DREW BESSETTE: And in that, let's look at the oil industry for a little bit because
you were an oil analyst at Lehman and-- or under the oil analysts at Lehman or whatever
you want to call it.
What do you see going on there?
I mean, obviously, there's a lot of things blowing up.
The Saudis are targeting somebody, probably the Russians, maybe somebody else, maybe us.
What's going on there?
MICHAEL KRIEGER: Yeah, so, OK.
Now that's interesting.
I don't follow the oil markets very closely at all anymore.
But when I saw the reports of how OPEC plus Russia had a meeting, and they were trying
to get together on some production cuts, and the Russian representative basically was like,
no, know we're not doing it, enough's enough, that really made my hair stand up because
that, to me-- I mean, the narrative that's been out there forever is that Russia needs
oil prices higher.
And if Russia doesn't-- if you recall back in 2015 or so, every single financial publication
was like, oh, Putin's gone.
You know, Russia's dead.
Look at the ruble.
It's over for them.
They can't handle these low oil prices.
Well, you know, two years later, we're told that Putin is the mastermind that got Donald
Trump elected.
So I guess that didn't work out.
But the point is this.
Whereas the US is very fragile, I think a country like Russia is much more anti-fragile
than the US right now because they've been battered so badly.
The USSR already collapsed.
They've been through that sort of collapse already.
The society has been through that.
And so what I-- and this is pure speculation, but it's something that's going through my
head.
Did Putin look at the situation and say, OK, we're going to make a power move here?
You know, we're OK with this.
We're going to handle this.
We're going to put pressure on the societies that are more fragile than we are.
And let's see how you deal with it.
I sort of see the move in that sort of geopolitical context.
Again, I could be wrong about that because I don't pay that much attention to this anymore.
But I will say this.
I think you're going to see more moves like that going forward where countries that have
been pushing for multi-polarity such as China and Russia, for less of a US hegemony, will
start making moves to weaken the US position globally when they have an opportunity.
And then I think they're seeing this as an opportunity.
I mean, it sucks to say that, but I think that's just how the world works and another
example of this would be-- I don't know if you're following it, but China is now aggressively
sending supplies as well as personnel to Italy as they are going through this.
So that's a move.
Now is China doing this out of altruistic reasons?
No chance.
What are they doing?
They're trying to look good because they know that the US looks terrible right now because
of how this has been handled.
And so China is going to say, hey, no one's helping Italy?
Your own neighbors aren't going to help you?
The US can't even, you know what I mean, make test kits?
Here you go.
Here's some ventilators.
Here's some plasma.
So I think one of the things that people aren't appreciating about coronavirus is it's very
likely to be a domino that starts that acceleration of the decline of US hegemony globally.
I could have never thought of it.
I've written a lot about how I think by 2025, the world will be fully multipolar.
But yeah, I think this is going to be a catalyst that leads to the United States' dominant
position in the world being reduced.
Now how far reduced?
I don't know.
That remains completely unknown.
But if you're talking about a country that's basically been able to tell the entire planet
since, I don't know, since World War II or let's say since the collapse of the USSR what
to do at almost any given moment and everyone has to listen, those days are now over.
And I think coronavirus is going to be an event that accelerates that reality that a
lot of people have been fighting.
But again, this is something that I've also written about.
It's not a bad thing.
Empire has been terrible for the average American, horrible for us.
It's not good.
It creates a surveillance state at home.
It funnels money to the worst people in the worst industries.
It encourages financial scams, engineering, war.
We've completely neglected our own country because we're so focused.
All of our energy and all of our money is focused on dominating the rest of the world
so that a few oligarchs can get a power trip and make more money.
It's been terrible for the average American.
So if we're like, let's say, post-2025 or even now, you know, this country can marshal
its talent and actually make things and actually create things and actually innovate and focus
on our communities and our states and what's going on within our borders as opposed to
trying to control people in Afghanistan and Iraq, we're going to be in great shape.
We're going to-- everyone's going to be a lot happier after we get through a tough period.
So if you're attached, right, if you're psychologically attached to the empire, thinking it gives
you some sort of power or pride or anything like that, you should let that go because
it's not good for you.
On the flipside, though, we also don't want to be dominated by another empire.
So we also need to be careful that you don't want another hegemon, right?
You don't want China to all of a sudden be bossing around the US.
DREW BESSETTE: The entire, world, yeah.
MICHAEL KRIEGER: So it's a balance.
But I think-- you know, this is what I've been saying for a long time.
We need national defense, not national offense.
We've been focused on national defense, which is what empires do.
We need to be focused on national defense, which is making sure that we can be a sovereign
country, and we can be a strong country.
But that means focusing on our stuff, OK?
We have tons of resources.
We have tons of talent.
We still have a constitution.
We still have a legacy of freedom and entrepreneurship.
There's so much talent in this country, and 99% of it has been wasted by empire.
So don't lament necessarily what's happening.
We just don't want to go too far in the other direction, right?
We don't-- DREW BESSETTE: Yes.
MICHAEL KRIEGER: You don't want to be a weak, collapsed country that other countries take
advantage of.
So you don't want the pendulum to swing too far.
But the pendulum has been all the way over here, which is crazy, oligarchic empire.
So we need to bring it all right over here.
We don't want to bring it over there.
Right here in the middle-- sanity, you know, equilibrium.
That's what I hope.