It’s The Economy, Israel and Tariffs, Stupid | GoodFellows | Hoover Institution

A hostage return and the signing of a cease-fire agreement signal a new chapter in the long-running dream of peace in the Middle East. Did it matter that the key negotiators, on the US side, were financiers and real-estate developers rather than scions of America’s diplomatic corps?

Russell Berman, a Hoover Institution senior fellow and codirector of Hoover’s Working Group on the Middle East and the Islamic World, joins GoodFellows regulars Niall Ferguson and John Cochrane to discuss the sturdiness of the Trump White House’s 20-point peace plan, the futures of Hamas and the Abraham Accords, the likelihood of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reliving Winston Churchill’s fate (a successful wartime leader rejected by a war-weary electorate), plus whether the “real estate-ism” approach to diplomacy is applicable to President Trump’s upcoming meetings with his Russian and Chinese counterparts.

After that, Niall and John reflect on the likelihood of a market crash (it is October, after all), the chances of a full-fledged tariff war with China, the merits of a US-Argentina currency swap, plus an ominous warning from the International Monetary Fund regarding global debt. Finally, the fellows salute the legendary economist Thomas Sowell, the subject of a Hoover Institution tribute later this month.  

Subscribe to GoodFellows for clarity on today’s biggest social, economic, and geostrategic shifts — only on GoodFellows.

Episode Transcript

(00:08):
- It is Friday, October 17th, 2025.
And welcome back to GoodFellows,
a Hoover Institutionbroadcast, examining history,
economics, and geopolitics.
I'm Bill Whalen. I'm the moderator today,
and I have a very enviousjob because I get to sit back
and gain from the collectivewisdom of a couple
of my colleagues we jokinglyrefer to as the good fellows
that would include thehistorian Sir Niall Ferguson.

(00:29):
Hello Niall and theeconomist, John Cochrane.
Normally we have a third good fellow
that's Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster.
But the good general cannot join us today.
We will somehow soldier on in his absence.
So gentlemen, two topicsto get into today.
I wanna talk economics withyou guys. October is a month.
A lot of people identifywith economic hardship

(00:49):
and bad news, stock marketcrashes, bank runs and whatnot.
So Niall and John, I wantthe two of you to bat
around some economic issues.
But before that, let's talkabout the big topic this week.
And that is the prospect ofpeace in the Middle East.
Joining us for thisconversation is Russell Berman.
Russell Berman is the Walter,
a Haas professor at humanitieshere at Stanford University.

(01:09):
He is a Hoover Institutionsenior fellow, as are Niall
and John Russell.
Also co-chairs Hoover's workinggroup on the Middle East
and the Islamic world.
Russell, welcome to Goodfellows.
- Thanks for having me.- So let's talk about the
peace in Middle East.
Now, we could do an entirehour just on the history
of peace deals, why somework and others don't.

(01:30):
Today, in fact, is the31st anniversary of Israel
and Jordan initializing a, a peace deal.
We're also closing in on 25years since Bill Clinton tried
to broker a deal betweenIsrael and the PLO
and the closing days of his presidency.
Russell, I assume that you and John
and Niall, I assume you alsolooked at the 20 point plan put
forward by the White House.

(01:50):
Formerly it is calledthe Trump Declaration
for Enduring Peace and Prosperity.
And Russell, let's focuson that word enduring.
You've looked at the plan,and my question to you,
is it a plan that's designed to succeed
or is it destined to fail?
- Bill, thanks for havingme for this discussion.
The plan is, is complex

(02:11):
and a lot of detailsremain to be be worked out.
I don't wanna throw cold water on it,
and it has succeeded inbringing out the live hostages.
Very important first step,
but it expects a lot that has already been
been reneged on by Hamas.
It expects a disarmament of Hamas.

(02:32):
It expects the return of the bodies
of the deceased hostages.
It is fair to say
that not all those bodies willbe easily found in the rubble
of, of Gaza, but Hamas hasclearly been dragging its feet.
In addition, Hamas has beencarrying out summary executions
of members of competingfactions in, in, in Gaza,

(02:55):
and has said that it won't disarm
and intends to participate in governance.
So Hamas is already undermining the
assumptions of the plan.
In addition, there are very important
next steps built in the planthat seem not to have been
anything like developed the

(03:17):
international stabilization force
that is an alternative military to come in
and take control,presumably to be made up of
soldiers from variousMuslim majority countries,
Arab countries, sometimesIndonesia is listed as well.
I don't think this hasbeen worked through.
In addition, the notion ofa technocratic government,

(03:40):
a nonpolitical disgovernment of Palestinians.
Nice idea, but I'mlooking for the dotted i's
and the cross Ts, and they're not there,
- John.
- Well, as the economist, I always
looked at people's interest.
I, I, of course was veryglad to see it happen,

(04:00):
and I think we'll talk a little bit.
Niall has a wonderful articleon why it happened, how the,
in particular, you know,in one week we went from
everybody's jumping over themselves
to recognize the new stateof Palestine to this deal.
The Arab countries turned around.
So, so that's an interesting part.
But yes, let's look forward.

(04:21):
And here I, you know, lookingat, at interest, I have
to be a little pessimistic.
Hamas needs to be defeated,
and you can't, you know,
we could put in a technocraticforce, I don't know
to run Denmark,
but this is a, a place withone armed militia, very sadly,
going out immediately tostart the Civil War and,

(04:41):
and to kill as many as theycan of the other sources
of power that people arekind of hoping might rise
and provide a civil society.
So, you know, you can't putin a international force un
peacekeepers when there's no peace.
Someone has to defeat them.
And so my my worry is thatit's in everyone's interest

(05:02):
to just let this place rot.
Israel doesn't mind if Gazarots so long as, you know,
rockets and terrorists don't come.
And, and you know, rightly so, no,
nobody in Gaza wants them running it.
The Arab countries, do theywanna actually use the kind
of force it's going totake to defeat Hamas and,
and put some order in, ina, in an anarchic ganley?

(05:24):
No, they don't want to do it.
So it's to everyone'sinterest to let it rot.
So much for Mara Gaza and,
and you know, the, the lives prosperity
and peace for the Palestinianscan, can, you can,
can you get me out of thiskind of discouraging view?
- Well, Niall, Niall, doyou wanna play the role
of H.R. and be our optimist?

(05:45):
- Happy, happy to, Ithink, I think gentlemen,
you're both being a bittoo negative and, and maybe
because you are approachingthis as academics, you are,
you are reading the 20 point plan and,
and wanting footnotes.
But of course the architectsof this plan are not academics.
They're real estate guys.
They're the deal guys as Jared Kushner,

(06:06):
Coles himself, and Steve Whitcoff.
And the key here is to lookbehind the 20 point plan,
which I think they concoctedfrom work that Tony Blair
and his people did in the summer.
And ask yourself, have the constellations
of force changed in away that is significant?

(06:29):
And I think they have, first of all,
I think this plan extricate Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu from a realcul-de-sac that he got into,
he was increasingly soisolated that Israel began
to remind me of apartheidsSouth Africa in terms
of its international situation.

(06:51):
And his military option hadboiled down to occupy the whole
of Gaza, something that has been tried
before without success.
So one thing that happened thatmade this deal possible was
that he overreached the strike
against Hamas leadership in Doha
so infuriated the Gulf Arabs, that it gave

(07:14):
Witkoff and Kushner awayto put pressure on bb.
And I think it's important to recognize
that President Trump's ableto do that in a way that
I'm afraid President Biden just wasn't.
More importantly, they were able
to get the Qatari inparticular, to lean on Hamas
to sign the agreement
and getting the hostagesout is a major breakthrough.

(07:37):
It's not a trivial thing,it's really the whole point
because now that the hostages are out,
then there's a very stark choice.
Hamas can either cooperate withthe terms of this agreement
or face destruction
and what have they got nowthey don't have any hostages,
though they may have the corpses
of the hostages they murdered.

(07:58):
So I think it does change thesituation quite profoundly.
And I'll say one last thing.
When Jared Kushner first becameinvolved in the Middle East
as a, as a problem of thefirst Trump administration,
I remember discussing it with him
and his plan was essentially
to make the Palestinians lessimportant than the economic

(08:20):
revival of the region, taking advantage
of the economic intereststhat United Israelis
and Gulf Arabs, the Gulf Arabs need
to diversify away from hydrocarbons.
The Israelis have technology as well
as democracy going for them.
And that insight, when it wasfirst proposed, was scorned
by all the experts in the Middle East.

(08:41):
I remember the sneeringarticles in the New York Times.
I was one of the few peoplewho said, you know what,
this actually sounds like not a bad idea.
And I think we are seeing herethe revival of that project
that gets, it produced theAbraham Accords in the first
Trump term, but gets theGulf Arabs in particular,
and the Israelis intosome better relationship

(09:02):
with one another and,
and makes the Palestinians lesscentral to the grand problem
of peace in the Middle East.
So I think this is a reallymajor breakthrough, not just
because it gets the hostages out
and leaves Hamas in a veryvulnerable position should they
decide to Rena entirely on the deal.
More importantly, I thinkit's about getting the Abraham

(09:23):
Accords process back on track.
And it is a huge successfor the real estate guys.
And I think we should just take our
academic hats off to them.
- But if I can Niall, the, the real estate
guys over the diplomats Yes.
But you said Hamas faced dedestruction, who is going
to go in and destroy Hamasnow rather than just let Hamas
rot in in Gaza?

(09:44):
Yes, agree.
They entirely that the,
that this this go economicsfirst was a brilliant idea.
They should have asked economists,
we would've said the same thing.
You know, the Afghanshave their own government.
Having your own stateis not the precondition
for peace and prosperity.
Peace and prosperity comes first
and then, you know, people tend to pacify.
So that, that was brilliant.
And what I fear is that the Gulf Arabs

(10:05):
and the Israelis can nowstart, we can go back
to get ourselves rich,
but you know, let the gazenrot who's gonna go in and dis
and and face may kamas face destruction.
- I think that's the likelyoutcome, John, that the, the,
the Israelis and the GulfArabs are now basically on the
same page as, as Niall's pointed out,

(10:26):
and maybe, maybe Gazadoesn't have to be solved,
maybe it can just rot.
I mean, let's face it, for 50years the Arab states really
haven't wanted a Palestinian state,
and they continue to nothave a Palestinian state
and Gaza's gonna be a, a place of rubble.
One question will be whetherthe Egyptian will let the
Gaza's immigrate.

(10:48):
People have been leavingthe whole Levant for,
for decades from Syria, from Lebanon,
why can't they leave from Gaza?
And that's it.
So we're not gonna solve Gaza,
we're not gonna solve Palestine,
but we are going tosolve the economics first
prospect for the region.
- Yes. So what happened inGreat Britain on July 5th, 1945,

(11:08):
and I think Niall knows theanswer, professor Ferguson,
- I think you are, you arethinking of the election
that followed the, thevictory in in Europe
and election that WinstonChurchill of course lost
and lost resoundingly toClement at Lee's Labor Party.
- Right? I mentioned this
because Israel does not have an election

(11:29):
until a year from now, October 27th.
But I put this to the panel,
is Bibi Netanyahu in 2026 gonna be Winston
Churchill in 1945?
- Well, I certainly think he'sin a very weak position and,
and this is a kind ofChurchillian tragedy in the sense
that he has in all kinds

(11:50):
of ways improved the,the strategic situation
of Israel in the course of his career.
It was Netanyahu who had the idea
that if you focused on Iranas the Bei, as the real enemy,
it would make it easier to build bridges
to the Arab statesneighboring a non neighboring,

(12:12):
it's Netanyahu, who has been the Bismarck
of the Middle East using blood
and iron rather than fine speeches
to impose Israel's dominancein the military domain.
And if you think of the successes
that he's achieved inthe last two years, think
of the decimation of Hezbollah.

(12:34):
To take just one example,think of the fact that
Bashar Alad is no more gone.
It, it's a, it's a remarkable record,
but like Bismarck, he hasincurred the Appium of
Biem liberals who want to look down on him
for his Machiavelliandevious domestic politics.

(12:56):
But I can assure you, you don'tdo this kind of thing least
of all in Israel withoutsome pretty Machiavellian
domestic politics.
So I think probably, probablythis is nearing the end
of Netanyahu's career.
I hope it's not going tobe an ignominious end.
I think it would be a,
a genuine tragedy if he ended up facing

(13:19):
criminal charges
and a sentence indeed for thekind of corruption allegations
that have been made against him.
He's achieved too much forthat to be a just fate.
But, you know, as you say,bill, it's not like he has
to face the voters tomorrow.
And there may be time between now

(13:40):
and the election for peopleto reflect on, on, on
what he has achieved.
I think it's, it's actually avery significant achievement.
And the strategic situation of Israel has,
has been greatly improved,
even if it's diplomatically looking quite
isolated at the moment.
- I agree that the Bismarckmetaphor is appropriate for what

(14:03):
Netanyahu has achievedin reshaping the, the map
of the Middle East andIsrael's position in it.
It's my understanding though,that at this point he's,
his coalition is actuallysomewhat up in the polls
in, in Israel.
So it's not, it's notabsolutely dire for him.
He's not particularlypopular in European capitals,

(14:25):
but he's, he, he, he has a lotof support in Israel still.
But as Niall said, it's,it's a, it's a year away
and a lot can happen between now and then.
- I would add, as Niallkeeps reminding me,
it's always the economy stupid.
So if, if the year, if aswe seem to be forecasting,

(14:45):
everybody forgets about pointsthree through four through
through 20 on the plan,
and you know, Gaza just sitsthe way it is, but Israel
and the Arab states startgetting going again.
Israel economy's doing great, you know,
net Yahoo may be looking better.
And your comment was alsoBill's question I think was also
directed at, at the US and Niall

(15:08):
and did a wonderful uncommon knowledge
that I watched last week pointing out that
great foreign policy successes
for US presidents don'toften translate into
success at the polls.
So, you know, Trump has reallyscored some pretty amazing
foreign policy successes.
And yes, it turns out thatif you know how to negotiate

(15:29):
with the unions and the zoningboard in New York, you're,
you're pretty well placedto negotiate with the Arabs
and Hamas better,
better than the professorsof the Kennedy School.
But, you know, is that gonnatranslate into support at home
for Trump any better than it did for Nixon
and others?
And, and George Bushone who had, you know,

(15:52):
great foreign policy successes.
- Listen, what's gonnahappen next will include
requests from Riyadh, fromthe Saudis to get a kind
of security guarantee
that President Trump has given to Qatar.
And because we'redealing with deal makers,
president Trump's gonna askfor something in return,

(16:13):
and this could include improvedrelations with, with Israel,
and that is moving toward strengthening
of the Abraham Accord logic.
So this, this, the, theregion could well move forward
and, and Gaza remains Amis.
- Another way of thinkingabout it, Russell, is that

(16:34):
this is a Gaza peace plan,not a Middle East peace plan
as it's often, I thinkMisleadingly referred to,
if you look at the wider wars that,
that Israel has been waging,
and some people say it's beenfighting on seven fronts, most
of those fronts arestill very much active.

(16:54):
The most important by far is Iran.
Now Iran was really brought to its knees
by Israeli air defenses,
and then Israeli airoffenses reinforced of course
by President Trump's authorization
of the strike on theFlorida nuclear facility.
But Iran is in the process

(17:15):
of recovering it is sellingmore oil than ever to China.
And there is the sign, I thinkthe first signs of a recovery
and, and of course a reconstruction
of its devastated air defenses.
I don't think that Israel canlet Iran simply repair itself

(17:36):
when it had Iran at itsmercy just a few months ago.
So I think one has tokind of step back and,
and look at the whole region
and see that there'sunfinished business in Tehran.
There's unfinishedbusiness with the Houthis.
Hezbollah has beendevastated, but it's not gone
and it's perfectly capable
of reconstituting itself in Lebanon.

(17:58):
And then there's the question of
what happens next in, in Syria?
Is there a way of, of gettingthis new regime into the
Abraham Accords kind of path?
Which I, I think is theidea that that Witkoff and,
and Kushner have been and deTrump have been toying with.
So there's a lot still to,
to think about in the Middle East.

(18:20):
I think anybody who sayspeace in the Middle East is
coming is, is wrong.
We're almost certain tomore conflict, especially
between Israel and Iran.
But I think the key thing was
to stop Gaza being thefocal point of all debates,
particularly because
of the effect it was having in isolating
Israel diplomatically.
And that's why it was so important
to get something done inGaza, get hostages out.

(18:43):
And now I think Hamasis in a weak position.
I just wanna go back to aquestion that John asked,
you know, what happens if Hamas
completely defies theterms of the agreement?
It will then I think they'rein a much weaker position.
A they've sufferedtremendous losses over the
last two years.
B they control quite a lotless of Gaza than they did

(19:05):
before, because under theterms of the deal, in effect,
Israel controls half, slightlymore than half of Gaza.
And, and Hamas is carryingout its reprisals,
its terroristic actions.
It only part of the territory that it used
to control entirely.
So I think if they float thingsthat they've signed up to,

(19:27):
they're not gonna get alot of sympathy in Doha
or anywhere else.
And as President Trumpsaid on social media, just
in the last 24 hours, if AMAsdoesn't stick to the deal,
then they can be destroyed.
So I don't rule that scenario out.
- Well, you're, you're certainly right
and we should emphasizethe Abraham Accords are

(19:48):
as much about let's all get together
and counter a run as they areabout economics, which is a,
a good sign of the AbrahamAccords coming back.
But I do, you know, itwill be interesting to see
how things go in the half ofGaza that Israel keeps running,
and hopefully that will beat least a model of, of, of,
of things running a little better.

(20:09):
But, you know, terroristorganizations depend on foreign
funding and Gaza has been, theHamas has received all sorts
of funding from foreigngovernments and the United Nations
and all sorts of useful idiots.
And I'm just, I'm cynical
that they would not startpouring money in now,
maybe not the Arabgovernments in in this time,

(20:30):
but certainly, you know,wealthy people around
that mu there's wealthypeople who hate Israel,
who will pour money in thatGaza will steal the United
Nations and they'll come
and pour money in and Gaza will steal it.
So I I I wonder that Gazawill really be as cut off
as you say, and who isactually gonna go in with force
and do anything about it.

(20:51):
I think that's a hard question
- In, in all the discussionsabout recognizing a Palestinian
state that took place in Europe,everyone mouthed the notion
that Hamas should be disarmed.
The only force willing to try
to disarm Hamas has been the IDF,
the International Station Force.
This would be the Egyptian army
and the Jordanian army,you know, where is it?

(21:13):
Right? It's the, it'sthe pope's battalions.
So I, I think that
President Trump's threat
that Hamas might still be destroyed is one
possible scenario.
The other is, I think John,you mentioned Afghanistan,
it could just become this isolated enclave

(21:33):
where people live in misery.
Everybody's in agreementthat life there is terrible,
but nobody is going to decide to go in
and let it, let, let it rot.
Now there will be somefunding, I'm not sure if the
IES will continue to fund.
Maybe they're, they're highon the list of the likely
of likely donors.
And then I guess Unaid is coming in

(21:54):
and UNA is really justsupport for, for Hamas,
but it's not gonna be apretty picture there in Gaza.
And the Gazen are one wayor another going to get out.
They'll, they'll buytheir way out individually
as it has been happening all along.
But maybe it just won't be solved.
- I don't know if you sawthe Trump tweet the other day

(22:15):
where he said to Hamas,
if you think about re-engagingin violence, we will come in
and we will wipe you out.
And then he said, add amessage or something like that.
Now, ordinarily Hamas mightlook at that and laugh,
but this is a president
who unleashed bombers onIran's nuclear facility.
So Russell, how pivotal wasthat attack on Iran in terms
of pushing forward this peace process?
- Of course, it, itknocked out the foundation

(22:38):
of the axis of resistance.
But as Niall's point, Niallpointed out, it, it's,
it's not, it's not gone.
It's trying to rebuild theMiddle East is the gift
that keeps on giving in,in Lebanon, in, in Syria,
in in Yemen and, and and Iran.
All of that suggests to me also that

(23:02):
a, when elections come in Israel, it's not
as if the alternative
to Netanyahu is gonnabe a peace candidate.
The, the, the Israelis, theIsraeli left has disappeared.
The, the, the Israeli public is not in the
mood to compromise.
Now there may be anti Netanyahu animosity

(23:25):
because they don't like theguy or the corruption charges,
but American liberals,
the New York Times shouldn'timagine there's going to be a
a, a Eugene McCarthy,
a Bernie Sanders runningagainst Netanyahu.
That's, that's, that's illusory.
- Let's go back to theAbraham Abraham Accords
and the idea of the MiddleEast moving forward.
Russell, I'm to your thoughtsabout how the Abraham Accord

(23:47):
and John, this is gonnaget into economics,
how it's gonna transformthe region in terms of,
and Niall has referenced thisin terms of, for example,
moving off fossil fuels,
but how can the accords bothchange the region economically?
Is it also culturally,
is there gonna be a culturalchange in the Middle East?
- Maybe what is pushingthe, the economic model,
the Abraham Accord modelinexorably forward is the,

(24:11):
the young generation in Saudithat wants to have prosperity,
that wants to have jobs.
And the promise inherent in Hamm
and Salman's project 2030, he wa he,
there's there's a visionof a prosperous region
that would stretch fromthe Gulf up through Israel.

(24:35):
Gaza could have been a linchpin in this,
maybe it's still will be,
but nobody's going to investthere until Hamas is gone.
Because as long as Hamas is there,
there's gonna be fighting,maybe it'll have to work
around Gaza,
but integrating Israelis

(24:55):
technology
and innovative capacitywith the, the capital
of the Gulf is, is how to build a
a a a prosperous region.
There's, there's a kindof irony here that, that,
that there's a prospect for,for that Middle East region.

(25:19):
The Gulf through Israelmay be the larger Levant,
I don't mean North Africa, maybe
that region could reallyflourish in the current current
decades, while we're watchingthe former colonial powers
really decline with zombie economies and,
and incapacity for governance.
Think of France, think of the uk.

(25:42):
- What's exciting to meabout the, the vision
that Jared Kushner had in thefirst Trump administration is
that it's not just something that a bunch
of development economistsat the state Department
or the World Bank came up with.
It's an actionable business plan.
And in the period ofwhat you might think of
as the interregnum, when JoeBiden was nominally president,

(26:06):
what was Kushner doing?
Well with Affinity partners,
he was building an investmentfund raising money from the
Qatari and the Saudis
and investing that money in things like
Israeli defense companies.
So although that gets criticized,
not least in the New York Times,
because having leftgovernment, you're supposed

(26:26):
to just kick your heels minding
nobody's business.
In reality, I think what has happened is
that Kushner's Fund hasdeepened his ties in the region
and shown that the AbrahamAccords are a business plan
as well as a diplomaticsolution to the problem.

(26:47):
- I would just add thatthe Abraham Accords, well,
I like the idea of economics first.
Were very heavy on statedirected investment as,
as is the, you know, thegeneral plan by the Saudis
and that that produces big projects.
And sometimes they workand sometimes they don't.
The Soviet Union was big onstate directed investments

(27:09):
as Steve Kotkin showsthey, you know, know how
to make an enormous steelmill out in the middle
of nowhere somewhere, butnot always a profitable one.
So, you know, a,
a plan more based on free markets,
entrepreneurship initiative, ease of trade
and so forth, I think would've had
better long run economic prospects.
These are still veryhighly regulated economies.

(27:31):
Even even Israel is, youknow, talk to anybody trying
to run a business in Israel.
It's, it's full of permits and regulations
and all the usual stuff.
So I would, I I I would'vemore faith in a plan
that was more based on liberalmarket principles rather than
here's our plan for a billiondollars that we are going
to direct to some, you know,solar project in the middle

(27:53):
of the desert here, whatever.
- I still think you're being too negative.
I think the idea that youcan get Saudis to invest
in Israeli companies isreally quite profound
and it helps to be a historian here.
Russell C if you agreewith me, if you think back
to the last surprise attackthat was launched against Israel

(28:16):
50 years before October 7th,2023, the Yom Kippur war,
think of the world then, now,
then the Israeli economyreally was a highly regulated
and deep, virtually socialisteconomy with huge problems.
Moreover, Israel was very isolated.
It was a coalition ofArab states that went

(28:37):
to war in 1973
and Israel really only hadthe United States to turn
to at that time.
Moreover, that war escalatedinto a major economic shock
that affected the whole world
because of the oil embargoimposed by the Arab OPEC states.
Now we're in a completelytransformed world. Now

(28:59):
- You're right- Where the Arab states are in fact
recognizing Israel one by onethrough the Abraham Accords
and then through privatechannels investing in Israel.
And it's Iran alone, the Islamic Republic
that organizes the terrorist attacks
and directly attacks Israel.

(29:20):
So when you compare Israel'ssituation over 50 years,
you can see how much better it is.
I remember asking whenI was last in Jerusalem
and last year, a veteran
of the 1973 war isIsrael's situation better
today than it was then.
And this was just shortly
after October 7th when

(29:41):
the mood in Israel was pretty bleak,
but his response was unhesitating.
He said, it's a vastlybetter situation than we are
in today.
And I think that's the key,
that there really has beena significant improvement in
Israel's position, both economically
and militarily and strategically.
And the, these are the achievements
that sometimes get lostin the daily debates,

(30:04):
- I think.
I think that historical shift is, is true.
But yeah, John, you know, Iagree with your, your your,
your hesitation about thisstate run economy plans
in theory, but yeah, I I wonder
what you're measuring it against.
It's not as if the west isa, is a, is a beacon of Oh

(30:25):
- Yeah.
- Free market either.
So this is about maybe as good
as it gets in the world today.
No, no. Policy is the,is the, is the metric.
- I, you know, my, my job
as a free market economist isalways to hold out hope that,
you know, things could be better,
but this is fantastically good.
Israel is, is much more liberalizedthan it was back when it
was truly socialist.

(30:46):
It is a tech startup hub, a a defense,
you know, innovative place.
It could be better, you know,maybe we'll have Russ Roberts
on a next time when it is in Shabbat.
And you know, he, he can complaina little bit about Israel,
but, but it is wonderfullybetter than it was.
I think, you know, let'sget back to the Palestinians
who I would love to, youknow, see have a prosperous,

(31:07):
peaceful life at somepoint, you know, a lot
of the redevelopment plans forthe West Bank, which there,
there might be a place that, you know,
people could live a prosperouslife even that involves lots
of, you know, state moneygoing into various development
projects, which is, I Ithink, you know, a lot of it
that gets wasted, but absolutely
better than the alternative.
No, no question. I just,I always hold out hope

(31:29):
for better still.
- And a shout out here for another guest
that we've had on in this,on this show in the past,
Dan Sinner whose book StartupNation was one of those books
that I think forced everybodyto, to reassess Israel.
One of the things that's most interesting
to me about the IDF, theIsrael Defense forces

(31:49):
that we were talkingabout earlier is not just
that they are phenomenallygood at very difficult
kinds of warfare.
And I don't think nearly enoughrecognition has been given
to the extraordinarily difficult task
that they have faced in Gazaover the last two years.
But they're also highlyinnovative military
and there have been manyspinoffs commercial companies

(32:13):
that have come out ofpeople who serve in the IDF
understood some of the challenges and
and saw technological solutions to them.
So I, I think this is anotherreason to be an optimist
for all of its challenges.
Israel remains a very innovative society.
And maybe that's because it constantly has

(32:35):
to fight for its survival.
But I, I'm, I'm an optimistthat there'll continue
to be a place that generates innovation
and attracts capital.
And if that capital startsto flow from the gulf,
because the Gulf states realize
that they can't base their futures
future on extractinghydrocarbons, then that seems
to be the economic underpinning

(32:57):
of this Abraham Accord process that,
that Jared Kushner originally envisioned.
Now I mention him one more time
because I think he has notreceived anything like the
recognition he deserves.
On the contrary, I think he'sbeen the recipient of some
of the nastiest press that I can think
of being directed against ana public individual in the
last 10 years.

(33:18):
But if you read his book,which is really very good,
it gives an accountant of
where the Abraham War Accordscame from as a project
and all the differentpeople who played a part in
making it happen.
And, and it's this capacity
to get particularly people inSaudi Arabia in the Emirates
now more recently in Qatar,
to realize there is a path forward.

(33:40):
That the path to peace lies
through economic interaction with Israel.
That is the real genius here.
And I do think itrepresents a paradigm shift.
We, we used to think
that solutions in the MiddleEast would come from diplomats
or academics coming upwith elaborate plans
and then developmentfunds being brought in

(34:01):
to think about this as something
that the private sector can drive,
I think is really, really new.
And despite all the criticisms
that are directed routinelyat President Trump,
he's been able to achievewhat eluded Joe Biden
and I think would've entirely elude Kamala
Harris if she'd become president.
- Well, wait, I object, wewho always thought that the un

(34:23):
and diplomats and, andWorld Bank development funds
was the secret of success.
'cause we have been saying this is a
terrible idea for years.
And then is, you know, ifwhat we're talking about is,
is Saudi private fundsgoing into fund vehicles
that invest in, in Israeli startups?
Yeah, I think the dangeris, you know, 50 mile long,
one mile high apartmentbuildings through the desert.

(34:45):
That's the kind ofinvestment that state run,
state run investments lead to.
And, and that can, that'sjust a waste of money.
- Okay, quick exit question gentlemen,
then Professor Bermanis going to leave us.
Niall wrote a greatcolumn in the free press
that I recommend all of you check out.
And he has a phrase for theTrump approach to diplomacy.
It's called real estate is.

(35:06):
So my question to the three of you is,
real estate is transferable.
In other words, can Pete's about
to meet with Vladimir Putin?
Will real estate is work interms of dealing with Putin
and he's gonna meet at somepoint, I assume Xi Jinping
during his presidency,will it apply to China?
- We were just talking aboutthis, this shift from a,
a model driven by diplomats

(35:27):
and internationalorganizations to one driven
by the private sector.
And the question, I think forthe, this, this coming period,
it will be whether that
paradigm shift in the Middle East has
international implications.
Is the world going to be doing business
by doing businessdifferently going forward?

(35:49):
So real estate is, I supposeis one, maybe one, one name
for this or, or one, one version of it.
And I think there are two aspects.
One is understanding thatterritory really matters.
It's, it's not a matter of ofprinciples, it's not a matter
of ideals, it's not amatter of of of democracy.

(36:11):
It's about who co controls what ground.
That's why there's a fight over Ukraine.
That's why there maybe a fight over Taiwan.
And I would put the Greenlandquestion on that list.
The, the, the, the secondaspect is what sort
of professional is goingto be operating in the

(36:35):
negotiations of the future?
Will it be the ac willit be the Kennedy School
or will it be the business school?
Will it be, will it be
conceptual idealists or willit be hard-nosed businessmen?
And I think we're moving this,this is why President Trump,
you know, may not be an outlier,

(36:56):
but a harbinger of adifferent sort of personality.
Someone who brings real worldbusiness, world real estate or
otherwise savvy to the,to international affairs.
- Well, I, I really enjoyedNiall's piece on real estate is,
and I think the, thedanger of it is you need

(37:16):
to not just have the ability
to make a deal, you need a goal.
So where are we going?
And sometimes a lot of thisstuff seems to be we're,
we're have tactics,
but we're not clear on, on where we going.
We'll pursue that over consistently,
over a long period of time.
Is that desire was, wasstated by the diplomats
and the tactics of real estateis I think could be useful,

(37:37):
but only if that is there.
Second real estate is,as Niall pointed out,
there's bottom line is apositive sum game where,
where there's a lot of,
how much do I make, how much you make.
But at the end, we gottaget this building built
and we, we all profit from it.
And, and sometimes ininternational affairs
that that's not true.
And, and finally, Greenland,
I'm glad you brought up Greenland

(37:57):
and just a place where real estate is
and would really help ininternational affairs is if
we would just buy stuff.
So, you know, Trump's broughtout the military very quickly
and, and I think he meantthat as kind of a threat,
but it would makeabundant sense for the US
to buy Greenland.
And we got the money and,
and the tiny amount of people,
we could make them all insanely rich.

(38:19):
We should buy things more often.
If Putin had toldUkraine in 2010, I'd like
to buy Crimea from you,
he probably could havegotten it much cheaper than
he is getting it right now.
And a lot of people wouldn't be dead.
- Well, real estate,
real estate is thehighest form of realism.
And this was really the, thepun that I intended thus far.
It hasn't worked with Putin.

(38:41):
Remember at Anchorage the summit failed
because the deal thatTrump and Whitcoff put
before Putin, you get somemore square miles of Don Bass
and you get to keep Crimea,
but you have to letUkraine continue to exist
as an independent state.
Wasn't of any interest to Putin.

(39:02):
And, and Trump is stilla little sore about that.
The negotiations are ongoingas we speak, we'll see
where they go.
But until the costs of continuingthe war rise significantly
for Putin above where theyare now, I don't think
that there's gonna be asuccess for real estate is

(39:24):
with respect to Ukraine.
As for Taiwan, that is gonnabe the most interesting
of all these diplomatic transactions
because President Trumpclearly wants to have a meeting
and then a summit with Cxi Jinping.
And he clearly has some notion
of a big beautiful deal in mind.
But the Chinese are gonna play hardball

(39:44):
because this deal is going
to be based partly on theleverage that they have
through their monopoly ornear monopoly on rare earths.
And because of their ultimatedemand that Taiwan ceased
to be defacto an autonomous entity
and come under the controlof Beijing in the way
that Hong Kong has.
So this is the big one

(40:05):
and it's gonna be extremelyinteresting to see
how real estate is workswhen it comes into contact
with the Chinese Communist Party,
which has a very differentapproach to diplomacy.
- And you're also right Niall,it's not a one and done.
We, we finally fought,we built the building.
This is gonna be something that goes on
for long past Trump's presidency.
So it, it may not yield

(40:25):
to the real estate islet's get one big deal,
build the building andwe're done approach.
- Well Russell Bernan,thanks for joining us today.
I wanna add, by the way,Russell is in New York City,
New York, perhaps soonto have negotiations
with the Trump administrationwhen its new mayor comes in,
we'll see if real estateis works in New York City.
- Alright, thank you.- Thank you Russell.

(40:45):
Okay, onto our B block in economics.
And John Cochrane, thank you very much
for mentioning it's the Economy Stupid
because that was the Clintoncampaign's mantra in 1992.
Did you know John that Iworked on the Bush campaign?
Did you know John,
that it's the only Novemberlosing Bush campaign.
If you go to a Bush reunion,
you have a big L in yourforehead because of that.
So thank you for that trauma, John.
But let's talk economics.

(41:07):
Let me ask the obligatorylayman question to you.
Two very bright individuals,every time October comes
around the media flood us
with stories about is the crash coming?
And sure enough, the journalistAndrew Ross Sorkin is making
the rounds with thebook in which he claims
that 1929 is fast.
So gentlemen, is the crash coming
or are we getting a littlehysterical talking about a crash?

(41:29):
I turned to you, the grumpy economist.
- Okay, Niall is e evenmore qualified than I am?
I the crash is coming when I don't know.
I mean, you know, stocksgo up, stocks go down.
That's obvious. I don'tthink 1929 is coming.
I think 2000 might be coming.
These, these events go in a a

(41:50):
pretty standard cycle.
We have a fascinatingnew technology, a lot
of excitement about it, a lotof trading on in information
or opinions about who'sup, who's down price.
Earnings ratios go way high.
We build a lot of data centersscratching our heads now at
just where is the earnings gonna come
to justify all this investment.

(42:12):
Sooner or later thosestocks come back to earth,
especially once the initial froth
dies down or, or somepiece of news comes out.
Is it terrible? No, that, you know,
we then we will haveall these data centers
as we've built a lot of fiber optic cable,
we got the fiber opticcable stocks falling

(42:32):
by themselves is usuallynot that bad for the economy
as 2000 was not 2008.
When stocks go down,you go home, you have,
you have a whiskey, you, you,you know, scream at the dog,
there's not much you can do about it.
So it's not really a, a bigproblem until banks and credit
and, and debt gets involved
and then, then the creditprocess dries up in the

(42:54):
economy falls down.
So I think there's agood chance that sooner
or later that there's aneasy forecast to make.
Sooner or later those veryhigh valuations will come down.
People will lose somemoney. AI will keep going.
The economy might slow down a little bit,
but I don't, I don't see a 1929coming, but maybe Niall does.

(43:15):
- Well I haven't yet read Andrew's book,
but I did encourage him to write it
because he did such a, anextraordinary job in too big
to fail on the 2008, 2009 financial crisis
that it just seemed agreat idea to have somebody
with his skills go back andtell the story of, of 1929

(43:37):
and it's actually abook that doesn't exist,
or at least it didn'tuntil this one came out.
There are lots of booksabout the Great Depression,
but they're strangely lacking in the kind
of narrative detail that oneideally would like to have.
So I'm really lookingforward to reading this
and I'm sure it'll be terrific.
I agree with John thepreconditions for something

(44:00):
as cataclysmic as 1920, 19 32 aren't there.
Let's remember that it wasn't just
that you had the roaring twentiesand a stock market bubble.
You then had a federal reserve
that did almost everything wrong
to magnify the shock allowing banks

(44:21):
to fail in such large numbers
that you had a roughly 30% peakto trough decline in prices
and unemployment soaringto very close to 30%.
I mean, this was an economicdisaster, unprecedented
and un matched sins in
American economic history.

(44:41):
That's highly unlikely, Iwould say almost impossible
to repeat itself, notleast because economists
and central bankers learnlessons from the mistakes.
Think only of the fantastic lessons are
are great Hoover fellow Milton Friedman
learn from the depression.
So I think we won't makethose monetary mistakes again.

(45:05):
On the other hand, whenyou turn to trade policy,
you get a slightly different picture,
shocking facts of the day.
The American averagetariff rate is estimated
to be back today to where it was in 1934.
I think if you told every single one

(45:26):
of John's colleaguesin economics a year ago
that US tariffs were gonna goback to the, the levels of 19
or the rates of 1934,
they'd all have predicted arecession if not a depression.
And one of the odder thingsis that we've done that,
president Trump has done that,
that tariffs are coming inat these levels that 10 times
what we saw prior to hisentry to the political scene.

(45:49):
And yet here we are, themarkets are still close
to record highs
and the recession
that people keep talkingabout shows absolutely no
sign of materializing.
So this is a fascinatingtime to be an economist.
I'd thought, John, it'scertainly a fascinating time
to be an economic historian
because all the things weused to say about free trade

(46:12):
and tariffs, particularlyabout the role of tariffs in,
in the depression looking a bit shaky
because no bad stuff is happening for sort
that would've been predicted a year ago.
If you'd known whatTrump was gonna do then
- I guess I think actually mosteconomists were not jumping
to tariffs recession, the,

(46:35):
- But they were John, the oneswithin the bell prizes all
wrote a letter, you gottaremember this all in the Nobel
Laureates wrote a letter saying that
unless Kamala Harriswas elected president,
terrible things would happen
because President Trump would do tariffs
and he's done tariffs
and there were whereby terriblethings. I don't know, I
- I object to your all theNobel prizes that all the no,

(46:55):
none of the Nobel prizes fromChicago signed that letter
because you know, the NobelPrizes are central left
democrats in, in fullTrump derangement syndrome
and anything Trump does,they would say that.
So they, they annuallyembarrass themselves
with joint letters on, onridiculous things, right?
Tariffs let, so tariffs area supply shock, if you will.

(47:19):
They are, you know,
they're a sales tax onsome kinds of goods.
We have sales taxes onother kinds of goods.
It doesn't kill the economy.
What supply shocks do is they,
they lower the economy'slong run growth rate.
So really the danger of tariffs is, is not
that it will cause a recession.
Recession seems
to always need somethingfinancial to go wrong.

(47:42):
Somebody to, to go bust andlose, lose a lot of money
and then credit dries up.
That's the sharp kind ofdecline of a recession.
But tariffs are just like regulations
and taxes, they're sand in the gears that,
that slow down the growth rate
and turn us a little more into something
that looks like France ratherthan something that will,
will dump the economy.
Right now the uncertaintyabout tariffs was something

(48:03):
that more economistssaid, oh wow, you know,
people stop investing
and it seems that investment'sslowing down except tech
investment is, is wayoff the roofs on supply.
You know, there's headwinds and tailwinds.
So, you know, one of the greatthings Trump did first day in
office was we are not gonna commit energy
suicide like Europe does.
So there's a, a positive supply shock.

(48:24):
So, you know, the supply endof it is kind of, there's,
there's the good things,there's the tariffs,
which are an an extra tax and,
and I think they will,they will ha if they stay,
they will have theireffect in the longer run,
we become a more protected economy,
a less competitive economy,a less innovative economy.
'cause there's less pressure to do things.
We we're doing, you know,we do things inefficiently,

(48:44):
you don't buy stuff abroad,you, you do it at home.
That's, that's more expensive.
So that's, it's kind of a boilthe frog effect rather than
something that immediatelycauses the recession.
- And you two give me a couplegood minutes on one tariff in
particular and that is China.
The a hundred percenttariff on China, this
of course drives the market crazy.
Trump dropped the bomb on this a week ago.
The market lost $2 trillion in value.

(49:05):
Niall, there's a very ominousheadline in the free press
that it reads, Niall Ferguson,
will trade war become a real war?
- Hmm. Well of course thereal issue here is not
what President Trump threatened to do.
It's what China threatened to do.
Last week the Chinese governmentannounced that it was going
to create licenses, a licensing system

(49:27):
for all rare earth exports to everywhere,
not just to the us.
And since China has a nearmonopoly on rare earth's mining
and particularly refining,that was a pretty big gauntlet
to throw down before Xi Jinping
and Donald Trump meet inSouth Korea later this month.
And that elicited a responsefrom Trump, which was

(49:48):
to threaten to go back toa hundred percent tariffs
on Chinese imports.
We've been there before, remember,
and the last time we werethere it was the Chinese
who threatened to restrictrare earth exports
and that led to somethingof a deescalation.
So we're now into another round of a kind
of economic war thatdates back all the way

(50:11):
to the first Trump termwhen he first started
to impose tariffs as well as
to impose restrictions onChinese tech companies.
I don't think it's gonnaboil over into real war.
Just to be clear, that wouldbe the nightmare scenario.
The war over Taiwan
that we've often talkedabout on this show right now.
I think they're both contentto trade economic blows

(50:33):
as they have been doing all year.
And the hard thing topredict is who blinks.
It's been Trump on at leasttwo occasions this year
so far because we went from full embargo
and Chinese imports atthe very height of his,
his his tariff impositionto quite quick deescalation

(50:56):
when the Chinese first playedthis ro rare Earths card.
And they've just played itagain only this time they've
really slammed it down on the table.
It's gonna be quite fascinating to see
how this gets resolved if it gets resolved
before the two leadersmeet in South Korea.
I suspect Treasury SecretaryBessant is working very hard on

(51:18):
this as we speak.
- Yeah, and it, you know, you,the way we pose the question
to start with is really not
what tariffs are about these days.
It's not about attacks on imports and, and
and how much does stuff co cost.
Tariffs are a a, a geopolitical weapon
and one thing certainlyit's become clearer to me is
that they may not hurt the US that much,

(51:39):
but they hurt the other countries a lot.
I visited Switzerland
and the first thing anybodywanted to ask me was,
what about those 35% tariffs?
What the hell do we do to deserve this?
And I said, well, youknow, I don't work for the
administration so I can help you on it.
So these are being used as a,as a, in a trade war, in a,
in a, in a, a geopolitical strategy.
And, you know, how's that working out?

(52:03):
Not well I would say, I mean one
of the most importantthings is what is the goal?
And, and you know, we'rekind of playing tactics.
What do we want the Chinese to do?
When, when do we say,okay enough you've done it
and doesn't seem clear.
Now the rare earths is interesting
because, you know, we slapexport controls on China and,
and everyone Oh yeah, wedon't wanna send them chips

(52:25):
that they might use intheir fighter aircraft.
And China turned out and said,well you use rare earths in
your fighter aircraft so wedon't wanna send you rare earths
you'd use in your fighter aircraft.
So that's kind of asa, a deep puzzle there.
It's in, in some sense a hardto object on the security end.
I mean, what, you know,why don't we make wars?
Well 'cause impossible toget the permits in the US

(52:46):
but I do think this leads to a danger of
of too much reshoring, youknow, to have enough rare earth
around to, to build F 30 fives in a war,
you just need a bigstockpile of rare earths.
You don't need that. Every,
every bicycle's electric motor gets made
by rare earths made in theUS from using labor in the
US and and so forth.
So that's, that's a danger ofa permanent state, state of,

(53:10):
you know, wrapping everything in the flag.
So the negotiation comes and,
and I wish they were clearabout where they wanted to go.
'cause we, we gotta climb offthis a hundred percent tariffs
from China and, and,
and no rare earth to theUS it's gonna take us 20
to build rare earth mineseven if we wanna do it.
And by the way, we need allies.
The answer to the rareearth problems is, you know,

(53:31):
Australia's got 'em and,and Brazil's got 'em and,
and you know, we can refine
them in other places in the world.
Well everybody elsearound the world is kind
of pissed off with us right now.
So it, it would be nice to be
clearer about tariffs onour allies if we want people
to join us and try to createsomething outside China.
- Okay, one final economic question.
We're gonna go to lightning round.

(53:52):
Speaking up a hundred percent.
The International Monetary fund,
or IMF came out with a ratherdire warning this week.
It claims that governmentdebt worldwide is on a course
to hit a hundred percent of GDP.
By 2029 US is projected to surpass 140%.
China's gonna reach about 113% Elan.
John does any countryhave a plan to avoid this?

(54:12):
- Well, a couple springto mind The Germans
of course imposed a kindof hair shirt on themselves
by having a debt break.
They've lifted that debtbreak so they can re-arm
and do something to deter Russia.
So the Germans are in amuch better fiscal position
than anybody else.
Of course they might notstay that way if they spend,

(54:36):
if they run deficits forthe next 10 or 20 years.
The other interesting case,
which has become highly topicalin the US news is Argentina,
where President Javier MLA tried
to eliminate a 5% ofGDP deficit in a year.
We talked about this shortly
after I visited Buenos Airesback in July when it all was

(54:57):
going very well.
It's gone a lot less wellin recent months, partly
for political reasons.
'cause the usual suspects theparness to trying their best
to destabilize as government and partly
because of a kind
of nasty technicalmonetary policy problem.
If you are running a centralbank in an emerging market
and your exchange ratestarts to become a source

(55:21):
of stress, you raiserates by raising rates,
you weaken the economy.
It's a familiar story.
John's probably top many aclass on this kind of, of,
of a currency crisis.
But there's an exceptionthat proves the rule.
The exception is when you'vegot Donald Trump on your side
and President Malay hasbeen in effect bailed out

(55:43):
by the US Treasury in a way
that I think has almost no precedent.
I don't think the Mexicansever got deals as good
as this kind of unconditional credit line
from the US Treasury.
Will it simul through thecoming midterm elections?
Well, we've got only a few days to go
and I think everybody inBuenos Aires is crossing their

(56:05):
fingers and toes.
But it's been an extraordinarysequence of events
with I think very fewpresidents in the history
of Latin American debt crises. Right John?
- The debt break, the Germanshad this lovely debt break.
Now you said they broke itin order to finance military
and I would add financemilitary without cutting
back on their social spending.
'cause military is still couch change.

(56:26):
It's still a couple percentof GDP social spending
is half A GDP.
So they didn't want toeven cut down a little bit.
Switzerland has a debt breakand it's working very well.
You want a country that actuallydoes so something about it,
I I think that debt breaksare, are an excellent idea
because they guaranteepeople if you borrow money
you're going to repay it.
And, and that really,

(56:47):
that hamiltonian faithin your country's debt
is, is very useful.
Plans are easy. It,it's we, we all know how
to solve this debt problem.
The only question is when doour governments get around
to doing the obvious things, tax reform,
social program reform.
But things grow a little bit.
So there's bipartisanplans all over the place

(57:07):
and I think I'm actuallybecoming more optimistic when
interest rates go up.
Governments will wake up andand do something about it
or democracy and civil westerncivilization will fail.
Take, take your choice.Argentina is lovely.
Now Malay was very freemarkabout everything except
for Puzzlingly, the dollarization,

(57:27):
which was the thing hekind of wented in on.
And that's really the, our answer
to Argentina's woes and I added it up.
All of Argentina's money is $40 billion.
So best's only 20 billion short.
You, you can exchangeall of Argentina's pesos
for $40 billion of US dollars.
And that's, and the levelof bailouts actually

(57:48):
that's small comparedto the Latin American
bailouts and bank bailouts.
We've done it. We usually, acountry's a billion dollars.
So yeah, I would just saydollarized the thing tomorrow,
you know, it's only gonna costanother 20 billion now then
all the debt is dollar denominated debt.
And we're back to howdoes Argentina pay back
dollar denominated debt?
But they swung tosurplus very quickly and,
and I think, you know,then, then you're back

(58:10):
to just a regular debt crisis.
Not regular devaluation,
but Argentina would do verywell if they just dollarized
and gave up on the whole business.
- Okay John, I think weowe you another economic
round future show.
We didn't get into the fed,
we didn't get into the AIbubble, which fascinates me,
which gets best backto the 1920s scenario.
But gentlemen, it's onto the lightning round.
Martin,

(58:34):
very simple.
One question. What are youreading these days, Niall?
- Well, I have beenreading the works of one
of our fellow fellows,namely Thomas Sowell,
prolific author.
I found I'd read only asmall fraction of his work
and ahead of the conferencethat we were about to hold
to celebrate hisextraordinary achievements.

(58:55):
And 95th birthday I readhis remarkable trilogy, race
and Culture, migrations
and Cultures, conquests and Cultures.
And I was blown away by theearly edition, the scope,
the radicalism of the argument.
Just fantastic stuff.
Can't recommend those books too highly.
- I can't recommend'em too highly as well.

(59:16):
'cause they were, I I read,
read his stuff on racestarting in the 1980s
and it was just eyeopening,eyeopening in particular,
how he just brings factualdetail to, to bear.
You know, he traceshow small ethnic groups
that white people can't tell apart
and how differently they do in the us.
That's, you know, the kindof factual detail that that,

(59:38):
that most people don't, don't do.
And it just makes theargument utterly persuasive.
I have been reading Knowledgeand Decisions, a single book,
but his economic masterpiece.
'cause my assignment for next week was
to summarize this oneeconomic masterpiece,
which it is really bears reading.
It's, it's just anothertreasure trove of detail about

(01:00:00):
how not just, it's not reallyabout economics, it's about
how organizations and politics
and non-economic structures work
and don't work to, to, tofunnel the information around
that they all need to,to, to get anywhere.
So fascinating read and we'llget to discuss it on Tuesday.
- Right. So, Niall, I've beenreading history in particular,

(01:00:22):
I've been reading the works ofTheodore White in his making
of the president series beginning in 1960
because politics is very different in
19 60, 64, 68 in particular.
But also, this is justa very straightforward
accounting of campaigns.
There is no effort to go out
and get Niall Fergusonto dime on John Cochran
or so forth in political books these days.
That's how you sell books. You put Todd

(01:00:43):
things and just how it moves.
Copy. This is just Plaino
reporting. It's delightful to read.
- I agree. I know those books well.
I, I read two of them when Iwas writing the first volume
of the Kissinger biographyand you're right.
They're, they're terrific.
- Alright, gentlemen.With that we will conclude
this episode of Goodfellows.
We will be back in lateOctober slash early May.

(01:01:04):
Michael McFall Hooverfellow former Ambassador
Russia will be our guest.
Also, a reminder that on November we are
doing a mailbag show.
So if you have a question forSer Niall, a question for John,
a question for HR,
or a question for somecombination of those three,
please send them in and you go
to the hoover institutions website,
hoover.org/ask goodfellowsto pose your question.
Once again, hoover.org/askGoodfellows On behalf

(01:01:27):
of the Goodfellows Ser NiallFerguson, John Cochran,
the truant HR McMaster, hopeyou enjoyed today's show.
As always, thanks for watching.
We'll see you soon. Till then, take care
- Seems like
you to walk with.

(01:01:53):
Seems like.