Griffin Review 6-15-23

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Transcript of the interview:

Welcome back to the Griffin Review. I'm your host, Grant. And with me is our other chief analyst, Matt. And what I'm going to be doing today is asking him a bit of a lightning round to give us some context and definition of popular terms that we're going to see in the media in context of some questions. So, Matt, welcome to the show. It's always good to be here. You've been doing a lot of work with network security recently. I have been. I've been working on getting some cyber security certification under my belt, but also considering where the current cyber attacks are hitting throughout the world, specifically the new federal agencies that are being hit. I think it's just a really important skill to have as a part of any company. It's a really unique part of like the world that we're in of this is how attacks happen. Now, it's not really out there on the battlefield. These are subvert, they're digital. It's hard to it's hard to respond to. It's hard to respond to. And I also think it has a much larger area of effect. If you can change the minds of the country in the minds of the people in the country, you can dictate policy decisions accordingly. And that's the real strength of of cybersecurity vulnerabilities is just the precipitous effect that it has. Well, yeah. Deep. Well, I don't think cybersecurity is technically high on the list of topics today, but we're going to go through this lightning round and I'm giving you 90s per question. 

Okay, We got 90s on the clock, which I'll start at the end of the question and then I'll give the answer over to you. So first, explain the power of the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund and analyze where it's being leveraged currently. Yeah, the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabiais in essence, a sovereign wealth fund, but it's designed for a specific purpose. Unlike most sovereign wealth funds that aggrandize the power of the people through infrastructure or even direct cash transfer like you would see in Alaska. In Saudi Arabia, the model is to aggrandize the name of Saudi Arabia and the Saudi family or the family of Saudi. Now, this is important because unlike every other sovereign wealth fund, the money isn't actually hitting the people in qualitative ways for education, health care, housing, any true public projects. But the Saudi Arabian government will try to use this as a means of gaining soft power. Now, they'll use this as leverage in the region, also globally. But it's why they'll pay somebody like Rinaldo an obscene amount of money to play for them because they think right or wrong that they will get far more out of Rinaldo playing soccer for them than they would a hospital in some distant village, which whether that's true or not, we will see. Intriguing because they have a ton of money. It's all like oil money or something. But I mean, they can't keep running on this oil business forever. I think that's why they're putting in massive arenas. And what's that big cube called that? Have you seen that? I'm I got to remember what the name of that is, but we'll put it in the graphics, in the show notes. 

I cannot remember the name of that cube either, but it's an abomination. It has no purpose. It'salso very space inefficient. It's energy inefficient. It's just it's just an eyesore. It's like the wall. Doyou see the thing about the wall that they're making? Yeah. Just supposed to be a giant mirror,too. But. But why? Who asked for this? To get the views. Gotta get the camera on it. But that'smy point. It doesn't necessarily have any practical value. It's all about soft power hegemony andgetting the name of this new hip, new place out there. Saudi Arabia is not necessarily associatedwith development and modernity and progressiveness, but quite the opposite, actually, I believeone might say. But it's just it's trying to break into that tech field that they think they can. Yeah,I'm with it. Well, we're going to jump into the next question because we went off track on thatlast one. That's okay. That's what the show is for. We're going to jump around the globe a littlebit. Okay. And this is what is a war of attrition and is it the short term future of the Ukraine andRussia crisis right now, or do you think somebody is going to make a move over the summer? Soa war of attrition, as we understand it, is best exemplified in the Fabian strategy during thesecond Punic War, wherein Fabius decided that he couldn't beat Hannibal in open battle. 

Instead, he would simply poison the wells around Hannibal and make it so where Hannibalwould have to constantly move his armies around and never siege one location for too long.Now, why I bring this up is because a war of attrition is essentially about outlasting youropponent. You're not going to beat them in the field properly. You're going to grind them down inthe situation of Ukraine, the Ukrainians and Russians both think they have the winning side on awar of aggression. The Ukrainians think eventually the Russians will be pushed out of Ukrainebecause their losses will become insurmountable. And the Russians think the Ukrainians can'tsuffer the manpower losses that they suffer on a day to day basis. What this means for thesummer offensive is that both sides are unlikely to make massive progress in one way or anotherbecause a risky play would jeopardize both of their positions. Rather, they'll just grind the gearsin the middle of a muddy swamp that is currently southern Ukraine. Well, yeah. I mean, I'mgoing to throw on top of that. I mean, I'm looking at Wall Street Journal app right now and topheadline for world news. Russia's Big economic problem Not enough workers. And I don't thisisn't a surprise to me like this isn't news this could have been easily deduced. I could have toldyou this headline would appear at about this time a year ago. And I bet that you could havepredicted that as well. 

But the fact of the matter is, is we're seeing that war of attrition in the headlines. Well, we'veactually talked about demographics before in relation to both Russia and Ukraine on this channelbefore with with our previous Griffin reviews. I'm just throwing that out there. You could alwayslook back at our previous videos for reference, but I think the important takeaway is that bothsides are settling in for a long conflict. And while I am loathe to bet against Ukraine due to mypersonal instincts, I am also loathe to bet against Russia. Given the history of prolonged conflictwith Russian involvement. But usually at some point the sheer mass of bodies they throw againstthe wall tends to be the swaying mechanism. Yeah, And I mean, war analysts, historians have Imean, we've thought of that of kind of Russia. That's been their strategy. Is that how can thatcontinue in the 21st century when no longer strength of size of army doesn't matter, but thecapabilities of the small operating unit? Right. Well, I'm unsure that the size of the army doesn'tmatter. Unfortunately, the Ukrainian line is so long that even minor holes, minor chinks in thearmor could lead to large scale victories for one side or the other. So at some point, wheneveryou're no longer able to plug the holes on the front line, that's when you lose. That's where theycome through right there. And or or your lines become spread too thin and they're able topuncture every single location simultaneously. 

So the the critical moments in a war of attrition are when one side is stretched too thin. That's thegoal and that's the chink. And you just dive in through the chink. 

Exactly. 

Wow. Okay. Well, that's the opinion of the Griffin reviewers here on that crisis. Let's move on toquestion number three, shall we? Absolutely. What are what are implications we should considerwhen reading a headline which announces synthetic embryos, synthetic embryos of people,human beings? 

When we think about synthetic embryos, I think it's best to keep in your mind this idea, for betteror worse, of designer babies, because when it comes to biological advancements that arehappening in your utero, the vast majority of these are focused on trying to assist that process tothe best possible end. And there's two ways of looking at it. Either one, designer babies aresomething to be feared and terrified of moving forward because they will just be better than youor I at literally everything because they are genetically modified to that extent. 

Perhaps to the perhaps to the level of being like a different species, you know? Right. 

And I would say that in addition to that concept, the other way you can look at it is that designerbabies are also perhaps a solution to abortion moving forward. You know, why would you evenneed abortions at some point if the whole process could happen outside of a woman's body?There's no need for abortion at that point. So I think there's a political aspect to it, but I thinkthere's also a practical economic aspect. 

Well, on that practical economics side, it sounds like if you're saying that all all systems, youknow, being general about the process of a human giving birth, all systems are under control.There's really no need to have abortions because we don't have to have one to start. We cancontrol that now. Right. And we can even control things. I don't know the philosophicalimplications we could fill an episode with. 

Absolutely. And while the philosophical explanations are something I would love to pontificateat length about, I also think that there are things that individuals have to make determinations ofat the end of the day. So you, dear viewer, will decide one way or the other, regardless of myinput, how you feel about these kinds of advancements. So let us know in the comments downbelow. What do you think? Yeah. 

All right. We'll hear from I think we'll hear from them. The next thing we're going to talk about issome economics. So next question, explain isolationist economics in context of the changeshappening in the current global supply chain. 

In reference to the current global supply chain, isolationist economics boils down to trying toreduce the amount of supply chain vulnerabilities as much as possible. Now, this is important forany country that's trying to increase. Its local power and become a regional power relative totheir neighbors. So historically, countries that took advantage of these kinds of developmentsbecame the colonial superpowers that we recognized in the 19th and 20th centuries. That isbecause these colonial superpowers took advantage of the fact that their enemies were vulnerablein key locations and they were not. So even though they weren't necessarily the strongesteconomies in every way, they had a little bit of everything. They were generalists rather thanspecialists. And when you are a generalist, you are far less exposed, far less vulnerable from theinvasion of others. 

Yeah, because, I mean, if you can handle all your own internal production, you don't need to gooutside. In fact, if you can be like America and have that surplus where you're supplying yourneighbors at the same time, I mean, that's a call, too, for an isolationist economy right there.Right? 

Exactly. And that's why I think there's an argument, a viable argument that the United States stillhas the vestiges of a colonial empire, not in the same way as having actual colonies in theGambia or South Africa. 

Yeah, I get what you mean. 

But it still has some colonial vestiges in the sense that the United States is self sufficient in everycritical aspect, including energy to this day, specifically food, energy, weaponry. Yeah. Thecritical methods by which you control a population and control sovereignty. We can. 

Put some charts in the in the video for this. 

Too. Absolutely. And also, we've talked about before demographics. The United States hasincredibly stable demographic structure in comparison to every other developed nation. As such,the United States not being vulnerable in any particular way creates an opportunity to leverageits position with or against any other power on Earth. 

Yeah, that economic position is hard to beat, especially with the power of the US dollar.Everybody else uses it. I mean currently as their medium of exchange, right? That centralposition, it's hard to it's hard to get around. 

Right. And the recent talks, if I may divert for a second, do it. We've talked about BRICs a littlebit before. There's talk about a BRICs central currency. Now, this is created the conversationaround it was created by this, shall we say, fervent socialist named Lula down in Brazil. AndLula's economic policy really comes down to a blind socialism at any cost. It's probably the bestway to describe his policy. It's not real policy. It's more of a populist referendum that doesn'thave any real support in the international community. But his interest comes down to trying toavoid using the US dollar as much as possible to create a debt driven economy for Brazil, similarto what happened in China. What he forgets is that nobody wants Chinese currency. Everybodywants the American dollar because Chinese currency is in the most technical sense, hot garbage.As such, the US dollar will maintain its dominance regardless of what BRICs wants to dobecause there's no backing for BRICs currency beyond Oh, well, we just really want to run adebt driven economy that's not dependent on the dollar. 

So you're saying that there's actually like if we're talking about productivity flat out productivitywise, there's a lot more actual like work and productivity being done in the exchanges around theAmerican dollar than there are on the currencies of other nations. There's more actual work beingdone behind things involving the dollar. 

Well, every other currency is exchange is based on the dollar. So that's an important thing toremember in relation to why the dollar is winning against currencies like the euro. Even after weaccept a lot of foreign direct investment or take out massive loans in America during thecoronavirus crisis, it's because the dollar is the standard. And regardless of whatever Europeanstimulus packages take place, those are all being compared against the dollar. 

Intriguing the way that the there is a war on the dollar going on. I think that people would like tohave a war on the dollar. 

And I think it's it's a bit of a damned if you do damned if you don't situation not to getdemonetized too soon but it's it really comes down to whether you subscribe to the dollar'stheory the fact that the American currency is going to maintain dominance based on the UnitedStates military leverage along with GDP. Or you say that we'll take our we'll take our luck on ourown. That's what Turkey did. And the lira is basically useless at this point as a means oftransaction. It's it's been in the tank for a few years, even after they've tried to transition to a goldstandard. Right. Even after they've tried to attach their currency to precious metals, it's still not avery, shall we say, sought after currency. Which implies to me that American guns are worthmore than actual gold and silver ever will be. 

Pound for pound. 

Pound for pound. Ounce for ounce per ounce. Pound for pound. I mean. Well I mean. Not poundfor pound because a pound of gold is going to be worth a lot more than a pound of iron. But youknow. 

Iron can do this. You know, that's that's the difference. Which one would you rather have If youcould only have one right with one of them? You can have both. 

And I think that's the point, is that the practical application of the American military has morestrength behind it than the practical application of gold and silver for a lot of countries. 

Mm, I agree. I agree. Well, we got to move on because we got to get to question number fivebefore we run out of time. All right. This one's not so much geopolitics based, which we know isMatt's specialty. This is more looking at a recent exploratory exploration of your interests, Isuppose we've talked about, and that is remote operation of devices or just remote operation ofoperations. So how do you like what steps do you take beforehand? How do you best ensure anoperation's success when the operation is to be carried out remotely? You are not on site. 

I think the main issue when it comes to remote work is that just not as much work gets done.This is an unfortunate reality that we found during the coronavirus crisis is that initially remotework had a general uptick in what was the expected output, considering that people who mightnot have been properly trained or who were codependent on their coworkers were now isolated.In essence, all that remote work actually did was isolate people from their coworkers whoactually knew how to do their job with them. And if you require a network of people around youwho you can walk over and talk to at the water cooler, and if you no longer have that community,your input starts to decrease in value. And so unfortunately, you're. 

Saying that the physical nearness, physical nearness of a team's position adds a tangible benefitto their output. Like work wise? 

Absolutely. Now, that doesn't mean that you should work your employees for 60, 70 hoursbecause that actually decreases the output and quality of work. But there's a perfect middle areabetween having a reasonable number of hours worked and getting maximum output for qualityand quantity. Mhm. 

I totally get that. So when that remote aspect is in play, it sounds like your strategy is don't beremote where you can, you know, be together as a team. But I'm just going to kind of take what Ithink was assumed, and that's communication becomes the number one issue when people areremote. 

I would agree. But also people who become remote generally don't want to go back to being inperson. You get used to the spice of life and, you know, being able to go and play with your dogfor 30 minutes at a time. It's a lot of people, I admit. 

That's nice to step out of it for a second. 

Exactly. And a lot of people, especially in federal jobs that went remote, have threatened that ifthey ever have to go back in person, they will just leave their job and apply for a different remoteposition. And honestly, I can't blame them. You've gotten used to that certain quality of life andyou don't actually see any tangible benefit in your life for going back to work outside of a payincrease. Why would you go back to work in person? I think at the end of the day, if a lot ofemployers want to bring people back to the office, they're going to have to provide someincentives. And that's not a pizza party. 

They need to make a productive environment because people don't want to go in to sit around orwait for Excel tasks. I think that what the purpose of the site on site togetherness, right? Yeah.There's an exponential overlap or exponential growth. When people's time overlaps, you know,your time is valuable, My time is valuable. But when we get together and work, our time thenbecomes more valuable than more than the sum of our two times. Right? So when the wholeteam gets together, making sure that that time is well used, that's the boss's responsibility. That'sthe boss's challenge. 

And speaking from personal experience, as I'm sure you could as well, one of the worst thingsimaginable is trying to look busy when you don't have enough work to do while simultaneouslynot wanting to be wanting to be punished with more work because you're good at your job andyour coworkers aren't. 

Simultaneously not wanting to like waste your own time. Like, frankly, the work that I do is Iview it as practice sometimes a lot of rote tasks. It's getting better at this and once it's good youautomate it. So it's almost no effort and then go and start iterating on the next task, right? Andnot being able to do that or sitting around and not doing that is annoying to me. 

But to me, I think that's a really a fault of the companies and the management environment thatmany companies actually encourage in so much as an efficiency of the worker is not the fault ofthe worker in many cases, but it's the fault of the manager who's incapable of maximizing thatperson's output. 

How insane is this? I'm not saying that because I don't believe it, because this is totally theenvironment. But we've now shifted that legally, I could say I wasn't working hard enoughbecause the environment which was created for me was not conducive to me working hard. Itwas it was conducive to distractions and a waste of time. 

But there is a place for that. If we stop thinking of people simply as, you know, just selfish beingsand more so, think of them in relation to how we all fit into as Cogs in a network, right? We're allpieces. And if you don't properly integrate, integrate those cogs, if you don't grease the wheels, ifyou don't lubricate the cogs, they're going to grind. And so at some point it's the fault of who'sputting the cogs in the machine and who's taking care of the machine that their input is. What isat fault here. 

That's a vastly unique perspective from what I've heard on this topic so far. Thank you forsharing that. 

I'm glad we got to discuss it. 

I'm glad. I'm glad that you guys got to hear it as well. And I think that that's going to kind ofconclude our Griffin review today. But guys, thank you so much for watching. I've been youryour chief editor. I know that. I'm the editor. 

Oh, no. You're the editor in chief. 

Editor in chief of the Griffin Review. And with me has been geopolitical geopolitical analystMatt. And I think the there's we're going to have to look into this bring this advising of theworkplace mentality maybe into our into our workflow. Absolutely. Because I think that peoplewant to hear these things that aren't always obvious, but maybe they want to hear them from athird party and that's what you hire an advisor to do. 

Well, thank you so much for joining us and thank you for having me on the show, Grant. Allright. 

Are we back next time?