Steve Keen: Why Hormuz risks famine, not just an oil shock

1. 0:00 – 2:35

   Intro

   1. SKSteve Keen0:00

      So there are five scenarios in which the war could end, because Trump is stupid enough to take on what Israel wanted to do, which was destroy Iran, but they've bitten off far more than they can chew. So scenario one is Iran destroys the Gulf power infrastructure. I think that's highly likely, and if that happens, then Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Dubai, they all become uninhabitable. And then scenario two, Iran disables Israel's nukes. I hope that happens, but there's this one, and it scares the shit out of me.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett0:28

      Professor Steve, I have so many questions. What is going on?

   3. SKSteve Keen0:30

      So this war is threatening everybody on the planet, and what Trump is doing at the moment is a pump and dump scheme. He's trying to drive up the oil price and exploiting it for his friends and for his own wealth in the process. So people are focusing upon the price of this, but the really important point is this, the Strait of Hormuz. So oil, fertilizer, helium, all have to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett0:49

      And Iran have blocked that gap.

   5. SKSteve Keen0:51

      So they can say, "You do or do not pass," depending on what your country's attitude towards our country. So that's quite terrifying because twenty to thirty percent of our fertilizer comes through this point. But if this is not available, the globe has a famine.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett1:03

      Do you think he will send ground troops in?

   7. SKSteve Keen1:04

      Yes, I do, but I'd hate to be one of those troops because it's a suicide mission. They've got underground military units of weapons and troops, but we have no idea of the scale.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett1:13

      Trump keeps saying that the war has been won.

   9. SKSteve Keen1:15

      Yeah.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett1:15

       What's going on there, in your view?

   11. SKSteve Keen1:17

       I think he's been fed propaganda to tell him that he's winning the war by his immediate advisors because you cannot tell a person like that, that they've made a mistake.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett1:25

       We'll talk about that as well, but you've developed a bit of a reputation because you're very good at predicting things. So which of these five outcomes do you think is most probable to happen?

   13. SKSteve Keen1:34

       Oh, God. [sighs]

   14. SBSteven Bartlett1:37

       This is super interesting to me. My team give me this report to show me how many of you that watch this show subscribe, and some of you have told us, according to this, that you are unsubscribed from the channel randomly. So a favor to ask all of you, please could you check right now if you've hit the subscribe button, if you are a regular viewer of this show and you like what we do here. We're approaching quite a significant landmark on this show in terms of a subscriber number. So if there was one simple free thing that you could do to help us, my team, everyone here, to keep this show free, to keep it improving year over year and week over week, it is just to hit that subscribe button and to double-check if you've hit it. Only thing I'll ever ask of you. Do we have a deal? If you do it, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll make sure every single week, every single month, we fight harder and harder and harder and harder to bring you the guests and conversations that you wanna hear. I've stayed true to that promise since the very beginning of The Diary of a CEO, and I will not let you down. Please help us. Really appreciate it. Let's get on with the show. [upbeat music]

2. 2:35 – 3:01

   Why Does Your Perspective Matters Now

   1. SBSteven Bartlett2:35

      Professor Steven, who, who are you? If you had to sort of distill it down to three areas of specialism, what would those be?

   2. SKSteve Keen2:42

      History of economic thought, financial instability, so the... what causes volatility in the e- in the economy, and the dynamics of money. And ironically, that makes me a minority in economics because most economists ignore money completely.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett2:59

      It's a strange thing to hear.

   4. SKSteve Keen2:59

      It's ridiculous, but it's

3. 3:01 – 7:46

   What’s Really Driving Tensions Between The US, Israel, And Iran

   1. SKSteve Keen3:01

      true.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett3:01

      We'll talk about that as well today. I really wanna focus on what's going on in the world right now-

   3. SKSteve Keen3:05

      Yeah

   4. SBSteven Bartlett3:05

      ... 'cause there are so many questions. It's, it's all quite confusing.

   5. SKSteve Keen3:08

      Extremely. Yeah.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett3:09

      And understanding the layers of motivation that, you know, Trump has, Iran have, Israel have, is, um... it's a difficult ji- jigsaw puzzle to put together.

   7. SKSteve Keen3:18

      Mm.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett3:19

      I guess the, the question that I keep asking myself is, like, what is going on?

   9. SKSteve Keen3:23

      You can't get away from the fact that we've basically elected a mafia don to President of the United States. You've got a guy who em- uh, admires the mafia, is running the country. So what we're getting in some ways is a shakedown rather than anything driven by any sense of political necessity, okay? So that's, that's a crazy element to begin with. And the American deep state, as it's called, has been anti-Iran for forty or fifty years. Israel has wanted to defeat Iran for that length of time. Trump is stupid enough, but also cunning enough, it's a combination of the two, to take on what Israel wanted to do, which was destroy Iran. They're now trying to do it, and they're finding that they've, they've bitten off far more than they can chew.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett4:12

       Trump is someone who cares a lot about people's opinions of him, and he must have known that this would be politically unpopular to target Iran at this moment in time.

   11. SKSteve Keen4:22

       I don't think so. I had a relationship with somebody with narcissistic personality disorder, so that's something o- over and above what I learned academically that I... when I think about his behavior. And somebody like that, they wanna be the center of attention at all times. They can't stand it when they're... somebody else is being spoken about. It's ridiculous, but it's, it's a pathology. So he's interested in people's opinions, so long as they're positive and they're about him.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett4:47

       So you th- are you saying that he attacked Iran and started this war in part because he wanted attention?

   13. SKSteve Keen4:52

       That's always something with somebody who's got that disorder. Yeah.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett4:56

       I mean, what do you think about his rationale? He's saying that he attacked Iran because they had nuclear weapons and they were... it was an imminent threat.

   15. SKSteve Keen5:03

       We still don't know whether Iran has nuclear weapons, okay? We know that Israel has. If you're gonna attack a country, you should attack Israel, not Iran.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett5:12

       But you can't attack I- attack Israel, can you? 'Cause-

   17. SKSteve Keen5:14

       I cannot make sense of what politicians all over the planet are doing these days. There's a huge gap between what politicians are saying about global politics and what people in the street are saying about it. So people on the street have seen the Gaza genocide, they've seen all the conflicts Israel has started there, and I think the general sentiment in most countries in the world today is anti-Israel because of the way it's treating the Palestinians, and that's what people are thinking about. The top echelons, like in this country, as you know, if I, if I say, "Free Palestine," or I say that outside on the street, I can be arrested. It's crazy. What... There's a huge divorce between what people are thinking and what the politicians are saying, and I can't give any explanation for that divorce apart from believing that-Israel has something over our political leaders

   18. SBSteven Bartlett6:06

       What do you mean? You think they have something over our political leaders?

   19. SKSteve Keen6:09

       I think there are... We know about the whole Epstein. The, the, the way that the Iranians refer to what's happening is they say they're fighting the Epstein class, and there's belief that there's something where Epstein has been working for, for the Israeli intelligence service and has blackmailed worthy material on a huge range of politicians, and that's the only way that I can explain the, the sort of things the politicians are supporting when their populace is angry about those same policies. So you get demonstrations here, you know, Free Palestine demonstrations, 80-year-old female vicars being arrested for saying this sort of stuff. You go back 40 years ago, there was a, a, a, a belief in the public and a belief amongst politicians that Israel had a right to exist, and it was all pro-Israel. And now, after 40 years, the type of abuses that have happened in Palestine have hit individual, you know, ordinary people's attitudes to Israel. So ordinary people are saying Israel's the aggressor, Israel's making the mistakes, but the politicians are all saying it's a, it's, uh, it's anti, um, Semitic to criticize Israel.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett7:17

       If you had to give a, a one-sentence answer as to why this war started, because we sort of hypothesized a few things there, what would that one-sentence answer be?

   21. SKSteve Keen7:28

       [sighs] [laughs] Again, this is trying to make sense of the senseless. I just think, uh, Israel wanted to destroy Iran. They thought they could do it, and they thought they had an American president who would help them do it, and they, uh, drastically underestimated how prepared Iran was for that conflict.

4. 7:46 – 12:46

   Why Israel Might See Iran As An Existential Threat

   1. SBSteven Bartlett7:46

      Why would Israel want to destroy Iran? What's the back context there?

   2. SKSteve Keen7:50

      This goes back to religious elements. The Zionist state had the right to that whole region, and there's an expansionist element to Israel's behavior for the last 40 years, and the major rival they saw themselves as having in that sense was Iran. They can invade Jordan, they can attack, uh, Lebanon, uh, they could do all these things. Of course, they... You know, the '67 war, uh, they wiped out the Isra- Is- invading Arabian armies in six days. They have this past history of being militarily dominant in the area, and they, they knew that Iran was too big for them to take on on their own. They thought they could get the Americans in there, and I think they drastically underestimated how prepared Iran was for this situation.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett8:34

      When you say Iran were prepared for this situation, and it somewhat surprised Israel and the US, what is that preparedness you're speaking about?

   4. SKSteve Keen8:42

      Well, it's for a start the, the fact that Iran witnessed that there were, um, decapitation attacks on other countries in the region going way, way back, not just the last 10 years, but the last 40 or 50 years.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett8:54

      And, and decapitation attack-

   6. SKSteve Keen8:56

      You take off the leader. You kill the leaders. And then with the leaders killed, the army's in disarray, and you can come in and invade and take over. So getting rid of Saddam Hussein, that sort of thing. You know, wipe out Saddam Hussein's power base, and then the whole system collapses. That was the Iraq story. But the Iranians observed that, and they have broken their military into 31 divisions. There are 31 provinces, like 31 states in that sense, inside Iran. Their military is broken into those 31 units. They've got their own fail-safe system running in the background. They've got their own resources, their own missiles, production systems, all that sort of stuff. So you've got to take out the whole 31, and then they'd have that subarea. So the only way you can beat the country is by literally bombing it to, back to the Stone Age.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett9:43

      Which is appears to be what they've been trying to do.

   8. SKSteve Keen9:46

      Trying to do, but the thing is, it's a huge country. I mean, look at, you know, the scale of Iran. The, the maps always distort how large. So that is larger. That's more than half the size of Western Europe. It's got a population of 90 million, about one third or one quarter of the population of Europe, far more than Iraq.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett10:01

      I mean, it looks like it's double the size of the UK or more.

   10. SKSteve Keen10:04

       Or more than double. I mean, you know one thing about the Mercator projection.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett10:07

       No. What's that?

   12. SKSteve Keen10:08

       Okay. It's that it's... It makes the, the Northern Hemisphere's twice as large as the Southern, and Iran's in the Northern Hemisphere but not as far north as England.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett10:16

       So-

   14. SKSteve Keen10:16

       So the distortion gets amplified the further north you go. So it's bigger than France and Germany and Italy and Spain and possibly Poland in terms of area. And then if you even see just looking on the map itself, you can see the corrugations there, uh, versus what you can see for-

   15. SBSteven Bartlett10:31

       What's a corrugation? [laughs]

   16. SKSteve Keen10:32

       You know, the, the... What we're representing mountains.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett10:34

       Okay, yeah.

   18. SKSteve Keen10:35

       Okay. There's more mountains inside there. It's a horren- it's a horrendous terrain to fight a war on. I think what Trump is doing at the moment is a pump and dump scheme. He's trying to drive up the oil price, s- tell friends beforehand that he's about to make an announcement which will cause the price to fall, and he's just oscillating this way up and down and exploiting it for his friends and for his own wealth in the process.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett10:58

       Do you actually think that's the case?

   20. SKSteve Keen10:59

       Yeah, I do.

   21. SBSteven Bartlett10:59

       Because, I mean, this must be hurting-

   22. SKSteve Keen11:01

       How else do you make sense of this stuff?

   23. SBSteven Bartlett11:02

       This must be hurting his friends economically because the s- the s- you know, the stock market's gonna take a dip if he's not careful, and his friends are all s- shareholders in different big companies. So, you know, and also when we think about energy-

   24. SKSteve Keen11:12

       But if, but if you know, like, the... One of Keynes's great lines was that there's no point in buying a stock which you think is gonna increase in value over time if you think it's gonna slump in the immediate future. So he's making an announcement which causes oil markets to panic, so the price goes up. We've given him control of the most powerful country on the planet. He knows if you make an announcement, it moves markets. He, he has no compunction whatsoever in exploiting that to cause rises and falls in prices and try to exploit them himself and with his friends.

   25. SBSteven Bartlett11:43

       I did... I mean, I did see that. I've got the data here on, on the floor showing those graphs.

   26. SKSteve Keen11:46

       Yeah.

   27. SBSteven Bartlett11:47

       I t- I generally looked at that and thought, "Yeah, y- y- you know, maybe." But it's also-... conceivable that Trump is quite a predictable character and he tweets at the same time every day.

   28. SKSteve Keen11:55

       Mm.

   29. SBSteven Bartlett11:55

       And it's also, I think me and you both know, that before the markets open on a Monday morning-

   30. SKSteve Keen11:59

       Mm
5. 12:46 – 16:40

   The Strait Of Hormuz—And What Happens If It Closes

   1. SKSteve Keen12:46

      dump.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett12:46

      Let's explain the Strait of Hormuz-

   3. SKSteve Keen12:49

      Oh, God, yeah

   4. SBSteven Bartlett12:49

      ... as if

   5. SKSteve Keen12:50

      Okay

   6. SBSteven Bartlett12:50

      ... as if we had to explain it for 16-year-olds.

   7. SKSteve Keen12:52

      [laughs]

   8. SBSteven Bartlett12:52

      Because there's been lots of coverage on it, and I think some people have kind of skipped past the importance of the region.

   9. SKSteve Keen12:57

      Yeah.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett12:57

       What is the Strait of Hormuz and why does it matter?

   11. SKSteve Keen13:00

       Well, it's the choke point in the Persian Gulf. To get through, you've got, like, 21 kilometers, yeah? That's an incredibly narrow gap for ships to pass through, and that means that all the countries that pump not just oil, but fertilizer, uh, helium, all these critical elements for the production system, all have to pass through this point. And obviously that's well within reach of any weapons from Iran, so they can say, "You do or do not pass, depending on whether we approve or don't approve of your polit- of your country's attitude towards our country."

   12. SBSteven Bartlett13:30

       You said fertilizer-

   13. SKSteve Keen13:32

       Yeah

   14. SBSteven Bartlett13:32

       ... oil, and helium?

   15. SKSteve Keen13:34

       Yeah, helium.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett13:35

       Where are they coming from?

   17. SKSteve Keen13:36

       They're, they're mainly coming from, I think from mainly from the Saudi Arabian side.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett13:40

       Okay.

   19. SKSteve Keen13:40

       The Saudi Arabian. Like, Iran would have the same things, but Iran would keep it, keep those for themselves. But Saudi Arabia's the, the main source of gases and oils which are refined, and as byproducts we get sulfur dioxide and we get helium. This is the helium?

   20. SBSteven Bartlett13:56

       Yeah.

   21. SKSteve Keen13:56

       Okay. That's, you know, a couple of kilos of helium. But helium, it's an element which there's no substitute. So helium is inert. You-

   22. SBSteven Bartlett14:07

       What does that mean?

   23. SKSteve Keen14:08

       It means it doesn't interact with other chemicals. You wanna give it a try?

   24. SBSteven Bartlett14:11

       I-

   25. SKSteve Keen14:11

       I've never done it.

   26. SBSteven Bartlett14:12

       I don't think there's any in, in here.

   27. SKSteve Keen14:13

       Oh, what a pity. Okay. Well, I would've liked [laughs] to give it a try. You got any real helium? Oh, bloody hell, helium balloon.

   28. SBSteven Bartlett14:20

       Okay.

   29. SKSteve Keen14:20

       [laughs] Does it change your voice?

   30. SBSteven Bartlett14:26

       I don't know. Has my voice changed?
6. 16:40 – 18:27

   Where Fertilizer Comes From—And What A Shortage Would Trigger

   1. SKSteve Keen16:40

      You can't produce chips anymore, and you can't... Well, you've got... Hang on. You can't produce these chips either because the fertilizer's disappearing.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett16:47

      So on... You're holding a potato in your hand.

   3. SKSteve Keen16:49

      Yeah.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett16:50

      How are potato chips gonna be impacted by the war?

   5. SKSteve Keen16:53

      Because of fertilizer. If we don't have the fertilizer, we can't grow the potatoes, and it's, it's not just potatoes, it's a whole range of crops. We eat food, okay? We eat this green stuff. It actually starts as brown stuff, because the fertilizer is an essential part of growing all the food we eat, and the fertilizer is produced by a process called the Haber-Bosch process, which takes petroleum and nitrogen and fixes them in such a way that you can put this on the, on the field and your plants will grow courtesy of the fertilizer. If we didn't have fertilizer at all, guess how many billion people the planet could actually support.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett17:28

      I don't know.

   7. SKSteve Keen17:29

      Between one and two.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett17:30

      And fertilizer comes from this region?

   9. SKSteve Keen17:32

      Again, 20% to 30% of our fertilizer comes from that region.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett17:35

       Through the Strait of Hormuz.

   11. SKSteve Keen17:36

       Through the Strait of Hormuz.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett17:37

       Where's it coming from?

   13. SKSteve Keen17:39

       It's coming, again, from the, the same gas field that's producing the helium. Produces a side effect of fertilizer. And you need, you need... You know, I'm not a chemist, okay, so I can get these things wrong, but you need sulfur di- you need sulfuric acid as well as part of these production processes. 20% of the world's fertilizer, helium, sulfuric acid all pass through that-Straight. And if you take them away, then you can't make microchips, which is what Korea's suffering from. You can't make fertilizer, which, which every- everybody will suffer from. If we lost 20% of the world's fertilizer, we'd lose roughly 20% of the world's food, and it'd cause a global famine. We've never had this experience before. We've had localized famines. You know, countries like India have had famines, and parts of Africa and so on. But if this is not available, the globe has a famine.

7. 18:27 – 21:29

   Why Oil Still Controls Everything—And The Cost Of Running Out

   1. SBSteven Bartlett18:27

      And what's the last, uh, tanker you've got down there? There's one more on the floor.

   2. SKSteve Keen18:29

      Oh my God. Okay. Hey, that's pretty good. It was accidental, but that's, that's petroleum. Okay.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett18:36

      So-

   4. SKSteve Keen18:36

      A petroleum tank. Obviously empty, 20 liters.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett18:39

      So that's oil?

   6. SKSteve Keen18:39

      That's oil.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett18:40

      Oil, okay.

   8. SKSteve Keen18:41

      And so if that, that's what we're losing right now, and people are focusing upon the price of this. But the really important point, and I can bring up one of my own charts here, is the role of energy in production. Because if we don't have energy, we can't produce goods and services, and the link is incredibly tight. This is looking at change in energy and change in gross world product-

   9. SBSteven Bartlett19:04

      I'll put this-

   10. SKSteve Keen19:04

       ... over the last 40 years.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett19:05

       I'll throw this graph on the screen for people that are watching.

   12. SKSteve Keen19:07

       Okay. So what, what you've got here is the annual percentage change in gross world product and the annual percentage change in gross energy consumption, and they're virtually lockstep and they're the same magnitude.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett19:18

       So when energy goes up, GDP goes up.

   14. SKSteve Keen19:20

       And when energy goes down, GDP goes down. Now we're losing about 20% of the world's liq- liquified natural gas, a substantial proportion of its oil as well. We could see a 5 or 10% fall in energy. We will certainly see a 5 or 10% fall in global world, gross world product.

   15. SBSteven Bartlett19:38

       So explain that to me. So where is the oil in this region?

   16. SKSteve Keen19:40

       Oh, it's everywhere. [laughs]

   17. SBSteven Bartlett19:41

       Okay.

   18. SKSteve Keen19:42

       I mean, this, this is one of the accidents of history that the oil is, a large part is concentrated here and a large part over here, and a bit in Russia.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett19:49

       So over here, for people that can't see, you're pointing at Iran, Saudi Arabia.

   20. SKSteve Keen19:54

       And Saudi Arabia.

   21. SBSteven Bartlett19:55

       Iraq, and then there's a lot in the United States, and there's a lot in Russia.

   22. SKSteve Keen19:58

       In Texas, and you've got some in Russia as well, and there was a small amount. Like, the North Sea had a substantial amount of oil as well at one stage.

   23. SBSteven Bartlett20:05

       And the type of oil in this region, I hear, is quite important.

   24. SKSteve Keen20:08

       It's very... I mean, oil, th- there's no such thing as a homogenous product.

   25. SBSteven Bartlett20:12

       What does homogenous mean?

   26. SKSteve Keen20:13

       Homogenous means is e- everything is the same everywhere.

   27. SBSteven Bartlett20:15

       Okay.

   28. SKSteve Keen20:15

       You can... If you don't get it here, you can substitute from something over here. That's a myth that economists actually, unfortunately believe. They basically could persuade people to think that everything is homogenous. In fact, oil from Venezuela is almost like tar. Oil from here is, flows like water comparatively. You need different processing systems to, to extract that oil than you need over here. Uh, if we lose this, we can't replace it with something from over here. So once that goes, then the production system of the planet is damaged.

   29. SBSteven Bartlett20:46

       Uh, this has been the, the shocking thing for me as a citizen, has been the fact that a war with one country could decapitate, what, 20 to 30% of-

   30. SKSteve Keen20:57

       Of global production
8. 21:29 – 22:13

   What Happens If This War Doesn’t End Quickly

   1. SBSteven Bartlett21:29

      And for the average person listening now, what will they start to experience if this war doesn't immediately end?

   2. SKSteve Keen21:36

      Two or three months, India's gonna run out of fertilizer, and so there'll be a famine in India. Food production on the planet could fall 10, 25%, and therefore the s- there simply won't be enough food for everyone on the planet, and then it's a question of who's gonna starve. Now, you'd think the wealthy countries are gonna be safe. They've... Like for Australia, my old home country, has about 30 days oil supply. When it runs out, it can't get food from the farm to the city anymore. So Australia is incredibly vulnerable. We're all far more vulnerable than we realize, and this war is threatening everybody on the planet.

9. 22:13 – 25:38

   The Real Cause Behind The Global Cost Of Living Crisis

   1. SBSteven Bartlett22:13

      I got in an Uber yesterday, and I was with a, a wonderful guy who was... Ac- weirdly, I sat into the Uber at 2:00 AM, and I looked up on the screen, and he was listening to The Diary Of A CEO, and then he looked, he caught me in the back of the car, so we had a great chat.

   2. SKSteve Keen22:24

      Yeah.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett22:24

      And he was saying to me, "Listen, this isn't actually my main job. It's my third job."

   4. SKSteve Keen22:28

      Yeah.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett22:28

      "I do this because of the cost of living." And it really stayed with me.

   6. SKSteve Keen22:31

      Both of us, so he's doing three jobs to live.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett22:34

      So he's doing-

   8. SKSteve Keen22:34

      Yeah

   9. SBSteven Bartlett22:34

      ... three jobs, and he picked me up at 2:00 AM. He's got a family.

   10. SKSteve Keen22:37

       And he's working his butt off to keep the family alive.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett22:40

       Yes.

   12. SKSteve Keen22:40

       Yeah.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett22:41

       And do you know what? I'm gonna say something which I probably, um, I don't say a lot, which, uh, w- which came to mind, which is, um, in the position I'm in now, I think it, it, it was a real reminder of my own personal privilege that I think is really important for someone like me that doesn't, has an interview show because you've got to be, like, intellectually honest with yourself or just, like, honest with yourself generally that, like, as a, as someone in my position who's been fortunate enough to be able to make significant money, I can understand from having that conversation how detached-

   14. SKSteve Keen23:14

       You are

   15. SBSteven Bartlett23:15

       ... I am

   16. SKSteve Keen23:15

       ... from the world around you.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett23:16

       Yes.

   18. SKSteve Keen23:17

       So you're, you're-

   19. SBSteven Bartlett23:17

       And that's, like, an uncomfortable thing to say

   20. SKSteve Keen23:18

       ... you're, you're a very unique soul because you've... I know. I've read a bit of your history, of course. And you've had that terrible period where you were, you know, unemployed and what the hell do I do?

   21. SBSteven Bartlett23:27

       And shoplifting food and stuff and-

   22. SKSteve Keen23:28

       You were ambitious, but you were-

   23. SBSteven Bartlett23:29

       Yeah

   24. SKSteve Keen23:30

       ... okay. I- if you don't experience poverty, you don't know what it's like.

   25. SBSteven Bartlett23:34

       Yeah.

   26. SKSteve Keen23:34

       And-

   27. SBSteven Bartlett23:34

       But even if you have-

   28. SKSteve Keen23:35

       You can forget it

   29. SBSteven Bartlett23:36

       ... you can forget it.

   30. SKSteve Keen23:37

       But you haven't yet.
10. 25:38 – 29:58

    Do Wars Widen The Gap Between Rich And Poor

    1. SBSteven Bartlett25:38

       Uh, do, do wars typically make inequality worse?

    2. SKSteve Keen25:44

       Very good question. I think wars are created when inequality is bad. If you go back to the Great Depression and see what caused World War II, it was largely the collapse of the German economy, uh, when they repaid their debt, their private debt to America, or government, private and government debt to America. That led to the rise of Hitler. Everybody thinks Hitler rose because of the Weimar inflation. That's what people normally think. In fact, the, when, when Hitler came to power in Germany, the rate of inflation was -10%. It was deflation. Prices were falling. Unemployment rose from very low to 25% of the population. In that situation, people supported Hitler. He revived the economy. Happy to talk about how he did that later. But inequality leads to people being willing to em- elect demagogues who say, "We can save you," and then you get war coming out of it. What happened after World War II is politicians realized that people had been through the Great Depression, which was horrific, and they'd been through World War II, which was horrific, and in that period, people in America were talking about either a f- a fascist world or a communist world. So the Americans realized they had to ma- improve the living standards of the average American-

    3. SBSteven Bartlett27:00

       Mm

    4. SKSteve Keen27:00

       ... substantially to get away from that. And if you look at, you know, in 1950s and '60s, that's what is called the golden age of capitalism. Because at that stage, you could be a single male supporting a, a wife and four kids and have a comfortable lifestyle at the time. That was where we started from. So the, the war itself led to a focus upon equality, a focus upon fairness, and getting as much as you can to the poorest in society, and then we've forgotten that over the last 80 years, and we've now got back to massive inequality once more. So I think inequality causes wars. Wars, in the aftermath, make people focus on equality, not to allow that horror to happen once more, and then we forget and do the whole damn thing again.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett27:45

       One of the, um, surprising things w- I learned the other day was that the country that is estimated to have the biggest reserve of oil is Venezuela.

    6. SKSteve Keen27:56

       Yep.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett27:57

       The third country on this list that is estimated to have the biggest reserve of oil is Iran.

    8. SKSteve Keen28:03

       Yeah. Yeah.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett28:05

       Now, it doesn't take a genius, funnily enough-

    10. SKSteve Keen28:07

        So two countries I've added, yeah. The second country being America?

    11. SBSteven Bartlett28:11

        Well, it says Saudi Arabia.

    12. SKSteve Keen28:12

        Saudi Arabia. Well, that's already an American vassal, yeah.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett28:15

        Yeah, that's already basically... They're basically partners with America already.

    14. SKSteve Keen28:17

        Mm-hmm.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett28:18

        And funnily enough, the fourth one is Canada, and if you-

    16. SKSteve Keen28:21

        [laughs]

    17. SBSteven Bartlett28:21

        ... if you're listening a lot to Trump's rhetoric, he said he was gonna take Canada and make it the 51st state or something.

    18. SKSteve Keen28:26

        Yeah.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett28:26

        So it's just, it doesn't feel to me to be a coincidence that the countries that the US are invading and decapitating their leaders are the country that have the biggest oil supplies.

    20. SKSteve Keen28:34

        Yeah.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett28:35

        And Trump has already said, you know, immediately, he said after taking out Maduro in Venezuela-

    22. SKSteve Keen28:40

        Mm

    23. SBSteven Bartlett28:41

        ... pulling him out of his bed with his wife and flying him back to the US-

    24. SKSteve Keen28:43

        Mm

    25. SBSteven Bartlett28:44

        ... he already said the, the oil's on the way back to America.

    26. SKSteve Keen28:47

        Yeah.

    27. SBSteven Bartlett28:47

        One might assume that much of the motivation here with Iran is when they were in negotiations with them, maybe they weren't playing boy- ball with the oil. Maybe they were threatening-

    28. SKSteve Keen28:58

        Mm

    29. SBSteven Bartlett28:58

        ... something with the oil, and maybe it's such an economic risk-

    30. SKSteve Keen29:01

        Or maybe most of Trump's friends, if he has them, are oil executives, and they can see the benefit for them in controlling global oil, and the on- one part they can't control is Iran.
11. 29:58 – 30:10

    Five Scenarios That Could Shape What Happens Next

    1. SBSteven Bartlett29:58

       So you've got five scenarios laid out on these cards in front of you here-

    2. SKSteve Keen30:01

       Yeah

    3. SBSteven Bartlett30:01

       ... that you think could happen next. I'm gonna ask you to explain to me what the five scenarios are, and then tell me which one you think is most likely to occur.

12. 30:10 – 33:21

    Scenario 1: What Happens If Iran Is Destroyed

    1. SKSteve Keen30:10

       So scenario one, which is the one that I think Trump is... I think Israel wants this one. Iran is destroyed. Okay? If that happens, we're all gone because to destroy Iran, you're gonna have to use nuclear weapons. Okay? You can't destroy it without obliterating it as nuclear weapons do. And that's the scariest. I don't think it's gonna happen. My main hope here is that Iran realizes that possibility, and they've got a way to neutralize not America's nuclear weapons, but Israel's.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett30:41

       You think it's a possibility?

    3. SKSteve Keen30:42

       It's a possibility, and it's what scares the shit out of me because if this happens, then we're all dead. Obviously, a nuclear bomb doesn't just blow up an individual target. It... Everything within reach gets exploded into the atmosphere. That's what led people to realize that you couldn't have a nuclear war back in the days when we had mutually assured destruction as the, as the policy. If you attack a country, then you will also die.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett31:05

       But can't they use narrower nuclear weapons? Is that not a thing?

    5. SKSteve Keen31:08

       Well, um-

    6. SBSteven Bartlett31:10

       Smaller nuclear weapons.

    7. SKSteve Keen31:12

       Well, again, if the country is smaller, you're talking about destroying Europe. The weapons you'd need to make sure you got every last potential element of Iran neutralized, you're talking about bombing something which is, you know, vir- virtually the size of Western Europe. The amount of weapons you've gotta drop to do that, and you've gotta... If you, if you don't get it right, then they're gonna come at you with what they've got left.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett31:36

       The world has dropped nuclear weapons before, and people survived. Other neighboring countries survived.

    9. SKSteve Keen31:41

       Only twice, and only small weapons. The weapons we're talking about in, in Hi- Hiro- Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they're a- a- about equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT. We're now talking weapons that are 20 million tons of TNT, the biggest nuclear weapons. And if you wanted to hit a country the size of Iran and know you've neutralized it so you destroy the whole thing, you're talking hundreds of those weapons.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett32:05

        If you had to give a percentage probability of that outcome occurring, would it be less than 1%?

    11. SKSteve Keen32:13

        If we didn't have a madman in Washington, yes, it'd be less than 1%. Um, if we didn't have madmen in Israel, less than 1%. I think probably 5%.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett32:23

        5% probability that-

    13. SKSteve Keen32:25

        That's a possibility. I mean, again, th- th- you know, this is trying to make sense of the senseless.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett32:29

        Okay.

    15. SKSteve Keen32:30

        But I'd put it at about, um, less than 10%, but still scary as a possibility. If we end up there, we're, we're all gone.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett32:38

        I mean, you know, I know very little about all these things, so that's the disclaimer. Um, I'd say that I don't think Israel would intentionally wipe out the rest of the world or cause a nuclear winter because that would obviously impact them as well, but I, I, I'm quite scared of precedents setting. And what I mean by that is if we establish it being okay to drop nuclear weapons on people you don't like, the sort of domino effect of that for people in Ukraine and other parts of the world where there's conflict-

    17. SKSteve Keen33:08

        Yeah

    18. SBSteven Bartlett33:08

        ... might then lead to, you know, mutually assured destruction.

    19. SKSteve Keen33:11

        Yeah. It's the, it's the last possibility you wanna have happen. The fact that it's even possible to contemplate it is a terrifying prospect.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett33:20

        Let us hope.

13. 33:21 – 37:51

    Scenario 2: The Fallout If Gulf Infrastructure Collapses

    1. SKSteve Keen33:21

       Yeah. So scenario two is Iran destroys the Gulf power infrastructure. I think that's highly likely.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett33:28

       Iran destroys Gulf power infrastructure. What does that mean?

    3. SKSteve Keen33:31

       What it means is that Iran and, uh, uh... All the Gulf States have got their own power systems, like, main- mainly based on burning oil for obvious reasons. Uh, if you take out their power structure systems, then those sys- countries become uninhabitable.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett33:44

       Is that what's happening already? 'Cause I know Iran have attacked a few sort of power facilities in the region.

    5. SKSteve Keen33:48

       There've been a couple. Well, there was one attack on a Saudi Arabian power systems, and that took out 2 of the 14 units that are critical for creating liquified natural gas, and apparently it'll take five years to rebuild them, and there are only five companies on the planet that can actually do that rebuilding. One quarter of the world's liquified natural gas comes through the Strait of Hormuz. One tenth of that has been destroyed, so like two and a half percent of the world's energy supply is gone for the next five years until those are rebuilt. If Iran destroys the Gulf power infrastructure, then Saudi Arabia, Qatar, uh, Dubai, they all become uninhabitable.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett34:26

       And we're seeing that happen in parts. I mean, if it sounds like there's these attacks have slowed down a little bit, but it was interesting that Iran's strategy was to attack their neighboring sort of partners and specifically targeting a lot of their energy infrastructure.

    7. SKSteve Keen34:38

       Yeah.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett34:38

       Is that in part to apply pressure?

    9. SKSteve Keen34:41

       Yeah.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett34:41

        If I attack Dubai, the leaders of Dubai are gonna call Trump and say, "Listen. Cut this out."

    11. SKSteve Keen34:45

        Oh, yeah. I mean, the pressure coming back from the Arabian states on America I imagine is quite immense right now saying, "Don't do it." It's quite possible Israel could do it. They could attack Iran, and then Iran does a retribution attack. Trump, if you would've seen his tweet this morning, I think he's put it off to April 6th before he says he starts attacking power infrastructure. If he attacks power infrastructure in Iran, Iran has said, "We will attack power infrastructure in the Gulf states." So we've got till, you know, what? Eight days. I think he's bluffing. I hope he's bluffing. But if he does do the attack, then Iran will respond by destroying either an equivalent component of the Gulf states or the whole infrastructure.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett35:27

        I don't think people quite realize how costly it is for regions like Dubai-

    13. SKSteve Keen35:33

        Yeah

    14. SBSteven Bartlett35:33

        ... when Iran attack them. I was looking at some of the data.

    15. SKSteve Keen35:35

        Yeah.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett35:36

        And according to current estimates and historical risk assessments by Dubai officials, they lose a million per minute, which is 60 million per hour, or 1.4 billion a day when there's an unplanned emergency shutdown just of their airport.

    17. SKSteve Keen35:54

        Their airports, let alone their power systems. Yeah.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett35:57

        As we probably saw on the news, Iran had flown a, it seemed like a couple of drones into Dubai's airport, which meant that it had to shut down.

    19. SKSteve Keen36:03

        Yeah.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett36:03

        If they're losing a billion a day because that airport is closed, I think it's the biggest airport in the world-

    21. SKSteve Keen36:08

        Mm.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett36:09

        It is economic pressure for Dubai, which will then trickle down to Trump and sort of force his hand.

    23. SKSteve Keen36:16

        Yeah.

    24. SBSteven Bartlett36:16

        So they've got a clear incentive to cause chaos.

    25. SKSteve Keen36:19

        Yeah.And that's partly what Iran is saying. It's, it's like a game of bluff. You don't want to do this bluff. If that bluff happens, then the Saudi Arabian Peninsula becomes uninhabitable, and therefore all the... I mean, the, if, if people have, are forced out of there, and most of the residents in those countries are not Saudis, they're third world workers from India, and Pakistan, and the Philippines, and so on. They're being paid lousy wages to, to work on all these systems. If they leave because the power's not there to support them anymore, they try to leave, then we lose the entire energy contribution that r- that region makes to the global economy-

    26. SBSteven Bartlett36:57

        And, and the figure-

    27. SKSteve Keen36:58

        And we're screwed

    28. SBSteven Bartlett36:58

        ... and that figure I cited includes not just lost airport revenue, but then the immediate impact on airlines' cargo logistics and the missed opportunity cost of thousands of high-value business travelers attending the region.

    29. SKSteve Keen37:07

        Yeah.

    30. SBSteven Bartlett37:08

        Dubai's GDP is roughly 30% dependent on the aviation and tourism sectors.
14. 37:51 – 44:53

    Scenario 3: The Samson Doctrine—And When It’s Used

    1. SBSteven Bartlett37:51

       So that was scenario number two.

    2. SKSteve Keen37:53

       Okay. Scenario three, that's the one that really scares me because that is the Samson Doctrine. You know the story of Samson, yeah?

    3. SBSteven Bartlett38:01

       No.

    4. SKSteve Keen38:01

       Okay. Samson is a enormously strong individual who's strong because of his hair, and then he gets conned. This is an ancient story from the Bible, and the woman who's conned him shaves his hair so he's weakened, and then they put him in a temple where he's standing between two pillars, and his hair is gone. He's bald. He can't do a thing. They forget the fact that his hair's starting to grow. His hair gets to the stage where he's now got his strength back. He pushes those pillars, and the whole thing collapses, and everybody dies. That's the Samson Doctrine, and that involves Israel's nuclear weapons. If they realize that they are going to lose this war, and it becomes existential for them, then one of the things they have claimed that they do is unleash destruction on the rest of the world, like Samson pushing the towers and the whole thing comes collapsing down.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett38:52

       This is, I mean, going back to the situation with Iran and Israel-

    6. SKSteve Keen38:55

       Yeah

    7. SBSteven Bartlett38:55

       ... one of the things I was thinking a lot about from some commentary that I'd seen is Israel really have a motive to get rid of Iran because Iran have repeatedly threatened Israel.

    8. SKSteve Keen39:06

       It's also because, I mean, Israel's trying to get rid of the Palestinians, and in that sense, Iran has been probably the major bulkhead supporting the Palestinians to say, "Let the Palestinians survive. Let the Palestinian people continue existing." And the Israelis have been pushing and pushing and pushing the Palestinians out. You know, it's a hornet's nest. We've provoked a hornet's nest. Iran is responding right now, I think, in a very judicious way, but if the Israelis realize they're facing an existential defeat, that scenario is, it would again mean, uh, civilization potentially gets destroyed.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett39:43

       And just looking at some of the things that Iran have said about Israel-

    10. SKSteve Keen39:47

        Yeah

    11. SBSteven Bartlett39:47

        ... historically, the supreme leader of Iran stated in 2015 that Israel would not see the next 25 years. Other officials said things like, "The end is near." Um-

    12. SKSteve Keen39:57

        Mm.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett39:58

        And in March 2026, Iran's tone shifted from ideological to purely retaliatory with the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammed, stating that Iran has officially declared that it considers all Israel energy, water, and IT infrastructure legitimate targets for irreversible destruction with zero restraint. If we think about this from a psychology perspective-

    14. SKSteve Keen40:23

        Yeah

    15. SBSteven Bartlett40:23

        ... you've got two neighbors. They're both either implying implicitly or explicitly that they, they wanna wipe the other one out.

    16. SKSteve Keen40:29

        Yeah.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett40:29

        Trump is sort of this third party in, in the arrangement who's not in the region-

    18. SKSteve Keen40:33

        Yeah

    19. SBSteven Bartlett40:33

        ... so he might be a little bit safer. Those two parties that are against each other, one of them has nuclear weapons, and the other appears to be trying to make one. The neighbor that is Israel presumably cannot let that happen because if it gets to a point where they both have nuclear weapons, and they both wanna wipe each other out, I think-

    20. SKSteve Keen40:54

        I'm... No. I, I actually think that the old days of mutually assured destruction were a more stable time than what we're in now because if you realize that if you attack you also die, you don't attack.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett41:05

        But what if you think of death as being a better thing than life?

    22. SKSteve Keen41:10

        You, you have to have a society continuing after you die. If you're gonna be a martyr, there has to be people who are gonna mourn your death. If you believe being a martyr means everybody else also dies, then you don't do it.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett41:21

        So do you think if Iran had nuclear weapons, it would be a safer world?

    24. SKSteve Keen41:24

        I think it'd be safer because it would tell the Israelis, "Stop attacking your neighbors."

    25. SBSteven Bartlett41:29

        I sat with, um, a few nuclear experts, and one of the things that was shocking that I learned is-

    26. SKSteve Keen41:34

        Yeah

    27. SBSteven Bartlett41:35

        ... if the United States wanted to launch a nuclear weapon today-

    28. SKSteve Keen41:38

        Yeah

    29. SBSteven Bartlett41:38

        ... it is one person's decision.

    30. SKSteve Keen41:40

        I heard that, and that's what Trump can actually just make that decision.
15. 44:53 – 51:41

    Scenario 4: Could Iran Neutralize Israel’s Nukes

    1. SBSteven Bartlett44:53

       So what is scenario four in your envelopes there?

    2. SKSteve Keen44:56

       Iran disables Israel's nukes. Nobody can know, but I do believe that Iran has not developed nuclear weapons.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett45:03

       So you're hoping Iran disables Israel's nuclear weapons?

    4. SKSteve Keen45:06

       Yeah, I am. I hope that happens because that takes out the nuclear option, okay? We won't see nuclear war as a result of this if the only nuclear weapons that we know exist in the Middle East are destroyed.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett45:16

       But i- if Iran starts disabling Israel's nukes and attacking Israel that effectively, there's gonna be an even bigger problem.

    6. SKSteve Keen45:24

       Well, not, not if we're talking conventional weapons. If it's conventional weapons and ground troops, then you don't end up with a nuclear winter and the death of everybody on the planet.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett45:33

       Wait, so you're saying you hope Iran invades Israel and takes out their nuclear weapons?

    8. SKSteve Keen45:37

       No, it doesn't necessarily invasion. It could be the missiles they've got left. Again, we don't know how capable their missiles are. The level of planning that Iran has done in this war, I, I had no idea of, of the fact they had those 31 regions, for example, until the war began. My specialty's economics, not global military politics. But once I learnt that, I thought, "They have really thought this through." They have war gamed what happens if they get in, attacked by America, and they've war gamed it com- comprehensively. Now, I hope they've also war gamed if we start defeating Israel and Israel realizes they're going to be wiped out, then the possibility for the Samson Doctrine comes in. We have to disable that before it happens.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett46:19

       How could they possi... They, they don't have a functioning military left in any sort of typical sense.

    10. SKSteve Keen46:24

        In Iran?

    11. SBSteven Bartlett46:25

        They don't have ships left. They don't have planes left.

    12. SKSteve Keen46:27

        They don't have ships, they don't have planes, but they have got missiles, and they, we don't know how many missiles they've got. We don't know where the missiles are. Certainly the Americans would have some intelligence. I think the word's gotta be used with inverted commas these days, but some intelligence over where they are located in Iran. But if you listen to the Iranians talking about it, they say they've got hundreds of these facilities buried hundreds of meters below the ground. If the, if the weapons they've developed, the, the, um, advanced rocketry they've developed, they can evade Israel's, uh, Iron Dome. Maybe they can also get into and destroy Israel's relaunch capabilities, and if that happens, I think that's, that'd be the best possible outcome because we have a, a rogue state in the Middle East which has nuclear weapons, which will neither admit that it has or won't, won't sign it. They're not part of the Nuclear Nonprolif- Proliferation Treaty. They won't sign that treaty. We should never have allowed that to happen, and if Iran gets rid of them, I think it's... the world's a safer place.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett47:26

        Israel are just gonna make more nuclear weapons.

    14. SKSteve Keen47:29

        [sighs]

    15. SBSteven Bartlett47:29

        They have the resources.

    16. SKSteve Keen47:31

        Uh, you need a hell of a lot of technology and a hell of a lot of intelligent people to do that.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett47:35

        But they have it.

    18. SKSteve Keen47:35

        You already lost the war to-

    19. SBSteven Bartlett47:36

        How could Israel lose the war?

    20. SKSteve Keen47:39

        You've got 90, a population of 90 million in Iran and a population of less than 10 million in Israel.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett47:45

        But they've got... It's a sort of technological gulf. It's-

    22. SKSteve Keen47:49

        It's not as big as we thought it was.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett47:51

        Is that-

    24. SKSteve Keen47:51

        We're only realizing now the level of technology that Iran has. I mean, the things which Iran are doing in this war so far have surprised everybody who's hasn't got the background of intelligence to tell them what's going on. Uh, it's an educated, sophisticated culture, far more so than the caricature we've got from the West has been about it in the past. So they-

    25. SBSteven Bartlett48:12

        But they don't have near- nearly the same level of resources and technology and, uh, and I, I would say maybe s- sort of sophisticated, yeah, advanced systems from a war perspective that Israel do.

    26. SKSteve Keen48:27

        We think. We don't know. We're assuming again.

    27. SBSteven Bartlett48:30

        Even the intelligence services. Even their, like, their planes and their missiles and their defense systems are like-Profoundly more advanced than Iran's

    28. SKSteve Keen48:38

        If that was the case, we wouldn't be having this conversation. It's three weeks after the war began or four weeks, you know. The original belief that Trump has would be over in one day. That's proved false.

    29. SBSteven Bartlett48:49

        I think that's in part because of what you said, because they've prepared for-

    30. SKSteve Keen48:52

        Yeah
16. 51:41 – 53:32

    What Trump Really Wants—And The Fear Behind It

    1. SBSteven Bartlett51:41

       You can look at his behavior and sort of understand what he wants. He wants to win this war, and he, he want, you know he wants to win the war, and that's, and get out of there, because that's what he's been saying. We've won.

    2. SKSteve Keen51:50

       Yeah.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett51:50

       We've won. We've won. Every day-

    4. SKSteve Keen51:51

       Yeah

    5. SBSteven Bartlett51:51

       ... we've won. More missiles go in. We've won. So that's clearly what he wants to happen.

    6. SKSteve Keen51:55

       Yeah.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett51:55

       The problem is winning here doesn't seem like a straightforward thing.

    8. SKSteve Keen51:57

       No, it's not gonna happen.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett51:58

       No pun intended with the Strait of Hormuz, but it really doesn't seem like a straightforward thing.

    10. SKSteve Keen52:01

        Yeah.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett52:02

        So I, it's my opinion now that they are a little bit stuck. Because if you leave now, you lose.

    12. SKSteve Keen52:08

        Yeah.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett52:09

        Iran start firing at Israel. Israel don't stop, even though you tell them to.

    14. SKSteve Keen52:13

        Yeah.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett52:13

        They start firing at each other. The whole thing blows up, or they keep the Strait of Hormuz closed. Oil prices go up. It looks terrible, terrible, terrible for Trump. We might get, he might find himself in a Bush situation-

    16. SKSteve Keen52:25

        Yeah

    17. SBSteven Bartlett52:25

        ... where his legacy, and I think that's such an important word-

    18. SKSteve Keen52:28

        Yeah

    19. SBSteven Bartlett52:28

        ... for a man that can't be elected for a third term, his legacy is tarnished in the same way that Bush's legacy was tarnished by going to war in the Middle East.

    20. SKSteve Keen52:37

        Mm.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett52:37

        I think his greatest fear, Trump's greatest fear, if you think back through all of these moments over the last couple of years where he talked about-

    22. SKSteve Keen52:43

        Yeah

    23. SBSteven Bartlett52:43

        ... the Nobel Prize, I think he's trying to put himself on the Mount Rushmore of presidents-

    24. SKSteve Keen52:47

        Yeah

    25. SBSteven Bartlett52:47

        ... in history's mind. And I think how this situation plays out now, the sole thing he's thinking about is his legacy, and right now being stuck in a war and contemplating putting ground troops in-

    26. SKSteve Keen53:00

        Yeah

    27. SBSteven Bartlett53:00

        ... is arguably the worst thing for one's legacy. Americans dead.

    28. SKSteve Keen53:03

        Yeah, and lots of Americans dead.

    29. SBSteven Bartlett53:05

        These wars are like, you think about Vietnam, these wars are never really won.

    30. SKSteve Keen53:08

        No. Well, they did, they, America hasn't won a war since World War II, and even World War II was won by the Russians more so than the Americans. So we have this picture of America as being this, you know, invincible military power, but it lost in Vietnam, it lost in Iraq, it lost in Afghanistan. America's failed in all of these. This is another American failure, but on a scale far beyond what happened in Afghanistan and Vietnam.

17. 53:32 – 56:31

    Will The US Put Troops On The Ground

    1. SBSteven Bartlett53:32

       Do you think he will send ground troops in?

    2. SKSteve Keen53:34

       Yes, I do. Uh, and like I've seen people talking about where the troops might land, and the only part of the deck they can land is, is right towards this edge here with Pakistan, where they might land two, between 2 and 10,000 troops. I'd hate to be one of those troops, because it's a suicide mission. Again, with those 31 provinces, the separated, um, military commands they've got, the weapons they've got hidden underground, the troops themselves, who if, if you know that there are Americans landing, and you're Iranian and a soldier, you are going to attack them like nobody's business and not be afraid of your own death, because you do think if you get martyred, it's the remaining people that you're defending. There will be people who, you know, recognize you as a martyr. It's, it's horrific.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett54:16

       If you had to give a sort of percentage probability of them putting ground troops in.

    4. SKSteve Keen54:19

       Oh, I'd say more than 50%. We're gonna find out in the next couple of weeks.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett54:24

       Much of the reason most people haven't posted content or built their personal brand is because it's hard, and it's time-consuming, and we're all very, very busy, and if you've never posted something before, there's so many factors in your psychology that stop you wanting to post. What people will think of you. Am I doing this right? Is the thing I'm saying absolutely stupid? All of these result in paralysis, which means you don't post, and your feed goes bare.I'm an investor in a company called Stan Store, which you've probably heard me talk about, and what they've been building is this new tool called Stanley that uses AI, looks at your feed, looks at your tone of voice, looks at your history, looks at your best-performing posts, and tells you what you should post, makes those posts for you. You can also just use it for inspiration, and sometimes what we need when we're thinking about doing a post for our social media channels is inspiration. Building an audience has fundamentally changed my life, and I think it could change yours too. So I'm inviting you to give this new tool a shot and let me know what you think. All you have to do is search coach.stan.store now to get started. [paper rustling] This company that I've just invested in is growing like crazy. I wanna be the one to tell you about it because I think it's gonna create such a huge productivity advantage for you. Wispr Flow is an app that you can get on your computer and on your phone, on all your devices, and it allows you to speak to your technology. So instead of me writing out an email, I click one button on my phone, and I can just speak the email into existence, and it uses AI to clean up what I was saying. And then when I'm done, I just hit this one button here, and the whole email is written for me, and it's saving me so much time in a day because Wispr learns how I write. So on WhatsApp, it knows how I am, a little bit more casual. On email, a little bit more professional. And also, there's this really interesting thing they've just done. I can create little phrases to automatically do the work for me. I can just say, "Jack's LinkedIn," and it copies Jack's LinkedIn profile for me because it knows who Jack is in my life. This is saving me a huge amount of time. This company is growing like absolute crazy, and this is why I invested in the business and why they're now a sponsor of this show. And Wispr Flow is frankly becoming the worst-kept secret in business productivity and entrepreneurship. Check it out now at Wispr Flow, spelt W-I-S-P-R F-L-O-W, .ai/stephen. It will be a game-changer for you. [paper rustling]

18. 56:31 – 59:23

    What The Best-Case Scenario Actually Looks Like

    1. SBSteven Bartlett56:31

       What is the best-case scenario?

    2. SKSteve Keen56:33

       The Americans have to realize they've lost, and they've now gotta negotiate the terms of reparation. And what Iran has proposed, when you look at Iran's terms, they're extremely reasonable. They're saying America le- leaves the whole region. America no longer comes back in this region. No military bases, no agreements. This becomes Iranian protectorate. That becomes an Arabian empire, or not Arabian, Iranian empire, 'cause they're not Arab- they're not Arabs, they're Persians. Uh, so this becomes like a Muslim part of the world. That's... You, you can actually take the whole region out to here. It's all Muslim. And what's been happening, and this is part of the weird religious elements here, you've got the Sunni sect and the Shiite sect, which is a bit like the Protestants versus the Catholics. Go back 500 years, and what we're seeing here is like the Hundred Years' War that occurred in Europe back in the days when it was Protestant versus Catholic was a serious thing. Um, so we're seeing a religious war being fought here, and the, the Sunni majority, about 90% of Muslims are Sunni, they have focused on their rivalry with the Shiites. And so what they've done is they've sided with this mob to enable-

    3. SBSteven Bartlett57:42

       The United States?

    4. SKSteve Keen57:43

       ... the, the States, uh, to side... So they've sided with the Christians to strengthen their own Muslim sect, which is the Sunni sect, against the Shiite sect, which is Iran is predominantly Shiite. Now, what's happening here is as soon as the war started, America, the, the, the reason the, the Ara- Arabs agreed to have bases here, military bases, is they thought it would protect them from Iran. As soon as the war starts, those bases are obliterated, the Americans leave, and they realize that hasn't worked at all. So the deal the Sunnis made to side with the Christians has proved to be an extremely bad deal. You're gonna have to have change in who rules these countries to enable it to happen. But I think the persuasive case c- coming out of this within the Muslim areas is Muslims stick together, don't cooperate with the Christians.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett58:31

       Don't cooperate with the United States is what you want.

    6. SKSteve Keen58:32

       And I think that's what's gonna happen.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett58:34

       You think that's gonna happen?

    8. SKSteve Keen58:35

       I hope so, because that at least gives us something which is relatively stable. This becomes a region that is Muslim-dominated.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett58:40

       When you're saying this, you mean the Middle East?

    10. SKSteve Keen58:42

        I mean the whole Middle East: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan as well, because it's a Muslim country, Afghanistan. This region becomes Muslim-dominated. Shiites and Sunnis start to... I mean, the, the whole idea of Ca- of Catholics fighting Protestants, that's completely dissipated. Um, there's no level in, in the West anymore of large-scale military-type animosity between Catholics and, and Protestants. That's what's happening over here. The, the conflicts, the, those religious conflicts within the Cath- within the Christians disappeared, largely speaking. They're still happening within the Muslim religion. This could persuade them that that's gotta end.

19. 59:23 – 1:01:00

    Scenario 5: What Changes If Iran Goes Nuclear

    1. SKSteve Keen59:23

       So-

    2. SBSteven Bartlett59:23

       So we've got one more scenario, scenario five

    3. SKSteve Keen59:25

       ... okay. Iran develops nuclear weapons. I'd rather four happen than five.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett59:29

       Which of these five outcomes do you think is most probable to happen?

    5. SKSteve Keen59:35

       I think the most likely outcome is Iran disables Israel's nuclear weapons, because Iran has been so prepared for this conflict in a way that America has not, in a way that Israel was not. I hope they're also prepared for the eventuality of having to neutralize Israel's nuclear weapons.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett59:52

       You think the highest probability is Iran disabling Israel's nukes?

    7. SKSteve Keen59:56

       Yeah. I hope I'm right. I mean, if Iran gets destroyed, then this leads not to Iran developing nuclear weapons, but every potential rival for America on the planet developing nuclear weapons. We go into a nuclear war-dominated world.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:11

       Do you not think it's more likely that Trump is gonna find himself a golden bridge to get out of this situation? He's gonna call Netanyahu in Israel and say, "Stand down, please. I'm gonna announce that we've won this war. I'm gonna announce that we've done a deal. It's all over."

    9. SKSteve Keen1:00:28

       Well, with, without doubt, whatever happens, Trump is gonna say he won, okay? That's, again, the narcissistic personality disorder thing. He simply couldn't bring himself to stand on a stage and say, "I lost." I mean, think about the biggest insult that Trump ever made in his "Apprenticeship" show. "You're a loser," okay? Being a loser is the absolute worst possible thing that anybody can be in his mind. If he has to say, "I'm a loser," then his life is over in that sense. He's self, he's self-Image is over. So whatever deal comes out, he's gonna say he won.

20. 1:01:00 – 1:03:59

    Why Self-Sufficiency Might Be The Only Safety Net

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:00

       For the, for the average person that's listening now-

    2. SKSteve Keen1:01:02

       Yeah

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:02

       ... when they hear all this conflict going on, on in the world, from an economic perspective, is there anything they can be doing to protect themselves against some of these downstream consequences?

    4. SKSteve Keen1:01:12

       Well, I think one thing is people, we- we've, we've now got to the stage where you can buy your own, uh, solar systems for your house. You need something which means you're not dependent upon oil anymore. I, I think we've trivialized the dangers of climate change for the last half century. We've done very little about it to reverse it. This is telling people that if you're reliant upon oil, you've got a fragile existence. Even if it costs you more to build solar, you've gotta build solar as your own alternative energy system, 'cause without energy, there's no civilization, and that's what we're learning the hard way from this conflict. So I think individual responses is going to be get some way to have your own power source, and for most people, that means having solar.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:54

       One man that has done a lot for both solar and sustainable energy is Elon Musk.

    6. SKSteve Keen1:02:00

       He has, and he's also helped get bloody Trump elected, so I think you've gotta score that against him as well. But yeah, his work on solar then and, and, and power and rocketry, I've absolutely admired that, and I see that as a critical positive contribution. But getting Trump elected, he did play a major role in that. He should learn from that mistake and get the fuck out of politics.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:20

       He has backed off politics now, which is-

    8. SKSteve Keen1:02:22

       I think he's realized how poisonous it is. Yeah.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:25

       Yeah, it sounds like he's realized you can't really change the beast.

    10. SKSteve Keen1:02:27

        No. No.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:28

        He tried.

    12. SKSteve Keen1:02:29

        Yeah. He should stick with the area where he's mature, which is what he does with energy systems and what he does with rocketry. He's really... I mean, in terms of legacy, uh, he's tainted his legacy by getting involved in politics. Go back to engineering.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:42

        So you say that you think people should invest in solar for their homes-

    14. SKSteve Keen1:02:46

        Yep

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:46

        ... to get their own energy s- sources so they're a little bit insulated from these sort of macroeconomics.

    16. SKSteve Keen1:02:50

        Yep.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:50

        Is there anything else they should be thinking about? You know, the average person, the cost of living crisis, what, what happens next? What should they be doing now?

    18. SKSteve Keen1:02:56

        The, the thing that I'm most worried about this is the impact upon food. I'm the, the last person to talk about growing your own food. I've never done it. I'm- I've got, uh, brown thumbs, not green ones. But I think if you can have any way to produce your own food, you've got a bit of insulation against what's happening at the global level. The lesson that comes out of this is self-sufficiency. If we don't have self-sufficiency, then these sorts of global chaotic things can destroy you completely, with you having no recompense. If you have some degree of self-sufficiency, you can survive.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:29

        And how does one create self-sufficiency? Growing your own food is quite expensive and slow, isn't it?

    20. SKSteve Keen1:03:33

        Yeah, extremely.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:34

        So how does one develop self-sufficiency in th- these sort of economic climates? Is it saving money, or is it, um-

    22. SKSteve Keen1:03:41

        Well, I think so having your own physical resources close to you that enable you to... If money doesn't matter, if you can't buy the product in the first instance, the product doesn't exist anymore. So, uh, one thing that happened during World War II is a large amount of food was grown in the UK by people turning their gardens into market gardens.

21. 1:03:59 – 1:08:17

    What Could Trigger The Next Financial Crash

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:59

       I- I've heard you make a few predictions about the future of the economic markets. You know, you're famous for predicting 2008-

    2. SKSteve Keen1:04:06

       Mm

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:06

       ... and the financial crash that occurred then. I've heard you saying that you think because of AI, there's gonna be another financial crash-

    4. SKSteve Keen1:04:11

       Yeah

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:12

       ... around the corner within one or two years.

    6. SKSteve Keen1:04:13

       Yeah. What's happening with AI is a classic economic boom and bust cycle overlaid on the fact that AI can also eliminate, uh, a huge amount of employment, which we've never seen that possibility in the past on, on that scale. But a, a common pattern in capitalism is that some new technology will be developed, like railways, for example. Some people see the po- the potential profitability of railways. Everybody pours in creating railways. You get too many railways built. The 90% of the companies that create the railways go bust, but then we all have these rail systems that we benefit from afterwards. So that's the classic, uh, pattern that Joseph Schumpeter was the person who best described that, uh, that Austrian economist from the early, uh, early 20th century. So he said, "You'll get the, the banks will finance a new investment area. That investment produces a new technology, which causes a boom while you're building the technology. But when the technology comes online, it undercuts existing businesses and causes a slump." So the boom and slump cycle, and AI is a, a natural example of that. And what you get is massive over-investment in the first instance because everybody who invests in AI has the ambition of being the only AI provider on the planet. Therefore, you get too many companies investing. There's too much money going into it. That's what causes a boom. But then when the technology comes online, because it undercuts existing technologies, you have a slump.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:41

       And when you look at the investment taking place at the moment, the big tech companies, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet-

    8. SKSteve Keen1:05:47

       Yeah

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:47

       ... who own Google, Oracle, is on track to spend 720 billion on AI infrastructure in 2026 alone-

    10. SKSteve Keen1:05:56

        Mm

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:56

        ... which is less than 20% of the revenue that they're making. We are seeing a five to one ratio of money being spent versus money coming in-

    12. SKSteve Keen1:06:05

        Yeah

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:05

        ... which is historically unsustainable.

    14. SKSteve Keen1:06:07

        Yeah, and I think that's true. I think there, there has to be a slump coming out of this, and i- in a, in a sense, that's part of the natural cyclical behavior of capitalism. 'Cause if you wanna make a profit, you've gotta bring in technology that undercuts everybody you're currently rivals with. So that's the railways are a classic example there. You know, you had to get around by carriage. Instead, you undermine the carriage companies by bringing in the railways. But the ultimate benefit to society benefits because now you've got the railways for transportation. So that's the same sort of thing that AI is doing this time around. But companies, 90% of those companies are going to fail.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:40

        I mean, this is kind of what we're seeing already. So the failure rate of AI specific startups has hit 90% in 2026.

    16. SKSteve Keen1:06:45

        Wow. That's luck. [laughs]

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:46

        Yeah. You, you predicted that one correctly. Significantly higher than the 70% average for general technology. Roughly 95% of enterprise AI pilots fail to move into, into production when they incur massive costs. The other thing I think a lot about is, um-A lot of startups now are raising a lot of money at crazy, crazy valuations.

    18. SKSteve Keen1:07:04

        Yeah.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:04

        I, I can think of one particular startup I know. They're making, like, a couple of million dollars a year. They've raised at a billion dollar valuation-

    20. SKSteve Keen1:07:10

        Wow. Yeah

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:11

        ... and because they've got the word, word AI on them.

    22. SKSteve Keen1:07:13

        Wow.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:13

        And the thing is, because everyone's so, such in a frenzy at the moment about AI, they're probably gonna raise that a two billion valuation six months from now.

    24. SKSteve Keen1:07:20

        Yeah.

    25. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:20

        When you think about what's going on there, someone somewhere is putting their money in-

    26. SKSteve Keen1:07:24

        And they're gonna lose it all

    27. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:25

        ... and they're gonna lose it all. And when, when everybody starts losing all their money very, very quickly, you see this contraction-

    28. SKSteve Keen1:07:30

        Yeah

    29. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:30

        ... where everybody realizes that their paper gains, the gains they thought they had on paper because a valuation went up, have just evaporated.

    30. SKSteve Keen1:07:37

        Yeah.
22. 1:08:17 – 1:09:45

    How To Survive Another Boom-And-Bust Cycle

    1. SKSteve Keen1:08:17

       bigger.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:17

       What do we do as entrepreneurs, as team members in companies? What do we do at this moment if what you're saying is correct, that there will be a moment-

    3. SKSteve Keen1:08:27

       A boom and bust

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:28

       ... a boom and bust. Which I think ab- you know, every smart person that I've spoken to agrees that there will be a bust-

    5. SKSteve Keen1:08:32

       Yeah

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:32

       ... soon.

    7. SKSteve Keen1:08:32

       Yeah.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:33

       Their timelines vary.

    9. SKSteve Keen1:08:35

       Yeah.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:35

        But what does one do right now in March, April 2026 to prepare for this?

    11. SKSteve Keen1:08:42

        Well, you put money aside if you can. You buy other assets you think are gonna survive the, the boom and bust cycle.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:47

        Like what?

    13. SKSteve Keen1:08:47

        That's the trouble. I mean, gold's been driven up. Gold's now been driven down. Uh, people are buying Bitcoin, but Bitcoin is collapsing as well. Uh, in some ways you, you really- you can't... It, it's like saying, "What do I do during an earthquake to not fall over?" In terms of insulating yourself, I really can't see a way of insulating yourself from the downturn. But I don't... I'm not worried, worried about that as long-term consequences of AI, because this is the first technology which implies you can actually virtually eliminate labor as necessary for reducing output. Because you can use AI rather than clerks. You can use... You know, I know this is a long way from being feasible, but robots could replace process workers, and then suddenly something which employs 70% of the global population is no longer necessary, and then what do you do in that situation? What I've seen, which I respect, coming out of the tech bros in America, is they're talking in terms of universal basic income.

23. 1:09:45 – 1:12:45

    Universal Basic Income—And Who It Really Helps

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:45

       You think a universal basic income's a good idea?

    2. SKSteve Keen1:09:47

       I do.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:47

       And we should, we should probably explain what that is.

    4. SKSteve Keen1:09:49

       Yeah. Well, it's, it's the state provides everybody with enough money to stay alive. That's the basic idea. Rather than having to work for a living, a- at the minimum, you get paid an amount of money that means you can buy the goods and services that are necessary to stay alive. You don't necessarily prosper, but you get enough to survive. And so that's the idea of UBI. Now, at the moment, to survive you've gotta have a job, and like that guy you mentioned who's working at three, three jobs right now. If he got a UBI, he wouldn't have to work at those three jobs. He might work at one, or he might actually consider his own business possibilities in that situation. So I think universal basic income is a necessity given what robotics and AI can do to employment.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:34

       Every time I've tried to improve something in my life, like my businesses, my health, my relationships, I've noticed that the biggest shifts have come from being better informed. And when it comes to our health, most of us know very, very little. So when our team was approached about partnering with Function Health, it felt very much aligned. Their team has developed a way of giving you a full 360-degree view of your health, many of the things that are going on in your body, in the form of different tests. You do one blood draw, and it gives you access to over 160 lab results. Hormones, heart health, inflammation, stress, toxins, the whole picture. I use it, and so have many of my team members.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:08

       You sign up and you schedule your test, and once you're done, you get a little report like the one I have here. I can see my in-range results, my out-of-range results, and there's a little AI function, too, so if I have any questions about my out-of-range results, I can just go in there and ask it any question I want. And these tests are backed by doctors and thousands of hours of research.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:26

       It's $365 for a yearly membership. Go to functionhealth.com/doac and use the code DOAC25 for $25 off your membership. This is something that I've made for you. I've realized that The Diary Of A CEO audience are strivers. Whether it's in business or health, we all have big goals that we want to accomplish. And one of the things I've learnt is that when you aim at the big, big, big goal, it can feel incredibly psychologically uncomfortable, because it's kinda like being stood at the foot of Mount Everest and looking upwards. The way to accomplish your goals is by breaking them down into tiny, small steps, and we call this in our team the 1%. And actually, this philosophy is highly responsible for much of our success here. So what we've done so that you at home can accomplish any big goal that you have, is we've made these 1% diaries, and we released these last year, and they all sold out. So I asked my team over and over again to bring the diaries back, but also to introduce some new colors and to make some minor tweaks to the diary. So now we have a better range for you. So if you have a big goal in mind and you need a framework and a process and some motivation, then I highly recommend you get one of these diaries before they all sell out once again. And you can get yours at thediary.com. And if you want the link, the link is in the description below.

24. 1:12:45 – 1:21:46

    How AI Is Quietly Rewriting The Job Market

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:45

       And you think up to 50% of working class jobs could be wiped out because of AI and robotics.

    2. SKSteve Keen1:12:50

       Yeah.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:51

       I mean, that's, um, that's been a prediction from the leaders of some of the biggest companies in AI. I heard the, the leader of Anthropic, uh, recently say the same thing.

    4. SKSteve Keen1:12:59

       Yeah.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:59

       That he thinks 50% of jobs could be wiped out. I think the, the shocking thing that we've talked a lot about on the show is just, you know, there's been other sort of economic or industrial revolutions in the past that have caused for job displacement.

    6. SKSteve Keen1:13:10

       Yeah.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:10

       But none, I would argue, at this speed.

    8. SKSteve Keen1:13:13

       No, and none that can replace virtually everything. And see, one of... There's a, there's a classic story I read back when I was, uh, talking about the global financial crisis, uh, came out of the New York Times article where they went to interview workers in an air conditioning factory, and there was one woman they found there whose job it was to place a thermocouple inside the air conditioning units as they went past. So there's 3,000 of these going past her a day. She's just placing one of these thermocouples where it needs to go inside the circuitry of the air conditioning unit, and she said, "You don't have to love your job so long as it pays you money." It was, you know, a totally boring job. That's all she's doing. The thing is, the reason she got that job was she couldn't make a machine to replace her because the air conditioning units don't necessarily end up precisely at the same point. To make a machine that would do that is really difficult. Now, if you train a robot on it, the robot perception can ultimately get to the point where the robot can place that piece inside there. That particular unskilled job disappears, so people who work in jobs like that no longer have a possibility of getting a job.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:16

       I think, uh, even, you know, Anthropic released a report. Anthropic are the makers of Claude. They rep-

    10. SKSteve Keen1:14:21

        Yeah

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:22

        ... released a report saying that entry-level positions, they're seeing a 13% decline already-

    12. SKSteve Keen1:14:26

        Yeah

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:26

        ... in people getting those entry-level jobs. And actually, as an employer, someone that spends... Literally last night I was looking through our inbo- our recruitment inboxes at candidates and talent. I have noticed myself changing. I've noticed that, um, people that I would've given roles to maybe six months ago-

    14. SKSteve Keen1:14:44

        Yeah

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:45

        ... I now have to think long and hard about whether there's gonna be technology that can do those exact roles-

    16. SKSteve Keen1:14:51

        Instead, yeah

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:52

        ... instead. And it's... it was a really shocking thing. I was saying to the team last night at, like, 1:00 AM in the office, I was like, "This is a, a prime example of a candidate."

    18. SKSteve Keen1:14:58

        Yeah.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:58

        I was looking at this particular candidate that six months ago I would've bitten their hand off. But now I have to pause because my innovation team in the corner of the office-

    20. SKSteve Keen1:15:08

        Mm

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:08

        ... they're, they're able to do that now with these AI agents instead.

    22. SKSteve Keen1:15:12

        Yeah.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:12

        And so I am... You know, you hear a lot about the theoretical impact of AI-

    24. SKSteve Keen1:15:16

        But you're actually making the decision yourself.

    25. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:19

        And then y-yes, theory. It's theory. It's this thing on my Twitter feed, like blah, blah, blah, whatever. You hear it on a podcast, you go blah, blah, blah, whatever, and then you find yourself actually-

    26. SKSteve Keen1:15:27

        Behaving that way

    27. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:29

        ... your behavior's changing, and you're going, "Oh." It's very hard to know the types of people to hire into our company, and I've kind of almost segmented them into these two groups where you've got people that have very deep expertise.

    28. SKSteve Keen1:15:41

        Yeah.

    29. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:41

        I'd say it's three groups. People that have very, very deep expertise in a particular thing, you know, like my CFO. Group number two, I'd say, are people that are AI proficient.

    30. SKSteve Keen1:15:50

        Who can actually handle this stuff and be the people who manage the agents.
25. 1:21:46 – 1:26:35

    Is Bitcoin Headed To Zero

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:21:46

       I wanted to come back to something you actually said earlier. You talked about Bitcoin briefly.

    2. SKSteve Keen1:21:49

       Yeah.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:21:49

       I've heard you say that you think Bitcoin's going to zero.

    4. SKSteve Keen1:21:52

       Yeah.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:21:52

       Okay, this is worrying. I think I have some Bitcoin.

    6. SKSteve Keen1:21:54

       [laughs]

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:21:56

       You're an economist.

    8. SKSteve Keen1:21:57

       Yeah.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:21:57

       You're saying that Bitcoin is going to zero. Why?

    10. SKSteve Keen1:21:59

        Because, ultimately because of its reliance upon energy. I mean, I... You know, you know Max, you know Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert? Have you met them at all?

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:22:07

        No.

    12. SKSteve Keen1:22:07

        They were sort of the original proselytizers for Bitcoin, and, and they're now, uh, living in, I think, El Salvador, um, which has adopted Bitcoin as a form of currency. When they told me about Bitcoin, I could have bought it for £1 of, of Bitcoin, which would've been... I would've been a bloody, maybe wealthier than you if I'd done that. The reason I didn't was they explained that the way that the public ledger is kept safe is that it takes too much energy to break it. So each transaction requires 10 minutes of computer processing time globally, by the looks of it, to actually create an extra Bitcoin. And that means it's too expensive for somebody to try to break the ledger. That means it's got a huge requirement for energy use, and I believe, knowing what I know from climate scientists, that at some point we're gonna realize we're using far too much energy on the planet. We've got to cut the energy consumption, and the two easiest things to cut out to reduce energy consumption are cryptocurrencies and international travel.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:23:08

        But aren't you seeing that, you know, nuclear energy is becoming vogue again, and they're talking a lot, you know, about-

    14. SKSteve Keen1:23:14

        It's the amount of time it takes to build that stuff. I mean, China's building nuclear power stations at a hell of a rate and much, much cheaper, more cheaper than America is doing.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:23:24

        Solar's become a big topic of conversation.

    16. SKSteve Keen1:23:25

        Yeah. Again, there's a guy called Simon Michaud whom I recommend you get in touch with as well, and Simon is an engineer who claims that we simply don't have the physical minerals necessary to support a completely solar and wind-based, uh, energy system. He's got people who criticize his analysis, definitely, but we still are using far more physical resources than we're aware of at the moment on the planet. And the availability of, of various critical elements that we need for the system we have right now, it's much less abundant than we would like it to be. So a lot of these things about, you know, robotics taking over, do we have the minerals for it? Solar power, do we have the minerals? The answer is, is not, is not yes, okay? Sometimes the answer is no. Other times it's, it's dubious. But I think that energy requirement alone is a problem.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:24:19

        You're saying that we're gonna have, we're gonna have to cut back on our energy consumption.

    18. SKSteve Keen1:24:22

        Yeah.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:24:23

        But I mean, the direction of travel has been we've been able to produce more and more and more and more energy, and it's-

    20. SKSteve Keen1:24:27

        We're dumping it into the environment. The planet... The trouble, the problem about the use of energy is it's happening on a planet, okay? Can the biosphere cope with the waste that we dump into it as a result of using that energy? And that is something which economists are completely stupid on. Beyond stupid. They've trivialized the dangers of the amount of resources we use and the amount of energy we use. So I don't think that energy future is possible on this biosphere at the moment. It's possible in the future if we get off the biosphere. So in that sense, I'm even more of a space cadet than Elon Musk is. I think we have to plan to take production off planet. But while we're constrained on the biosphere, the biosphere's constraints will stop us using as much energy as, as we used, wish to use.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:25:12

        What are your, what are your closing statements on this whole situation with the war and Iran and everything that's going on from a geopolitical perspective?

    22. SKSteve Keen1:25:18

        The basic thing is our system is far more fragile than we've convinced ourself that it isAnd we can make, uh, observations about potential futures which presume a robustness we don't have. And if that robustness is destroyed, either by military conflict or by overextending what we put into the biosphere, then we can fall off what's called the Seneca Cliff. We can go from an abundant future to a collapse.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:25:45

        And what would you say the people at home should be doing to course-correct the path that you think we're on?

    24. SKSteve Keen1:25:52

        Stop electing fools. [laughs] Um, electing Trump was an enormous mistake. We've got co- politicians who follow what's called neoliberal political philosophies. They're what put us in this problem. It hasn't worked. We need to reverse back to having a human-oriented and physically realistic view of how the economy managed, should be managed, and how the biosphere should be managed. We have to take care of our home, and in an essential sense, we're destroying our home and thinking we can keep on doing that indefinitely. We can't. Our home is planet Earth. Planet Earth has got physical restraints. We haven't respected them. Planet Earth will tell us what it thinks of that this century.

26. 1:26:35 – 1:28:34

    What Kind Of Leaders Do We Actually Need

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:26:35

       And which leaders do you think we should be electing? Do you think we should be electing-

    2. SKSteve Keen1:26:38

       I don't think... I, I think even electing leaders itself is a mistake because what we then do is end up getting... We, we, we pander to narcissists. We pander to people who believe they can solve all our problems. We end up with megalomaniacs making decisions. If you look back at where Ath- Athenian democracy came from, Athenian democracy didn't use elections. It used a process of like random number generators to select intelligent people to fulfill essential roles in those societies, and they, they weren't even people you got to know by name in that sense. We know Trump here. We know Starmer here. We have Albanese over here. We end up getting narcissists and megalomaniacs directing us, and they're the last people you need to make decisions.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:27:26

       When you're thinking about your own money, as an economist, what are you doing to protect your savings?

    4. SKSteve Keen1:27:30

       I'm not doing much. I mean, I, I've been a, a, I've been a, a crusader for reforming economic theory for my whole life. I've sort of neglected this side of things, to my detriment, I've gotta say. Um, but I really am focused on what's sustainable for everybody rather than what I can make as my own cut, and I don't think we've got a sustainable economy at the moment. We have a philosophy of economics which leads to breakdowns.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:27:57

       I, I'm asking that 'cause I've got so many friends and listeners that ask me often, like, "Should I be buying a house right now?"

    6. SKSteve Keen1:28:01

       Mm.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:28:01

       "Do you think I should be investing in gold? Do you think I should be saving my money? Should I be, I don't know, investing in technology companies?"

    8. SKSteve Keen1:28:07

       Yeah.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:28:08

       And I'm wondering if you had a perspective for them.

    10. SKSteve Keen1:28:10

        Not on that, no. Look, I've, I've really left that area alone. I'm, I'm actually th- looking at the overall system and saying, how do we make the system sustainable so that people can live within it? And what we've got is an unsustainable system, and you're asking me how do peoples survive within an unsustainable system. Answer is they don't. We always think we can do something at the individual level to cope with what's happening in the system around us. That only works if the system around us

27. 1:28:34 – 1:30:37

    What A Better System Could Look Like

    1. SKSteve Keen1:28:34

       is stable.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:28:34

       What is a better system, then?

    3. SKSteve Keen1:28:36

       Uh, I think, I think what China has done is a better, in a b- better direction. They have a, they have a collective focus as well as an individual focus.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:28:45

       What's their system called?

    5. SKSteve Keen1:28:46

       It's called communist.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:28:47

       So you think communism's better than capitalism?

    7. SKSteve Keen1:28:50

       I think a system which reflects the need for a cohesive society as well as individual gain is needed, and the s- system in China is closer to that than the system in America.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:29:02

       In, in China, I, listen, I don't know a ton about this, but they have a leader who stays in power and kind of-

    9. SKSteve Keen1:29:07

       That's one. That's the potential weakness

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:29:09

        ... and suppresses the people's decision-making, entrepreneurialism, uh, in the-

    11. SKSteve Keen1:29:13

        E- equally, you've got a system, to get into the Communist Party you've gotta have, uh, highly... You've gotta be educated to get in, and you have to perform, to some extent, in the region in which you begin your role.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:29:26

        But you're not saying you think the West should adopt communism, are you?

    13. SKSteve Keen1:29:28

        No, I'm saying the r- West should adopt a system which reflects the need for a cohesive society.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:29:34

        Is that socialism?

    15. SKSteve Keen1:29:35

        Socialism is closer to it. I mean, I, uh, the words are all tainted, okay? The, the... If you go back, you, you know, do you eat Cadbury's chocolate?

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:29:43

        I try not to.

    17. SKSteve Keen1:29:44

        You have, haven't you? Okay.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett1:29:45

        Once or twice.

    19. SKSteve Keen1:29:45

        Cadbury's was a socialist enterprise, okay? It was formed as a, a belief we have to, uh, want to give the workers the best possible situation while also selling a profitable product. Mondragon in Spain is another cooperative started by a Catholic priest, uh, of all things. We tend to be very binary in the West. We say you either have competition or you have cooperation, okay? We need to be more like the East in the sense of the idea of yin and yang. You have to have both, okay? Cooperation and competition.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett1:30:14

        And so that for you is the closest thing is socialism.

    21. SKSteve Keen1:30:16

        The closest to socialism, and what China... China has done that better than Russia. The r- you go back to the USSR, uh, that was, they, they were disastrous in terms of product development. China's been extremely successful on that front. They've learned from the mistakes of being too centralized and too top-down in Russia to have both the top-down and the bottom-up dynamic going

28. 1:30:37 – 1:33:48

    What’s Broken In Capitalism—And Can It Be Fixed

    1. SKSteve Keen1:30:37

       on.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:30:37

       What's wrong with capitalism? And capitalism is what the UK and the US have adopted as their sort of economic mo- model.

    3. SKSteve Keen1:30:42

       Yeah. The, the, it's seeing competition absolutely ruling and ignoring cooperation. Now the real, the s- successful society combines both. You have cooperation, you also have competition. Now, we've pushed it far too far in the competitive end and not enough in the cooperative. And what comes out of that as well is the s- cooper- con- competitive tends to be short-term focused. What can I make a profit out of in the time that the money that I've borrowed is, I'm gonna be able to make more of a profit than the interest I'm paying on the money I've, I've created. And if the interest, if the longer it takes to get the, the repayment, the less likely you are to make the investment. So what you get is a focus upon short term with just a market system, whereas with the long term you say, "What's gonna last for 100 years?"And like, and what that means is you build the infrastructure for the long term while you allow competition to occur in the short term. It's getting the balance right. We've got the balance extremely wrong.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:31:37

       Professor Steve, thank you.

    5. SKSteve Keen1:31:40

       Thank you.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:31:40

       And I, I highly recommend people go check out your YouTube channel where you make videos, uh, all the time about what's going on in the world. You give your opinion on economic issues, political issues, the Iran war. So if people are listening and they wanna learn more from Professor Steve, then look down below and you should see his YouTube channel linked, um, next to our name, 'cause we're gonna try and collaborate on this post, and I'll put you the des- the link to your channel in the description below for anyone that wants to check you out and subscribe. It's so fascinating, es- especially the stuff about, around the raw materials coming out the Strait of Hormuz.

    7. SKSteve Keen1:32:07

       Yeah.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:32:07

       'Cause I really had no idea. I al- it's just, it's quite staggering to me that we're so dependent on one region of the world, and I think from watching your videos over the last couple of weeks-

    9. SKSteve Keen1:32:15

       Yeah

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:32:15

        ... it's really made me understand the unintended consequences of war generally.

    11. SKSteve Keen1:32:20

        Yeah.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:32:20

        But specifically this war in Iran. Um, so thank you for turning the lights on for me. I really, really appreciate this, and I hope we can meet again soon and have a conversation, and hopefully, you know, this all resolves itself in a way that's good for everybody.

    13. SKSteve Keen1:32:32

        I hope so. I h- I'm having my 73rd birthday tomorrow. I hope I have a 74th as well, but I think there's a question mark over that now.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:32:39

        Well, I did hear it was your birthday tomorrow.

    15. SKSteve Keen1:32:42

        [laughs]

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:32:43

        And I think the team have gotten you a little something.

    17. SKSteve Keen1:32:46

        Okay.

    18. SPSpeaker1:32:46

        Happy birthday to you.

    19. SKSteve Keen1:32:47

        [laughs] I'm embarrassed.

    20. SPSpeaker1:32:51

        Happy birthday-

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:32:53

        Oh, my God

    22. SPSpeaker1:32:55

        ... to you. Happy birthday to Steve.

    23. SKSteve Keen1:32:59

        My God. Thank you.

    24. SPSpeaker1:33:01

        Happy birthday to you.

    25. SKSteve Keen1:33:05

        Holy hell. And this...

    26. SPSpeaker1:33:06

        [cheers]

    27. SKSteve Keen1:33:07

        Thank you. Do I blow the candles out?

    28. SBSteven Bartlett1:33:08

        Yes, you should. Okay, you get a wish. You blew them all out, so you get a wish.

    29. SKSteve Keen1:33:13

        [laughs] Well, I wish for peace in the Middle East.

    30. SBSteven Bartlett1:33:16

        Okay, let's hope so.

Episode duration: 1:33:48