Alex Krainer joins Pascal to discuss the financial interests behind geopolitical conflict. Drawing on his hedge fund background and research for Grand Deception, Krainer challenges Bill Browder’s account of Russia and examines post-Soviet privatization, debt and oligarchic power. They explore Russia’s relations with the West, diplomacy and historical ties between Russia and nineteenth-century America. Krainer argues that British imperial influence persists through financial networks, connecting his “undead empire” thesis to sovereignty, contemporary wars and the mechanics of wealth extraction.

Alex's Links:
Alex Krainer’s Substack: https://alexkrainer.substack.com
I-System TrendCompass: https://trendcompass.substack.com
X: https://x.com/NakedHedgie
YouTube: / @kraineralex
The Naked Hedgie: https://thenakedhedgie.com
Policy Exchange report discussed — The Iran Question and British Strategy: https://policyexchange.org.uk/publica...

Neutrality Studies Links:
Neutrality Studies Substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com
Support Neutrality Studies: https://neutralitystudies.com/donate
Neutrality Studies shop: https://neutralitystudies.com/shop

Time Stamps
00:00 Alex Krainer, Bill Browder and Grand Deception
12:04 Russia’s privatization and the oligarchs
19:33 Resources, debt and financial power
27:30 Jeffrey Sachs and Russia’s economic transition
33:16 Russian diplomacy: naivety or strategy?
41:15 Russia, America and the Civil War
46:15 The “undead empire” and British influence
01:00:04 Empire as a system and the struggle for sovereignty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4ukJO26kss

===========================

THE NEXT OFFERING BY ALEX KRAINER WOULD BE QUITE CHALLENGING FOR MANY PEOPLE. NOT FOR GUS, WHO HAS WRITTEN A [VERY LIMITED EDITION] BOOK ON THE BENEFITS OF [SUPER**] ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

HERE IS ALEX:

Could AI save the world?
AI will prove transformational. With fulness of time, it could give life to beautiful things and, as Dostoevsky famously said, beauty will save the world.

American AI industry is a colossal bubble and as all bubbles in history it will inevitably burst at some point. However, the technology itself will survive. Some 26 years ago we saw the dot-com bubble burst. While it killed many startups and well-established, multibillion-dollar companies, others took their place and the Internet continued to develop in ways few could have predicted.

Similarly, AI will continue to evolve with great potential to be transformational to modern economies and our societies in general. In a recent interview, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei spoke about the career prospects that a kid coming out of high school can expect, and at first blush, it all seems deeply disheartening:

“AI can do entry-level law work. It can do entry-level finance. It can do entry-level consulting. AI will also eliminate jobs, and probably a large number of them”

Amodei listed the first careers in the line of fire, including junior law, junior finance, and junior consulting. In these domains, probably half of the entry-level, white-collar jobs will disappear within one to five years. This is much more abrupt than previous technology-driven transitions; changes from agricultural revolution, industrial revolution, or the Internet, gave people more time to adjust.

The changes driven by AI, according to Amodei are deeper and moving much faster. His advice is straightforward: learn how to use AI, and many people are already doing just that. A few individuals I know personally who are doing this are simply amazed at the results. This extends beyond the domains Amodei listed: it includes coding and software engineering, web design, architecture, construction project planning, interior design and more.

The speed of the transition is extraordinary: one young man uses Anthropic’s Claude for coding. He told me that only six months ago he wasn’t too impressed, but today it’s a different story: he is very impressed. A few weeks ago, I asked a very capable senior software engineer if he had tested the latest version of the Chinese Kimi, which apparently packs very powerful solutions for software engineering. Software engineering is to coding as architecture is to construction work. Using a chess analogy, he put it this way: if I can see ten moves in advance, Kimi can see 30!

All this confirms Amodei’s take, raising the prospect of wholesale job destruction in the near future. That’s certainly a concern, but it could be a good thing, actually. The transformative nature of AI could be a strong positive for society if that transformation is guided in a positive way. One way to look at job destruction is that it will lead to a great surplus of labor available in our economies.

All the talent currently absorbed in busywork will be able to seek challenges elsewhere. After all, who really wants to do entry-level legal work, or work in financial industry compliance? Many of those jobs are the definition of soul-crushing drain of life and energy for young people. They are definitely not a source of inspiration that would cause anyone to jump out of bed in the morning, excited to roll up their sleeves and get working...

What positively could be a source of inspiration, however, is the work of creating beautiful objects and reversing the creeping uglification of our environment that I touched upon in past reports. 

....

Of course, reversing the uglification into beautification will require a deliberate, concerted effort from our ruling establishments. Programs to encourage young talent to take up artisanal professions and arts, and to train them would need funding and some promotion.

That, in itself would entail a significant transformation of our societies, as well as a shift in their governing mindset. As the English philosopher, Sir Roger Scruton put it,

“This uglification of our world is the work of the ivory-towered elites of the liberal classes—people who, with their mania for modernising, are happy to rip up beliefs that have stood the test of time for millennia.”

Changing those beliefs should not be difficult, but it can’t be underestimated: the ivory-towered elites and the liberal classes tend to think that a banana scotched to a wall is art and that Jackson Pollock paintings should be worth millions. 

But what if cultivating talent could produce new Mozarts, Rembrandts, Goethes, or Leonardo da Vincis at scale - as Trump would say - like nobody’s ever seen before? Such talent almost certainly exists in every generation of humanity, but it may be squandered and suffocated by a lack of opportunity or by interminable busywork necessary just to make ends meet.

....

Dostoevsky famously said that, “beauty will save the world.” In a way, AI could free up talent from soul-crushing kinds of work and free up creative energy and time for the beautification of our world. Writing novels or symphonies, sculpting in marble, painting, gardening, or building beautiful furniture should be an easy transition from working in compliance or insurance.

And as for the funding needed for such a transformation, it would probably cost only a fraction of what we currently spend on armaments and forever wars.

Alex Krainer's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

GUS: THE EMPIRE HATES BEAUTY BECAUSE IT CANNOT BE SOLD*. THE EMPIRE AND ITS MANAGERS PREFER WEAPONS BECAUSE THEY CONSTANTLY NEEDS UPGRADE AND NEW BULLETS....

PLEASE VISIT:

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

         RABID ATHEIST.

         WELCOME TO THIS INSANE WORLD….

*THE BOFFINS OF THE EMPIRE LOVE LUXURY... AND EXCLUSIVITY. NOT BEAUTY, NOR FREEDOM, FOR ALL.

PICTURE AT TOP: MASTER-BLASTER. THIS RELATIONSHIP IS USED BY ALEX TO DEFINE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WASHINGTON [THE BRAWN OF THE RETARDED GIANT] AND THE CITY OF LONDON [THE BRAINS OF THE NASTY MIDGET]

** SUPER AI [SAI] WAS DEVISED IN MY BOOK (2015) — GUS.

================

GUSNOTE: MY VIEW IS THAT PUTIN GOES ALONG WITH MINIMISING ROCKING THE BOAT AS AMERICA PLAYS "GOOD COP" WHILE EUROPE PLAYS "BAD COP" — ALL UNDER INSTRUCTION FROM THE BRITISH EMPIRE [CENTRALISED IN THE CITY OF LONDON]...

MEANWHILE, RUSSIA IS STILL PUSHING WEST IN UKRAINE AND WILL ONLY STOP WHEN ALL ITS GOALS ARE ACHIEVED AND A SATISFACTORY AGREEMENT IS REACHED. 

MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT (WW3) HITS THE FAN:

NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.

THESE WILL ALSO INCLUDE ODESSA, KHERSON AND KHARKIV.....

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

TRANSNISTRIA TO BE PART OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION.

RESTORE THE RIGHTS OF THE RUSSIAN SPEAKING PEOPLE OF "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

RESTITUTE THE ORTHODOX CHURCH PROPERTIES AND RIGHTS

RELEASE THE OPPOSITION MEMBERS FROM PRISON

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE EU.....

EASY.

THE WEST KNOWS IT.