09/24/2021 - Where's America's Head?

[MUSIC PLAYING] CARRIE NORDLUND: Hello there. I mean, the running joke of still in your basement has now gotten so old. But that was the first thing that came to mind when I saw you.

MARK BLYTH: Because I'm still in the basement. Well, I mean, it's actually just because the acoustics here are better. And this is the one day a week when I'm actually at home. Actually don't say that because people will then try and burgle my house on the other days. No. I am home all the time. And we have a big dog. So don't go there. But no, anyway. I happen to be home today, so I'm doing it from here. Otherwise I'll be in the studio with you. Now that we can get back to work. This is nice.

CARRIE NORDLUND: Thank you for noticing. I mean, this would be the first time that we could have seen each other live since like Twenty-Seventeen, or something. Well, I mean, as always-- I guess the world has kept on speeding since we last spoke.

MARK BLYTH: It has.

CARRIE NORDLUND: I don't know how it did that. One of the things that has happened that has of course gotten a lot of eyeballs on it-- is what happened in Texas. And they're now-- have outlawed abortion. Or that they've made abortion illegal after six weeks. And of course, six weeks for a woman to know that she's pregnant is actually very early on. So bottom line for a lot of medical professionals. They've outlawed abortion for women, or the option of abortion for women. And then the Supreme Court in all of their wisdom decided to not do anything on that particular law.

So I mean, this feels like it's going to A-- go to other states. But B-- also get probably pushed before the Supreme Court again in some sort of way. A different question, but same case, I would think is going to come before the Supreme Court. It feels like it's not resolved at all yet.

MARK BLYTH: So two observations on this. And I want you to explain some stuff to me. But just start with the observations. So a couple of years ago when Trump was in power and they launched that TV show, The Handmaiden's Tale-- there was a lot of well, things are going that way. For the past year up until the abortion crusade version 7.0 got launched with the Texas law, we were tightening up on voting. We were tightening up essentially on minorities. Right. A lot of which are women.

And now basically we've decided that they really can't have an abortion. And anybody who helps them can be sued by a private citizen. That's got to be unconstitutional or legally dubious at some level. I'm not entirely sure. Maybe you can explain it. But is this kind of The Handmaiden's Tale is coming to life. I mean. It's just basically the restriction on women's right to be in public. To vote. To have their voices heard, and now to control their bodies. I mean, this is pretty nuts, right?

CARRIE NORDLUND: Well, and it's confounding. It's not confounding because, of course, this is the-- abortion is always at the top of the list when it comes to social issues for Republicans. But the voting thing is odd. You just wonder why-- I mean, why didn't they just go all the way and just try to outlaw it. And then enforce the Supreme Court to really reckon with Roe v. Wade. Although, there's the court cases out there waiting for the court this fall around this question. I mean, if it's the classic incremental chip away at the law until the law is null and void. They're certainly doing that. But it does-- I mean, I know there's been-- The Handmaiden's Tale. And I just keep hoping that it's not that. But it's certainly veering in that way. I mean, you don't know how much more can really be taken away.

MARK BLYTH: So what's the voting constituency for this? I mean, I don't pay close attention to this. But I was under the impression that a majority of Americans are not terribly upset with current abortion laws, and think that it needs an incredible tightening. So what's the electoral payoff to doing this?

CARRIE NORDLUND: Well, I don't know. And I was thinking about this too because I thought, well, if the people of Texas just actually start voting. And they can put it in a different state legislature, maybe this will actually change. But I mean, if you look at the makeup. And this is just based on superficial demographics. I mean, it's a conservative state. Even when you think about the religiosity, or the religious component of the state. It leans pretty conservative in that way. So I mean, in a lot of ways, if you are an abortion advocate or anti-abortion advocate, Texas is a great pilot for you to do. To see whether you can get this thing through that legislature. And then is it going to be then throughout the South as well.

But I don't-- I mean, can the voters of Texas overturn this thing. I don't know. Can they do it on with Austin, Dallas, and Houston alone? Probably not. I mean, it's still pretty conservative, especially if you look at who voted for Trump versus Biden in the last presidential.

MARK BLYTH: So is the whole thing about turning the big red states blue effectively bullshit then? Is this another Democratic wish, which is just the Democratic wish?

CARRIE NORDLUND: Well, Texas has always the dream of people living in New York City. But you don't see it turning anytime soon. Especially with exactly your point, the voter laws. I mean, that Greg Abbott is tightening up the screws on that I mean, shows exactly that he's not going to let a Georgia type thing happen. So meaning that it changes, or is at least purple in some way. So I think Texas is always the dream, but you don't see it changing for a while. I mean, there's always election. People always really think it's going to turn blue. But I don't. It's hard to see that demographically.

MARK BLYTH: So it's funny. I was on a call to a conference in Hungary. Basically the mayor of Budapest, who is trying to run against Bert Viktor Orban in November has this big conference, and brings in various worthies to talk about stuff. So we had a discussion of angrynomics. And one of the people who was there on the call was Martin Wolffe from the Financial Times. And Martin made the point that it's absolutely perplexing from the American-- from the European point of view to understand what's going on in America just now. So to everybody who is not an authoritarian, and happens to think that Hungary is a great place-- to have a major broadcaster from a major network come over and camp out and beam back to America.

That essentially one party rule under an authoritarian guy who mixes basically gerrymandering and bullying to stay in power is the way to go. And we should totally emulate that-- is deeply disturbing to them. Because they find themselves in this world where they've got to worry about Russia. They've got to worry about China. Are they going to have to worry about the United States? Is the United States effectively turning into one of these semi-authoritarian places with reactionary politics written into the script? And as somebody who lives here as a citizen, we don't talk about this. We don't think about it. We don't think about what our politics looks like on the outside. But when the UN comes along, as they did last week.

And actually says that the abortion law in Texas is a serious and major human rights infraction. And it's ridiculous that this is going on in a punitively democratic country. The rest of the world goes, yip. And we go, whatever. And it's just very weird to place yourself with this.

CARRIE NORDLUND: I agree. I mean, there is a-- I was just reading an article about John Kerry. The climate envoy, or climate change envoy to from the United States is trying to go around to various nations. And hammer out some sort of deal ahead of the Glasgow summit that's coming up. And people said to him, well, why should we negotiate with you because in two years it's going to be Trump all over again. And I mean, at that back and forth, and this whole question of-- is America in decline-- and blah, blah, blah. And you don't quite know where we are in that spectrum. Is it just hyperbole, or is it something more than that. The decline question.

MARK BLYTH: Well, I mean, the decline is-- the decline is relative to what an absolute all the time. I mean, as I like to say to people-- Portugal once had a giant empire, has been in decline since about the 17th century, maybe earlier. It's still a really nice place to visit and hang out. So it depends on what you think. My destiny is to run the world, or maybe my destiny is just to have a nice place to live. So it can change over time. But, yeah. Nonetheless, the whole question of decline. Another twist that happened on this call as well, which was interesting-- was getting European opinions on what Afghanistan meant.

So the way that this got portrayed in the US media was, European allies are perplexed because we pulled out, and it shows a lack of credibility and commitment. That's not what happened at all. They were somewhat perplexed by the pullout, but kind of knew it was going to happen eventually. What they were perplexed with is they expected the Europeans to be happy when they said this-- don't worry. Were never going to do anything stupid and pointless like Afghanistan. Instead we're going to get all of our resources out of there, rebuild our defense establishment. And get ready to take on China.

At which point the Europeans are like, I'm sorry, what? You're basically telling-- you want me to be thrilled that you're gearing up for the Third World War, right. This is the good news. So yeah. There's a lot of miscommunication going on at the moment.

CARRIE NORDLUND: Well, I have something to say about communication. But before I lose it in my head, you were on a call to Hungary. How does-- but I'm assuming you're on the-- well, you said you're talking to the guy--

MARK BLYTH: Yeah, I was on team Jedi. I was on team Jedi. I was not in team Sith.

CARRIE NORDLUND: But he's going to run-- the mayor of Budapest is running against Orban.

MARK BLYTH: Yeah.

CARRIE NORDLUND: Will we ever hear from him again, or will Orban put him in prison soon?

MARK BLYTH: No. He's not really the prison guy. He has a lot of popular support. Real wages have risen for a lot of people in Hungary. This is a society whereby it's almost basically impossible to learn the language if you're not a child, and being born there. It's ethnically homogeneous. It's no wonder Tucker Carlson loves the place, right. And he got a lot of support. But I mean, it is ultimately a kind of deeply anti-democratic, creeping authoritarian, highly corrupt project. And basically, other people in the country, particularly the cosmopolitan elites in the capital city are like, this sucks. But he has a lot of support out there in the hinterland. So this is a common story. We've heard this record before.

CARRIE NORDLUND: Yeah. Well, to pick up on your miscommunication. It seems like the Biden administration right now has had a lot of miscommunications. I mean, the infrastructure bill that I mean, if you have fallen asleep. It's still out there. I mean, right now-- I mean, Nancy Pelosi in the House has maybe a margin of one or two votes to get this thing done. Senator Sinema and Manchin have said no to it. I mean, it's hard to know exactly how this thing gets done through both chambers. And without the support of course, the crucial senators. And even though the one or two, maybe three people that Pelosi has are in these marginal districts. It's hard to know how she's going to be able to twist their arms.

MARK BLYTH: Yeah. It's a suicide run for them. Yeah.

CARRIE NORDLUND: But how is the miscommunication from the Biden administration happened on this Afghanistan and also the French submarine. It just seems like so many misfires on stuff that just-- I mean, again sitting from my perch seems pretty straightforward. But how did all these flubs happen? And especially the infrastructure bill. It's just sitting there, waiting. And why it's taken so long, and why the president's just getting involved now.

MARK BLYTH: Well, I mean, from my point of view-- I mean, it's the classic suckers move for the Democrats. Every time the Democrats are in opposition the Republicans blow through the debt ceiling. And the Democrats go, OK, fair enough. And the minute they are in charge-- no. No more debt. Absolutely. We'll throw the economy off a cliff rather than do this. And they just play for keeps. And the Democrats always think there's a deal to be done. If you want to get this infrastructure dump us. You basically frogmarch the reluctance into a room, and say, what's it going to take one way or the other. Make that happen, and then just vote it through.

Because if you rely on maybe one or two Republicans opposed. Forget it. Never going to happen, right. So ultimately, is this going to be-- this is the test case, right. If they get past the debt ceiling, and they get this passed. It's akin to Obama being able to do Obamacare. Because it's like a big singular thing. We've done a thing, right. Now we can basically stop and wait to get smashed in the face during the midterms. Right. But if they don't do this, that's it.

CARRIE NORDLUND: Yeah. But exactly. At least if they get smashed in the face there, they have something to show for it. A broken nose, or something. Oh, gosh. And then I just seen these pictures of what's happening at the border. So first of all, I'm not-- I was prepping for this, and trying to understand what is exactly happening at the border. And I'd heard. And then I thought, oh, gosh. It's just the story that we've seen throughout the summer. But then it involves Haitians, and I was so confused about what was happening.

And it turns out a lot of people are very confused about Haitians traveling about a couple of thousand miles to that particular place in the border. Because they had heard that the US was going to let people in. I mean, it's just-- it's just heartbreaking and I think the US has let in a few hundred families in there. And they're being placed throughout Texas. But I mean, yet another-- what is the administration doing on this. It seems like they're following similar stuff to what the Trump administration was doing.

MARK BLYTH: Well, yes. But without gloating about it. I mean, it's not like, hey, we threw more kids into cages, right. But ultimately, the southern border, regardless of who's in power is going to become just a lightning rod for American politics for the next God knows how long. You've got societies-- Nicaragua, El Salvador. The combined stresses of economic collapse, climate change, the pressure on traditional farming, and traditional farming communities. You've already got climate refugees. Then you have places like Haiti, which are appallingly governed. Have been through so many crises and natural disasters. The people are basically saying, I'm done. I got to get out of here. This is-- I do not want to be here.

So you're going to have that migrant pressure. And we're at a point now where there's no one on the other side of the debate in the United States saying, yes, more immigration. That's what we need. It's a good thing. That's what America does. Like the rest of the developed world, they've basically said, no, we're good. That's fine. That's it. No more. And trying to make that traditional progressive case for mass immigration. I literally can't think of a single successful quote, unquote-- I mean, in electoral terms "government" that's actually on that side of the debate. The world is shut.

CARRIE NORDLUND: Yeah. Well it's interesting. Biden was at UNGA, United Nations General Assembly meeting this week. And gave a speech that probably no one listened to. And I didn't either, but I did hear a few snippets of it. And what I thought was interesting was him saying that we have to be able to show that government can do something. And we have to be able to show that we're not just some sort of hollow thing, that it's just a White House and no one's endorsed. This is a terrible image that I'm drawing, but in any case. And I thought about that in regards to what's happening at the border in terms of-- all the US has is human capital, and the opportunity to maybe be the next Mark Zuckerberg.

And I think that's probably a lot, those potential opportunities. But I mean, in order to actually show the world that we are doing that, we have to not be closed. And you saw a little bit of it maybe with the Afghan-- with the transporters from Afghanistan. But it just seems like that's all we have right now, and can't we do better.

MARK BLYTH: Well, from the point of view of the Trump coalition, right. Essentially what have you got? You've got cosmopolitan elites who still care more about importing foreigners than they do about upskilling or doing anything to help the opioid crisis that their own citizens face. So just-- it's a very, very hard sell. How do you explain, no, but really economies thrive on knowledge. And that means a diversity, and that means human capital-- versus where I live, and everyone I know is jobless. And teetering on the point of indigence and drug addiction. Or what have you done for us lately? We are actually the citizens.

And just doubling down on that. That's basically-- that's where that pressure comes from. The progressive answer to that, which is of course, sort of both issues-- it's actually very hard to do.

CARRIE NORDLUND: Yeah. And I know even Bernie with his dental as part of-- we need to have-- seniors need to have a dental plan. I mean, he's been on about that for 500 years and we still have yet to see anything come from that. So the Fed announced something.

MARK BLYTH: They announced that they would begin tapering their asset purchases come November. So what does that mean? It means that they won't be buying bonds and other stuff from the private sector, and flooding the economy with so much cash. That may lead to a cooling effect. That may lead to a slight rise in interest rates. Is it going to be huge in the grand scheme of things? Not for the United States itself. Where I would worry about it is-- the last time they did this, they go into what was called the taper tantrum. And the taper tantrum was-- yeah. Because basically if the United States raises interest rates at home in a world in which everybody is at 0.

All the money in the world flies into the United States because you get a higher return. So if you think about this from the point of view of developing economies it's really horrible. So when the United States cuts to 0 in a moment of crisis, everybody pushes money out in the developing world looking for any type of yield. Because they tend to have higher interest rates. So you junk it in there. Then when the United States says, crisis is over. Time to normalize-- that pushes up interest rates. All that money goes flying out of these countries, and you have multiple currency crises happening all at once. So this speaks to the fact that really, because the world is a dollar economy, the Fed is the global central bank. But it only officially has a US mandate.

So it's talking to the US financial audience. And basically saying, we get it, but what about inflation. Don't worry. We think we're on the road to recovery. We're going to stop doing all the stuff we do that juices the economy. We're going to slow it down a bit. Well, if that leads to rising rates American savers might go, great, I get more than the square root of nothing in my savings. But at the same time, all that money that flew into Latin American economies-- if it comes flying out, then whoops. Currency crisis, import collapse, bad things happen. So the global shocks to American policy is something the Fed's not allowed to look at. But it thinks about it. So it's stuck between a rock and a hard place, as usual.

CARRIE NORDLUND: Jerome Powell, do you think he'll continue on as Fed Chair?

MARK BLYTH: I can't imagine why not. Unless he basically says like many people of his age, hang on I've got a 401(k) packed with cash. I'm off to the beach. Right. And all God love him if he decides that. But no. I think he's in it basically for the longer haul in that regard.

CARRIE NORDLUND: It seems like a really thankless job.

MARK BLYTH: Well, I mean, I call it the leader of last resort. I mean, love or hate it. And yes, that's an asset purchases, increase in inequality. And yes. It leads to a huge stock market boom that only benefits those that have got stocks, which is a tiny minority of Americans really. Et cetera, et cetera. But all things considered, it's the last functional bit of the US State because Congress is completely broken. And they also, because of the role of the dollar, actually take a global look at things. And try and think about things holistically in a joined up way. So better that than not that.

CARRIE NORDLUND: And actually this is making me feel better that the US is on decline, and we're terrible. Or not terrible, but they were on decline, they have nothing. Well, now where it's-- I forget that it's a dollar based economy. So we still have-- we still have that too. Speaking of-- you said global economics. What's going on in China with Evergrande? What's the importance of that?

MARK BLYTH: So Adam Tooze's newsletter had a great line on this, right. People look at China and see different things. And this is a great example of this whereby Evergrande is the Lehman Brothers of China. Well, no it's not. And this is going to be this huge crisis. Well, maybe it is. Maybe it is. But whatever happens is going to happen quote, unquote, as they like to say with Chinese characteristics. Now imagine this was a western firm. What would it be? It would be as if some of the biggest asset managers in America decided to become the biggest landlords in America.

And then they built tons and tons of houses in second tier cities. And that's great for GDP numbers. It's great for the local property developers. It's great for the party cadres who can report high GDP scores because they built all this housing. Everything's great. Except the price to multi income ratio was on all the expensive cities. The growth cities where everybody wants to be. Your Shanghai, et cetera are truly astonishing. Right. So if New York is 12 to 1 on income, Beijing is 50 to 1 on the average income. It's completely nuts. So you got half the G administration, which is actually now said, oh, by the way you may remember we are communists. And what they've done, I think, is they've looked out at the American economy and said, all right.

So what do we get if we go down this route? We get about an extra 1,000 billionaires. 100 of them become difficult politically. They start to poison and pollute your politics and buy your politicians. You get eye-watering inequality. One of them builds a spaceship for a jolly. You're doing nothing about climate change. You can't pass any legislation. I don't think we want to go there. Ream these people in, right. So put this very big teetering highly levered property developer in the middle of this. What is it that they'll do? More than likely, they're not going to go, well, we'll look at the good assets and the bad assets. And put the bad assets in the bad bag.

There's no Western playbook for that. The entire board of directors will disappear, never to be heard from again. That will be number one. Any of the suppliers to these firms, like the local building firms that employ 10,000 people. That build all the apartments in a city you've never heard of. They will probably be taken care of in the sense of insulated from the failure of the credit or to pay them what they owe. And then what other good assets are left will basically be taken over by the People's Bank of China. They'll put that under some special part of the balance sheet, just like we did in the financial crisis.

We invented this thing called Maiden Lane and then chocked all the mortgages into it. They'll do something similar like that. And then they'll use their gigantic foreign exchange reserves to cushion the blow. And then they will use that as an excuse to go in and really push down on the property sector, and restructure a lot of the firms. And take a lot of the heat out of the market. That's the playbook that they're searching for. Whether they will get there or not it's a slightly different story. Because it's very hard to do that.

CARRIE NORDLUND: Well, and that's interesting. One of the disappearing of people. It made me think there's this famous Chinese actress. I don't know if you saw this Zhao Wei, who's been totally disappeared. Like she's been disappeared off the internet. They totally swept her out to who knows where. And so like thinking about this in connection to the pop cultural-- the pop culture people in China, and how they're really cracking down on their social media. On what they say. Their travel, all of this sort of stuff-- is an interesting-- I don't know if this is a moment of when they're looking internally, and trying to I don't know shore up any stuff for the oncoming World War Three.

I mean, it's just an interesting moment of why it is that they're now really concerned with what their actors, and other cultural, global sorts of people are doing.

MARK BLYTH: Well, I think this is part of Xi's sort of-- by the way, honestly, really a communist move. Which is one of the point of markets. The point of markets are to allocate goods more efficiently. All right. Are we allocating them in an efficient way of basically-- we end up with higher inequality than the United States. So who are these people that are causing problems? Who is giving people these kind of aspirational lifestyle things, which are completely unattainable to most people? Oh, it's all these social media people. Right. Well, let's clamp down on that. I mean, you can follow the logic quite clearly. You just have to think in that frame. What is it ultimately you want these markets for?

We like markets because they make us rich and damn the torpedoes. Like there's been a shift in China, and the shift is essentially on the question of what do you think markets are for.

CARRIE NORDLUND: Yeah. Right. Right. And he's showing that he's not a Deng Xiaoping either. Right. On the question of torpedoes, Blyth. US and France-- I mean--

MARK BLYTH: Oh, good. Oh, that was brilliant. Very good. Very good.

CARRIE NORDLUND: But hey, here's one more. We don't call them freedom fries for nothing either. I mean, now that the US and France are on the outs maybe they'll change French fries back to freedom fries. It is a weird thing with the submarine deal. And that you-- France is so pissed off. I mean, it was a lot of money. It is a lot of money.

But it just seems really-- pulling the ambassador to the US, I guess Biden is having trouble getting Macron on the phone. But another miss messaging thing is-- did the US not think, oh, this is going to piss them off. And maybe we should talk to them beforehand to let them know this is going to happen. What's your take on this?

MARK BLYTH: On that one I really don't know whether it was simply-- was cut them out of the deal and don't tell them and spring on them. Or whether it was miss messaging. To me I'm just more concerned as to what this thing is for. I posted this on Twitter, my Twitter feed. There's this fabulous one minute outtake from an Australian comedy series. They do a cabinet meeting. And said, all right. And it's before the announcement, right. They're just talking about Silva's got this big expenditure on defense. The prime minister is going to have to defend this. It's incredibly vague terms. General, can you fill this in for us. It says-- so basically it says, when you spend $60 billion a year for whatever right defending against a regional power.

Who is it? Well, can't really say. All right, if I say the word, can you nod? China-- and they all start nodding, right. And they say, so what's the rationale for this? Well, it's to defend our trade routes. OK. That's great. So who's our number one trading partner? China. So you're spending all this money to defend your trade routes against the people that you have trade routes with. Yes. Right. I mean, literally it's like, OK. So what's the strategic rationale for here? Look into the fine print of this. The first of these new submarines the Australians are going to get-- Twenty-Forty. Now, the one thing we know from military contracts is that, that will be Twenty-Fifty. Right. So by the time that I'm probably dead, they might get their first submarine.

And if we just continue to screw up on climate crisis adaptation, the whole lot-- then Australia will be basically uninhabitable. I don't care about the submarines. So it's this question of OK, where is America's head in this moment? It's like we've got out of Afghanistan. Now we're going to really tool up against China, right. Right at a moment when China is turning inwards to prepare itself from what it sees as the inevitable conflict with the US, which is really heartening. And it goes gung ho with Britain. Like Britain, come on. They've got one aircraft carrier with no planes on it, right. And a handful of submarines.

You've got France, who's now out of the picture. And then you've got the Australians who are going to be giving you American submarines. And somehow in Twenty-Fifty this is going to be relevant. What are we doing? What is this-- why are we not just turn on down to the Australians and saying, look, ultimately your country is a giant carbon polluting global menace with a really good PR department. So you need to actually-- if you're going to trade with China, you need to trade something other than more things add to the climate crisis. Can we talk about that. But instead, no.

Nobody in Australia has that conversation. We are not having that conversation. As usual, we're just ignoring the real dangers in front of us, and then inventing fantasy ones.

CARRIE NORDLUND: Yeah. One interesting thing I thought that came out of this was that the UK had negotiated its own deal. Not its own deal, but it's like-- areas like the US, the UK, and something. And so I just thought one thing coming out of Brexit was that the UK is now its own entity. It doesn't have a parental EU sitting over it. So I don't know if that's a win for Great Britain. And thinking about countries on the decline, maybe, is it on the upswing now. Or--

MARK BLYTH: Well, it's a win for imperial nostalgia. We are back at the top. We're back at the-- you have one aircraft carrier with no planes on it. I don't think China is basically wetting themselves over this one. In Nineteen-Fifty-Seven I think it was, Britain basically ceased its military deployments east of Suez. And that was when it was a much bigger, more powerful country. Now, at a time where Brexit basically pulls you out of a free trade zone, so you can sign more free trade agreements. We're basically expanding our geopolitical reach as our geopolitical size gets smaller and smaller. I got a friend of mine in London who's writing a book about how nostalgia screws up Britain. And I think he's completely right.

It's always this imaginary of like some time in the past then. If we just get back to what we were there, it was so much better. And this, the foreign policy stuff to me really seems to be some pre east of Suez. We are a global power. And it's like, no, you're not. Stop it. You're not helping anyone with this.

CARRIE NORDLUND: That's such a good point. You feel like-- so like just thinking about the Texas abortion law, or some of the social issues. It's such a nostalgia of like, when women knew their place, and right-- and--

MARK BLYTH: Carrie, when you knew your place.

CARRIE NORDLUND: Exactly.

MARK BLYTH: And I controlled your body.

CARRIE NORDLUND: Right. And you-- and I didn't vote. Right and all of those amazing things, right. So but in the end, I don't know that the-- I guess when I think about the number of things that have happened over the past few weeks. Afghanistan, what's happening with the border in France. It just seems like, do any of these things matter for the presidential election or the midterms. Probably not, but it just adds to this overall like sense of the Biden administration as you said, like what are they doing right now.

MARK BLYTH: Yeah. No, I mean, I hear this all the time. And the minute anybody mentions Anthony Blinken who's running the foreign policy of the Biden administration. It's sort of like, it's the most talented team, and you get all these sort of things. And I'm like, you've got to be-- what are they doing. They're planning for the Third World War, and they're trying to enlist the Aussies. How is that helping anyway? I mean, it's bizarre. All things weird.

CARRIE NORDLUND: I'm--

MARK BLYTH: My turn to segue. My turn to segue.

CARRIE NORDLUND: Oh, yeah. Please do.

MARK BLYTH: So from the bizarre and weird to the utterly stupefyingly dull. The German election.

CARRIE NORDLUND: Oh. That was a good one. That was very good.

MARK BLYTH: Thank you. Thank you.

CARRIE NORDLUND: But wait. I saw a headline on this that I think it was the person who's running number one right now. And I want to make sure to get it because it's such a great German name, Olav Schloss. Schloss, is that right?

MARK BLYTH: Schultz.

CARRIE NORDLUND: Schultz. Oh sorry. Anyway. But that they were-- he had been running an ad that says something to the effect of that he was Angie the second. And that he had what it took to lead the country even though he was a man. So in stark contrast to what--

MARK BLYTH: So he used the gender term [SPEAKING GERMAN] to basically suggest that basically he could be as good as-- he could be a female chancellor in a sense. Yeah. The whole thing-- so the country will never go over Merkel. I mean, Merkel appealed to the culture of this-- the search for stability at all costs in German society. And she even had this electoral symbol, where she did this sort of thing.

CARRIE NORDLUND: Oh, the rhombus. The Merkel rhombus.

MARK BLYTH: Yeah, the rhombus, right. It's sort of like stable stability of the rhombus, right. Merkel was once asked what she's most proud of in Germany, and she said, hermetically sealed windows. No. I'm quite serious. I've got them in the house. They're amazing, but I wouldn't say that would be the best thing about my country if I was pushed, right. But anyway. That sort of like Kellenberger mentality, as they say, small town mentality-- even though they're a big economy that causes so much of the issues. And literally nobody who's running has any sort of scope apart from possibly the greens for getting out of the various ruts that they've built themselves into.

Schultz leads the SPD. The SPD at one point were down to below 20%. They're now up at about 27. Nobody of all the different parties has more than 30%. So inevitably you end up with yet another big coalition of parties that nobody voted for. Whereby you get your own version of gridlock because the FPD want tax cuts, and the greens want to abolish the debt brake, so they can do green investment. And the SPD care about all people, but there isn't enough money because it-- so you just end up doing nothing. So essentially it's another four to five years of stasis comes out of this.

CARRIE NORDLUND: But I love that you use the word stability because that seemed to be-- again, this is from reading the German election filtered through the American press-- of that stability is what Germany wants. And that actually to have a charismatic leader hearkens back to the bad times.

MARK BLYTH: Yeah, absolutely.

CARRIE NORDLUND: And so stability is sexy.

MARK BLYTH: They're still terrorized by Weimar. I mean, if you ever look at how Germany reforms any of its institutions. It does so incrementally, and it usually does so by building parallel institutions. I'll give you an example of this. About 15, 20 years ago there's an idea that the university system was crap because none of the universities got in the top 50 in rankings. Personally, I think that's because the rankings are crap. But nonetheless, they go onto this. So then it was, well, clearly the solution is to be more like America. So we need to have assistant professors and associate professors, and all that stuff.

Now, absolutely the German system is literally medieval. The way it works is you have this [GERMAN] Dr. Von professor at the top. And then there's two or three assistants behind him who's in their 40s. And then there's a whole bunch of post-PhDs, the [GERMAN]. And you basically run a lab even if you're in a social science department or humanities department. It's all very top-down and hierarchical. And if the person at the top is good, and the energizer, whatever-- it can be amazing. But like when that person goes these things often fall apart.

It's like a little medieval monarchy type stuff. So yes, would the American system be better? Absolutely. So rather than confronting the universities, and saying, right, we're done. We're going to do something else. They started to pick minor universities that were off the radar, and shower them with money. And bring this new system and then give them loads of hires. Because you were building these parallel institutions, right. You didn't want to upset what you've got. Weimar-- ghost of Weimar, right. So what you do is you build these parallel institutions, and hope that all of these [GERMAN] doctor doctors retire over time.

But as usual, they got halfway through this and then got cold feet. Abandoned the experiment and now they're stuck on this weird hybrid system that pleases nobody.

CARRIE NORDLUND: But did the ones that they're trying to bring up, did they have like higher quality, or--

MARK BLYTH: A lot of them were Germans who were trained in the United States who came back to Germany and take these jobs. And then when the whole thing started to go south they all left again.

CARRIE NORDLUND: OK. Yeah. It seems like not really reaching the goal, and--

MARK BLYTH: So I mean, you could rinse and repeat for different industries. I mean, the car industry is still making diesel engines. I mean, for God's sake it's over. Right. But no, there's a future for this. The other guy, Lasha, is known as Mr. Coal. He wants Germany to open a coal mine. Like now. You're like, what's bit of you can't live in the past did you miss the memo on? And so that's part-- so hence, stability. The one thing we're going to agree on-- don't change anything ever.

CARRIE NORDLUND: It seems like we're against coal now. But maybe we're not because as we talked about the last one-- I mean, well, Joe Manchin from big coal country. But also that I can't with someone-- has called for what, 30 more years of coal operation in the US. So--

MARK BLYTH: China however, came out two days ago and said, no more coal in their Belt and Road Initiative. They will no longer fund the development of coal outside their borders. Which people are like, well, that's because they were bad and they were doing lots of this. Well, remember that 80% of all the funding for coal worldwide is not coming from China. So in actual fact, China is taking a very progressive step in comparison to what western finance is doing on China despite all the lip service about ESG.

CARRIE NORDLUND: Can I just ask a clarifying question? Are the roads, the bridges, and the belts-- isn't it the opposite? I always get confused on this. And so-- or am I totally-- you're looking at me like--

MARK BLYTH: Yeah. I'm just looking at you like-- they could have called the Geena Davis Memorial Fund for building shit. And I wouldn't have actually thought, it's that really about Geena Davis? And you're actually asking me about, is the bell a bell, and is the-- I literally have no idea what you mean by that.

CARRIE NORDLUND: I think it's the opposite. And I'm always like, well, who named this thing? Like it should-- the road should be a road and the belt should be a bridge.

MARK BLYTH: There is actually. I think at the founding conference and the founding documents there is actually an explanation of this. That somehow the road is something, and the belt is something, and I literally have no idea what they meant by that. I'm just not big on-- I'm really not big on metaphors in general unless I'm the one who's making them up.

CARRIE NORDLUND: Well, of course. Of course. Well, I laughed at this and I don't know if you saw this picture of Bolsonaro who is also in New York for UNGA. And the word was because he's unvaccinated he was unable to dine inside. And was-- the picture was taken of him on the sidewalk eating pizza, as all good New Yorkers do. But then I thought, maybe he's just eating on the street. Do we have any evidence that he's actually denied entry to a restaurant? But nonetheless, I thought it good. It gave me a little bit of a laugh.

MARK BLYTH: Well, it creates an interesting dilemma for local government, doesn't it. Because if you let him in, then basically everybody else in New York will be like, hey, Bolsonaro. I get in as well, right. So you have to do that, but at the same time if you do that, then it's well-- you're saying to people-- you really are saying to people, you need to be vaccinated to play, right. There's an interesting subtext in that move irrespective of Bolsonaro himself.

CARRIE NORDLUND: But I was impressed people actually even recognized him. Because I was like, wait, is he the guy in the white shirt or the cream shirt? When they were standing next to his aides. Yeah. And then one other just to end on a light note-- is that Harry and Meghan will be in town in early October for like a global citizen sort of thing. So if they're--

MARK BLYTH: Sorry. In town being where?

CARRIE NORDLUND: New York, sorry. Is there any other town. Yeah.

MARK BLYTH: Well, I thought you meant Providence for a minute.

CARRIE NORDLUND: Yeah. So they'll be in town. They'll be in New York and it's their first public visit, or first public outing since they had their second kid. So this is big major news.

MARK BLYTH: So remember about two years ago, or three years ago when Harry and Meghan was starting to become a thing, and we started talking about it.

CARRIE NORDLUND: Yeah.

MARK BLYTH: I think back in the day I said, just wait. What's going to happen is all this is going to go to hell in a handbasket. And he's going to bugger off to Hollywood. And he's going to write a book called "Growing Up Royal" when you're not, or something like this. And the cat will be finally set amongst the pigeons. And that will basically be how they're going to make this play. And it looks like it's really-- it's coming down exactly as I have foreseen.

CARRIE NORDLUND: And you don't like to do the prediction game either, and yet on this one you're watching is spot on.

MARK BLYTH: I keep getting them right. Exactly. I think the giveaway was if you go back to the wedding. If you remember the wedding and the sheer discomfort of the British upper classes dealing with an American minister, an American African-American minister. And the message, which was that love is the one universal, and we should be open and in our embrace of love is as the dominant virtue that we should have.

Which is a lovely message, and just watching all these people shrinking back at the very idea that this is what it's become. This is the end. And I just remember looking at these faces, and going, this is not going to go well.

CARRIE NORDLUND: Americans and their emotions. Well, it was great to see you, as always. And I think we'll probably be back because the world will keep moving, and we'll have something to talk about.

MARK BLYTH: Well, one would certainly hope so. And in fact, we're in the same time. So maybe we could actually even do it face to face next time. It will be amazing.

CARRIE NORDLUND: I know that would even-- It would be incredible. Well, thank you. And thank you all for listening.

MARK BLYTH: See you all soon.

CARRIE NORDLUND: Bye.