Jeffrey Sachs joins Drop Site’s Ryan Grim and Murtaza Hussain to discuss how Washington’s delusions about American power are fueling wars abroad and a financial bubble at home.
Drawing on his firsthand experience advising Russia at the Soviet Union’s collapse and decades studying Asia’s economic rise, Sachs traces the roots of America’s belief that it can dominate the world. He explains why efforts to isolate Iran and Russia are failing, how U.S. sanctions are pushing countries toward alternatives to the dollar, and what he saw on a 15,000-kilometer road trip from Rome to Hong Kong this summer.
Sachs also argues that soaring U.S. stock valuations rest on a dangerous assumption: that American technological supremacy will endure. With China challenging that dominance, he warns of a “major financial correction” as Washington’s “geopolitical bubble” fuels a financial bubble that he argues is destined to burst.
0:00 Sitting Across From Yeltsin in 19911:44 The Gap Between Washington and Reality6:00 European Dominance: A 200-Year Fluke15:15 Yeltsin and the Unipolar Moment17:00 Watching Asia Catch Up: From Rome to Hong Kong32:07 Why Europe Rose & America’s Inherited Grandiosity38:10 You Can’t Isolate Iran or 42% of the World47:23 The Weaponized Dollar Is a Wasting Asset58:07 The Global Bond Selloff: Where Is the Money Going?1:00:13 The Geopolitical Bubble and the Coming Financial Correction