okay.

00:50:08.728 --> 00:50:11.673
I was kind of managing it on the Soviet side of first What kind of a business?

00:50:11.673 --> 00:50:11.824
What?

00:50:11.824 --> 00:50:12.934
It was a brokerage company.

00:50:13.023 --> 00:50:13.054
Okay.

00:50:13.054 --> 00:50:17.313
So we were trying to broker joint ventures between the, and investment flows mm-hmm.

00:50:17.673 --> 00:50:21.813
Uh, between the Soviet enterprises and the US based companies.

00:50:21.813 --> 00:50:22.204
Sure.

00:50:22.293 --> 00:50:30.003
Um, and it was successful on the side of finding the projects and then kind of, you know, of course the recession of the 1990s killed us off.

00:50:30.213 --> 00:50:38.643
So I moved in 1990 to the United States to run the business and it was actually very easy to do back then because.

00:50:39.018 --> 00:50:42.438
There weren't really anyone else moving from Soviet Union doing any business.

00:50:42.438 --> 00:50:42.739
Right.

00:50:43.039 --> 00:50:54.199
So, um, and then I ended up closing the business when we became kind of, you know, we run into basically cashflow problems and then, you know, we had investors lined up, we couldn't, you know, get over the hump.

00:50:54.259 --> 00:50:54.409
Yeah.

00:50:54.498 --> 00:51:02.329
Um, and so in 1993 I figured out that I have to go and finish my education and I started engineering back in the Soviet Union at the time.

00:51:02.809 --> 00:51:07.728
Um, so I went to UCLA and I said, you know, I'd like to finish my degree.

00:51:07.728 --> 00:51:11.239
They looked at my transcript, uh, back in the days it was before computers.

00:51:11.239 --> 00:51:19.188
So it was a very big book that I actually found my school in Moscow, uh, translated my grades into the UCLA scale or whatever.

00:51:19.188 --> 00:51:19.994
It was interesting.

00:51:19.994 --> 00:51:22.009
And they kind of said, what would you like to study?

00:51:22.009 --> 00:51:24.679
And I said, you know, I always wanna do something international.

00:51:25.233 --> 00:51:28.143
So I said, you have too much mathematics and physics.

00:51:28.324 --> 00:51:28.474
Oh.

00:51:28.534 --> 00:51:37.233
In order to do international studies, but there is an economics degree and you can do, you know, basically international specialization in economics.

00:51:37.239 --> 00:51:37.478
Mm-hmm.

00:51:37.864 --> 00:51:41.253
So I knew nothing about economics, I knew it was international.

00:51:41.253 --> 00:51:42.844
I always wanted to study something international.

00:51:42.844 --> 00:51:43.713
So I said fine.

00:51:43.893 --> 00:51:51.753
So I came in, into the third year into UCLA, finished that, um, went on to the master's, then went on to do the PhD at Chicago.

00:51:51.844 --> 00:51:52.623
Both or so?

00:51:52.864 --> 00:51:54.273
No, no, uh, no.

00:51:54.273 --> 00:51:57.934
First, um, actually at U-C-L-A-I did my master's in mathematics there.

00:51:58.293 --> 00:52:01.954
Um, and then I went to Chicago, to University of Chicago to do the PhD.

00:52:01.954 --> 00:52:02.193
I see.

00:52:02.403 --> 00:52:04.443
Um, wasn't a happy time for me.

00:52:04.443 --> 00:52:07.143
It was a bit personal, kind of tough year.

00:52:07.143 --> 00:52:09.244
So I transferred from there to Johns Hopkins.

00:52:10.054 --> 00:52:12.034
Um, and I was in Johns Hopkins.

00:52:12.094 --> 00:52:16.623
Um, I met in Chicago, my partner currently my better half.

00:52:17.074 --> 00:52:22.173
Um, and we moved to Baltimore and I was into my second year of PhD there.

00:52:22.563 --> 00:52:27.364
Um, and I got effectively just opportunistically, uh, you know.

00:52:28.278 --> 00:52:29.179
Had haunted.

00:52:29.389 --> 00:52:29.809
Okay.

00:52:29.809 --> 00:52:32.028
Had haunted into Trinity College, Dublin in Ireland.

00:52:32.028 --> 00:52:37.103
Ah, um, you know, through the network of Good Andfor comes the, uh, Irish economy expert.

00:52:37.103 --> 00:52:43.009
So in the year 2000, you know, we moved, you know, Ireland for a couple of years when times were hopping kind.

00:52:43.009 --> 00:52:43.759
Yeah, exactly.

00:52:43.759 --> 00:52:44.478
I mean, it was great.

00:52:44.478 --> 00:52:56.509
Absolutely it was right peak of the kind of second wave of the Celtic Tiger, uh, before it became what I call Celtic Garfield afterwards, um, it was boom time, it was.com boom and everything.

00:52:56.599 --> 00:53:06.768
Um, and we moved for a couple of years, 16 years later, two kids, a dog houses and everything else, you know, Irish citizenship and everything, you know.

00:53:07.114 --> 00:53:13.954
Um, we kind of came back in 2016 for, I was in business a little bit for a while there in Europe.

00:53:14.284 --> 00:53:19.594
And then, um, I sold out of business there and, uh, decided to go back to academia.

00:53:20.043 --> 00:53:21.333
So we moved to California.

00:53:21.454 --> 00:53:24.244
Yeah, back to where I started from in the United States.

00:53:24.664 --> 00:53:28.023
Um, and I spent four years there in Monterey.

00:53:28.233 --> 00:53:31.594
Um, and then course, oh, not a, not a terrible spot to, uh, no great place.

00:53:31.594 --> 00:53:32.434
Absolutely love it.

00:53:32.434 --> 00:53:34.563
Still go back there all of the time.

00:53:34.623 --> 00:53:36.003
Uh, a lot of friends.

00:53:36.063 --> 00:53:37.054
Fantastic place.

00:53:37.534 --> 00:53:40.264
Um, pandemic hit, I lost my job.

00:53:40.744 --> 00:53:44.284
Uh, and I was on the market, so, uh, did not land you here.

00:53:44.284 --> 00:53:47.224
Northern Colorado gave me an offer I couldn't refuse.

00:53:47.289 --> 00:53:47.643
Yeah, yeah.

00:53:47.673 --> 00:53:49.744
Um, so we moved here.

00:53:50.043 --> 00:53:59.014
Um, you know, so it's kind of, it's very interesting because I mean, I'm, you know, I became over the 1990s period, in particular a mountain goat.

00:53:59.224 --> 00:54:00.543
So I love climbing.

00:54:00.543 --> 00:54:02.164
I love, you know, being up in the mountains.

00:54:02.164 --> 00:54:03.003
I love hiking.

00:54:03.003 --> 00:54:03.813
I love fly fishing.

00:54:03.818 --> 00:54:04.059
Yeah.

00:54:04.063 --> 00:54:04.233
Yeah.

00:54:04.233 --> 00:54:05.134
I love foraging.

00:54:05.434 --> 00:54:12.963
So even though we lived on the coasts in California and in, um, in Ireland, you know, our house in Ireland is literally on the sea front.

00:54:13.414 --> 00:54:20.764
Um, and you know, I always kind of drawn to the mountains and my wife comes, you know, her family comes from Northern Italy.

00:54:20.764 --> 00:54:22.474
We have a house in Alps there.

00:54:22.623 --> 00:54:26.344
Alright, so moving here was for me a very natural move.

00:54:26.523 --> 00:54:26.824
Yeah.

00:54:27.304 --> 00:54:28.474
Um, you know.

00:54:28.768 --> 00:54:30.179
I'm kind of maximizing that.

00:54:30.358 --> 00:54:30.568
Awesome.

00:54:30.568 --> 00:54:35.728
We spend the entire winter fly fishing, uh, because you can't do it in California because they have seasons.

00:54:35.818 --> 00:54:36.329
Oh, really?

00:54:36.389 --> 00:54:41.489
Um, here you can go, you know, any, your river, you know, as long as it's, anytime there's open water.

00:54:41.518 --> 00:54:42.059
Exactly.

00:54:42.059 --> 00:54:44.489
You have a little bit of an open water, you can fly fish.

00:54:44.728 --> 00:54:47.429
We spend all of the winter, you know, up in the mountains as well.

00:54:47.429 --> 00:54:49.438
So I'm pretty much every week, you know, after.

00:54:49.438 --> 00:54:50.039
So you're happy?

00:54:50.668 --> 00:54:51.389
I am happy.

00:54:51.389 --> 00:54:55.829
I'm happy, uh, in a different way as well in terms of my life as well.

00:54:56.159 --> 00:55:01.139
Um, when you grow older, you kind of discover things that more matter that are more important.

00:55:01.139 --> 00:55:05.130
They become usually slower things, and for me, that's exactly what's happening, you know?

00:55:05.135 --> 00:55:05.253
Yeah.

00:55:05.253 --> 00:55:13.289
I'm kind of, you know, decided that, uh, all of the media, um, you know, I've done that, not interested that much anymore.

00:55:13.648 --> 00:55:17.309
Uh, public engagements don't really need them either that much.

00:55:17.668 --> 00:55:24.418
Um, being able to do quietly research without the rat race that a lot of universities engage in.

00:55:24.418 --> 00:55:24.628
Yeah.

00:55:24.628 --> 00:55:24.929
Yeah.

00:55:25.018 --> 00:55:28.648
One of the things that, the pressure to publish and all these things, well, we have Yeah, of course.

00:55:28.648 --> 00:55:34.559
But the pressure, say one of the best part of, uh, UNC from my point of view is that I can do my research there.

00:55:34.559 --> 00:55:34.619
Yeah.

00:55:35.039 --> 00:55:38.278
No one tells me which areas I should be specialized in.

00:55:38.429 --> 00:55:44.173
Go into the likes of a CU Boulder, you are forced to actually be specialist in very narrow area.

00:55:44.173 --> 00:55:44.574
Mm-hmm.

00:55:44.659 --> 00:55:49.438
You need to pursue publishing to the point, not just publish pairs, but publish in the top.

00:55:49.608 --> 00:55:49.668
Yeah.

00:55:50.599 --> 00:55:57.648
Than journals, uh, in a discipline and come up with the conclusions that are in line with our general philosophies too.

00:55:57.653 --> 00:55:58.219
Correct, correct, correct.

00:55:58.219 --> 00:55:58.608
Exactly.

00:55:58.608 --> 00:56:00.378
That Don't dare expose those, our thoughts.

00:56:00.494 --> 00:56:00.653
Exactly.

00:56:00.659 --> 00:56:00.679
Yeah.

00:56:00.978 --> 00:56:06.858
So, um, in, in my world now I have the luxury of basically saying, I'm interested in this.

00:56:06.978 --> 00:56:07.969
Yeah, let's do that.

00:56:08.059 --> 00:56:08.449
Okay.

00:56:08.778 --> 00:56:18.139
Um, and to give you example, like, I mean, I have a coauthor, for example, who comes with an interesting data set, you know, quite recently and says, let's do that.

00:56:18.139 --> 00:56:22.278
But the data set on Indonesian banks, fine.

00:56:22.398 --> 00:56:23.389
Sure I can do that.

00:56:23.929 --> 00:56:24.259
You know?

00:56:24.438 --> 00:56:25.009
Exactly.

00:56:25.068 --> 00:56:26.974
And my colleagues would appreciate that.

00:56:26.974 --> 00:56:27.018
Yeah.

00:56:27.018 --> 00:56:32.239
And you know, you know, in terms of my job appraisal and everything else, it counts as much, you know?

00:56:32.244 --> 00:56:32.748
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:56:32.748 --> 00:56:35.298
Um, and there's a luxury to that of course.

00:56:35.298 --> 00:56:35.628
You know.

00:56:35.688 --> 00:56:42.528
Well, and you know, I think it, it seems to me anyway that the Montfort College of Business is really an interesting opportunity.

00:56:42.528 --> 00:56:45.168
You know, it's, it's fairly well funded and supported.

00:56:45.168 --> 00:56:46.699
They're, they're savvy.

00:56:46.728 --> 00:56:55.128
They've recruited a bunch of smart people into the program, and not just as an economist, but you've been in business at least a couple different times as well.

00:56:55.128 --> 00:56:58.338
And so you kind of appreciate, not that just the academic.

00:56:58.864 --> 00:57:02.074
Instinct, of course, of your field, but actually putting the rubber to the road.

00:57:02.134 --> 00:57:02.643
Of course.

00:57:02.643 --> 00:57:03.304
And we do that.

00:57:03.304 --> 00:57:04.864
And that's, that's very important as well.

00:57:04.864 --> 00:57:09.514
So I mean, like one of the very big things, and I have an 18-year-old who is going to college right now.

00:57:09.543 --> 00:57:09.753
Yeah.

00:57:09.813 --> 00:57:11.793
And the decision making is in a local college.

00:57:11.793 --> 00:57:13.563
So we have current three right now.

00:57:13.864 --> 00:57:19.259
Uh, cost is very important, of course, consideration because, you know, don't wanna be prepped down with a bunch of debt.

00:57:19.259 --> 00:57:19.659
Sorry, salary.

00:57:19.838 --> 00:57:21.153
You don't really Exactly.

00:57:21.483 --> 00:57:23.974
You know, I'm actually not a person who likes debt.

00:57:23.974 --> 00:57:25.293
I mentioned organic before.

00:57:25.293 --> 00:57:25.594
Yes.

00:57:25.594 --> 00:57:26.403
Organic growth.

00:57:26.434 --> 00:57:26.554
Mm-hmm.

00:57:26.793 --> 00:57:30.123
I'm a big fan of funding things from the cash flow you generate.

00:57:30.123 --> 00:57:33.333
So I don't want him to graduate with any debt at all.

00:57:33.423 --> 00:57:33.664
Yeah.

00:57:34.204 --> 00:57:37.653
Uh, there's a bit of a tug of war because here of course doesn't understand that yet.

00:57:37.653 --> 00:57:42.454
I mean, hey, we're all been there, you know, and when you look back and you say, oh, my mom did say that.

00:57:42.664 --> 00:57:43.353
Yeah, that's true.

00:57:43.353 --> 00:57:44.373
You know, I should have listened.

00:57:44.373 --> 00:57:47.764
You know, we all like that, you know, but we learned from our own bruises.

00:57:47.764 --> 00:57:47.853
Yeah.

00:57:48.059 --> 00:57:50.344
I have some, uh, some advice from my own background.

00:57:50.344 --> 00:57:55.173
My, so my dad started a farm, he was a motorcycle mechanic going back to 14 years old.

00:57:55.173 --> 00:58:00.213
And then he started farming evenings and weekends for 14 years or something.

00:58:00.213 --> 00:58:04.713
He farmed evenings and weekends, but he eventually, the farm was working about the time I was going to college.

00:58:05.284 --> 00:58:11.583
And, uh, dad said, well, son, you know, the farm's doing good enough now we could help you with your school a little bit.

00:58:12.063 --> 00:58:14.733
Um, but I think you get a lot more out of it if you pay for it yourself.

00:58:16.623 --> 00:58:17.253
And That's amazing.

00:58:17.313 --> 00:58:17.554
Yes.

00:58:17.914 --> 00:58:18.514
He was right.

00:58:18.514 --> 00:58:23.164
I mean, at the time I bet you, you were going like, what the No, he was right.

00:58:23.164 --> 00:58:24.634
I mean, everybody I knew that flunked out.

00:58:24.978 --> 00:58:25.278
Yeah.

00:58:25.458 --> 00:58:26.478
Their parents were paying for it.

00:58:26.688 --> 00:58:26.929
Yeah.

00:58:27.079 --> 00:58:28.639
So have'em be in for at least a little bit.

00:58:28.639 --> 00:58:30.289
Uh, yeah.

00:58:30.289 --> 00:58:30.291
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:58:30.291 --> 00:58:30.293
Yeah.

00:58:30.378 --> 00:58:33.168
So I mean, like we learn d of course things game, so Yeah.

00:58:33.168 --> 00:58:50.148
I mean, but when you think about one of the advantages that, of the, um, UNC and Monfort College in particular is that we are actually laser focused on the idea that all of the people going through the program in business, it doesn't matter whether you're study in marketing, you're studying management, you're studying in finance Okay.

00:58:50.478 --> 00:58:53.119
Will have a full portfolio of internships.

00:58:53.179 --> 00:58:53.389
Hmm.

00:58:53.539 --> 00:59:02.478
And those internships can be structured in so far as they can be repeated over the period of, of time we want to place in or like you sample a little bit, a few different things.

00:59:02.478 --> 00:59:08.148
So even like people like myself, we are running around all of the time trying to find new opportunities for internships.

00:59:08.148 --> 00:59:08.329
Cool.

00:59:08.358 --> 00:59:08.478
Okay.

00:59:08.659 --> 00:59:12.949
So for example, we, I was talking to a big healthcare provider Yep.

00:59:13.009 --> 00:59:16.009
In the area here now in, in the state of Colorado.

00:59:16.338 --> 00:59:20.659
Um, who is going to come on board with offered internships for our students.

00:59:20.659 --> 00:59:20.748
Nice.

00:59:20.989 --> 00:59:21.679
Pretty awesome.

00:59:21.889 --> 00:59:25.278
There's sometimes you get students who are, who want to do international as well.

00:59:25.278 --> 00:59:27.679
You try to find for them opportunities international.

00:59:27.679 --> 00:59:27.739
Yeah.

00:59:28.369 --> 00:59:31.548
Challenging out of Greeley, but nonetheless, that's our job.

00:59:31.608 --> 00:59:31.668
Yeah.

00:59:31.668 --> 00:59:32.418
We want to do that.

00:59:32.418 --> 00:59:41.989
So everything we teach has to be aligned, not just, we don't, unlike other universities, unlike what we call R one level universities, research focused universities.

00:59:42.079 --> 00:59:42.168
Oh yeah.

00:59:42.378 --> 00:59:48.438
We are not training kids to go, or kids or young adults to go into a PhD program down the road.

00:59:48.528 --> 00:59:48.798
Yeah.

00:59:49.309 --> 00:59:51.889
We don't disadvantage them in that sense as well.

00:59:51.889 --> 01:00:02.568
We give them the ABCs, but if they want to do a PhD, they probably should either look at different university or look at a career path to PhD.

01:00:02.568 --> 01:00:06.349
So in other words, you graduate, you go to the find an employer a little help you pay for your PhD.

01:00:06.349 --> 01:00:06.889
Exactly.

01:00:07.068 --> 01:00:09.708
But also who will give you a frame for what you want to study.

01:00:09.739 --> 01:00:09.889
Yeah.

01:00:09.889 --> 01:00:11.793
Because of course the PhD by itself should be Yeah.

01:00:11.793 --> 01:00:12.233
Where do I point it?

01:00:12.423 --> 01:00:12.914
Exactly.

01:00:12.914 --> 01:00:13.153
Yeah.

01:00:13.153 --> 01:00:13.313
Yeah.

01:00:13.518 --> 01:00:16.009
So from that point of view, we're much more applied.

01:00:16.338 --> 01:00:18.409
Our view is, and we constantly do that.

01:00:18.409 --> 01:00:23.088
I've served, for example, on the curriculum committee, I'm on a graduate committee nowadays as well.

01:00:23.389 --> 01:00:26.659
Um, we constantly looking at it from the point of view opportunities.

01:00:26.719 --> 01:00:26.809
Hmm.

01:00:26.989 --> 01:00:30.409
I had, um, international affairs for the MCB.

01:00:30.829 --> 01:00:42.018
Um, and part of my job is explicitly, even when we talk about the exchanges for the faculty international exchanges, we always condition them as to what's the benefit for students.

01:00:42.023 --> 01:00:42.074
Yeah.

01:00:42.378 --> 01:00:44.208
What doors does it open for students?

01:00:44.418 --> 01:00:46.248
What opportunities it opens for students.

01:00:46.278 --> 01:00:46.548
Okay.

01:00:46.878 --> 01:00:50.418
Uh, we trying to structure the programs where we bring students out.

01:00:51.003 --> 01:00:52.414
We try to support them.

01:00:52.474 --> 01:00:53.884
We have scholarships for that.

01:00:54.304 --> 01:01:04.653
Not only we have scholarships, unlike other universities where you have the student body, some of which can afford additional two, three, 5,000 for a trip abroad to study.

01:01:04.893 --> 01:01:06.423
We actually structure it on a basis.

01:01:06.423 --> 01:01:09.003
There should be no additional cost for student Wow.

01:01:09.003 --> 01:01:12.034
Compared to what they actually incur in their normal semester.

01:01:12.063 --> 01:01:12.423
That's cool.

01:01:12.423 --> 01:01:14.193
So most of our programs are like that.

01:01:14.943 --> 01:01:31.474
And you know, since I joined, we had this big debate with the, uh, international affairs office, for example, uh, who wanted to structure more of the traditional study abroad education opportunities where you go for a semester and it is a third party provider.

01:01:31.503 --> 01:01:31.744
Yeah.

01:01:31.893 --> 01:01:33.664
You screw around, hold your hand and everything else.

01:01:33.813 --> 01:01:34.114
No, no.

01:01:34.114 --> 01:01:35.043
It's a serious program.

01:01:35.043 --> 01:01:35.704
Don't take me wrong.

01:01:35.704 --> 01:01:38.164
I mean, they're great as well, but they're much costly.

01:01:38.463 --> 01:01:38.764
Sure.

01:01:38.764 --> 01:01:42.063
So we kind of managed to restore that balance.

01:01:42.094 --> 01:01:43.503
We want our students to go.

01:01:43.833 --> 01:01:47.643
Irrespective of the income, irrespective of their financial opportunities.

01:01:48.123 --> 01:01:50.463
And we want them to do that because it opens doors.

01:01:50.523 --> 01:01:50.614
Yeah.

01:01:50.614 --> 01:02:07.804
'cause it opens different horizons because the companies internationally, trading companies, even based in Colorado, will look at your CV or your resume when you are graduating from college and they will try to identify those students who have that experience, who have that exposure to international dimension in their classroom and so forth.

01:02:07.804 --> 01:02:08.434
So cool.

01:02:08.494 --> 01:02:09.153
Yeah, absolutely.

01:02:09.153 --> 01:02:09.364
We do.

01:02:09.574 --> 01:02:19.204
If there's somebody listening and they might have internships available for their medium sized business out there in the northern front range, uh, can they just stalk you on LinkedIn or something like, like that?

01:02:19.204 --> 01:02:19.594
Absolutely.

01:02:19.713 --> 01:02:20.494
Any channel.

01:02:20.494 --> 01:02:23.344
I mean, you know, first of all, you can, you can bloody Google me.

01:02:23.403 --> 01:02:23.793
Okay.

01:02:24.123 --> 01:02:25.923
Um, and you can get my email.

01:02:25.983 --> 01:02:27.634
If it's private email, use it.

01:02:27.634 --> 01:02:31.023
Whichever way, if you see me at any event, you know, stop me.

01:02:31.594 --> 01:02:32.465
We are looking for that.

01:02:32.469 --> 01:02:38.673
Call me at the office and it's not just, don't call me at the office because I don't answer phone in the office, but call me on my, uh, cell phone.

01:02:38.733 --> 01:02:40.983
Call me in any way, shape or form.

01:02:40.983 --> 01:02:41.284
Okay.

01:02:41.289 --> 01:02:41.699
Sounds good.

01:02:41.704 --> 01:02:44.673
Um, and it also applies to other colleagues of mine.

01:02:45.034 --> 01:02:48.514
You can reach out to anyone if you go on Mc B's website.

01:02:48.543 --> 01:02:48.634
Okay.

01:02:48.873 --> 01:02:51.423
You have all of us with our email addresses.

01:02:51.708 --> 01:02:54.739
Email any of us, and it will be the same support as well.

01:02:54.858 --> 01:02:54.978
Okay.

01:02:54.978 --> 01:02:56.329
We want to see that more.

01:02:56.509 --> 01:03:03.438
We will, in fact, actually in other programs, in other universities, you would have probably an administrator dealing with you.

01:03:03.443 --> 01:03:03.583
Mm-hmm.

01:03:03.664 --> 01:03:08.809
If you want an intern, if you reach out to somebody like myself and you say, I'm looking for this skill set.

01:03:08.929 --> 01:03:09.168
Hmm.

01:03:09.378 --> 01:03:15.864
An intern, we will, I will reach out to my faculty, you know, the 23 people are looking well, or whatever.

01:03:15.864 --> 01:03:16.583
Not 200 people.

01:03:16.583 --> 01:03:16.585
Okay.

01:03:16.585 --> 01:03:16.759
200 people.

01:03:17.088 --> 01:03:18.559
Like say, you know, 400 people.

01:03:18.559 --> 01:03:21.259
We have an hour in finance, we have about 200 plus students.

01:03:21.259 --> 01:03:21.318
Wow.

01:03:21.349 --> 01:03:21.619
Okay.

01:03:21.739 --> 01:03:23.539
Um, so, but we know them.

01:03:23.869 --> 01:03:23.958
Right.

01:03:23.958 --> 01:03:32.809
Because there is about, you know, say 10 of us who are teaching, uh, them and I can email all 10 of us and somebody will come up with a list of different students.

01:03:33.259 --> 01:03:37.579
We can discuss them and we can then offer them as your interns.

01:03:37.878 --> 01:03:39.949
That's the level of work we do.

01:03:40.248 --> 01:03:40.608
Fair enough.

01:03:40.668 --> 01:03:42.889
And it's totally normal from our point of view.

01:03:42.889 --> 01:03:48.289
And it's totally expected from our point of view, because when somebody says that we are student centric, everyone says that.

01:03:48.318 --> 01:03:48.978
Okay.

01:03:48.978 --> 01:03:48.980
Yeah.

01:03:48.980 --> 01:03:48.981
Yeah.

01:03:49.219 --> 01:03:51.679
We actually genuinely have to be student centric.

01:03:51.829 --> 01:03:51.949
Yeah.

01:03:52.128 --> 01:03:59.539
Because A, we have to compete with the bigger universities and better funded universities and there's a lot of competition in Northern Colorado territory.

01:03:59.539 --> 01:03:59.838
Of course.

01:03:59.838 --> 01:04:00.018
Yeah.

01:04:00.318 --> 01:04:01.728
We also have to.

01:04:02.134 --> 01:04:05.494
Work with students, which come from so many different diverse backgrounds.

01:04:06.153 --> 01:04:07.083
Mm-hmm.

01:04:07.324 --> 01:04:07.384
Yeah.

01:04:07.443 --> 01:04:08.914
Who are interested in so many things.

01:04:08.914 --> 01:04:09.364
Yeah.

01:04:09.364 --> 01:04:09.364
Yeah.

01:04:09.483 --> 01:04:17.494
I imagine some of your students are, they're, they're a first time college student in their whole family and they're coming from Kansas or over 40% or sterling.

01:04:17.704 --> 01:04:17.884
Yeah.

01:04:17.914 --> 01:04:21.514
And it's a stretch for them to afford the tuition that UNC charges.

01:04:21.813 --> 01:04:22.293
Absolutely.

01:04:22.293 --> 01:04:23.418
And a lot of the other ones are like.

01:04:24.543 --> 01:04:28.713
Uh, it's half as much as CSU, so I'm, I'm gonna go there instead.

01:04:28.713 --> 01:04:29.764
'cause it seems just as good.

01:04:29.764 --> 01:04:30.034
Absolutely.

01:04:30.034 --> 01:04:30.753
Or it's too big.

01:04:31.054 --> 01:04:35.764
CS u is scary and big and I would rather just go to a school where I'm gonna know what, there's a lot of legacy things.

01:04:35.764 --> 01:04:40.684
There's a lot of pool into UNC from students who know somebody who graduated.

01:04:40.864 --> 01:04:41.043
Mm-hmm.

01:04:41.284 --> 01:04:44.403
In, maybe not in their family, but in the neighborhood, in the area as well.

01:04:44.824 --> 01:04:46.384
Um, that's one of the things.

01:04:46.384 --> 01:04:47.733
There's another attractor as well.

01:04:47.733 --> 01:04:54.003
So at UNC in our school, in MCB in particular, we expect our students to be fully ti full-time working.

01:04:54.393 --> 01:04:55.594
Oh, so we accommodate them.

01:04:55.623 --> 01:04:56.043
Oh, is that right?

01:04:56.043 --> 01:04:57.543
We don't, we don't require them.

01:04:57.664 --> 01:04:57.753
Right.

01:04:57.759 --> 01:05:00.634
But we expect them of them have time of at least.

01:05:00.634 --> 01:05:00.873
Yeah.

01:05:01.233 --> 01:05:03.543
Well, all of them will have part-time jobs guaranteed.

01:05:03.543 --> 01:05:03.873
Okay.

01:05:04.114 --> 01:05:08.193
Most of them have more than part-time job in a traditional way, its more than half load.

01:05:08.463 --> 01:05:11.284
So as a result of it, we tried to accommodate them as much as possible.

01:05:11.284 --> 01:05:16.353
So one of the things we did, and that came in in fourth this year, and it's continued rolling out as well.

01:05:16.594 --> 01:05:20.164
We have switched from the five day teaching to four day teaching.

01:05:20.284 --> 01:05:20.463
Oh.

01:05:20.583 --> 01:05:22.293
So we now have Monday extra full day.

01:05:22.563 --> 01:05:26.793
You take day, you take Monday, Wednesday in person, or Tuesday, Thursday in person.

01:05:26.824 --> 01:05:26.943
Hmm.

01:05:27.094 --> 01:05:28.983
And then Friday is remote.

01:05:29.164 --> 01:05:29.313
Hmm.

01:05:29.884 --> 01:05:34.503
So it's down to myself and my students to decide how we want to work that day.

01:05:34.594 --> 01:05:34.713
Hmm.

01:05:34.833 --> 01:05:37.204
I'm, I usually just post some material for them.

01:05:37.204 --> 01:05:40.923
I'm available if they want to reach out and we can have one-on-one.

01:05:41.014 --> 01:05:41.224
Sure.

01:05:41.224 --> 01:05:42.574
We can have with a group meeting.

01:05:42.784 --> 01:05:45.184
It's kinda your research time and different things like that too.

01:05:45.184 --> 01:05:45.634
Not really.

01:05:45.634 --> 01:05:46.713
It's still a student time.

01:05:46.773 --> 01:05:47.344
Yeah, a hundred percent.

01:05:47.344 --> 01:05:49.293
It's student time, so I'm available to them.

01:05:49.653 --> 01:05:53.074
It's just that when we work together, we work, say for example, on a project.

01:05:53.164 --> 01:05:53.403
Mm-hmm.

01:05:53.463 --> 01:05:53.704
Okay.

01:05:53.943 --> 01:05:58.923
So again, hands-on experiential learning is facilitated through it, but if you are working.

01:05:59.329 --> 01:06:03.318
Or if you have to commute back home for the weekend and so forth, you can do it.

01:06:03.378 --> 01:06:03.708
Yeah.

01:06:03.708 --> 01:06:03.710
Yeah.

01:06:03.949 --> 01:06:07.398
So we try to accommodate as much as possible, those type of flexibilities.

01:06:07.699 --> 01:06:13.489
We're offering now a completion degree online, which you can finish degrees online as well.

01:06:13.579 --> 01:06:13.759
Oh.

01:06:13.818 --> 01:06:16.309
Um, so there's a lot of different modalities.

01:06:16.458 --> 01:06:16.728
Okay.

01:06:16.818 --> 01:06:17.090
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:06:17.268 --> 01:06:18.619
And it is successful for us.

01:06:18.619 --> 01:06:18.829
Okay.

01:06:18.829 --> 01:06:22.338
So one of our most successful programs in the MBA, for example.

01:06:23.088 --> 01:06:23.179
Mm-hmm.

01:06:23.179 --> 01:06:25.159
And our MBA is fully online, fully remote.

01:06:25.248 --> 01:06:25.398
Mm-hmm.

01:06:25.489 --> 01:06:25.759
Right.

01:06:25.998 --> 01:06:29.929
There is no requirement for synchronous, but again, we have the flexibility.

01:06:30.559 --> 01:06:32.659
So do I get to know my fellow MBA students or anything?

01:06:32.719 --> 01:06:33.559
It's up to you.

01:06:33.559 --> 01:06:33.978
Projects.

01:06:33.978 --> 01:06:34.789
There are, yes.

01:06:34.789 --> 01:06:35.358
A hundred percent.

01:06:35.358 --> 01:06:37.548
So my class, so I'm teaching one class now.

01:06:37.548 --> 01:06:40.789
I'm going to teach two classes in the program, uh, starting in the fall.

01:06:41.148 --> 01:06:43.219
Um, my classes all require group work.

01:06:43.983 --> 01:06:49.773
Uh, I also hold, not synchronous, but kind of, you know, you know, preset hours.

01:06:49.773 --> 01:06:53.583
So once a week I have two hours where I'm available.

01:06:53.764 --> 01:06:58.443
Anyone can in, can come in on Zoom at any moment in time during those two hours.

01:06:58.443 --> 01:06:58.445
Mm-hmm.

01:06:58.489 --> 01:07:02.043
They can come in to discuss the questions, they can come in to discuss life.

01:07:02.103 --> 01:07:02.284
Yeah.

01:07:02.289 --> 01:07:02.298
Yeah.

01:07:02.344 --> 01:07:06.034
Quite often actually that happens more than they the technical questions in finance.

01:07:06.454 --> 01:07:10.923
Um, and it's uh, an opportunity also for students to talk between themselves.

01:07:10.983 --> 01:07:11.253
Sure.

01:07:11.673 --> 01:07:18.333
So even though they're physically separated, of course it can be anywhere located and a lot of them allocated in different states as well.

01:07:18.333 --> 01:07:18.634
Sure.

01:07:18.693 --> 01:07:21.213
And even in the Colorado they're distributed as well.

01:07:21.213 --> 01:07:24.423
There's somebody who is up in the mountains, you know, somebody who is in the Western Colorado.

01:07:24.784 --> 01:07:27.873
You know, you have an ability to have a forum.

01:07:27.878 --> 01:07:28.713
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:07:28.744 --> 01:07:32.824
So yes, I mean, the answer is we would like to have much more community.

01:07:32.824 --> 01:07:39.094
We would like to have much more building of a traditional interaction between the students, networks and so forth.

01:07:39.304 --> 01:07:40.233
We are working on it.

01:07:40.233 --> 01:07:44.733
We have created, for example, a student, uh, advisory body.

01:07:45.273 --> 01:07:49.384
So there's a alumni body which is advising us, which is pretty large.

01:07:49.443 --> 01:07:51.844
It started with I think originally five people.

01:07:52.204 --> 01:07:56.074
This is a second year that it is in existence and I think it's now about 20.

01:07:56.284 --> 01:07:56.614
Oh wow.

01:07:57.094 --> 01:08:01.563
Um, of course there is alumni network, which is kind of formal and traditional network.

01:08:01.563 --> 01:08:01.833
Sure.

01:08:01.893 --> 01:08:04.503
But that's kind of managed out at the university.

01:08:04.503 --> 01:08:04.505
Yeah.

01:08:04.510 --> 01:08:05.568
These people are giving their time directly.

01:08:05.568 --> 01:08:06.528
Oh yes, absolutely.

01:08:06.873 --> 01:08:16.533
And this event is now we're going to have, I think the second event where it's coming up, uh, we're going to have in Denver the meeting, and we're trying to scale that up as well.

01:08:16.533 --> 01:08:19.923
So, you know, going down those five more of those past graduates, whatever, yeah.

01:08:20.673 --> 01:08:22.503
Oh, and the jobs in region and stuff.

01:08:22.503 --> 01:08:25.564
Ultimately every couple of months we would have a network and event.

01:08:25.623 --> 01:08:35.434
That's the hope that we are heading and, uh, towards and the networking event in the bigger areas like Denver Metro, like say for example, Boulder again.

01:08:35.583 --> 01:08:35.764
Yeah.

01:08:35.764 --> 01:08:35.765
Yeah.

01:08:35.944 --> 01:08:36.873
Um, and so forth.

01:08:36.963 --> 01:08:37.323
So yeah.

01:08:37.793 --> 01:08:38.243
Very cool.

01:08:38.453 --> 01:08:41.243
My, uh, my alma mater is, uh, North Dakota State.

01:08:41.423 --> 01:08:41.724
Okay.

01:08:41.783 --> 01:08:47.064
Uh, which back in those days was a rival with UNC in division two football.

01:08:47.304 --> 01:08:47.828
Oh, okay.

01:08:47.833 --> 01:08:47.993
Yeah.

01:08:47.993 --> 01:08:50.844
They, they traded titles a few times back 20 years ago.

01:08:51.264 --> 01:08:54.054
I don't know if they are still, you know, I honestly don't know.

01:08:54.203 --> 01:08:55.823
Oh, North Dakota State moved up a level.

01:08:55.884 --> 01:08:56.333
Okay.

01:08:56.363 --> 01:09:01.463
So they're division one FCS now, and they, I think they've won like 12 out the last 15 championships.

01:09:01.493 --> 01:09:01.764
Okay.

01:09:02.033 --> 01:09:02.453
Oh, alright.

01:09:02.514 --> 01:09:03.054
They're ballers.

01:09:03.054 --> 01:09:07.373
See, I, I'm pretty ignorant about those sports because none of my kids are in, uh, in them.

01:09:07.373 --> 01:09:09.863
So, well, we call football is in football around here.

01:09:10.073 --> 01:09:10.554
Yes.

01:09:10.554 --> 01:09:10.734
Yeah.

01:09:10.734 --> 01:09:12.083
But no, look, I mean, you know, it's fine.

01:09:12.083 --> 01:09:18.828
Of course, you know, it's locally, you know, um, I mean there is also like, you know, if you think about different levels and types of football mm-hmm.

01:09:19.073 --> 01:09:23.904
Uh, and we think about soccer versus American football, I'm starting to think about say Irish football.

01:09:23.904 --> 01:09:24.384
Yes, sure.

01:09:24.384 --> 01:09:26.094
And then Australian rules as well.

01:09:26.363 --> 01:09:29.029
And all of a sudden you kind of get the Oh, way completely.

01:09:29.154 --> 01:09:29.993
Yeah, exactly.

01:09:29.993 --> 01:09:31.463
Which looks totally different.

01:09:31.463 --> 01:09:31.764
Yes.

01:09:32.094 --> 01:09:33.113
I mean, uh, yeah.

01:09:33.113 --> 01:09:36.988
It isn't rugby B it isn't o football football, but it's something like football.

01:09:37.288 --> 01:09:37.974
It is, it's true.

01:09:38.003 --> 01:09:39.713
Um, I wanna take a quick break.

01:09:40.014 --> 01:09:40.224
Yeah.

01:09:40.224 --> 01:09:47.274
Potty break and then we'll come back and, uh, I wanna talk a little bit about the, uh, kind of risks in the world.

01:09:47.333 --> 01:09:53.154
You know, what can we look forward to in the next six to 12 months, both economically, but also conflict risks.

01:09:53.423 --> 01:09:53.814
Oh, right.

01:09:53.934 --> 01:09:54.144
Yeah.

01:09:54.144 --> 01:09:54.474
Fun.

01:09:54.533 --> 01:09:54.833
Cool.

01:09:55.043 --> 01:09:55.253
Okay.

01:10:48.474 --> 01:10:49.493
And we're back.

01:10:49.884 --> 01:11:04.463
So one of the reasons I first reached out, uh, back a few months ago was I thought with your name, you might be kind of an expert on the Russia, Ukraine region and insights about, you know, is it really about the rare earths, is it really about nato?

01:11:04.463 --> 01:11:09.354
Is it really about poking the bear until the bear had to claw back?

01:11:09.833 --> 01:11:11.333
Uh, what, what are all of these things?

01:11:11.333 --> 01:11:13.073
Yes, it's complicated.

01:11:13.073 --> 01:11:15.083
You don't, you don't poke the bear for no reason.

01:11:15.083 --> 01:11:15.474
Yes.

01:11:15.474 --> 01:11:22.283
I mean, there is a bear there, you know, if you hike it through the mud, don't poke the bear no matter what the reason is.

01:11:22.734 --> 01:11:25.613
But you know, the way you, it's kind of is the allegory.

01:11:25.613 --> 01:11:25.884
Yes.

01:11:25.884 --> 01:11:26.634
Don't poke the bear.

01:11:27.203 --> 01:11:28.764
Um, there is a history.

01:11:28.764 --> 01:11:29.033
Yes.

01:11:29.033 --> 01:11:29.094
Yeah.

01:11:29.184 --> 01:11:30.564
There's a long term history.

01:11:30.564 --> 01:11:31.524
There is issues.

01:11:31.613 --> 01:11:41.304
Um, Russia sees itself for whether it's right or wrong, um, as a, you know, not necessarily a superpower, but perhaps a power to be reckoned with.

01:11:41.304 --> 01:11:41.453
Yeah.

01:11:41.453 --> 01:11:42.413
Somebody be respected.

01:11:42.474 --> 01:11:42.833
Correct.

01:11:42.833 --> 01:11:43.014
At least.

01:11:43.043 --> 01:11:48.474
Um, and to regain that respect by, you know, hard effort.

01:11:49.134 --> 01:11:51.024
Not always the most constructive effort I.

01:11:51.368 --> 01:11:54.128
But nonetheless, from the Russian perspective, it is constructive act.

01:11:54.134 --> 01:11:54.283
Yeah.

01:11:54.399 --> 01:11:54.458
Yeah.

01:11:54.458 --> 01:11:55.958
It's a very important effort as well.

01:11:56.319 --> 01:12:09.908
It's a geopolitical power, which kind of sees, uh, you know, kind of similar to America in that sense that it sees itself as a messenger, as a, um, as the dominant player in the region, if not globally.

01:12:10.479 --> 01:12:19.208
So, Pok in the Bear was ill-advised, like the acceptance of Lithuanian, all these No, not so much actually.

01:12:19.389 --> 01:12:19.480
That was okay.

01:12:19.480 --> 01:12:20.948
No, this is a very interesting thing about this.

01:12:20.948 --> 01:12:27.038
You know, we kind of, we first originally when the process of the breakdown of the Warsaw Park.

01:12:27.128 --> 01:12:27.368
Yes.

01:12:27.368 --> 01:12:27.639
Yeah, yeah.

01:12:27.698 --> 01:12:36.279
And a kind of Soviet empire started, we actually overestimated the extent of sensitivities that was involved from a Russian perspective.

01:12:36.279 --> 01:12:39.279
The Baltic states were never naturally a part of Russia.

01:12:39.279 --> 01:12:39.368
Mm-hmm.

01:12:39.639 --> 01:12:40.854
They were more like Finland or whatever.

01:12:40.923 --> 01:12:41.413
Exactly.

01:12:41.503 --> 01:12:43.418
Bingo and e because Finland is a great example.

01:12:43.418 --> 01:12:43.719
Yes.

01:12:43.868 --> 01:12:54.814
Finland was incorporated into Russia as a basically fully autonomous entity with its own parliament, with its own government, with its own rules, laws, and everything else in the Soviet scene.

01:12:54.873 --> 01:12:55.814
No, that was before.

01:12:55.833 --> 01:12:58.029
No, it was way before in the Russian Empire.

01:12:58.029 --> 01:12:58.269
Yes.

01:12:58.359 --> 01:12:58.389
Okay.

01:12:58.448 --> 01:12:58.569
Yep.

01:12:58.628 --> 01:13:04.538
Uh, so when the Soviet, sorry, when the Russian Empire itself dissolved, when the Czar.

01:13:04.913 --> 01:13:05.604
Abdicated.

01:13:05.634 --> 01:13:06.264
Mm-hmm.

01:13:06.533 --> 01:13:10.554
It, it dissolved the connection because the czar was never the czar of Finland.

01:13:10.703 --> 01:13:11.033
Right.

01:13:11.033 --> 01:13:13.434
He was basically our Duke of Finland.

01:13:13.434 --> 01:13:13.948
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:13:13.953 --> 01:13:16.974
So, in a way, Z disappearing.

01:13:17.064 --> 01:13:19.434
There was no other connection between Finland.

01:13:19.434 --> 01:13:21.323
Nobody else else kind came into that agreement, if you will.

01:13:21.323 --> 01:13:22.613
So there, there, there was no base.

01:13:22.613 --> 01:13:23.963
We've had a student with us from Finland.

01:13:23.963 --> 01:13:25.974
Right now my wife and I are hosting an exchange student.

01:13:26.274 --> 01:13:26.753
That's awesome.

01:13:26.753 --> 01:13:28.854
So I've learned a fair bit, like, you know.

01:13:28.854 --> 01:13:29.423
Exactly.

01:13:29.423 --> 01:13:31.073
And it's an amazing nation, by the way.

01:13:31.104 --> 01:13:31.373
Yeah.

01:13:31.373 --> 01:13:32.543
The history of it is amazing.

01:13:32.604 --> 01:13:39.354
The ability of that, you know, society and that culture to survive next to this giant, you know?

01:13:39.444 --> 01:13:39.743
Right.

01:13:39.743 --> 01:13:44.394
Russia with a history of the end, also by the way, being wedged between Russia and Sweden.

01:13:44.394 --> 01:13:45.264
Sweden has, yeah.

01:13:45.264 --> 01:13:46.493
They were assholes too for a long time.

01:13:46.583 --> 01:13:48.774
Well they, they, they had their aspirations.

01:13:49.134 --> 01:13:49.163
Okay.

01:13:49.163 --> 01:13:49.493
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:13:49.524 --> 01:13:51.828
Um, and the aspirations is a nice way of saying that.

01:13:51.849 --> 01:13:54.234
And so and so did, of course, Pauls Yes, sure.

01:13:54.264 --> 01:13:56.814
And Lithuanian, Polish, Lithuanian Kingdom, them and adult.

01:13:56.814 --> 01:14:00.113
So that whole neck of the woods had been very much contested.

01:14:00.113 --> 01:14:01.673
Of course over the centuries as well.

01:14:02.003 --> 01:14:05.154
But apart from the history itself and the history doesn't form who we are.

01:14:05.274 --> 01:14:05.484
Sure.

01:14:05.514 --> 01:14:09.113
Beyond the end doubts, there is a lot of kind of insecurity in Russia as well.

01:14:09.623 --> 01:14:12.444
NATO presents that insecurity and presents that pressure.

01:14:12.863 --> 01:14:13.793
Um, you know.

01:14:14.649 --> 01:14:18.878
Ukraine conflict really started way before 2014 even.

01:14:18.908 --> 01:14:19.269
Okay.

01:14:19.269 --> 01:14:19.359
Mm-hmm.

01:14:19.628 --> 01:14:24.878
There was a constant pressure and pool within Ukraine, which in modern Ukraine is the Soviet creation.

01:14:24.878 --> 01:14:25.509
Yes, sure.

01:14:25.509 --> 01:14:31.838
It bolted on the western Ukraine, which was never really, really a part of the old traditional Ukraine.

01:14:31.868 --> 01:14:32.168
Oh, okay.

01:14:32.319 --> 01:14:33.548
Or the eastern Ukraine.

01:14:33.548 --> 01:14:36.128
And this kind of dichotomy, the difference Yes.

01:14:36.128 --> 01:14:47.139
Creates a very tremendous, you know, force of kinda like a north versus south element, like in the US less so, but more like say north versus, you know, Republic of Ireland.

01:14:47.769 --> 01:14:48.399
Gotcha.

01:14:48.819 --> 01:14:51.788
Um, like the say Protestants and Catholics.

01:14:51.788 --> 01:14:52.059
Yeah.

01:14:52.059 --> 01:14:52.434
More like that.

01:14:52.434 --> 01:14:54.729
And you have the religious difference as well there.

01:14:54.729 --> 01:14:54.788
Yeah.

01:14:54.788 --> 01:14:58.748
You have a Catholic, Western Ukraine and you have the Orthodox Eastern Ukraine.

01:14:58.748 --> 01:14:59.650
Oh yeah, of course.

01:14:59.828 --> 01:15:02.048
And then you have also other minorities as well there.

01:15:02.054 --> 01:15:02.234
Yes.

01:15:02.238 --> 01:15:02.529
Yeah.

01:15:02.559 --> 01:15:06.038
Well, probably a lot of non-religious Western Ukraine then too.

01:15:06.038 --> 01:15:06.309
Uh.

01:15:06.998 --> 01:15:10.389
Probably actually, or Catholic identifying, but not too active.

01:15:10.389 --> 01:15:12.488
Neither one, you know, that's more like Central Ukraine.

01:15:12.488 --> 01:15:12.519
Okay.

01:15:12.519 --> 01:15:15.219
Which is administrative Ukraine, like Nepro area.

01:15:15.248 --> 01:15:15.279
Okay.

01:15:15.279 --> 01:15:17.439
All the way to kyiv, non-secular.

01:15:17.588 --> 01:15:17.979
Okay.

01:15:18.219 --> 01:15:19.899
Much more kind of modernized.

01:15:19.988 --> 01:15:20.048
Yeah.

01:15:20.048 --> 01:15:23.019
Much more, you know, industrialized urban or whatever.

01:15:23.019 --> 01:15:23.738
Yeah, exactly.

01:15:23.738 --> 01:15:23.889
Yeah.

01:15:24.189 --> 01:15:33.668
So, um, I mean this is all of course very much, you know, we, we wear curtain, uh, on the side of much more complexity Sure.

01:15:33.668 --> 01:15:34.088
Than this.

01:15:34.088 --> 01:15:34.448
Okay.

01:15:34.809 --> 01:15:38.198
Um, so I'm trying to do it in seven minutes here, so Yeah, no, it's true.

01:15:38.288 --> 01:15:39.009
Oh, good luck.

01:15:39.644 --> 01:15:39.934
Luck.

01:15:40.448 --> 01:15:40.988
Maybe got 15.

01:15:41.288 --> 01:15:42.038
I'm a wrong person.

01:15:42.158 --> 01:15:42.878
That question.

01:15:43.748 --> 01:15:46.809
Um, so there is a lot of history there and then history goes back.

01:15:46.809 --> 01:15:47.469
There's some good.

01:15:47.738 --> 01:15:49.988
Things, there are some bad things between it, of course.

01:15:50.288 --> 01:15:57.908
Um, so yes, the West has played a less than smart role in the process that doesn't absolve Russia.

01:15:58.059 --> 01:15:58.389
Sure.

01:15:58.538 --> 01:15:59.139
Exactly.

01:15:59.319 --> 01:15:59.948
Absolutely.

01:16:00.279 --> 01:16:05.288
Um, it played less constructive role rather than, you know, like the West played one.

01:16:05.288 --> 01:16:11.288
I was terrified when, when Biden shot the long range missiles into Russia after losing the election.

01:16:11.288 --> 01:16:13.179
I was like, what are you doing?

01:16:13.179 --> 01:16:15.279
Like, I'm not sure that was allowing that.

01:16:15.279 --> 01:16:15.609
Yes.

01:16:15.609 --> 01:16:21.429
But, but on the other hand, of course, if you take the position from the point of view of supporting Ukraine, right, and that is intellectual.

01:16:21.429 --> 01:16:24.368
This is what they need position, they need more than that.

01:16:24.488 --> 01:16:24.819
Right.

01:16:24.844 --> 01:16:25.988
And where do you stop?

01:16:25.988 --> 01:16:26.979
And that's the whole problem.

01:16:26.979 --> 01:16:27.219
Yes.

01:16:27.219 --> 01:16:27.429
Right.

01:16:27.488 --> 01:16:33.759
So in a way, I'm actually in line with Trump administration on the fact that that war should never have been started.

01:16:33.998 --> 01:16:34.208
Yeah.

01:16:34.599 --> 01:16:35.288
A hundred percent.

01:16:36.128 --> 01:16:39.488
The problem is that the wishful thinking doesn't work forward.

01:16:39.488 --> 01:16:39.698
Yes.

01:16:39.698 --> 01:16:39.908
Yeah.

01:16:40.238 --> 01:16:59.378
Well, and the argument I hear about, you know, giving Russia a piece of Eastern Ukraine and having an agreement that's signed and forces done and stuff is that, you know, after Trump has gone next, uh, crappy president we've got in the office, Russia's gonna take Ukraine and then they're gonna take Poland and then they're gonna take the rest of it.

01:16:59.559 --> 01:17:01.029
I don't think that Russia will take poll.

01:17:01.029 --> 01:17:01.748
I don't think they will either.

01:17:01.748 --> 01:17:05.859
I don't think Russia has any ambition in terms of the additional territory gains.

01:17:06.279 --> 01:17:09.338
I don't think it wanted this to Ukraine either to begin with.

01:17:09.908 --> 01:17:13.104
Um, but now you had a bunch of people dead, but now it has.

01:17:13.134 --> 01:17:14.274
Right Eastern Ukraine.

01:17:14.304 --> 01:17:14.604
Yeah.

01:17:14.724 --> 01:17:18.863
Um, I would be of the view that from my point of view, Ukraine is an independent nation.

01:17:18.863 --> 01:17:18.953
Mm-hmm.

01:17:19.194 --> 01:17:21.113
And sovereign states should not be attacked.

01:17:21.203 --> 01:17:25.554
They no matter what, if they do attack, then defense is justifiable.

01:17:25.559 --> 01:17:25.658
Yeah.

01:17:25.658 --> 01:17:25.819
Okay.

01:17:26.094 --> 01:17:28.434
But non defensive war is not justifiable.

01:17:28.434 --> 01:17:29.573
But this is my personal view.

01:17:29.573 --> 01:17:29.783
Sure.

01:17:29.783 --> 01:17:30.054
Yes.

01:17:30.444 --> 01:17:33.173
Um, we are, as they say, where we are.

01:17:33.833 --> 01:17:37.524
And this is a big problem because how do you resolve, how do you get out of here?

01:17:37.974 --> 01:17:44.844
Um, the difficulty we have is less logistics of the, who controls the ground, but more of the logistics.

01:17:44.844 --> 01:17:45.863
Who has the trust?

01:17:46.644 --> 01:17:47.724
Nobody has the trust.

01:17:47.844 --> 01:17:49.104
We don't trust the Russians.

01:17:49.163 --> 01:17:50.423
Russians don't trust us.

01:17:50.484 --> 01:17:50.753
Yep.

01:17:50.963 --> 01:17:52.583
Ukrainians don't trust the Russians.

01:17:52.583 --> 01:17:54.354
We don't trust UK Ukranians and nobody, they trust UK Ukraine.

01:17:54.894 --> 01:17:56.634
Um, yeah.

01:17:56.753 --> 01:17:58.819
Even poll except for the Europeans seem to trust Ukraine.

01:17:58.819 --> 01:17:59.099
Even poll.

01:17:59.099 --> 01:18:00.298
No, I mean even Europeans.

01:18:01.019 --> 01:18:09.533
Europeans say that they trust Ukraine, but to be honest, you know, do you really anything that the French Trust Ukraine or for that matter, French trust anyone but the French Yes.

01:18:09.564 --> 01:18:09.833
Yeah.

01:18:09.833 --> 01:18:09.835
Yeah.

01:18:09.894 --> 01:18:13.524
I mean if you look at the, for example, Italians and you look at Maloney.

01:18:13.823 --> 01:18:13.913
Sure.

01:18:13.974 --> 01:18:19.854
Um, you know, she comes in from the point of view into the political realm today, the leadership.

01:18:19.854 --> 01:18:19.854
Right.

01:18:19.854 --> 01:18:22.314
She's the MAGA of, uh, she's worse than maga.

01:18:22.314 --> 01:18:28.253
You, I mean, you know, like it was before MAGA got accused of being fascist, you know, she was accused of being fascist.

01:18:28.253 --> 01:18:28.493
Yes.

01:18:28.793 --> 01:18:30.623
And now she's one of the leaders.

01:18:30.923 --> 01:18:35.724
Of the, you know, kind of freedom movement and Well, and France would have that leader too, potentially.

01:18:35.753 --> 01:18:35.814
Yeah.

01:18:35.814 --> 01:18:37.014
If, except for the funny right.

01:18:37.014 --> 01:18:38.154
Businesss they pulled with the election.

01:18:38.213 --> 01:18:38.783
That's right.

01:18:38.783 --> 01:18:42.743
So I mean like, and Germany too, you know, you go everywhere.

01:18:42.743 --> 01:18:45.984
The only countries like Ireland are the ones which are saying, we don't have the right wing.

01:18:45.984 --> 01:18:50.033
But then you have the, you know, conman, McGregor, you know.

01:18:50.033 --> 01:18:56.333
So I mean there is, the paradox of that is that we're in extremely complex environment.

01:18:56.338 --> 01:18:56.448
Yeah.

01:18:56.604 --> 01:19:11.394
We are not only environment where we deal with risk, if you use the proper terminology, we deal with what, in the 1990s US military, the US Army has labeled vuca volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.

01:19:11.453 --> 01:19:11.873
Hmm.

01:19:12.054 --> 01:19:17.604
And that is an environment where things don't just happen, as kind of unpleasant events.

01:19:18.413 --> 01:19:20.873
What happens in this environment is a systemic crisis.

01:19:20.904 --> 01:19:21.024
Mm-hmm.

01:19:21.323 --> 01:19:23.184
Big things, big wars.

01:19:23.184 --> 01:19:30.684
Not just small skirmish, not some kind of stable, relatively balanced conflict that happened in 2014.

01:19:30.863 --> 01:19:31.194
Yeah.

01:19:31.253 --> 01:19:34.703
In Eastern Ukraine, but actually full out wars.

01:19:34.974 --> 01:19:36.323
And that's 2022.

01:19:36.594 --> 01:19:36.713
Yeah.

01:19:37.043 --> 01:19:45.083
So from this point of view, even devising any sort of, the response has to start with the proposition.

01:19:45.083 --> 01:19:47.604
What's the worst case scenario that you're going to get?

01:19:48.533 --> 01:19:50.573
And up until what?

01:19:50.604 --> 01:19:55.224
2022 we had, the worst case scenario is we're going to have a lot of people dead.

01:19:55.734 --> 01:19:59.123
Now we have the worst case scenario of the nuclear World War.

01:19:59.123 --> 01:19:59.663
Everybody's dead.

01:20:00.264 --> 01:20:01.644
Effectively everybody's dead.

01:20:01.673 --> 01:20:02.003
Okay.

01:20:02.604 --> 01:20:11.663
And, uh, if you go historically, who normalized that reality, it wasn't the Russians, it was actually the first idea of the winnable nuclear conflict.

01:20:12.173 --> 01:20:20.484
So-called limited nuclear conflict came out in the United States and it was codified in early n by the likes of the Atlantic Council.

01:20:20.573 --> 01:20:20.663
Mm-hmm.

01:20:21.264 --> 01:20:22.884
Or the council Foreign relations.

01:20:22.944 --> 01:20:23.123
Yeah.

01:20:23.123 --> 01:20:23.363
Okay.

01:20:23.363 --> 01:20:34.224
In the United States, the advisors to our policy makers, the advisors to our national security heads in Congress, in the White House and everywhere else.

01:20:34.253 --> 01:20:34.583
Yeah.

01:20:34.583 --> 01:20:34.585
Yeah.

01:20:34.764 --> 01:20:41.963
So in a way we are now, is that because of the pressure of profit from,'cause you, you sell moms, is it military industrial complex?

01:20:41.963 --> 01:20:43.073
Yeah, that's a very interesting thing.

01:20:43.073 --> 01:20:44.213
So military industrial complex.

01:20:44.213 --> 01:20:54.564
I did some research on military industrial complex and part of kind of, you know, there is very surprisingly for the size of the military industrial complex, if you go into finance and economics literature, there aren't a lot of papers.

01:20:54.564 --> 01:20:57.264
Nobody studies, not a lot of direct evidence of Oh no, it's not that.

01:20:57.264 --> 01:20:58.554
It's just nobody really studied.

01:20:58.554 --> 01:20:58.878
Not a popular subject.

01:20:58.878 --> 01:20:59.078
Yeah.

01:20:59.149 --> 01:20:59.838
It's not a popular subject.

01:20:59.873 --> 01:21:00.774
It's like studying the cool next.

01:21:00.863 --> 01:21:09.533
So when we wrote, you know, when I had myself and a couple of my graduate students, uh, back I think around 2013, started research on that.

01:21:09.594 --> 01:21:13.583
And it took me until 2023 to publish the first paper on this.

01:21:13.583 --> 01:21:13.913
Okay.

01:21:14.333 --> 01:21:16.014
Uh, because nobody wanted to take it.

01:21:16.134 --> 01:21:17.694
Journals are not interested.

01:21:18.833 --> 01:21:21.623
And what's the punchline if, I mean, so the punchline is the following.

01:21:21.713 --> 01:21:28.043
The military industrial complex doesn't make money out of the direct immediate wars.

01:21:28.043 --> 01:21:28.104
I.

01:21:28.569 --> 01:21:31.118
What they make money out of the two things.

01:21:31.538 --> 01:21:35.798
One is kind of pipeline of ordering the budgets.

01:21:36.279 --> 01:21:36.698
Okay.

01:21:36.908 --> 01:21:40.149
So the budgets of war are more important than the wars themselves.

01:21:40.389 --> 01:21:46.298
And a second thing, when things become really uncertain, when things not just blow up, okay.

01:21:46.298 --> 01:21:48.488
But they blow up in an unpredictable way.

01:21:49.208 --> 01:21:50.679
So again, it's not the risk.

01:21:50.708 --> 01:21:51.128
Okay.

01:21:51.429 --> 01:22:01.179
So there's two things that investors in military industrial complex, like they like the steady pipeline of orders that they can program into the future.

01:22:01.179 --> 01:22:02.408
And that's, you know, something Yeah.

01:22:02.408 --> 01:22:03.609
Just keep making this many parts.

01:22:03.609 --> 01:22:03.759
Yep.

01:22:03.819 --> 01:22:18.639
So that's how you regular budget, but the wars themselves, the spikes, the moments of this acceleration in the uncertainty about the future demand, it always kind of leads to the promotion or the support of the military industrial complex stocks.

01:22:18.788 --> 01:22:28.988
So in a way you can see now, oh, and they just like to see their, their stock price going need, why we constantly need this kind of, you know, drive towards being belligerent.

01:22:29.048 --> 01:22:29.469
Yeah.

01:22:29.498 --> 01:22:39.849
Ose, um, United States is in a way, Jimmy Carter was correct in saying that in its history, this is probably the most war in nation on face earth, probably.

01:22:39.854 --> 01:22:40.003
Yeah.

01:22:40.009 --> 01:22:40.359
Yeah.

01:22:40.418 --> 01:22:40.599
Yeah.

01:22:40.599 --> 01:22:44.109
Even though we've haven't fought really a war on our own soil.

01:22:44.708 --> 01:22:44.798
Right.

01:22:44.798 --> 01:22:46.179
For quite a long time.

01:22:46.184 --> 01:22:46.283
Yeah.

01:22:46.288 --> 01:22:46.359
Yeah.

01:22:46.359 --> 01:22:54.399
You know, blessed we are by that, but we have supported whether directly or indirectly, um, vast numbers of conflicts.

01:22:54.399 --> 01:22:54.458
Yeah.

01:22:54.564 --> 01:22:54.764
Yeah.

01:22:54.998 --> 01:22:57.878
Um, it is unfortunately a.

01:22:58.208 --> 01:23:00.788
Um, it is the geopolitical reality today.

01:23:00.804 --> 01:23:01.094
Yeah.

01:23:01.099 --> 01:23:01.389
Yeah.

01:23:01.479 --> 01:23:02.529
And we're going to see more of it.

01:23:03.309 --> 01:23:14.854
I think one of the biggest risk points of this and you know, like seeing, uh, Chinese and North Korean troops joining the Russians on the fronts and stuff like that is like, that's the last thing they want.

01:23:14.854 --> 01:23:15.338
Not so much Chinese.

01:23:15.338 --> 01:23:16.958
Chinese are staying cool on that.

01:23:16.958 --> 01:23:17.229
Okay.

01:23:17.229 --> 01:23:18.038
They've got, you know, not yet.

01:23:18.038 --> 01:23:27.429
There's, there's some argument, there's some, you know, kind of reporting coming out of Ukraine, uh, that they have traced some Chinese, um, conscripts.

01:23:27.519 --> 01:23:27.698
Okay.

01:23:27.698 --> 01:23:30.368
Not conscripts, but the contract soldiers.

01:23:30.429 --> 01:23:30.761
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:23:30.819 --> 01:23:33.368
Um, but that's not the not significant reported thing.

01:23:33.368 --> 01:23:33.668
Yeah.

01:23:33.969 --> 01:23:35.588
Uh, North Korea is different story.

01:23:35.588 --> 01:23:40.658
So Russia has signed a, you know, basically a common defense clause with North Korea.

01:23:40.658 --> 01:23:41.259
Oh, is that right?

01:23:41.319 --> 01:23:41.618
Okay.

01:23:41.679 --> 01:23:44.378
That happened, uh, in 2023.

01:23:44.618 --> 01:23:44.948
Okay.

01:23:45.248 --> 01:23:48.654
Um, and um, you know, as a result of that Russia actually yeah.

01:23:48.654 --> 01:23:49.448
A win for North Korea.

01:23:49.479 --> 01:23:51.458
'cause they're like, Hey, those huge, huge win for North Korea.

01:23:51.654 --> 01:23:53.173
Absolutely huge win for North Korea.

01:23:53.184 --> 01:23:57.819
Korea, and plus a great export for like, they got a bunch of starving men in North Korea.

01:23:57.823 --> 01:24:00.878
They do like better to get a nice paycheck.

01:24:00.939 --> 01:24:02.288
Uh, they do sent to the homeland.

01:24:02.319 --> 01:24:03.488
The numbers of them are limited.

01:24:03.639 --> 01:24:03.878
Yeah.

01:24:03.878 --> 01:24:08.378
I mean you're talking about five to 10,000 as far as we have the credible, actually trained information.

01:24:08.378 --> 01:24:08.770
Yeah, yeah.

01:24:08.889 --> 01:24:11.019
Um, you know, that actually went in.

01:24:11.349 --> 01:24:15.519
Um, all of them, as far as I understand, have stayed within Russia property.

01:24:15.519 --> 01:24:17.109
So it's the Kors region.

01:24:17.259 --> 01:24:17.288
Okay.

01:24:17.529 --> 01:24:19.899
Where Ukraine had the country offensive, remember?

01:24:19.899 --> 01:24:20.213
Yep, yep, yep.

01:24:20.288 --> 01:24:21.759
Um, that's where they fought.

01:24:21.788 --> 01:24:23.798
They haven't crossed, as far as I know.

01:24:24.144 --> 01:24:26.184
Into the Ukrainian territory.

01:24:26.243 --> 01:24:26.423
Yeah.

01:24:26.514 --> 01:24:32.453
Uh, which of course would be, you know, kind of probably an act of war against Ukraine by North Korea.

01:24:32.484 --> 01:24:32.899
Right, right.

01:24:32.993 --> 01:24:37.554
Um, it's very hard to even trace what exactly is the act of war these days.

01:24:37.673 --> 01:24:37.823
Okay.

01:24:38.094 --> 01:24:38.184
Right.

01:24:38.184 --> 01:24:43.019
How far we moved back in the days it used to be you send a very stern letter to the leader of the other country.

01:24:43.029 --> 01:24:43.378
Right.

01:24:43.378 --> 01:24:55.613
Oh, that's, and then you send, you know, you know, at night, you know, with a bill of, you know, where you ask for things and demand the things, you know, and then there's, you know, kind of the war, the buddy thing, you know, a little slap with the glove.

01:24:56.064 --> 01:24:56.663
Exactly.

01:24:56.993 --> 01:24:58.224
And bingo.

01:24:58.224 --> 01:24:58.613
Exactly.

01:24:58.613 --> 01:25:02.694
It used to be like, and you go back to the 19th century, the history of warfare.

01:25:03.323 --> 01:25:09.384
I mean, you have the first event of the so-called barbar or modern war happens in 1812.

01:25:09.774 --> 01:25:12.984
In Russia, Napole, Napoleon's, uh, campaign in Russia.

01:25:13.253 --> 01:25:16.793
And it was the first time when they encountered the concerted resistance.

01:25:16.793 --> 01:25:20.003
Organized resistance by the non-combatants.

01:25:20.064 --> 01:25:20.274
Mm.

01:25:20.304 --> 01:25:21.113
The partisans.

01:25:21.173 --> 01:25:22.163
The locals.

01:25:22.163 --> 01:25:23.604
The peasants with pitchforks.

01:25:23.604 --> 01:25:24.024
Yeah.

01:25:24.024 --> 01:25:24.024
Yeah.

01:25:24.083 --> 01:25:25.434
It shocked Europeans.

01:25:25.434 --> 01:25:25.673
Yes.

01:25:25.679 --> 01:25:25.689
Yeah.

01:25:26.033 --> 01:25:26.094
Yeah.

01:25:26.094 --> 01:25:27.804
It shocked the refined European.

01:25:27.804 --> 01:25:28.587
European because we were professional armies.

01:25:28.788 --> 01:25:29.009
Yes.

01:25:29.094 --> 01:25:30.503
And we fight army to army.

01:25:30.564 --> 01:25:31.823
We don't touch the peasants.

01:25:31.823 --> 01:25:32.094
Yes.

01:25:32.213 --> 01:25:32.484
Right.

01:25:32.484 --> 01:25:34.194
I mean, and here's the peasants touching you.

01:25:34.198 --> 01:25:34.569
Right, right.

01:25:34.588 --> 01:25:34.913
You know?

01:25:35.184 --> 01:25:37.554
Um, so that changed the modern warfare.

01:25:37.554 --> 01:25:37.854
Yes.

01:25:37.854 --> 01:25:39.833
And since then we kind of evolved.

01:25:39.923 --> 01:25:47.154
Well, and even the Revolutionary War with the Americans, where the British are like, we line up and we stand this far apart, we shoot each other.

01:25:47.154 --> 01:25:48.804
You guys are hiding behind trees and shit.

01:25:48.804 --> 01:25:49.729
That's, that's not fair.

01:25:49.729 --> 01:25:49.823
That's right.

01:25:49.823 --> 01:25:49.884
Yeah.

01:25:49.884 --> 01:25:50.573
Exactly.

01:25:50.663 --> 01:25:51.144
Exactly.

01:25:51.144 --> 01:26:00.503
So, I mean, like, you know, and that kind of Nobel structure of the campaigns and military campaigns has disintegrated over period of years.

01:26:00.713 --> 01:26:03.264
So we now, today are in the.

01:26:03.788 --> 01:26:08.798
War environment where it is you have the non-human actors involved.

01:26:08.804 --> 01:26:09.248
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:26:09.279 --> 01:26:10.359
All the drones and stuff.

01:26:10.389 --> 01:26:11.828
Uh, not only drones, Roberts.

01:26:11.979 --> 01:26:12.368
Sure.

01:26:12.458 --> 01:26:19.658
Um, we effectively turn the war field or the battlefield into the constant test and lab mm-hmm.

01:26:19.958 --> 01:26:20.649
For new technologies.

01:26:20.654 --> 01:26:20.753
Mm-hmm.

01:26:21.009 --> 01:26:23.708
It's happening on the western side and on the Russian side as well.

01:26:24.069 --> 01:26:31.689
Um, so in this environment to kind of go around and kind of scream about the North Koreans, I mean, it's almost like, you know Yeah.

01:26:31.689 --> 01:26:34.033
Not that significant compared to all the rest that's going on.

01:26:34.033 --> 01:26:34.314
Yeah, exactly.

01:26:34.623 --> 01:26:40.208
Well, and if you start thinking about this drone technology, like do we, are we, can we keep up now?

01:26:40.779 --> 01:26:42.514
You know, very interesting question.

01:26:42.548 --> 01:26:49.658
So, I mean, Russia has managed to, and this is goes to the, my profession and kind of my field of expertise as well.

01:26:49.929 --> 01:26:59.798
Um, you know, we were all taken completely unprepared by the ability of the Russian economy to switch to the kind of military industrial complex.

01:27:00.248 --> 01:27:17.859
Um, Russia had really not a meaningful military budget expend before the war, and has retooled its economy very successfully and has managed the ways to bypass tremendous sanctions, which have never been deployed in the history against any other country in a past.

01:27:17.918 --> 01:27:18.279
Yeah.

01:27:18.458 --> 01:27:21.338
Um, it is to the point where it almost like to me was a.

01:27:22.194 --> 01:27:24.113
A risk of devaluation of the dollar.

01:27:24.863 --> 01:27:26.844
Like if you could just take somebody's money.

01:27:26.904 --> 01:27:26.993
Right.

01:27:26.993 --> 01:27:29.663
So they're not driving the devaluation of the dollar themselves.

01:27:29.694 --> 01:27:30.054
No.

01:27:30.054 --> 01:27:34.463
But the risk of a another currency replacing the dollar, you know, bricks or something.

01:27:34.469 --> 01:27:34.988
Yes, correct.

01:27:35.033 --> 01:27:35.154
Yes.

01:27:35.213 --> 01:27:35.423
Yeah.

01:27:35.423 --> 01:27:45.024
We just took a few billion dollars, you know, we've started that process, what we call that, you know, in my profession we call that weaponization of economic systems.

01:27:45.024 --> 01:27:45.474
Yep, yep.

01:27:45.594 --> 01:27:48.024
Uh, they can be financial systems, they can be trade systems.

01:27:48.173 --> 01:27:54.144
The United States over the last say, and it's really started with the late 1990s onwards.

01:27:54.293 --> 01:27:54.564
Okay.

01:27:54.623 --> 01:27:55.493
Iran sanctions.

01:27:55.493 --> 01:27:59.873
The very big move was of course the, uh, second Gulf War.

01:28:00.024 --> 01:28:00.264
Sure.

01:28:00.833 --> 01:28:07.104
Um, and there, after it's accelerated tremendously by now, we have weaponized absolutely everything we have.

01:28:07.644 --> 01:28:13.613
We have weaponized aid, we have weaponized humanitarian assistance, we have weaponized health.

01:28:14.198 --> 01:28:14.769
Provision.

01:28:15.158 --> 01:28:24.998
Um, anything that is outward looking in the United States, you know, from our treasury department to our health, again, to our food supplies is all weaponized.

01:28:24.998 --> 01:28:39.519
When you do that, you create incentives, both push and pull incentives for the nefarious or adversarial actors, whether they're Russia, Ukraine, yeah, sorry, no, Ukraine, China, um, but even Ukraine, Poland as well.

01:28:39.519 --> 01:28:41.979
They're not adversarial, but they're competitive in many ways.

01:28:42.099 --> 01:28:42.368
Okay.

01:28:42.609 --> 01:28:43.118
As well.

01:28:43.359 --> 01:28:51.878
Um, all of these different players have used to some extent, the United States weaponizing its systems to resist that.

01:28:51.908 --> 01:28:52.208
Yes.

01:28:52.208 --> 01:28:52.418
Yeah.

01:28:52.423 --> 01:28:52.453
Yeah.

01:28:52.479 --> 01:29:03.368
So the idea of, say for example, digitalization of the economy, a global economy, we think of it as the kind of, you know, juxtaposition between Russia plus China and maybe other bricks.

01:29:03.373 --> 01:29:03.698
Right, right.

01:29:03.698 --> 01:29:04.779
Against the United States.

01:29:04.779 --> 01:29:12.399
The biggest challenger to the US dollar in the last 25 years has not been Yuan ruble or gold.

01:29:13.118 --> 01:29:13.719
It was Europe.

01:29:14.288 --> 01:29:14.979
Oh yeah, sure.

01:29:15.309 --> 01:29:22.658
So when you think about it is Euro are Europeans, our lives well, but we create an opportunity for them Right.

01:29:22.658 --> 01:29:31.418
To effectively benefit from what we benefited for decades of the, you know, post Bretton woods structure of the economy and Bretton Woods structure of the economy.

01:29:31.479 --> 01:29:31.779
Yeah.

01:29:31.779 --> 01:29:32.019
Yeah.

01:29:32.139 --> 01:29:38.948
Well, maybe they can carry that torch for a while and be the, there is a, there's a world advantage to it, but there is also a huge burden to that.

01:29:38.948 --> 01:29:39.219
Sure.

01:29:39.368 --> 01:29:44.469
You mentioned being policemen to, to the rest of the world, which creates a draw on our own resources.

01:29:44.469 --> 01:29:44.529
Yeah.

01:29:44.559 --> 01:29:54.069
Because we we're almost obligated to that because we're the ones that money invest more in the global if you want security than we invest in the roads and railroads in the country.

01:29:54.158 --> 01:29:54.429
Sure.

01:29:54.578 --> 01:30:00.189
We certainly invest more in Pentagon, which is an outward projection of our power mm-hmm.

01:30:00.429 --> 01:30:02.529
Than we invest in healthcare in this country.

01:30:02.529 --> 01:30:02.859
Sure.

01:30:02.948 --> 01:30:04.628
So, I mean, yeah.

01:30:04.628 --> 01:30:06.099
There's a burden to that mal investment.

01:30:06.099 --> 01:30:06.548
Huge burden.

01:30:06.698 --> 01:30:07.418
Massive burden.

01:30:07.509 --> 01:30:07.689
Yeah.

01:30:07.719 --> 01:30:16.628
So yes, there are benefits to having this dominant hegemonic position in the global economy, but also in military industrial space.

01:30:16.958 --> 01:30:19.448
Uh, it's a heavy yolk to bear, kinda, but there's also Correct, yeah.

01:30:19.448 --> 01:30:20.828
Is there is also a cost.

01:30:20.828 --> 01:30:21.729
There is no free lunch.

01:30:21.759 --> 01:30:22.059
Yes.

01:30:22.448 --> 01:30:32.588
Um, so in a way, you know, the challenge that we're witnessing today, uh, to the US economy, US dollar, US hegemony is so multidimensional.

01:30:32.588 --> 01:30:37.569
It's very different from the Cold War Challenge when you had the literally juxtaposition of two superpowers.

01:30:37.569 --> 01:30:38.588
Sure, yeah.

01:30:38.594 --> 01:30:38.604
Yeah.

01:30:38.859 --> 01:30:40.868
Um, and the, there was.

01:30:41.694 --> 01:30:43.194
More tension to that.

01:30:43.253 --> 01:30:43.583
Sure.

01:30:43.613 --> 01:30:48.743
But the change was how we would see magazines all the time comparing the size of our nuclear stockpiles and stuff.

01:30:48.743 --> 01:30:48.863
Right?

01:30:48.863 --> 01:30:49.014
Correct.

01:30:49.014 --> 01:30:49.283
Yes.

01:30:49.283 --> 01:30:50.573
That's where we got at.

01:30:50.573 --> 01:30:50.963
You know?

01:30:51.264 --> 01:30:54.774
Uh, but the tension was almost one dimensional.

01:30:55.014 --> 01:30:55.253
Hmm.

01:30:55.404 --> 01:30:57.234
Now it is so multidimensional mm-hmm.

01:30:57.503 --> 01:30:58.809
That you have the challenges to the United States.

01:30:58.809 --> 01:31:01.128
How, give you example, the predictability is real hard.

01:31:01.128 --> 01:31:01.328
Tar.

01:31:01.328 --> 01:31:01.974
They take tariffs.

01:31:01.974 --> 01:31:02.243
Yes.

01:31:02.453 --> 01:31:08.694
The tariffs have triggered the reaction between and kind of, if you want trade war, of course he has it for tat between China and the United States.

01:31:08.694 --> 01:31:08.783
Sure.

01:31:09.083 --> 01:31:18.354
But behind the scenes, I think it was yesterday, there was a conversation happening in PE in Beijing, uh, about the need and the projecting that it's public.

01:31:18.354 --> 01:31:18.594
Yes.

01:31:18.594 --> 01:31:33.984
Projection of that conversation, of course, that we get on our end, uh, about the need to have a closer relationship, uh, in terms of investments flows, in terms of trade, in terms of diplomacy, in terms of all cultural links between China and Vietnam.

01:31:34.328 --> 01:31:34.509
Hmm.

01:31:34.899 --> 01:31:48.458
Vietnam has drifted towards the United States orbit far enough that it is now an alert from the Chinese point of view, and the Chinese are going to deploy whatever soft diplomacy they usually deploy, which is usually involves investment and trade.

01:31:48.458 --> 01:31:48.880
Yeah, yeah.

01:31:48.939 --> 01:31:52.448
Uh, but also cultural exchanges, also educational opportunities.

01:31:52.448 --> 01:31:56.948
Well, because Vietnam was one of the first countries to respond and be like, we're in, we're talking.

01:31:57.024 --> 01:31:57.488
Yeah, yeah.

01:31:57.488 --> 01:31:57.819
Absolutely.

01:31:58.118 --> 01:31:58.479
Yes.

01:31:58.689 --> 01:32:01.809
So there's a very interesting, these type of challenges.

01:32:01.904 --> 01:32:02.194
Yeah.

01:32:02.198 --> 01:32:02.559
Yeah.

01:32:02.618 --> 01:32:10.418
Back in the Cold War era would be happening way before the actual confrontation takes place and they would be much more stable.

01:32:10.448 --> 01:32:10.838
Right.

01:32:10.838 --> 01:32:10.988
Right.

01:32:10.988 --> 01:32:12.309
Now they're multidimensional.

01:32:12.309 --> 01:32:15.368
The president would send emissaries four months before a deal was made.

01:32:15.368 --> 01:32:15.594
Of course.

01:32:15.613 --> 01:32:15.873
And stuff.

01:32:15.873 --> 01:32:18.594
Instead of Trump just going, you know, we're gonna Texas shut outta those.

01:32:18.594 --> 01:32:22.269
And once they're in our orbit, we can rely on them being in our orbit.

01:32:22.269 --> 01:32:22.569
Yes.

01:32:22.838 --> 01:32:28.059
With exception of, of course, know non aligned states like say India, which always kind of threaded both.

01:32:28.059 --> 01:32:28.569
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:32:28.569 --> 01:32:29.349
Dimensions, you know.

01:32:29.708 --> 01:32:33.069
But in by and large, there was either my camp and your camp.

01:32:33.069 --> 01:32:33.128
Yeah.

01:32:33.158 --> 01:32:35.048
Now there is my camp and one thing.

01:32:35.453 --> 01:32:36.024
Your camp.

01:32:36.024 --> 01:32:40.944
Another thing, and I'm playing an independent one for now, you know, in a third thing.

01:32:41.213 --> 01:32:43.583
Well, and yeah, the Europe is really a hard thing to figure out.

01:32:43.583 --> 01:32:54.713
How does that fit in with, that's another Spanish Ukraine, for example, foreign minister today coming out with a statement that he believes that Europe should be in alignment with the close alignment with China.

01:32:54.713 --> 01:32:55.009
Oh yeah.

01:32:55.548 --> 01:33:00.529
So I mean, here we have the president of the United States who is trying to, you know, kind of both country China.

01:33:00.529 --> 01:33:16.729
But I mean, at the same time some people say that he's building the, you know, alliances between the, you know, or he's incentivizing the Europeans to kind of join United States in a position to China House, you know, taking over Greenland and, you know, screwing Denmark fits into that.

01:33:16.729 --> 01:33:27.623
I'm not sure you know this well, is it really screwing Denmark though, or would it be a, a burden lifted from them that we would gladly carry So far, they're not given us indication that they would be party lifted.

01:33:27.623 --> 01:33:28.184
No, they don't talk like that.

01:33:28.548 --> 01:33:33.048
But when I look at it like from a big picture, it almost like they have to send a bunch of money to Greenland every year.

01:33:33.048 --> 01:33:42.679
It's like, no, it's kind of, you know, Vladimir Putin probably has made an argument at certain point in time that lifting off the Eastern Ukraine from the rest of Ukraine would lift the burden from, yeah, you don't wanna have to finance that.

01:33:44.689 --> 01:33:45.259
Uh, fair.

01:33:45.259 --> 01:33:47.658
But yeah, I mean, no, I don't think so.

01:33:47.658 --> 01:34:04.908
I think, you know, I think the notion that, uh, president Trump is playing, playing some sort of a seven dimensional chess game here is a little bit straight ahead of, you know, more He's President Trump, is he, he's a, a projection map, and so how big Greenland one is, he had to have it bigger than Texas.

01:34:04.939 --> 01:34:12.439
There's, beyond that of course, you know, he's also, he's clearly is a president who is driven by the desire to be put in the textbooks Sure.

01:34:12.439 --> 01:34:19.788
In history textbooks and what biggest thing you can do other than add territory on major scale.

01:34:20.238 --> 01:34:21.078
There's other things.

01:34:21.078 --> 01:34:27.378
I mean, the, the whole, you know, north, the, uh, Arctic Ocean, uh, the access to the Arctic Ocean.

01:34:27.378 --> 01:34:27.588
Sure.

01:34:27.588 --> 01:34:31.998
Uh, United States only has that through a small part of us, uh, Alaska.

01:34:32.479 --> 01:34:35.779
Um, you know, we can't really be players Yeah, yeah.

01:34:35.779 --> 01:34:37.279
In the Arctic with just that.

01:34:37.488 --> 01:34:37.609
Yeah.

01:34:37.609 --> 01:34:40.488
Canada is clearly kind of, you know, very hesitant as well.

01:34:40.623 --> 01:34:40.913
Yeah.

01:34:40.918 --> 01:34:41.059
Yeah.

01:34:41.149 --> 01:34:45.738
Um, you know, so you have this, you know, there is, there is incentives.

01:34:45.828 --> 01:34:46.878
Yeah, of course.

01:34:47.059 --> 01:34:50.868
Um, but I mean, you know, would you go about it by the way?

01:34:51.198 --> 01:34:52.548
You've got his gun.

01:34:52.554 --> 01:34:52.713
Yeah.

01:34:52.713 --> 01:34:54.948
You, no, I mean, um, yeah.

01:34:54.948 --> 01:34:57.769
You're certainly not attracting Canada to join the United States.

01:34:57.769 --> 01:34:58.158
No, I know.

01:34:58.158 --> 01:34:58.429
I don't.

01:34:58.429 --> 01:35:03.259
Do you think Canada should be, uh, uh, a state or 10 smaller states?

01:35:04.788 --> 01:35:07.878
That's, that's a question which I think is so esoteric at this stage.

01:35:08.208 --> 01:35:13.698
I think the United States needs a North American, um.

01:35:14.274 --> 01:35:16.373
Customs and uh, yeah.

01:35:16.373 --> 01:35:17.484
Labor market union.

01:35:17.724 --> 01:35:18.083
Yeah.

01:35:18.293 --> 01:35:23.154
We need to have the relationship with our neighbors that are again, cooperative and constructive.

01:35:23.154 --> 01:35:23.484
Yeah.

01:35:23.488 --> 01:35:23.498
Yeah.

01:35:23.814 --> 01:35:28.163
To the point of being similar to the European Union, that would be free mobility of labor.

01:35:28.163 --> 01:35:28.463
Yeah.

01:35:28.793 --> 01:35:30.684
You can preserve ident.

01:35:30.743 --> 01:35:34.554
You can preserve, I mean, look, Canada has multiple identities itself.

01:35:34.554 --> 01:35:34.823
Sure, yes.

01:35:34.823 --> 01:35:36.203
Quebec versus, you know, oh yeah.

01:35:36.234 --> 01:35:38.333
The rest British Columbia versus the rest.

01:35:38.333 --> 01:35:40.194
You, well, in all the Midwestern ones, right.

01:35:40.194 --> 01:35:42.444
The, they're, they're basically North Dakotans.

01:35:42.564 --> 01:35:44.484
Well, and Saskatchewan and Manitoba and stuff.

01:35:44.783 --> 01:35:44.963
Yeah.

01:35:44.963 --> 01:35:48.863
There might say that there's North Dakotans now, but Yeah, so Exactly.

01:35:48.863 --> 01:35:50.184
So you can have that.

01:35:50.213 --> 01:35:53.814
We have tremendous diversity within the United States of course as well.

01:35:53.993 --> 01:35:57.083
We have the south, we have Florida, which is different from the south.

01:35:57.113 --> 01:35:57.444
Sure.

01:35:57.503 --> 01:35:59.453
I mean, you can narrate different world.

01:35:59.453 --> 01:36:02.753
Why, uh, why is Canada so focused on, um.

01:36:03.144 --> 01:36:09.668
Carbon credits and preventing global warming when it's so cold up there, they benefit from a little warm up over time.

01:36:09.668 --> 01:36:16.104
This is interesting, in, in, in economics there is a kind of subfield of, uh, environmental economics, which looks Yeah.

01:36:16.104 --> 01:36:16.104
Yeah.

01:36:16.224 --> 01:36:20.634
At that, you know, um, at kind of, you know, what are the REBA effects?

01:36:20.634 --> 01:36:22.469
They could raise corn up there instead of just wheat.

01:36:22.529 --> 01:36:39.413
Um, and interestingly enough, so a former student of mine took his first job, um, you know, years ago, um, working for a big family office in Europe, and one of the deals that he was working on structuring was the purchase of a large chunk of permafrost land in northern Canada.

01:36:39.444 --> 01:36:39.894
Okay.

01:36:40.253 --> 01:36:44.948
Um, and the premise was that it will turn at certain point in time, into arable land.

01:36:44.969 --> 01:36:46.463
In a hundred years, this will be farmland.

01:36:46.463 --> 01:36:46.524
Yeah.

01:36:46.554 --> 01:36:52.644
I mean, you can see for example, like say, you know, you know, wine makers in Southern California moving father and father North.

01:36:52.644 --> 01:36:52.908
Yeah, yeah.

01:36:53.423 --> 01:36:55.373
We have now wine being made in Canada, you know.

01:36:55.373 --> 01:36:55.673
Yeah.

01:36:55.764 --> 01:37:01.163
Uh, we have wine returning back to the British Isles, you know, so, um, you know, not since Roman times.

01:37:01.418 --> 01:37:08.498
It was there produced really at scale, you know, so yes, there are of course gains to be had in certain areas.

01:37:08.498 --> 01:37:08.828
Okay.

01:37:09.128 --> 01:37:14.859
Um, the problem becomes is that the problems of the south will be imported into the north.

01:37:15.279 --> 01:37:15.788
Right.

01:37:16.238 --> 01:37:19.899
One of the big drivers is the whole migration, for example.

01:37:19.904 --> 01:37:20.213
Yes, totally.

01:37:20.588 --> 01:37:27.578
We have that at scale now, starting to happen in the likes of the Middle East, in the likes of parts of Africa as well.

01:37:27.578 --> 01:37:27.969
Yeah, yeah.

01:37:28.029 --> 01:37:36.009
Where there is a combination of conflicts plus, you know, searing heat, violence and then heat and then impact on soil.

01:37:36.014 --> 01:37:36.173
Yeah.

01:37:36.189 --> 01:37:39.849
Impact on quality of soil, impact on water livability and so forth.

01:37:40.118 --> 01:37:49.328
So when you think about this in the past, we always, we are comfortable with saying, for example, things like energy has driven wars before there were wars for oil.

01:37:49.689 --> 01:37:49.868
Yeah.

01:37:49.899 --> 01:37:52.389
We know historically there were wars for salt.

01:37:52.538 --> 01:37:52.899
Sure.

01:37:53.198 --> 01:37:55.838
Because of the importance of salt in preserving food.

01:37:55.838 --> 01:37:56.014
Yes, sure.

01:37:56.113 --> 01:38:01.118
In the past, why we having difficulty thinking in terms of the geopolitical crisis.

01:38:01.328 --> 01:38:01.509
Right.

01:38:01.509 --> 01:38:07.134
Being driven by mass scale changes in the livability of different parts of the world.

01:38:07.139 --> 01:38:07.359
Yeah.

01:38:07.363 --> 01:38:07.493
Yeah.

01:38:08.078 --> 01:38:12.009
And it doesn't mean that you have to believe in a completely uh.

01:38:12.743 --> 01:38:13.974
You know, cataclysmic.

01:38:14.333 --> 01:38:14.543
Yeah.

01:38:14.543 --> 01:38:16.463
Apocalyptic type of the environment.

01:38:16.764 --> 01:38:18.354
Uh, change, you know, scenario.

01:38:18.354 --> 01:38:28.014
So do we have to be more open to changes in sovereignty or boundaries or alliances or unions then I think we have to be more open to how we define sovereignty.

01:38:28.104 --> 01:38:28.344
Hmm.

01:38:28.373 --> 01:38:28.884
Yes.

01:38:29.363 --> 01:38:33.654
Um, it doesn't mean that you have to give up on your ability to control your own borders.

01:38:34.014 --> 01:38:38.213
It doesn't mean that you have to give up on the ability of having your own identity.

01:38:38.753 --> 01:38:45.384
It doesn't mean, uh, that you have to give up on trying to pa to chart your own path.

01:38:45.533 --> 01:38:45.654
Yeah.

01:38:45.654 --> 01:38:50.663
That suits your specific culture, your history, uh, into the future.

01:38:50.663 --> 01:38:54.774
But it does mean that we have to be more comfortable with change.

01:38:54.863 --> 01:38:55.043
Yeah.

01:38:55.073 --> 01:38:55.493
Yes.

01:38:55.554 --> 01:38:55.793
Fair.

01:38:56.019 --> 01:39:00.113
Um, um, I'm gonna call a time out because we've got a couple more segments that are mandatory.

01:39:00.684 --> 01:39:04.703
Uh, and I do want to get, uh, Ava outta here in time, so, alright.

01:39:04.793 --> 01:39:20.094
Um, first we have the ping pong ball challenge and uh, I'm gonna have you draw three balls out of there and I'm gonna ask you the question from my list that's associated with those balls.

01:39:20.154 --> 01:39:20.453
Okay.

01:39:20.453 --> 01:39:22.194
You can grab the whole thing over to you if you'd like.

01:39:22.314 --> 01:39:22.373
Okay.

01:39:22.373 --> 01:39:22.884
Let's do that.

01:39:23.453 --> 01:39:23.934
Alright.

01:39:24.054 --> 01:39:29.333
So, and uh, so just grab any three numbers out of there and then you can set that back over.

01:39:29.333 --> 01:39:30.175
I'll take care of it.

01:39:30.175 --> 01:39:32.814
Let see if any of the numbers actually that they're all good.

01:39:32.904 --> 01:39:33.804
I find lucky.

01:39:34.583 --> 01:39:34.974
Alright.

01:39:35.033 --> 01:39:40.014
Okay, so, so, uh, yeah, what's the first number you'd like me to, um, I'll start backwards.

01:39:40.194 --> 01:39:41.663
One, the.

01:39:42.203 --> 01:39:42.804
Number one.

01:39:42.804 --> 01:39:43.134
Yes.

01:39:43.134 --> 01:39:43.793
Number one, exactly.

01:39:43.793 --> 01:39:44.243
Oh, this is fun.

01:39:44.934 --> 01:39:47.123
Uh, first time this question's been asked, I think.

01:39:47.123 --> 01:39:48.833
What's your favorite childhood memory?

01:39:50.184 --> 01:39:57.264
My favorite childhood memory, um, probably is a set of memories that form me.

01:39:57.323 --> 01:39:57.743
Okay.

01:39:57.743 --> 01:39:59.634
I, I'm a big fisherman.

01:40:00.144 --> 01:40:00.203
Okay.

01:40:00.203 --> 01:40:01.104
I like fly fishing.

01:40:01.283 --> 01:40:01.463
Okay.

01:40:01.463 --> 01:40:05.814
I'm a big forage as well, and I grew up on a, um, in the city of Moscow.

01:40:05.814 --> 01:40:05.873
Yeah.

01:40:05.873 --> 01:40:10.493
When you said foraging earlier, I meant to ask, but like for mushrooms and things like that or, oh, edible mushrooms.

01:40:10.554 --> 01:40:13.043
Uh, edible berries, you know.

01:40:13.163 --> 01:40:13.253
Okay.

01:40:13.314 --> 01:40:14.304
Herbs, you know.

01:40:14.663 --> 01:40:19.913
Um, my last foraging was actually in December, back in, uh, on the central coast in California.

01:40:19.944 --> 01:40:19.974
Okay.

01:40:20.064 --> 01:40:23.783
And it was, uh, portini that I brought the whole box off back, fresh.

01:40:23.783 --> 01:40:24.203
Nice.

01:40:24.293 --> 01:40:25.974
And I had some herba.

01:40:25.974 --> 01:40:27.743
This is in Italy mostly, or sometimes?

01:40:27.748 --> 01:40:29.333
No, that was, uh, California right here.

01:40:29.394 --> 01:40:29.573
Okay.

01:40:29.573 --> 01:40:29.814
Yeah.

01:40:29.963 --> 01:40:30.144
Yeah.

01:40:30.144 --> 01:40:31.163
Also in Italy as well.

01:40:31.163 --> 01:40:32.543
In Alps we do that as well there.

01:40:32.543 --> 01:40:32.724
Yeah.

01:40:32.993 --> 01:40:39.323
Um, so I forged pretty much for everything I, including for the firewood, for my, uh, little barbecue pit.

01:40:39.413 --> 01:40:39.774
Okay.

01:40:39.774 --> 01:40:42.984
So I like barbecue with a natural wood fire.

01:40:43.163 --> 01:40:45.894
So I forage for the, uh, wood as well.

01:40:45.923 --> 01:40:47.213
So that favorite childhood memory.

01:40:47.219 --> 01:40:53.573
So my favorite memory would be my river I grew up on, because I grew up in Moscow City and we had a property outside.

01:40:53.573 --> 01:40:55.884
We still have that property outside of Moscow.

01:40:56.304 --> 01:40:59.634
Um, and it's a nice, you almost like a little country home or whatever Exactly.

01:40:59.639 --> 01:41:00.609
Like the would have Exactly.

01:41:00.609 --> 01:41:01.073
It's a summer house.

01:41:01.073 --> 01:41:01.283
Yeah.

01:41:01.344 --> 01:41:04.613
Summer house with a couple of acres of land right on the river.

01:41:04.884 --> 01:41:06.654
And I grew up there and I spent that.

01:41:06.654 --> 01:41:08.724
And so that river is my, probably.

01:41:09.338 --> 01:41:11.224
Yeah, you are kind of most treasured memory.

01:41:11.229 --> 01:41:13.569
You can always call up that sound of that river almost.

01:41:13.573 --> 01:41:13.743
That's right.

01:41:13.743 --> 01:41:13.823
Yeah.

01:41:13.929 --> 01:41:14.259
That's cool.

01:41:14.259 --> 01:41:14.649
Absolutely.

01:41:14.738 --> 01:41:15.099
Thank you.

01:41:15.099 --> 01:41:15.819
You can feel it.

01:41:15.819 --> 01:41:16.569
You can see it.

01:41:16.569 --> 01:41:17.198
You can smell it.

01:41:17.198 --> 01:41:17.948
Yeah.

01:41:17.948 --> 01:41:17.951
Yeah, yeah.

01:41:17.951 --> 01:41:17.952
Yeah.

01:41:18.069 --> 01:41:18.998
Never leaves quite.

01:41:19.269 --> 01:41:19.448
Yeah.

01:41:19.689 --> 01:41:20.708
Um, next question.

01:41:21.219 --> 01:41:21.729
Oh, yes.

01:41:21.788 --> 01:41:23.139
Uh, 2020.

01:41:26.498 --> 01:41:36.578
Um, what's your go-to excuse when you want to get out of plans with someone other than saying, I'm Russian, I don't make plans.

01:41:36.849 --> 01:41:37.719
Yeah, exactly.

01:41:37.719 --> 01:41:40.328
You know, you don't want to make plans with me.

01:41:40.389 --> 01:41:40.689
Yeah.

01:41:40.929 --> 01:41:45.009
Uh, what's my favorite excuse when I get to get out of something?

01:41:45.099 --> 01:41:47.559
Uh, usually it is a work thing.

01:41:47.559 --> 01:41:47.889
Yes.

01:41:47.918 --> 01:41:48.219
Sorry.

01:41:48.219 --> 01:41:48.788
Just gotta work.

01:41:48.849 --> 01:41:50.109
We always, yeah, exactly.

01:41:50.109 --> 01:41:53.588
There's so much stuff I have to do, you know, I can't go to a concert.

01:41:53.588 --> 01:41:57.309
That's my, usually my wife actually goes like, you know, let's go to a concert.

01:41:57.309 --> 01:41:58.179
You take bought tickets.

01:41:58.179 --> 01:41:59.198
You know, no, no, no.

01:41:59.198 --> 01:42:00.014
I'm, you know, I'm working now.

01:42:00.014 --> 01:42:00.309
Take Suzy.

01:42:00.698 --> 01:42:05.859
Um, so, um, yeah, that probably would be pretty banal, but usually, yes.

01:42:05.889 --> 01:42:06.338
Fair enough.

01:42:06.548 --> 01:42:08.889
I don't like relying on things like say health.

01:42:09.189 --> 01:42:09.338
Right.

01:42:09.338 --> 01:42:11.408
'cause it's kind of almost like a bad omen.

01:42:11.618 --> 01:42:11.798
Yeah.

01:42:11.804 --> 01:42:11.974
You know?

01:42:12.014 --> 01:42:13.134
I guess so.

01:42:13.413 --> 01:42:14.533
I don't, that's fair know.

01:42:14.533 --> 01:42:20.259
If I say to someone, if I tell someone that I'm genuinely, you know, that I'm sick, I'm usually probably genuinely sick.

01:42:20.559 --> 01:42:20.828
Yeah.

01:42:20.844 --> 01:42:21.134
Fair.

01:42:21.279 --> 01:42:23.048
Uh, but if I say like, I have to work.

01:42:23.588 --> 01:42:28.448
They probably will kind of know in me, they will say, is it workout or is it work?

01:42:28.448 --> 01:42:29.229
Or is it work?

01:42:29.229 --> 01:42:31.538
Like doing research because they know I like doing that.

01:42:31.543 --> 01:42:31.958
Right, right.

01:42:31.958 --> 01:42:34.779
You know, or is it literally grading papers, which I hate.

01:42:35.708 --> 01:42:36.219
Who doesn't?

01:42:36.488 --> 01:42:37.269
Oh, exactly.

01:42:37.298 --> 01:42:37.628
True.

01:42:37.779 --> 01:42:38.948
Um, last one.

01:42:39.128 --> 01:42:40.269
Oh yes, number seven.

01:42:40.328 --> 01:42:41.229
Number seven.

01:42:41.979 --> 01:42:43.509
How do you define happiness?

01:42:45.219 --> 01:42:49.179
Um, I define happiness and I experience happiness on a small scale.

01:42:49.238 --> 01:42:51.788
I don't define it on a big scale of big events in life.

01:42:51.788 --> 01:42:51.849
Yeah.

01:42:52.359 --> 01:42:54.578
I define it on an everyday experience.

01:42:54.578 --> 01:42:54.639
Yeah.

01:42:54.969 --> 01:43:00.323
For me, happiness is when I am up in the mountains and I'm actually just free.

01:43:00.323 --> 01:43:00.324
Yeah.

01:43:00.329 --> 01:43:04.748
Free from bullshit of everyday life we have.

01:43:05.618 --> 01:43:05.679
Yeah.

01:43:05.679 --> 01:43:17.019
Don't think about nothing free from things like thinking about taxes or thinking about how I'm gonna pay for the tuition of the kids, or how I'm going to afford volleyball fees or you know, what, even free from the idea of what I'm going to eat.

01:43:17.109 --> 01:43:17.288
Yeah.

01:43:17.349 --> 01:43:18.069
You know, today.

01:43:18.128 --> 01:43:18.458
Yeah.

01:43:18.458 --> 01:43:18.460
Yeah.

01:43:18.519 --> 01:43:23.259
Um, it is literally, you know, kind of a friend of mine, no Decisions to be made.

01:43:23.288 --> 01:43:29.498
My mountaineering partner, uh, here, you know, he actually says that, you know, I have religious experience when I'm in the mountains.

01:43:29.559 --> 01:43:29.679
Yeah.

01:43:30.009 --> 01:43:31.719
Uh, when I'm in a forest, you know?

01:43:32.109 --> 01:43:33.444
Uh, and it is like it, you know?

01:43:33.444 --> 01:43:33.604
Yeah.

01:43:33.819 --> 01:43:39.399
It is something where you encounter something bigger than yourself, more pert than yourself, and something that doesn't judge you.

01:43:39.519 --> 01:43:39.578
Yeah.

01:43:39.578 --> 01:43:42.309
Doesn't fair enough make any view of you.

01:43:42.314 --> 01:43:42.524
Yeah.

01:43:42.529 --> 01:43:42.759
Yeah.

01:43:42.788 --> 01:43:44.529
You don't even exist for it, you know?

01:43:45.354 --> 01:43:59.514
I think that I, uh, I was reflecting on a, a phrase, I think my dad's custom combiner in Texas, uh, told him this phrase, but he's like imagining on a rocking chair sitting in front of a house and sometimes I sit, some thinks I.

01:43:59.889 --> 01:44:01.269
And sometimes it just sits.

01:44:01.569 --> 01:44:01.838
Yeah.

01:44:02.109 --> 01:44:05.408
Uh, and that notion of just sits, you know, even if you're hiking through the woods.

01:44:05.408 --> 01:44:05.409
Exactly.

01:44:05.423 --> 01:44:10.180
You know, not just moving through the space and seeing the things completely different of things.

01:44:10.180 --> 01:44:10.181
See Right.

01:44:10.181 --> 01:44:12.338
Listen to, to the birds or looking at the clouds or, yes.

01:44:12.524 --> 01:44:18.819
Like, you know, like, you know, I'm going to go on Saturday for example, up into the mountains and, uh, you know, there's, I know that trail.

01:44:18.819 --> 01:44:21.759
I know the river there, I know the waterfalls there.

01:44:21.849 --> 01:44:23.859
Last time I was there, you couldn't see the river.

01:44:24.009 --> 01:44:26.588
You're actually hiking over it, but you can hear it.

01:44:26.769 --> 01:44:27.069
Yeah.

01:44:27.309 --> 01:44:31.238
And that experience, every diff every moment is different.

01:44:31.269 --> 01:44:31.389
Yeah.

01:44:31.404 --> 01:44:33.698
Every, every time you take that trail, it's a different trail.

01:44:33.698 --> 01:44:34.088
Bingo.

01:44:34.328 --> 01:44:37.509
So this no such thing is common in who said that?

01:44:37.509 --> 01:44:40.509
I mean, one of the Greeks, you know, said you can't step into the same river twice.

01:44:40.509 --> 01:44:40.779
Yes.

01:44:41.078 --> 01:44:41.378
Yeah.

01:44:41.378 --> 01:44:44.979
You know, and it's probably, it's the most acute observation of reality.

01:44:44.979 --> 01:44:47.378
You can't step into the same time twice.

01:44:47.408 --> 01:44:47.588
Yeah.

01:44:47.738 --> 01:44:51.639
And the only time you experience that and you know, that is when you are fully free.

01:44:51.729 --> 01:44:52.298
And that's it.

01:44:52.404 --> 01:44:52.484
Hmm.

01:44:52.724 --> 01:44:53.123
I dig it.

01:44:53.798 --> 01:44:56.979
Um, we, uh, we bribe our listeners to listen to the whole show.

01:44:57.519 --> 01:45:14.738
And so, uh, so the lucky listener that writes in with the answer to that first question, uh, the favorite childhood memory, um, that being the summer cabin, uh, outside of Moscow and the river, especially around it, uh, will get you$25 from Chiba hut, from Loko think tank.

01:45:15.248 --> 01:45:15.788
Um.

01:45:16.344 --> 01:45:18.293
We didn't really talk about your family too much.

01:45:18.293 --> 01:45:27.083
Your kids or your, your, your spouse, your partner, um, care to talk a little bit about that, uh, influence in your life and a huge influence.

01:45:27.083 --> 01:45:30.684
Of course, the family is probably the most important anchor we have in life.

01:45:30.684 --> 01:45:31.014
Yes.

01:45:31.224 --> 01:45:36.144
That's the only thing that we have that physically connects us to time.

01:45:36.458 --> 01:45:39.009
Which is an important dimension for us as human beings.

01:45:39.519 --> 01:45:41.439
Um, and also to spaces.

01:45:41.618 --> 01:45:42.009
Okay.

01:45:42.279 --> 01:45:46.328
So, um, I have two wonderful kids, completely different character wise.

01:45:46.328 --> 01:45:46.479
Okay.

01:45:46.509 --> 01:45:48.309
My oldest one is a golfer.

01:45:48.488 --> 01:45:48.548
Okay.

01:45:48.548 --> 01:45:53.948
I mean, was on a team for the, um, fossil Ridge High School, um, competitive golfer.

01:45:54.009 --> 01:45:58.689
He is kind of like a person who can go and play 18 halls without blowing up.

01:45:58.958 --> 01:45:59.109
Hmm.

01:45:59.498 --> 01:46:02.109
My 14-year-old will blow up.

01:46:02.109 --> 01:46:02.139
Okay.

01:46:02.588 --> 01:46:03.698
Can't play golf.

01:46:03.759 --> 01:46:05.198
She's a volleyball player.

01:46:05.484 --> 01:46:13.764
Uh, she played rugby before, so she's a very kind of Sian strong, uh, but also is kind of amazing to watch her evolution as well.

01:46:13.854 --> 01:46:22.583
She is becoming, you know, she moved from being kind of a very strong personality to being a strong personality, but also a kind of feminine balance to personality.

01:46:22.583 --> 01:46:22.644
Yeah.

01:46:22.793 --> 01:46:24.024
Self restrained a little bit.

01:46:24.054 --> 01:46:24.293
Yeah.

01:46:24.444 --> 01:46:26.094
Both are very good students.

01:46:26.094 --> 01:46:26.123
Okay.

01:46:26.243 --> 01:46:29.514
Um, both are kind of, you know, not academically minded.

01:46:29.514 --> 01:46:31.463
They, hopefully they're gonna go into academia.

01:46:31.493 --> 01:46:31.524
Okay.

01:46:31.524 --> 01:46:32.604
I'm really happy with that.

01:46:33.083 --> 01:46:37.974
Uh, my oldest is kind of currently looking at, you know, doing finance because of business.

01:46:38.033 --> 01:46:38.213
Yep.

01:46:38.543 --> 01:46:38.963
Dimension.

01:46:38.963 --> 01:46:49.163
So applied finance, my youngest one is still kind of having big dreams and she wants to do kind of medicine slash biology, um, in her kind of studies.

01:46:49.493 --> 01:46:52.194
Um, and she's oriented towards that, which is always amazing.

01:46:52.194 --> 01:46:52.253
Yeah.

01:46:52.253 --> 01:46:58.104
From my point of view, it's really great to see, uh, my partner, I call her my better half because she's a better half of me.

01:46:58.104 --> 01:46:59.543
She's more balanced than I am.

01:46:59.729 --> 01:46:59.759
Okay.

01:46:59.859 --> 01:47:01.373
Uh, she's, what's her name?

01:47:01.524 --> 01:47:02.274
Uh, Jennifer.

01:47:02.363 --> 01:47:02.753
Hi Jennifer.

01:47:02.783 --> 01:47:04.974
Um, so she's, hopefully you'll listen to this one.

01:47:04.974 --> 01:47:05.663
Absolutely.

01:47:05.663 --> 01:47:07.764
Amazingly beautiful human being.

01:47:07.823 --> 01:47:08.123
Okay.

01:47:08.363 --> 01:47:10.764
Uh, we've met, uh, now.

01:47:10.793 --> 01:47:10.913
Yeah.

01:47:10.913 --> 01:47:11.663
Where did you grab her?

01:47:11.663 --> 01:47:12.113
I forget you.

01:47:12.113 --> 01:47:13.463
So we met 30 years ago.

01:47:14.003 --> 01:47:14.814
When, where were you then?

01:47:14.814 --> 01:47:15.354
In Chicago?

01:47:15.413 --> 01:47:15.594
Oh, yeah.

01:47:15.594 --> 01:47:15.623
Okay.

01:47:15.684 --> 01:47:18.444
Uh, we met 30 years ago this year in Chicago.

01:47:18.863 --> 01:47:27.623
And uh, you know, we spent those 30 years so far and, uh, I mean, it's, was it, was it a romance right from the first Yes, it was instantaneously.

01:47:27.774 --> 01:47:35.873
We have a lot of very interesting and strange connections for the Russian versus, you know, she's, you know, of course she was born in Michigan, uh, but she is half Italian.

01:47:35.963 --> 01:47:36.203
Okay.

01:47:36.264 --> 01:47:38.123
Uh, almost half Cherokee.

01:47:38.484 --> 01:47:38.694
Oh.

01:47:38.783 --> 01:47:41.873
Um, and, uh, she works in a completely different field.

01:47:42.054 --> 01:47:42.203
Yeah.

01:47:42.203 --> 01:47:47.123
She comes from advertising her, you know, degree is in sculpture, so she's an art major.

01:47:47.543 --> 01:47:52.344
Uh, we've met, uh, randomly through kind of third party friends.

01:47:52.404 --> 01:47:52.673
Okay.

01:47:53.033 --> 01:47:55.134
Um, and the first time we met, we had a fight.

01:47:55.194 --> 01:47:55.373
Perfect.

01:47:55.673 --> 01:48:03.203
We had an intellectual debate discussion, which was very heated, uh, where she was trying to convince me that there is such a thing as an American art.

01:48:03.594 --> 01:48:09.474
And I was trying to convince her that all of the American art is really European art and is derived poor copy from European art.

01:48:09.894 --> 01:48:11.003
Uh, not necessarily no.

01:48:11.003 --> 01:48:13.163
Fantastic copy, but I mean, it's very different.

01:48:13.463 --> 01:48:15.533
Uh, so we had a art history debate.

01:48:15.533 --> 01:48:15.804
Interesting.

01:48:15.833 --> 01:48:23.514
Um, her view was, uh, you know, sadly that what the hell does this economist from University of of Chicago know about art?

01:48:23.904 --> 01:48:29.993
Uh, and my view was, uh, kind of probably around the same kind of Look how cute she gets when she gets sassy.

01:48:29.993 --> 01:48:30.054
Yeah.

01:48:30.083 --> 01:48:31.373
Oh, no, absolutely, totally.

01:48:31.673 --> 01:48:32.423
Uh, hot.

01:48:32.484 --> 01:48:32.783
I mean.

01:48:32.873 --> 01:48:36.654
But anyways, um, so we hit off right, right away.

01:48:36.743 --> 01:48:46.734
Um, her background growing up between the United States and Italy kind of matched my background growing up in other, totalitarian in, in my, okay.

01:48:46.734 --> 01:48:47.844
I'm kid Of course, yes.

01:48:48.173 --> 01:48:52.163
Uh, in Soviet Union, but also having very strong connection with Italy.

01:48:52.253 --> 01:48:52.373
Yeah.

01:48:52.554 --> 01:48:54.684
Because I had family members in Italy.

01:48:54.684 --> 01:48:58.793
So when I grew up living in the Soviet Union, I was able to travel to Italy all of the time.

01:48:59.123 --> 01:49:01.253
In fact, my Italian was better then than it's now.

01:49:01.913 --> 01:49:05.993
Um, so we actually hit off very well from the very beginning.

01:49:06.314 --> 01:49:10.639
Um, and it's been, uh, absolutely up and up and up in that, that sense.

01:49:10.639 --> 01:49:15.434
Oh, and you had 10, almost 12 years, uh, just the two of you before you started making littles too.

01:49:15.434 --> 01:49:17.293
So that's venture time.

01:49:17.293 --> 01:49:17.295
Absolutely.

01:49:17.295 --> 01:49:17.297
More than that.

01:49:17.323 --> 01:49:20.684
Uh, yeah, no, um, yeah, so 18 years versus, you know, 30, yeah.

01:49:20.743 --> 01:49:21.493
About 12 years.

01:49:21.493 --> 01:49:21.854
You're right.

01:49:21.854 --> 01:49:22.123
Yes.

01:49:22.543 --> 01:49:26.384
Uh, so we had tremendously productive adventure together.

01:49:26.444 --> 01:49:26.623
Yeah.

01:49:26.684 --> 01:49:35.024
We, there was a period when we painted together and exhibited, um, and, uh, of course there was a period when we were building the family as well subsequently.

01:49:35.024 --> 01:49:35.113
Sure.

01:49:35.474 --> 01:49:39.644
Um, you know, genuinely what works for us.

01:49:39.673 --> 01:49:39.734
Yeah.

01:49:39.734 --> 01:49:51.253
Very interestingly enough is that we retain our differences in the fields that we're work in, in the interests we pursue, and we can bring those differences every day to dining table.

01:49:51.404 --> 01:49:51.463
Yeah.

01:49:51.469 --> 01:49:54.043
And we can share them, learn from each other Exactly.

01:49:54.043 --> 01:49:54.673
From different things.

01:49:54.673 --> 01:49:59.894
You're learning that learning process, like as I said, we spent seven hours on the road, me and her talking.

01:49:59.894 --> 01:50:00.345
Yeah, yeah.

01:50:00.463 --> 01:50:14.564
Um, and the youngest one sleeping because she was competing in Salt Lake City in a, uh, volleyball tournament there versus I was, of course, I took some time off in the mountains myself, um, you know, did a bit of a climbing there and, you know, yeah.

01:50:15.253 --> 01:50:18.613
We wore for seven hours on the road and we were having a conversation with That's neat.

01:50:18.613 --> 01:50:20.863
Me and her after 30 years, after 30 years.

01:50:21.203 --> 01:50:27.623
And that's why, you know, like, I mean that's, there's, there's a way of saying that you find your soulmate.

01:50:27.804 --> 01:50:28.043
Yeah.

01:50:28.314 --> 01:50:29.543
Uh, she's certainly my soulmate.

01:50:29.634 --> 01:50:29.904
Awesome.

01:50:29.993 --> 01:50:30.173
Yeah.

01:50:30.354 --> 01:50:31.283
Well, glad to hear that.

01:51:15.132 --> 01:51:23.738
Um, our final segment, the closing segment is the Loco experience, and that's the craziest experience of your lifetime that you're willing to share with our listeners.

01:51:24.519 --> 01:51:25.389
Oh, okay.

01:51:25.389 --> 01:51:27.998
Anything as in like, local, local, crazy.

01:51:28.088 --> 01:51:28.359
Yeah.

01:51:28.418 --> 01:51:29.078
Oh, I local.

01:51:29.078 --> 01:51:29.649
Crazy.

01:51:29.654 --> 01:51:47.769
Could, I mean, growing up in the Soviet Union and having gone to the Soviet military, you know, so the Soviet army for two years, you can't have a menu of choices of crazy, I mean, um, when I grew up, you know, if you think about it, kind of rite of passages, was it intense at that time in the Cold War and stuff too?

01:51:47.769 --> 01:51:54.939
It was very intense and so far is that I was, of course, you know, I grew up in the 1980s, um, and um, there was this.

01:51:55.569 --> 01:51:58.719
Break in point of very, what we call inflection point.

01:51:58.719 --> 01:51:58.958
Yes.

01:51:58.958 --> 01:51:59.048
Yeah.

01:51:59.469 --> 01:52:02.498
Um, of the change that Gorbachev brought in as well.

01:52:02.798 --> 01:52:12.009
Um, I mean, there is a lot of crazy experiences, you know, I mean, we used to, when I grew up, for example, when we would go to the proms equivalent of the proms, for example.

01:52:12.069 --> 01:52:12.248
Yep.

01:52:12.488 --> 01:52:17.798
Uh, we couldn't buy alcohol because Gorbachev has banned alcohol sales in the evenings.

01:52:18.099 --> 01:52:31.689
So, I mean, I remember we were drinking pretty much anything that burns, you know, so like, you know, underage drinking in my background, in my childhood would've involved, you know, I mean industrial alcohol.

01:52:31.809 --> 01:52:32.229
Oh dang.

01:52:32.288 --> 01:52:36.573
Um, yeah, Robin alcohol stuff that, the stuff that makes you blind kind of thing.

01:52:36.594 --> 01:52:37.809
Bad things to you, you know?

01:52:38.078 --> 01:52:39.668
Um, so crazy experiences.

01:52:39.668 --> 01:52:45.399
And even though, even though the rest of the Russians, the older people and stuff had trouble getting vodka or whatever.

01:52:45.399 --> 01:52:45.819
Yes, yes, yes.

01:52:45.824 --> 01:52:46.208
Exactly.

01:52:46.208 --> 01:52:51.009
That's why that during, during that period in the like 19, mid 1980s.

01:52:51.038 --> 01:52:51.368
Okay.

01:52:51.429 --> 01:52:51.729
Yeah.

01:52:51.819 --> 01:52:54.908
Um, there was tremendous amount of deaths.

01:52:55.253 --> 01:52:58.793
Amongst the, uh, kind of older generation Russians Mm.

01:52:58.854 --> 01:53:01.373
Who would be addicted to alcohol Sure.

01:53:01.404 --> 01:53:04.675
Who had to basically consume or war consume and things.

01:53:04.764 --> 01:53:07.073
They were drinking a quarter of vodka day and then they got, had to stop.

01:53:07.073 --> 01:53:07.283
Yeah.

01:53:07.404 --> 01:53:07.823
Correct.

01:53:07.823 --> 01:53:08.094
Yes.

01:53:08.094 --> 01:53:10.134
So they switched to break foods, you know.

01:53:10.134 --> 01:53:10.434
Oh, damn.

01:53:10.613 --> 01:53:16.073
Um, and you know, we didn't do that as teenagers of course, but, uh, we witnessed that.

01:53:16.194 --> 01:53:16.344
Hmm.

01:53:16.344 --> 01:53:17.543
You know, so, I mean, there was.

01:53:17.923 --> 01:53:27.253
You know, we used to go, for example, um, fishing in the wilderness area outside of Moscow and you couldn't get a train there, passenger train because there's no stops there.

01:53:27.253 --> 01:53:38.234
So we would actually pay off under the table to the, um, you know, the train, the conductors, train conductors, uh, to drop us off there and we would get on the cargo trains.

01:53:38.234 --> 01:53:38.533
Yes.

01:53:38.533 --> 01:53:38.774
Yeah.

01:53:38.863 --> 01:53:42.208
Um, so, you know, stopped freight or us off, slow down, they would stop for us.

01:53:42.404 --> 01:53:46.003
You, and then they would pick us up on the pre-prescribed day, you know?

01:53:46.003 --> 01:53:46.514
Sure.

01:53:46.814 --> 01:53:48.163
Uh, like a week later.

01:53:48.434 --> 01:53:58.484
Uh, and uh, one time we were going and we left and we did our fishing and we did our camp, and then we got picked up and they told us that the day we left was a big holiday.

01:53:58.934 --> 01:54:04.033
Um, half of the crew, uh, of the whole depot there was about 50 people.

01:54:04.154 --> 01:54:04.333
Okay.

01:54:04.394 --> 01:54:16.094
Uh, basically ended up in the hospital and, uh, you know, quite a few of them died from drinking break, break flu, and you know, like if you want crazy, you know, we were teenagers sitting with them when they started.

01:54:16.363 --> 01:54:16.844
Whoa.

01:54:17.173 --> 01:54:18.434
And they were offering us to drink.

01:54:19.154 --> 01:54:20.503
Of course we had, you know, yeah.

01:54:20.503 --> 01:54:22.904
We had the whole week of backpack and camp.

01:54:23.264 --> 01:54:24.009
You don't want to do that.

01:54:24.009 --> 01:54:25.484
Maybe just one bottle for the road.

01:54:26.054 --> 01:54:26.173
Yeah.

01:54:26.173 --> 01:54:27.408
Like, you do not want to do that.

01:54:27.734 --> 01:54:32.384
You know, even with teenagers, you, you, you headless chickens, but you still, you don't want to do that.

01:54:32.384 --> 01:54:32.743
Interesting.

01:54:32.894 --> 01:54:35.203
So they, they're kind of experiences like that.

01:54:35.234 --> 01:54:35.594
Okay.

01:54:35.923 --> 01:54:38.833
Um, so was your family middle class throughout this.

01:54:39.503 --> 01:54:40.493
Season kind of.

01:54:40.493 --> 01:54:40.583
Yeah.

01:54:40.644 --> 01:54:41.274
Yes, of course.

01:54:41.274 --> 01:54:41.573
Yeah.

01:54:41.604 --> 01:54:46.734
So my, my original family, my parents come from the mostly medical background.

01:54:46.793 --> 01:54:47.094
Okay.

01:54:47.304 --> 01:54:51.743
Um, so doctors, uh, my grandmother was a professor of medicine.

01:54:51.804 --> 01:54:59.184
Um, I mean I, part of my family on my Armenian side, they died way before I was born.

01:54:59.184 --> 01:55:02.123
So as a result of that, I only know my father from there.

01:55:02.484 --> 01:55:08.993
Um, and you know, but from my mother's side of the family, most of them were in the medical field there.

01:55:08.993 --> 01:55:11.154
Some of them were professionals, you know.

01:55:11.154 --> 01:55:11.154
Gotcha.

01:55:11.154 --> 01:55:12.864
You know, in administrative side of as well.

01:55:12.864 --> 01:55:15.413
So a little more upper middle class, at least when there was a middle class.

01:55:15.654 --> 01:55:18.623
But you have to remember that in the Soviet Union, things were upside down.

01:55:18.623 --> 01:55:18.923
Yeah.

01:55:18.984 --> 01:55:19.373
Yes.

01:55:19.583 --> 01:55:24.594
So if you are a medical doctor in the Soviet Union, you earned less money than if you walked at a factory.

01:55:24.654 --> 01:55:24.953
Mm.

01:55:25.344 --> 01:55:28.613
Versus if you walked in a factory, you made more money than the medical doctor did.

01:55:28.884 --> 01:55:32.453
So kind of, if we think about here, medical doctors are upper right, right.

01:55:32.453 --> 01:55:32.993
Plus, yes.

01:55:32.998 --> 01:55:35.274
Well, the education we require of it, well, yes.

01:55:35.304 --> 01:55:35.844
Requires it.

01:55:36.113 --> 01:55:40.583
Well, of course, but you also, you know, your earnings as well and your wealth that you accumulate.

01:55:40.583 --> 01:55:43.703
So it was exact opposite of that in the Soviet Union.

01:55:43.703 --> 01:55:48.863
So, big contention, for example, between, and that influenced me as well in terms of my current career as well.

01:55:49.253 --> 01:55:49.793
Of course.

01:55:49.854 --> 01:55:55.434
Uh, big contention was within my family, between my grandmother, who was the academic medical doctor.

01:55:55.554 --> 01:55:55.583
Mm.

01:55:55.884 --> 01:55:57.444
So she was a professor of medicine.

01:55:57.878 --> 01:56:02.439
Um, she was a surgeon and so she kind of, you know, chose that career.

01:56:02.469 --> 01:56:12.819
And my father, who was originally a research doctor and then switched because of the low pay that research doctors had, uh, kind of started his own underground practice.

01:56:12.878 --> 01:56:13.208
Hmm.

01:56:13.359 --> 01:56:14.889
So he was getting Oh, interesting.

01:56:14.889 --> 01:56:16.868
You know, he was getting private clients.

01:56:16.929 --> 01:56:17.289
Yeah, yeah.

01:56:17.295 --> 01:56:21.759
And they would pay him, you know, additional because the weight was too long or things like that.

01:56:21.759 --> 01:56:23.229
Otherwise,'cause no, because there's no income.

01:56:23.229 --> 01:56:24.908
You couldn't make ends meet.

01:56:24.908 --> 01:56:28.389
You couldn't afford anything, you know, if you just Oh, you couldn't regularly be a regular doctor.

01:56:28.389 --> 01:56:28.599
Yeah.

01:56:28.599 --> 01:56:28.644
So, yeah.

01:56:28.649 --> 01:56:40.328
Being a professor of medicine, your salary was back in the days Ah, well it wasn't like, you know, suppose associate professor of medicine, uh, the salary back in those days would've been a quarter of what he would earn if he worked Oh, wow.

01:56:40.389 --> 01:56:40.988
Privately.

01:56:41.019 --> 01:56:41.408
Interesting.

01:56:41.408 --> 01:56:41.588
Okay.

01:56:41.644 --> 01:56:41.884
Yeah.

01:56:41.884 --> 01:56:42.043
Yeah.

01:56:42.048 --> 01:56:47.378
Um, so that influenced me as well because my grandmother drove my family.

01:56:47.378 --> 01:56:50.019
She was the power figure in my, in my family.

01:56:50.439 --> 01:56:55.658
And she actually kind of instilled that idea of research focus into me.

01:56:55.838 --> 01:57:00.009
So for me it was kind of, even though I started my career in business, yeah.

01:57:00.038 --> 01:57:02.469
I always gravitated towards a.

01:57:03.458 --> 01:57:03.939
Life.

01:57:04.029 --> 01:57:08.288
And your dad kind of started more in research, but got entrepreneurial because he had to.

01:57:08.288 --> 01:57:08.649
That's right.

01:57:08.649 --> 01:57:08.948
Yes.

01:57:09.189 --> 01:57:12.368
And that was a big reef between him and my grandmother.

01:57:12.429 --> 01:57:12.849
Interesting.

01:57:12.878 --> 01:57:12.998
Yeah.

01:57:13.838 --> 01:57:14.828
Any questions for me?

01:57:14.828 --> 01:57:15.429
Constantin?

01:57:15.429 --> 01:57:16.958
This has been a fun conversation.

01:57:17.439 --> 01:57:18.128
Yeah, of course.

01:57:18.128 --> 01:57:23.139
I mean, look, I mean, we started the conversation with a kind of, you know, local Northern, Northern Colorado.

01:57:23.139 --> 01:57:23.498
Okay.

01:57:23.948 --> 01:57:31.298
And you ask me, you know, what can be done in terms of how can we move Northern Colorado to, can we like that to be stronger and stay competitive?

01:57:31.479 --> 01:57:32.198
Uh, yes.

01:57:32.198 --> 01:57:42.969
But also more resilient, not just stronger, it's more resilient, more being able to adapt more, being able to put forward the value addition that actually can be translated outside of Colorado as well.

01:57:42.969 --> 01:57:43.238
Yes.

01:57:43.479 --> 01:57:43.719
Mm-hmm.

01:57:43.720 --> 01:57:43.720
Mm-hmm.

01:57:43.838 --> 01:57:45.639
What, in your view, can do that?

01:57:45.639 --> 01:57:45.729
Hmm?

01:57:45.849 --> 01:57:46.779
What do you think?

01:57:47.168 --> 01:57:48.519
We are not focusing enough?

01:57:49.719 --> 01:57:50.078
Huh?

01:57:50.198 --> 01:57:51.038
That's a good question.

01:57:51.038 --> 01:57:57.578
You know, I think, um, regulatory burden has increased a lot on business.

01:57:57.698 --> 01:58:01.179
You know, I was a banker for 15 years before I started Loko Think Tank.

01:58:01.179 --> 01:58:02.469
So that's 25 years.

01:58:03.194 --> 01:58:16.719
It, it has to be twice as time consuming to, you know, and then the family and medical leave act if you get five employees and then you got this, if you get 10 and you gotta do this and that, and it's just kind of daunting.

01:58:16.899 --> 01:58:27.668
And especially for those little companies, the 1, 2, 3 companies that are, or the 49 person company that once they hit 50, then they're gonna have to do a whole bunch more expensive things too.

01:58:28.208 --> 01:58:31.149
And so that, that.

01:58:31.479 --> 01:58:35.708
That burden at, at every level, uh, is definitely one of the challenge.

01:58:35.708 --> 01:58:43.809
I think, um, you know, certainly for Fort Collins, uh, we don't really have like industrial sites and things.

01:58:43.809 --> 01:58:57.488
We've got a a, a staff of 12 economic development people, uh, but there's really not very many places for them to bring companies from outside into, and so I'm unclear personally why, uh, it should be such a large staff in that space.

01:58:57.698 --> 01:59:02.198
They're doing a lot of business engagement and you know, things around utilities and stuff.

01:59:02.469 --> 01:59:06.158
So that's kind of the real ground level stuff here.

01:59:06.219 --> 01:59:14.288
Um, you know, being a libertarian minded though, I think, you know, reducing state level taxes I think is gonna be a competitive advantage for states.

01:59:14.288 --> 01:59:23.979
I, I think I heard two or three states just announce that they're moving toward, uh, getting rid of state taxation on business, um, no, on personal.

01:59:24.219 --> 01:59:24.458
Okay.

01:59:24.458 --> 01:59:33.309
You know, tax other things instead of income tax, um, because that's been a big driver of people moving to Florida, people moving to Tennessee, things like that.

01:59:33.309 --> 01:59:33.578
Absolutely.

01:59:33.609 --> 01:59:40.359
And so I think at least trying to get into the middle sector of the state income tax burden would be good.

01:59:41.198 --> 01:59:44.259
Um, yeah, it's a good question.

01:59:44.259 --> 01:59:59.048
I think, you know, in whatever can be done, uh, which mostly is regulatory of the cost of housing, and it's not mostly regulatory, but probably 20% of the cost of a house is, you know, R 57 insulation when really our.

01:59:59.378 --> 02:00:02.203
Climate doesn't really require anything more than 30 or something.

02:00:02.203 --> 02:00:02.484
Mm-hmm.

02:00:02.564 --> 02:00:03.668
But you gotta put the 57 in.

02:00:03.668 --> 02:00:05.559
'cause we, the 57 is better than the 30.

02:00:06.128 --> 02:00:11.288
Well is it really, you know, uh, what if you can't get the 57 or if it's five times as much?

02:00:11.288 --> 02:00:22.118
So there's just a lot of building code obligations that, that are good in theory, but end up making everybody's rent$300 a month higher.

02:00:23.109 --> 02:00:25.359
Um, so those are probably things duction come to mind.

02:00:25.569 --> 02:00:26.618
Um, okay.

02:00:27.279 --> 02:00:27.519
Yeah.

02:00:28.238 --> 02:00:28.269
Okay.

02:00:28.269 --> 02:00:32.529
I mean, that's where workforce things, so people don't get quite as big a shock when they come here for some jobs.

02:00:33.623 --> 02:00:34.373
That's true.

02:00:34.554 --> 02:00:35.154
Of course.

02:00:35.184 --> 02:00:39.503
I mean, the, the problem is that you wouldn't be coming in for the jobs anymore in Colorado.

02:00:39.564 --> 02:00:39.743
Right.

02:00:39.743 --> 02:00:41.724
Because the cost they're of living is so high already.

02:00:41.783 --> 02:00:41.993
Right?

02:00:41.993 --> 02:00:42.264
Right.

02:00:42.413 --> 02:00:46.974
Unless you are working in the sectors like say, you know, computational sectors or the Yep.

02:00:47.484 --> 02:00:48.623
Higher margin type jobs.

02:00:48.868 --> 02:00:51.868
Uh, yeah, technology, jobs and even manufacturing things.

02:00:51.868 --> 02:00:53.639
And we talked about agribusiness a little bit.

02:00:54.029 --> 02:00:57.569
You know, there's gonna be low end jobs there, but there's also gonna be higher end jobs there.

02:00:57.719 --> 02:00:58.753
And manufacturing is also always great.

02:00:58.793 --> 02:00:58.913
Absolutely.

02:00:58.913 --> 02:01:00.748
Manufacturing, especially robotics and so forth.

02:01:00.748 --> 02:01:07.679
But again, you know, that is probably not so much driven by the cost of living, but rather by the availability of sites.

02:01:07.708 --> 02:01:07.918
Yeah.

02:01:08.038 --> 02:01:13.394
Availability of energy, availability of, you know, access to the transportation networks and things like that.

02:01:13.469 --> 02:01:17.668
And I think that's where Greeley has Fort Collins and, and Loveland to an extent beat.

02:01:17.729 --> 02:01:23.729
They got so much more water, they got so much more green space, you know, to the south and east especially, but also elsewhere.

02:01:24.238 --> 02:01:25.828
Um, call it that's suitable, but yes.

02:01:25.918 --> 02:01:28.828
Well not green, but that's suitable for industrial development, call it.

02:01:28.828 --> 02:01:28.918
Yes.

02:01:29.219 --> 02:01:29.399
Yeah.

02:01:29.458 --> 02:01:34.259
Um, so I think that's a competitive advantage for, you know, east of I 25 realm.

02:01:34.649 --> 02:01:38.878
But then on the other side, you know, it doesn't have that great connectivity, right?

02:01:38.878 --> 02:01:42.238
The roads connectivity is not there, so transportation is going to be harder.

02:01:42.238 --> 02:01:42.538
True.

02:01:42.779 --> 02:01:48.719
Um, you, well, regional cooperation, like that's probably the number one thing for Northern Colorado is regional cooperation.

02:01:48.779 --> 02:01:48.988
Yes.

02:01:48.988 --> 02:02:05.309
We need a clustering effect, you know, and it's clustering effect also means that you have places with higher quality of living like Fort Collins, and then you have the places which have the ability to create the green sites, as you said, for development and so forth, which can be not just Greeley.

02:02:05.578 --> 02:02:09.748
Um, Loveland is a natural development for the extension of the, for Collins.

02:02:09.838 --> 02:02:10.048
Yep.

02:02:10.048 --> 02:02:10.498
As well.

02:02:10.618 --> 02:02:14.429
Kind of, so you have this natural corridor with, to that extent.

02:02:14.738 --> 02:02:17.948
Um, Cheyenne is probably more on industrial and energy.

02:02:17.953 --> 02:02:18.309
Yeah, yeah.

02:02:18.309 --> 02:02:19.088
Intensive side, you know?

02:02:19.088 --> 02:02:24.399
Well,'cause they have, especially with the Air Force improvements going on up there, there's gonna be a lot of critical mass.

02:02:24.399 --> 02:02:25.029
Correct, yes.

02:02:25.029 --> 02:02:27.668
Of systems and connectivity and data centers.

02:02:27.668 --> 02:02:29.349
Probably ab Absolutely.

02:02:29.349 --> 02:02:38.234
So there is an idea for that, and it's a good question why, you know, what eight, uh, economic development officers, I think in Fort Collins, 12 and 12.

02:02:38.408 --> 02:02:42.399
12, there's a few that are more in the small business sector, they're gonna be on in a few weeks.

02:02:42.399 --> 02:02:44.913
So I shouldn't, uh, I shouldn't, uh, shouldn't before.

02:02:44.913 --> 02:02:46.913
I'm not going to force you too hard on that one.

02:02:46.974 --> 02:02:48.113
Yes, exactly.

02:02:49.213 --> 02:02:58.988
But it would be, it, it's actually quite interesting because, um, in being here for three and a half years now, um, you know, and being an economist by train Sure.

02:02:58.988 --> 02:03:14.948
And being involved before with the things like say policy development, you know, you know, excise taxation, law development in Europe, um, I actually find myself completely not being, you know, in any way, shape or form engaged here.

02:03:15.788 --> 02:03:18.128
Um, I'm not making an effort myself.

02:03:18.128 --> 02:03:19.689
So not to say Yeah, yeah.

02:03:20.019 --> 02:03:21.309
Um, at all.

02:03:21.309 --> 02:03:26.019
But, uh, there is no outreach from the 12 in economic development, you know?

02:03:26.019 --> 02:03:27.878
Well, there's maybe somebody like, you know, no.

02:03:27.878 --> 02:03:31.149
Out outreach from the likes of Greeley either, you know?

02:03:31.179 --> 02:03:31.509
Yeah.

02:03:31.509 --> 02:03:31.510
Yeah.

02:03:31.569 --> 02:03:38.649
So it's very interesting that, uh, to me it is indicative of this idea of the siloed thinking that we have in a corporate world.

02:03:39.128 --> 02:03:39.399
Yeah.

02:03:39.488 --> 02:03:41.229
Uh, and having worked at IBM.

02:03:41.634 --> 02:03:46.583
Um, you know, I am familiar with a giant corporate siloed way of thinking.

02:03:46.583 --> 02:03:46.838
Sure, sure.

02:03:46.884 --> 02:03:48.863
Where everyone builds their own empire, right.

02:03:48.984 --> 02:03:51.444
We build the walls around our own empire.

02:03:51.474 --> 02:03:51.743
Right.

02:03:51.743 --> 02:03:54.173
And we still have this fortress mentality.

02:03:54.173 --> 02:04:02.064
One of the challenges with, with government employees, I've been told, is that everybody compares themselves to one another by the size of their staff.

02:04:02.543 --> 02:04:03.384
Yes, that's true.

02:04:03.384 --> 02:04:04.194
By expenditure.

02:04:04.198 --> 02:04:04.349
Yeah.

02:04:04.354 --> 02:04:04.404
Yeah.

02:04:04.404 --> 02:04:05.429
It's, it's the IT department.

02:04:05.429 --> 02:04:05.509
Oh.

02:04:05.509 --> 02:04:07.944
What big of, how big of a department do you oversee?

02:04:07.944 --> 02:04:08.094
Yep.

02:04:08.573 --> 02:04:11.963
It's, it's like the, it's the curse of the IT department in the corporate world.

02:04:11.963 --> 02:04:12.474
Equivalent.

02:04:12.474 --> 02:04:12.774
Yes.

02:04:12.774 --> 02:04:12.833
Yeah.

02:04:13.014 --> 02:04:14.064
They, uh, you know.

02:04:14.269 --> 02:04:17.748
Their CVS look, or their resumes look and read.

02:04:17.748 --> 02:04:23.059
Like I, I was in charge of installing$150 million system.

02:04:23.059 --> 02:04:23.328
Yes.

02:04:23.328 --> 02:04:23.779
Sure, sure.

02:04:23.838 --> 02:04:26.238
You never really read what the system was supposed to do.

02:04:26.238 --> 02:04:28.189
Could have been a$30 million system that worked better.

02:04:28.698 --> 02:04:29.269
Yeah, exactly.

02:04:29.269 --> 02:04:29.359
Yeah.

02:04:29.359 --> 02:04:29.359
Yeah.

02:04:30.109 --> 02:04:39.168
This is also why every purchase and, you know, kind of decision favors large companies like Microsoft and BM, it's because you can't really go wrong.

02:04:39.198 --> 02:04:39.259
Yeah.

02:04:39.259 --> 02:04:39.439
Yes.

02:04:39.439 --> 02:04:40.309
You spend a lot.

02:04:40.458 --> 02:04:40.668
Yep.

02:04:40.729 --> 02:04:42.649
You know, and you have gotta make support.

02:04:42.918 --> 02:04:45.559
Well, it doesn't really, that's a big question, you know.

02:04:45.828 --> 02:04:46.519
Doesn't work.

02:04:46.578 --> 02:04:46.908
Yeah.

02:04:47.179 --> 02:04:48.918
Constantine, I've enjoyed the conversation.

02:04:49.488 --> 02:04:50.538
Thank you for making time.

02:04:50.628 --> 02:04:51.168
Thanks.

02:04:51.168 --> 02:04:51.649
Thanks, Craig.

02:04:51.649 --> 02:04:51.918
Absolutely.

02:04:51.918 --> 02:04:51.979
Yeah.

02:04:51.979 --> 02:04:57.078
Hopefully you get a bunch of calls with, uh, companies that wanna have interns from Montfort College of Business.

02:04:57.109 --> 02:04:57.828
Would love to.

02:04:57.979 --> 02:04:59.448
We would absolutely welcome that.

02:04:59.448 --> 02:04:59.658
Absolute.

02:04:59.658 --> 02:05:00.319
Oh, not phone calls.

02:05:00.319 --> 02:05:00.498
Yeah.

02:05:00.708 --> 02:05:01.759
Uh, messages.

02:05:01.998 --> 02:05:02.779
Phone calls.

02:05:02.783 --> 02:05:03.349
Phone calls, emails.

02:05:03.349 --> 02:05:06.109
Anyway, slow mails passenger pigeon.

02:05:06.198 --> 02:05:06.918
Absolutely.

02:05:06.918 --> 02:05:08.088
We'll take it in anything.

02:05:08.569 --> 02:05:09.769
Right, in any form.

02:05:09.769 --> 02:05:10.519
Godspeed young man.

02:05:10.519 --> 02:05:11.208
I appreciate you being here.

02:05:11.538 --> 02:05:11.868
Thanks.

02:05:11.868 --> 02:05:12.168
Cheers.