BTO beyond the obvious economy podcast Dr. Daniela featured by Hund. Hello. Shard. >> >> Donald Trump partner. >> >> Fore! Foreign! Foreign! Foreom BTO Beyond the Obvious featured by Hundreds. button. This episode is presented by Depop. We all have pieces in our closet that deserve a second life. That jacket you loved for a season, someone out there is literally searching for it. And that's why I love Dep Depot. It's a fashion resell app where your personal taste actually has value. Selling is quick, simple, and genuinely worth it. You can list an item in just a few taps on Depop. Just snap a photo and their AI powered listings fill in the details. Plus, make money easily with no selling fees on Depop. No seller fees means what you earn is yours. Even selling one item is a win. So, if you've been thinking about clearing out your closet, this is your sign. Download the Depop app and list your first item today. I ever the senior globalist economic policy versus economic statecraft economic policy etc etc policy Economic Statecraft. Fore economic statecraft. The shaft, the economic statecraft. Fore! Foreign! Foreign! Fore! Foreign! Foreign! Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. So economic policy for instruments for open Reverse Trump. of industry. The Fore consumerism with a national security face. Export control. Fore reverse marshall plans. Exact. The dollar stable coins. Fore capitalism finance politic system. control system on Bitcoin. Capital Price. Fore stable coinable coin dollar. Stable coin stable coins. dominance. The US Fore stable coins. Fore stable coins. Stable coins. for every Fore Michael. Donald Forever. Science fiction. 11 Labs. for direct statements. Fore 11 agents not 11. /b >> This episode is presented by Depop. We all have pieces in our closet that deserve a second life. That jacket you loved for a season, someone out there is literally searching for it. And that's why I love Dep Depot. It's a fashion resell app where your personal taste actually has value. Selling is quick, simple, and genuinely worth it. You can list an item in just a few taps on Depop. Just snap a photo and their AI powered listings fill in the details. Plus, make money easily with no selling fees on Depot. No seller fees means what you earn is yours. Even selling one item is a win. So, if you've been thinking about clearing out your closet, this is your sign. Download the Depop app and list your first item today. for more links.com. The link and Michael. Michael is senior global strategist by Grand Strategy. stable coins. Highlights podcasts. economic policy. Economic statecraft is a much older, much more comprehensive way of looking at >> economic statecraft. economic stage. And nowadays, what we have far too often are people just chasing GDP, chasing the stock market, chasing a CPI target, chasing a fiscal deficit target. To what end? Well, there you go. That's something that you can say. Perhaps you need to think again. But this is something that Germany to be honest has been staggeringly slow. Trump's grand strategy. Trump's grand strategy. than the US in 10 years on on the current glide path. That then of course tips the scales towards them eventually becoming the global hedgeimon in effect that all of the Middle East comes under a Pax Americana. So effectively America scenario. dismiss the fact that this might be a US strategy to create chaos in Homos. It could at its worst look like 1973 and the COVID crisis and the Ukraine crisis all at once. The superior Europeans continually walk into the room saying how this man has no strategy and walk away without wearing their shirt. And I wonder how in European cultural terms is Europe says we cannot let Ukraine fall and I think there's a great deal of geopolitical sense in Equally, Europe isn't prepared to let Ukraine win because land territori is there a better deal to be struck saying, "Okay, this is a North Korea South Korea frozen conflict. At least we can rearm without actually fighting," which is what North Korea and South Korea do. If you're in an existential crisis or you're facing a crisis in the straight of Hormuz and you have to ration energy usage, should you really be letting the free market decide whether someone wants to The the good stuff benefits, the bad stuff benefits. And traditionally, everybody buys more assets. But you are stuck with them. for finance minister. No tokens. I don't think anyone else can create an equivalent globally. Now, Germany used to do that via what I joke was neo merkel canalism where you know Germany claimed that it was a great free trader when it wasn't. Germany's never been a free trader ever. There is no period. Fore you're not and you use fiscal policy officer as a lever to make sure that you keep running that surplus. I mean German politicians have said this openly in the past. nothing. If you were to say objectively, what's society for? And you would say, well, to push asset prices up so a certain percentage of the population get very rich and the rest don't. An alien looking down at you would say, "Oh, really? Fore spectacular. Hold my beer because this is when it gets real. Now wait for the stable coins to to happen in the next couple of months. systems. They will be the one's best place and I wish everyone will ever invented by Depot. We all have pieces in our closet that deserve a second life. That jacket you loved for a season, someone out there is literally searching for it. And that's why I love Depot. It's a fashion resell app where your personal taste actually has value. Selling is quick, simple, and genuinely worth it. You can list an item in just a few taps on Depop. Just snap a photo and their AI powered listings fill in the details. Plus, make money easily with no selling fees on Depop. No seller fees means what you earn is yours. Even selling one item is a win. So, if you've been thinking about clearing out your closet, this is your sign. Download the Depop app and list your first item today. Fore export. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. >> >> coins. and Michael Everen. for the city scenario is the Americen scenario. for Michaels. Michael Ever is CLomcraft. for refreshment. BTO Beyond the Obvious featured by Hunter's Blood. >> Dear Michael, it's a great pleasure welcome you to my podcast. >> Thank you very much. It's a great pleasure to be here. >> Michael, I follow your thoughts already for many years and I'm actually very glad to have you on my show particularly in these days. You know, we are talking Monday. Though the war in Iran is now 9 days old, it's escalating. Many people were hoping it's going to be short and brief, but now we see also implications for financial markets. I think we should also discuss not only currently what's going on in Iran but overall what's going on on the world stage because you've always in the past argued that we should not talk so much about economic policy but we should talk about economic stakecraft because you at least in my understanding always saw it as a broader picture of a conflict between the west and I would say China and its allies. So how does all this fit into what's going on in Iran in your view? Well, thank you for the question. There are so many different ways to answer that. First of all, let me start for those who aren't familiar with it just by reiterating again what the difference is between economic policy and economic statecraftraft. And economic policy I don't think I need to explain at all. Everyone should be familiar with it. Whether it's fiscal policy, monetary policy, trade policy, transport policy, etc., etc. Economic Statecraft is a much older much more comprehensive way of looking at the world and attempts to answer the question, what is GDP4? Now, there are many different ways you can answer that at many different times in history, but you need to have that as a goal or a mission statement. For example, if if you look back at the British during their heyday, they had a very clear mission statement. You know, Britannia rules the waves commercially, which means they had to have the world's largest navy to allow them to dominate in commercial terms. Uh, you maintain dominance of India, which you leverage up to give yourself a much bigger position on the world stage, and you never allow anyone forced to dominate in mainland Europe. Those were three mission statements. That's what GDP was for. And within that everything else was flexible but had to work together towards those common strategic national interest goals. And nowadays what we have far too often are people just chasing GDP, chasing the stock market, chasing a CPI target, chasing a fiscal deficit target. To what end? And they never have one. And the countries that are doing that are the ones that are finding themselves now in the biggest problems and the deepest mess. Well, I would have said, you know, in Germany, for example, GDP is only looked for to have more social welfare. >> Well, there you go. That's something that you can say is national interest if you want. You can say that's what GDP is for. And then you have to consider what other people's GDP is for. And if the country next to you is using GDP to arm at the fastest pace since World War II, or to build an economy which can coersse you and strip away your manufacturing and eventually reduce your standard of living to the point where you can no longer afford your welfare state, perhaps you need to think again. But this is something that Germany, to be honest, has been staggeringly slow to come around to. It still hasn't accepted it now, despite the fact that the rest of the world can see it in front of Germany. But let's pivot to Iran because that's the question you ask me. Why is Iran happening? There are lots and lots of different ways you can unpack that depending on how you see things. If you think in terms of economic policy, you will say because Trump is mad, because he's a wararmonger, because of American imperialism, because of oil, which is partly the case. You know, very, very simplistic, rather euroentric answers which can be emotionally satisfying, but don't really tell you anything about why it happened now, and they don't tell you anything about what will happen next. If you look at it from an economic statecraft or a broad statecraftraft perspective because to be clear statecraft has three arms or three legs economic which I'm primarily going to be discussing with you today political and military and you need all three you cannot do statecraft based on only one otherwise you are you know unable to sit on that stool the three-legged stool doesn't doesn't hold you so why now well because Trump's grand strategy or or I call it brand macro strategy because it falls within the world of markets and macroeconomics too since he came back into office is very clear. China yes absolutely is the focus. The Chinese economy is much more powerful in industrial terms than the US economy. they are able to produce something like 200 times the ship building capacity of the US which means that on a 5 to 10 year time frame their commercial navy which is already much much larger than the US will be matched by their military navy so the PL as we call it will be more powerful than the US in 10 years on on the current glide path that then of course tips the scales towards them eventually becoming the global hedgeimon so the US has been cognizant of this for a while it attempted to deal with it in the first Trump presidency in a start stop manner hindered all the way by the opposition and here it is now very aggressively attempting to reorder the global economy and financial markets in order to change itself and to change itself in order to reorder the global economy and global financial markets. Now last year everyone got very excited about tariffs which we correctly predicted at Rabo Bank and I was saying all the way along yes these are important. Yes these are historic economic statecraft that the US has used since the first days of its existence as Germany did too in the in the distant past. By the way Germany would not have created itself as the modern German state without tariffs and everyone forgets that but it's true. But that was only going to be part of what they were doing. And indeed, Trump has been shaking the box and changing everything. Everything in terms of potential exchange rate policy, what form the US dollar might take via stable coins, looking at leaning on the Fed or restructuring how the Fed works and the banking system works. The state taking a much larger role in the economy, 10% stakes in some companies, golden shares in others, using the office of strategic capital, leveraging things up 200 times to try and rebuild parts of the military-industrial complex, basically restructuring everything around it. But a key part of what I expected to see in 2026, and I flagged it at the end of last year, was that we would see the US recognize that a Chinese economy which has complete control of downstream production in terms of manufactured goods and has critical choke holds over the US in midstream production, which is processing of rare earths without which industry cannot proceed, including the military. can only be matched by the US alongside tariffs, alongside all of this statecraft I'm describing. If the US leveraged the economic military power it can project abroad for now, which China cannot for now to take control of upstream supply chains to ensure that if China says to the US, we withhold rare earths, the US says we withhold food and raw materials and oil. Now, Venezuela was the first proof of that. Actually, Panama, even even beforehand, the Panama Canal was the first proof of concept. Then, Venezuela, which again we could see coming a long way off, and we flagged what happened. And everyone said, "Well, that's crazy." And we said, "No, because if you control Venezuelan or crude in the far distant future, that's great for the US. Right now, it's very bad for China." So, a loss for China is a win for the US. It's a zero- sum game. and Iran was always always there in the background, particularly since October the 7th, 2023 when it started of course the landslide of events in the Middle East. That Israel would want revenge for that and to try to take it out of the picture and the US would leverage that opportunity to try and make sure that again oil does not flow to China easily. Now China can still buy from Russia. Russia's hand is strengthened by this, but again that can be part of the US strategy. A stronger Russia against China actually gives Russia more opportunity to change course in the future. A weaker Russia which is absorbed by China has no such opportunity. So that is why we see Iran happening. And to be absolutely crystal clear, everything now revolves around Iran. If the US succeeds here from a European perspective, Trumponomics wins. All of the empty rhetoric about strategic autonomy that you're hearing from Europe, all of this shuffling around between Canada and Australia and and India, etc., etc., will account for nothing because real politique will make it very very clear that the US would control energy from itself on which Europe relies and would control energy from the Middle East on which Europe relies. So above and beyond anything else, Europe would have no strategic choice other than buying oil and gas from Russia again, which would mean, of course, it would have to sign up with China, abandon Ukraine, and forget about all the rhetoric and absorb itself into a a greater Eurasia, which would not be consistent with any of the plans that the European Commission has. So that would not be a platform it can proceed from. But if Trump fails here, if Iran can resist the American military effort in the same way that Hamas is still clinging on in Gaza, or if Trump is militarily defeated, or if markets force Trump to to retreat completely, then effectively the US has hit a brick wall, Trump can still try and become extremely aggressive in different areas and on different fronts, but the global scheme that he has starts to unravel. So this is actually the biggest gamble not just of his second term, not just of his presidency, of his entire life. And in fact, it's the biggest gamble that the US has taken for generations. So that's also, by the way, very, very bad for Europe if it fails. Because we do not enter a peaceful world where the rules-based order makes a comeback because Trump is humbled. we enter a world in which the US goes home and is perhaps only interested in the Latin American sphere and the North American sphere and says the rest of the world can do whatever it wants, which is what it did of course during the late 1920s and early 1930s. And if that were to happen, Europe's situation becomes absolutely dire in just the same way. So Iran matters critically and there is no good scenario for Europe. Michael, I think we have to dive deeper into it to make it clearer to our audience about the scenarios. But first of all, it sounds like, you know, for European ears, talking about Trump having a strategy of course sounds a bit strange because most people would say this guy doesn't have a strategy. Of course, as you laid out the issues concerning production capacity, that's why Trump tries to re-industrialize the US. I think to build up more industrial capacity also to build up more capability to produce weapons which is important and we know that without um Chinese and you pointed out without Chinese material without Chinese deliveries the US cannot basically not be defense itself not talking about Europe if you now look at the war for example in in Iran we all already see the issue that it's much cheaper for Iran to fight this war than for the just think about the cost of you know stopping drones and so on. So do you see the risk that he basically stumbled here in a scenario where he cannot win because it's a case is just proving that the US has to do something about its abilities. So basically he should have had first re-industrialized and then tried to do this fight. >> Well let me start with the last part of the question and then work back to the strategy. In an ideal world, we'd always do everything at the correct pace that suits us best. That's very rarely the case in international relations. You can make an argument, the White House makes that argument, I don't know if it's true or not, that they acted now because there was a genuine imminent nuclear threat. So, let's leave that on the table. That if that were true, that would already again mean they couldn't do it at the pace they wanted. They also couldn't do it at that pace if China was able to coers them with raw uh sorry rare earth elements and critical minerals during the process of that re-industrialization. And if China were to arm Iran aggressively so that it was bristling like a porcupine, which they had signed contracts to do, by the way, then that means that America would no longer in the future be in a position to do it. So you don't get to pick your timing. You have to work with the world you're in, not the ideal world. And re-industrialization will take time, unfortunately. in terms of the economics of it, what you're talking to correctly in terms of the cost of a cheap drone, a Shahid drone versus a uh Patriot interceptor, for example. That's correct. That's part of the American dilemma that they've built beautiful, expensive systems which don't work against far cheaper alternatives from the enemy. But things are changing. Ukraine actually have cheaper interceptors than Shahid drones. and America will pivot towards that Ukrainian technology they already have. The Israelis have now laser technology which I believe Germany is interested in buying where you can shoot down drones and missiles for about 10 or 20 euro cents. Now of course the platform is expensive but once it's there all you need is electricity which is of course controversial in Europe too but you know provided you have electricity that itself provides some benefit. So the economics can keep shifting. This is not fixed. And in strategy, just as in competition in business, you have to stay ahead of the curve. But let me just answer briefly on that strategy. I I have had this conversation many times working for a European bank, being British, living in Asia, having lived in mainland Europe myself. I'm not a typical Brit. Sounds very good. Okay. So, I speak a few European languages badly. I'm not your typical monolingual Brit. I understand where the view of Trump comes from in Europe. I find it highly ironic because I am constantly surrounded by people who are far better qualified than Trump on paper in a technocratic sense, far more worldly, far more cultured, who continually either go into meetings with him or are involved in negotiations and come away having lost their shirt. And this happens with the Americans again and again and again. So the superior Europeans continually walk into the room saying how this man has no strategy and walk away without wearing their shirt. And I wonder how many times this has to happen before Europe starts realizing that just potentially he's either the luckiest man in the world or as America has always been able to do to the Europeans, it's quite capable of surprising them again and again and again whilst displaying in European cultural terms very little sophistication. So I I have to say that and it may disgruntle your audience but I'm trying to do it with a good heart in that it's important to recognize differences in culture and and see that for example if someone speaks very bad English which you don't that doesn't mean they lack intelligence >> though but you know and don't worry about my audience my audience is used to having controversial stuff on my or as you call it controversial quote unquote stuff on my podcast but let's dive deeper into the two scenarios so scenario one the US and Israel are successful. Now we have to define what does success mean? Does it mean like Venezuela an aligned a new regime or what does it be? But success clearly economically would mean to get China out of Iran. I think I think that's what most probably success would mean if you talk about economic statecraft. So then is then that the US moves on to the Pacific in order to make sure a Taiwan doesn't happen. we should talk about this and then I would also like to better understand what you mean what it really means and the implications for Europe because it sounded very interesting both then also interesting we should go deeper there so let's start with the scenario >> sure so if we start with the scenario of success and as you said that's ambiguous but it has to mean in effect that all of the Middle East comes under a Pax Americana so effectively it's it's a US protector the entire territory rather than buying American toys which they don't use. For example, the GCC countries have a lot of fighter jets they are not flying. They have a lot of military vessels which could be in a straightforward keeping it open right now. They're not doing it. So they buy them, they don't use them. But to actually have something where they may still not use them, but they are genuinely understanding that they only work for America or with America. there's no one else who they can wink at or do another deal when America is falling asleep in the afternoon after a heavy lunch. That would be success. If that's the case, then together with Venezuela, America starts to not just starts, it moves aggressively ahead with a template which will expand to the rest of Latin America. Brazil would probably be next along with Colombia from a food perspective. North America would see Mexico and Canada really firmly locked into a US MCA where the US sets the external tariff which would effectively be the equivalent of Germany running the Euro zone which you know some people joke darkly they actually do and the other two countries just being part of it but effectively America being the one with sovereign full sovereignty and then once you've done that Europe effectively starts to fall into place which is because at the moment Europe is scrambling We'll come back to that in a moment. Africa, of course, is still a battleground, but most of what the US needs to then be able to say to China, look, you can either become a hermit kingdom with Russia. Russia we can actually extend a hand to and say, would you like to have a larger global platform? Russia is already making noises saying they would like to come back into the US dollar system potentially, which is interesting. What if Europe keeps its sanctions on and America takes them off? Well, that splits the Western Alliance again. But it then says to China, if you are going to try and escalate from here, much of the world is against you and we can make life very very uncomfortable for you for the next 5 or 10 years upstream, which is what I was saying earlier. So you're relying, for example, if you can't buy soybeans from America, you can buy them from Argentina or Brazil. What if you can't buy them from any of them? And if you can't buy them from any of them, you don't eat much meat. So that to my mind is a threat. Obviously, China has their own threats. It's economic warfare being threatened, but that's infinitely preferable to physical warfare. Infinitely preferable to make it clear to people this would be very very uncomfortable if you did do that. So ideally, everyone of course just gets along. That's what we would all aim for. If we can't have that, this is what I believe the American strategy is. And it allows them to then rearm at pace and again peace through strength to try and find a new modus vivendi with China which I I genuinely believe is what they are looking for a modus vventi but one where both sides understand the other has a degree of economic mutually assured destruction which is what we had with nuclear weapons visav the Soviet Union that's if it works if it doesn't as I said the Middle East falls into chaos absolute chaos because if Iran is destabilized where you have an Afghanistan or an Iraq again disrupting the straight of hormones which is absolutely chaotic for everybody in the world. America less so and I'll come back to that in a moment but it's still very bad news for everybody including the Middle East. It's not good news for China either. On that note I have to just throw something in which you you didn't raise but I think it's very important to bring up. Now, I had already mentioned that my 2026 outlook said America will disrupt upstream commodity supply chains as a counterbalance to Chinese coercion in downstream supply chains and midstream. There are views out there which are certainly they they tessellate well with what I'm saying and they argue this. Don't dismiss the fact that this might be a US strategy to create chaos in Homus because while it looks ridiculous given that the scale of economic destruction which is about to roll over us if this is not sorted out within a week, it could at its worst look like 1973 and the COVID crisis and the Ukraine crisis all at once. That's just incredible to contemplate. At its worst, it could look like that. America could hypothetically rely on some of the Venezuelan oil which has already been stockpiling, try and pump the output there up, stop exporting crude itself and just use it at home and actually while taking some pain absolutely emerge maybe with one or two fingers missing. But the rest of the world loses an arm and a leg. At which point in relative terms, were this to be the case, if this is a strategy, America has effectively in relative terms reinforced its position for the 21st century, while everyone else would be saying Trump gambled and got it wrong and this is chaos. And maybe that would be the public meme, but America could be far more insulated in terms of fertilizer, in terms of energy, in terms of food, in terms of helium, which is needed, by the way, in order to create semiconductor chips. And everyone else who has very intricate strategies to go back to Europe, which has strategy after strategy after strategy, none of which ever work, would be sitting there with lots of very interesting PowerPoint slides and acronyms and very little energy and very little fertilizer and much less food and no semiconductors and therefore no military. >> Just a quick question at this stage in China is well prepared, isn't it? China I read has huge reserves on oil and China in the past as we know has done everything to increase its domestic energy production. So they use coal, they use a wind, solar, nuclear. So isn't actually China well prepared for such a scenario and of course we are not prepared. >> Yes and no. China is very well prepared. China has always used economic statecraft for its entire existence going back thousands of years. So this is just an example of how one has to recognize the game that one is playing. China has always used economic statecraftraft. That's why it's so well prepared. But it does still have weak spots. No one can completely be immune to a downturn in the rest of the world. For example, if China if there's a global recession now plus American tariffs, plus more protectionism, who's China going to export to? uh if they're not able to export to everybody then they need to be doing much more domestically and that starts to destabilize parts of their domestic regime. Okay. So that's it's a one-way street or it's it's a it's a very comfortable journey towards a brick wall in its own way. But what China is hoping on that front is that the rest of the world acquiesces to its model to avoid anything disruptive happening before it hits that brick wall. So that's one. The other one of course for those who understand agri systems they know that China is not food secure. It's much more food secure than it used to be but its animal feed still requires vast inputs of soybeans in particular from North and South America. And if that flow dries up then the Chinese diet would have to change dramatically. Now maybe that's something China can live with. Maybe politically they can say to the population, "This is the price one has to pay to fight American imperialism." Yeah, I I would never rule that out. But it certainly it changes the dynamic, should we say, at the at the very least. But to pivot back to Europe, Europe is incredibly poorly placed. In fact, if we talk about uh you know, stocks, as you know, well, this is the time of year when Europe should be stocking up on gas ahead of winter. And already stocks are incredibly low and prices are about to go through the roof. and were this hormous scenario to roll on and on and I'm not forecasting what will happen but the dynamics look very bad today as we speak then Europe would either be buying that gas at a staggering price just as being forced to step in and out bid you for cargo after cargo which we saw during 2022 or Europe would not fill the gas tanks ahead of winter or Europe will buy from Russia again so the number of geopolitical choices and strategic choices is limited and they're all extreme extremely unpalatable and again this comes down to the fact that Europe talks a lot about grand macro strategy doesn't act and that's partly the problem that Europe of course has so many different voices there are 27 grand macro strategies within Europe erggo there aren't any we have to talk about Germany because we have as you know one of these speakers as chancellor who also talks always very powerful without lacking the means we will come down to this but Russia You mentioned Russia and the side you said okay Russia benefits from high oil prices because you know they sell to China and this will help China Russia to get a bit more weight compared to China because currently I think Russia has to do whatever China wants. On the other side we have the war in Ukraine going on and you know the discussion over years and you know the discussion is always like you know if if you don't stop Putin now he's going to invade all of Europe. Um, so what's your view concerning the future role of Russia in this economic state scenario between China and the US and how do you see the European position towards the war or should we just accept reality? >> Well, first of all, I would advise everybody, not just Europe, to accept reality. I I could I could never give any advice other than that to the entire world. In fact, it's when one doesn't accept reality that problems start. And I think that's >> Yeah, but I think we struggle accepting realities to be honest. >> Oh, no. Look, I I wouldn't disagree. We We all do, but definitely Europe is no exception to that. I think talking geostrategically, and I'm not trying to criticize because this is such an emotional issue and it's such a principles based issue, but what you see again and again happening with Europe visav Ukraine is Europe says we cannot let Ukraine fall. And I think there's a great deal of geopolitical sense in that. Equally, Europe isn't prepared to let Ukraine win because if Ukraine were to genuinely start pushing Russia back, if it genuinely started to threaten to retake the territories that Russia now says are Russian, Crimea above all, it's not my call to make, but much more serious military-minded figures than myself start talking about tactical nuclear weapons and, you know, the worst case scenarios. It's a very, very high-risk, high return strategy. And every time Europe contemplates that, it backs off. So effectively what Europe is saying is we don't want Ukraine to fall. Absolutely tick that box. We can't allow Ukraine to win. At which point, what is Europe trying to do? Just fight Russia statically over a fixed line at terrible cost in blood and treasure to Ukraine first and foremost and then to Russia. And who benefits from that? And I don't mean that in a cynical sense. Like does Europe really benefit from that given what the what the cost will be to that? Does Ukraine, does Russia? If no one can move forward World War I style, or is there a better deal to be struck saying, "Okay, this is a North Korea South Korea frozen conflict. At least we can rearm without actually fighting," which is what North Korea and South Korea do. And is that not what Trump is trying to achieve? I don't know. But is that Some would say it is, some would say it isn't. But from Trump's perspective, at least his supporters would say it is because then that allows the US to start focusing on other regions. As soon as they've moved away from Ukraine, they've been able to pivot first of all to Venezuela now to Iran and then after that, as I said, they can start looking at Asia, although they don't want to fight in Asia. The whole point is not to fight in Asia. And Europe, meanwhile, Germany is spending real money on weapons now. It it genuinely is. But as I say to people all the time who tell me, "Well, look, look at the price of defense stocks. That's a clear indicator that Germany's rearming." And I say, "It's the complete opposite." It's the complete opposite. It doesn't have to be, but it can be. If you produce not very many goods and you sell them at a higher and higher price because there's a flood of money coming your way, your share price will go up. You're no more able to defend yourself than you were before. Here's a catchphrase of mine I've been using for a while, and America sees this too, which is why Trump is screaming at his defense firms to cut executive bonuses, and he's been telling them he may use the the Defense Production Act to force them to increase output. You win wars with bullets, not profits. Europe is attempting to rearm using a large fiscal stimulus in some countries and a small one in others without nationalizing the companies. And as a result, the company's not 100% certain if the money will suddenly change because of a change of the political weather. They're not building as many factories as they should be. They're still making a nice profit margin on these piece, which is why shares continue to go up. And while I'm no military expert, military experts who I speak to, because one should always go to the source, tell me that while yes, there is an improvement in some areas, which is good definitely, overall Europe is no more able to really defend itself today than it was four years ago. So four years which is nearly as long as World War II not a lot of progress >> because also we have the issue and we mentioned the social welfare state before we have the issue that we talk about reality check that we have issues. So we have issue one is we struggle with an aging society. We have massively increase the social welfare state after the fall of the Berlin wall. We have followed an energy policy. I'm I know you comment like me which has been I would say probably also lacking a bit of redity uh checks and we have not accepted yet to do some changes here. In addition, and I think this also applies to China and to the US, I guess we have the issue that we have racked up huge public debt levels and some in some countries also private debt levels unheard of in peace time and now we have faced the issue of you know spending money on defense and re-industrialization at the same time dealing with huge debt and dealing with the issue of hidden liabilities for the ages. society and you mentioned in the first few minutes of our conversation Trump and the Fed and I would like to come to the point around you know aren't we in a world where basically uh we also will see a very different financial system just in order to basically get rid of the huge debt levels >> yes I think we will but there's a huge amount of disagreement over what it will be so for example there's One school of thought which I have a lot of sympathy for and I think has a lot of intellectual credibility which argues that we have created such a mess through decades of fiat money you know proflegate fiscal policy and you can add from that school of thought overregulation etc etc government intervention in the wrong parts of the economy that the only way out is a hard reset than to go back to gold for example now I'm not an advocate for that for a couple of reasons Although I can completely understand the the intellectual case that's made for it, I don't dismiss it lightly and I travel a lot of the same way with the people making that argument. Where we disagree is that they tend to think that regardless of what happens now, countries who would do that are still completely eclipsed by China anyway. It's game over. And yet I make the case after having, you know, lived in greater China and studied it, etc., etc., and studied Soviet economics in the past, China has not done anything that the gold team would argue as being what one should do in order to win. China runs the most incredibly proflegate fiscal policy. China runs massive, massive off-book debt via state banks and state corporations. But what it does do is with its fiat fiscal policy, it runs neomchantalist policy. And neomchantalism is to deliberately make sure that you control as much of the supply chain as possible, capture value ad and run a trade surplus with others. Now, Germany used to do that via what I joke was neo merkel canalism where you know Germany claimed that it was a great free trader when it wasn't. Germany's never been a free trader ever. There is no period in German history where it's been a free trader. You are allergic to trade deficits. >> No, no. Because also we lack the economic understanding because you know that running a trade surplus is fine but we also exporting our capital in the world and we are one of the most stupid investors globally. So >> it's not necessarily value creating. >> That's a separate but valid issue. The point being if you're a free trader you should be able to say hey we ran a trade deficit for the last 5 years that's great and then maybe the next 5 years we're running a surplus. It actually doesn't matter whether you run a trade surplus or a trade deficit because we're free traders. You know as well as I do that will never happen and has never happened in Germany. Ergo, you are not free traders. You are Merkel canalists. You tell yourself you're free traders, but you're not. And you use fiscal policy often as a lever to make sure that you keep running that surplus. I mean, German politicians have said this openly in the past. >> And the euro and the euro of course helped a lot. So the euro was >> naturally naturally >> was giving Germany an unfair advantage, but in the end we shoot ourselves on our own foot because of the fact that the euro was so weak. We basically stopped becoming more efficient and effective in my view. So, it was a short-term benefit, but it's it's one of the reasons why currently the German economy is not in such a good position. >> Well, a good debate can be had about that, but I'm not a specifically German economist, so I'm not going to go there. Okay, I'll leave those words with you. But the gold argument, China didn't follow anything that the gold people would do. It used fiscal fiat neo mechanicalism to dominate supply chains. Economic statecraftraft is what worked. And my argument has been for years that the US will do the same to try and reverse the mess that it's in now. So I fully expect to see a very different looking Fed going forward. And I'll unpack that in a moment. I expect to see the Treasury being dominant over the Fed rather than the other way round. I expect to see a much larger state role in the economy. We already expected to see much larger tariffs and effectively we will see a lot more of the policy that China is using which is actually policy that Germany and the US have both used successfully in the past in order to develop in order to get it back there. But but in terms of the Fed there are so many things one can unpack so many things but I want to again bring it down to very basic questions because I think if you get the basic questions right you get the answers right. What point is there in having one interest rate? For example, if you have Fed runs, Fed funds at 5%. And you raise it to 6%. Because there's inflation, you smash the useless parts of the economy. And there are many useless parts of the economy. If we're thinking what is GDP for, >> so you mean basically credit for financial speculation or credit for buying existing assets. >> Well, that's one way of looking at it. Credit for buying existing assets or credit for new productive investment. So whether it's a new bank loan going into new capital stock or whether it's credit for consumption or credit for pushing up existing assets that would be one taxonomy but you can even look at it across sectors. For example, I could put new loans into capital stock for a new business which would be a pet groomers for example or or or a pet psychologist. They have them in California. You know, my dog is depressed. My my cat's feeling a little bit like it's having a midlife crisis. Is that useful during a war? Now, we have a free market economy. Everyone's free to, you know, take their own choice, etc., and say, "I'll have a risk. I'll take a risk on that. I think people will like it. I'll make some money on it." That's capitalism. If you're in an existential crisis or you're facing a crisis in the state of Hormuz and you have to ration energy usage, should you really be letting the free market decide whether someone wants to open a bright glowing brilliantly lit, you know, aircon or heated pet therapist when they could be opening a factory to make ammunition. This is where political choices have to be made. So if you put the interest rate from 5 to six, everybody suffers. If you lower the interest rate from 5 to two, everybody benefits. The good stuff benefits, the bad stuff benefits. And traditionally everybody buys more assets. Everybody leverages up. Everybody buys existing assets. People buy bonds because you know price and yield are inverted. Obviously people then say well if the interest rate is now low and the yield is low therefore of course the stock dividend should be higher and therefore proportionately I'm going to go and buy assets there. Doesn't mean the company is making a single more product. There's not one more bullet being made. So everyone feels richer. Everyone imports more from countries who are actually their rivals who are trying to de-industrialize them. and the Indian circus goes round and round. So the point I'm making is if you think in terms of economic statecraft whether it's the Fed or whether it's Europe logically I cannot see how you can make the case or anyone can make the case that the way that the monetary system and monetary policy now works is functional. It's not fit for purpose. You need to have the dynamism of the private sector, but the private sector does not seem to be capable of making the correct choices over what is necessary in an economic statecraft or existential environment. Go. One would imagine we will go back to where we used to be prior to the 1980s where you have hypothecated capital in different sectors or differential interest rates which are fixed in certain sectors through having limited pools of funds. for example, 5 billion for mortgages, 10 billion for industry, 3 billion for agriculture, and the interest rate is bid up within that sector. Now, that's a complete anathema to how markets work today. There's I don't think there's anyone alive in markets who still knows how that system works. Maybe the very elderly. I remember I never worked in it, but I remember it existing when I was young. But that's absolutely where we may logically have to go back to and not just in the US. And that's exactly again how China works. By the way, >> would you say that the taxonomy in Europe, you know, is this which is basically also an intervention by the by the European politicians around, you know, capital requirements for banks. Does this already point to this direction or is it more an example for you know having the wrong priorities? >> Well, you can do for example if you look at some of the tools that were used in the past like TLTRO's. Now, I'm not a Eurobank specialist at all, but some of my colleagues are some of the finest minds I've ever worked with, by the way. And they point out that yeah, there are tools in the toolbox, and TLTRO's are the ones they point to in particular, where you can offer differential rates of borrowing to try and achieve certain things. But in this example, they would have to be very sharply differentiated and you would have to have unfortunately either very very willing market participants who understand the gravity of the situation or you would have to have very tight regulation to make sure that people don't then borrow for one purpose and use it for another which is you know which is human nature. But problematic as that is for all kinds of reasons within our current architecture, I will repeat again, I don't understand how that architecture is fit for purpose if it has to be at least competitive and at most combative versus a different system. And let me give you one more example of that if I may. I was at a conference in Singapore last year with two senior ex-military figures and they were doing a round of of private investors saying that you need to put money into defense stocks. That's where the future will be. And by the way, I look I I agree this is a sector that will be incredibly important. But I asked them, if people are expecting to make a 20 or a 30% return, how do you expect to achieve economies of scale that can match what Russia is doing or what China is doing if they're prepared to operate at a loss, which they are? And you insist we have to scoop 30% off the top, which isn't a bullet, so that someone lives very well to drive a nice car and have a nice holiday. I don't understand conceptually how Western liberal democracy can't get its head around this. But obviously as I say it's very hard to get someone to understand something when their job depends on them not understanding it. >> It comes down to shift from consumption towards production. it comes down to shift towards you know whatever you know really scaling up in certain areas like defense how can it be done because probably you don't always have the answer either because I just struggle if I look at the just elections in Germany and regional elections and when I see at the results I can just say you know it's a complete denial of realities what we having in the political discussion and in the voting behavior >> well let me come back to the politics of it in just one moment each country with a different starting position faces very similar problems with a few a few differences but has a relatively similar template for where they need to go albeit at different speeds because of those problems. So let's take the US for example. You would have to use the legacy US military power to start to control the physical economy. Again, I already described that if you physically control choke points around the world, you physically control the supply of minerals and energy, you're in the position to tell people in financial markets what they should and shouldn't do, you know. So again, well paid people on trading floors can scream at each other all they want. If one other person controls whether you do or don't eat that night, you will listen to them. It's incredibly rude truth and you know red in tooth and claw as we say but that's a reality. Equally the fiscal deficit needs to be spent on the right things not the wrong things. Yes. So you need to cut down on fraud, corruption etc etc spending on consumption but you need to make sure that you invest in areas where the market won't do it or you need to lever the market into doing it which Trump is doing. He's telling people you will invest here here and here. For example, very controversially within Europe, the trade deal you've signed with the US but haven't ratified not only imposes a tariff on on Europe, it also imposes, I believe, a 550 billion investment package going into Europe or 600 billion. Now, that is effectively a capital control. It's also coerced capital because instead of you exporting to the US, getting dollars and then buying US treasuries or stocks or whatever you want with them, which is how capitalism works, the US is telling you, you will export to us. First of all, we're going to scoop 15% for the tariff, which we will invest where we want largely in military supply chains. Secondly, that money you you've then earned from us, we are going to tell you where to invest it. We are going to dictate the return and it's going to be in building a bridge here linking two strategic points. It's going to be invested in a factory making bullets there. It's going to be in a production facility to refine rare earths over there because the market will not do it itself. So that's part of what's going to have to happen. On top of that, you have to have a Federal Reserve which understands this. That is part of that plan which fights inflation because inflation is bad but understands that financialization is also bad rather than the good thing which is what the Fed is for now. The Fed is all about financial markets not the physical economy. They they don't have any experts on agriculture sitting around the Fed table. Experts on financial markets as as if you can eat assets you can't. And you need tariffs. You must have tariffs because you are dealing with an economy which has the lowest cost of production possible, continues to push it lower and will ensure that you can never develop those supply chains to allow you to industrialize. In the same way Germany didn't allow others to do it within Europe prior to the Eurozone crisis, in the same way that the British when they ruled the waves never allowed anyone else to industrialize because they had the gunships and they were cheaper than everyone else by controlling supply chains, China uses markets to achieve the same thing. now. But if I put that to you in Europe, that would mean the ECB remit changing completely. That would mean a Europeanwide tariff. That would mean a change in energy policy to try and use as much domestic stuff first of all as possible alongside green because you must do green, too. That would mean a change in defense policy to restructure everything so you have one unified defense policy so you don't duplicate things across 27 different economies. That would mean one foreign policy, etc., etc. You can see how staggeringly difficult some of this is going to be to achieve. And so either Europe has to logically move together and say we move as one at one speed or Europe has to coalesce into clusters where a large enough body of Europe says six of us do this the rest of you can come along which is a fragmentation of Europe or Europe fragments completely or Europe says we'll go with America and America effectively runs the statecraft play for us and we are a very secondary fiddle to America and we don't really have sovereignty but we work well within that system and logically I cannot to see any other outcomes. I heard other conversations with you and so one of your points is that the American the Trump administration's push towards or I say supporting certain political parties in Europe fits into the last category basically ensuring that Europe is aligned because you know we have a different migration policy whatever in the American camp probably want to make a comment on this and then I also looking at the time I would really like to understand how stable coins are part of this play as well. >> Sure. So, very quickly on the politics, we didn't talk about the electoral politics of it and obviously that's a mess everywhere. It's very hard for democracies to get anyone to stick to a plan that will hurt for a while and you have vested interests and the worse our political and economic polarization becomes, the more the parties are elected who actually won't play along at all. And so, society starts to fragment and we are seeing that in more and more democracies. So, the time is short for this to happen. the the sand in the hourglass is running out, I fear, everywhere. But in terms of the American attitude, America obviously today is anti-European Union because they don't like pan structures. They're abundantly clear in their national security strategy. They basically want sovereignty to go back to the nation state. It's a very Brexit style attitude. That doesn't mean, of course, they then don't mind subsuming other economies under theirs. So for example, if America takes Mexican and Canadian economic sovereignty in setting an external tariff, they don't have any problem with that. But this is the real politic of it. I think America wouldn't have a problem with the European Commission if it was echoing every American policy. So if you if if said whatever you're doing, we love it. I think they would find that's more efficient. Given that's very unlikely to happen, America again openly openly says in the national defense strategy that they will support NOS's and political parties in European countries who are more pro-American which by the way to be completely fair and transparent Europe does with the Democrat party and Europe does in every other economy around the world where there is a pro- Europe or pro markets or pro rules-based order political backdrop or or or group or NGO they finance them and very very lavishly. So this is just how real politique is played. Europe isn't used to seeing itself as a country or a block where that is happening. It sees itself as someone that does it rather than having it done to it. But on onto stable coins, these are a much overlooked and potentially pivotal part of the strategy because effectively they are a revolution whereby the US is talking about creating private money, digital private money, very similar in kind to what we used to call sterling bills of exchange prior to World War I when sterling was on gold. And arguably the most useful international trade currency at that time was not the British pound. It was a bill of exchange denominated in sterling not issued by the British government but by two third parties between each other internationally around the world. So that private money supported British power backed by gold. America is attempting to digitally create a stable coin backed by tea bills primarily so that two things can happen. First of all, individuals largely in emerging markets, but potentially even in Europe, depending on where interest rates are set, can say, "I would like to hold American dollars functionally, even though they are not dollars. They are a digital token collateralized by a US bill. I want to hold them on an app on my phone, not in the bank with a tax man can't see it." Now, the Americans can see it. Maybe they will or won't tax it, but the European tax man can't see it if it's outside the banking system. And I can still order things online. I can still do business on a network internationally and domestically because everyone else will be on it too and no one can touch it. Now is that is that tax evasion? Well, yeah, it is. But it's no different in a way than saying I'm putting all my money into vouchers from a particular company. They become money monetized to a degree. And in emerging markets, the demand for them will be extraordinary, I believe, because for all the question marks over the US and over the dollar, they're much much larger over the local currency, particularly with high taxation rates in many emerging markets. So that would see a huge bid for tea bills, pushing down the cost of borrowing in America, helping them fund the Pentagon, helping them control physical supply chains, giving them real control of the real economy, and then financial markets flow back from there. So that's one way it can happen. The other way of course is that they can pay people who are exporting to them. So for example, Europe can say, "Right, we're going to send you, you know, 10,000 euro widgets. There you go." And America says, "We're not paying you in dollars. We're going to pay you in these stable coins." Now, they're not money. They're a token backed by a T bill. You don't own the T bill. The T bill stays in America in American hands. All you have is a digital certificate. Effectively, it's on the blockchain. It's transparent. You can see you had it before you. You can see where it's going next. You can choose not to pay tax on it if you keep it outside the banking system, etc., etc. You can use it in an international network. If, for example, Katar after this war is over says, "We only want to be paid for LNG in stable coins." You've created a network for them immediately. That's how the Euro dollar also works. But you are stuck with them. And America effectively still has a trade deficit with the rest of the world, but it doesn't build up its debts with the rest of the world. The T bill exists, but the interest rate is low and it's held domestically within the US. All the rest of the world has is a digital IOU. So you actually break the balance sheet connection between the current account and the capital account by just creating something which isn't actually money. So that's two ways that they can be used and they are transformative if they are adopted at scale and America has carrots to make that happen and sticks and I don't think anyone else can create an equivalent globally >> well because the Europeans won't be happy because you know we discussed it and you already also read the FT for example they say we have to keep more capital in Europe for European investment and you know because you have a trade surplus you also have a capital export as you know so there's discussions so Europe won't like But I have two questions on this regard. One point is aren't stable coins a risk to the banking system? Because if you know in within the US for example more people put money into stable coin instead of the banks the banks lose part of their business and this might have some people fear it might be destabilizing. And secondly what does it mean to the global role of the US dollar? Okay. On the banking system potentially, yes, for the reasons you've just described, potentially also of course if they are misused and as currencies or money type tokens can be, you know, if if bubbles occur in them. But in terms of the banking argument, that's why the the clarity bill as a subsidiary to the Genius Act hasn't passed yet to determine whether they can pay fees as opposed to a yield. That hasn't passed yet. Trump actually tweeted just the other day, "The banks can't hold this up anymore because if this piece of legislation doesn't pass, I will let them just set fees anyway." At which point it's not in legislation, but I'll just let them do it. Now, my argument there is what are banks for? If we're asking what what is GDP for and I've asked what is the Fed for? What are central banks for? What are banks for? Well, we've already discussed, you said it, they should be for making new loans into productive capital. That doesn't happen in America. 80% of loans are for consumption or for buying existing assets. So were banks to have a problem. Were you to see a banking crisis were a political Fed to say, "Okay, there you go. We'll swallow you all up." What do you do if you use a much more hardcore way of dealing with banks than than in the past where instead of bailing everyone out one to one, you do what Sweden did in their crisis, you know, many decades ago and you say, "Okay, you're all wiped out. Here's base capital. Start again. Oh, by the way, this bank only lends into the physical economy now. We don't lend for assets. We don't lend for consumption. We lend into the physical economy. It's a way to remake the entire banking sector rapidly. I'm not saying it is the case, but I'm saying don't rule out the fact that the crisis and the chaos is actually part of the solution in the same way that it could be with horm that you change the banking sector by having to remove the ones that don't do anything useful. Now in terms of the second part of the question, if this is done right, and I'm not saying it will be, if it is, the US dollar's role in a different form, in a much more segmented form, in a much less free market form, even though it has more of a private sector component to it in terms of the stable coin, I believe is is absolutely cemented for the next couple of decades, if not the rest of the first half of this century. So all the talk about it being on the way out and the euro being, you know, set to eclipse it, I think is nonsense. You know, the euro isn't going to go away. I'm not saying anything like that. But you you alluded a moment ago that Europe wants to keep money within it while it runs a trade surplus. How do you do that when, as you said, the mirror of a trade surplus is a capital account outflow. So already that's nonsensical. >> You just need to start working out where where where are you investing money? What's the correct thing to be investing it in and what's not? It's you need to be moving away though from the traditional rigid neoliberal parameters that Europe was actually built on. Europe sees itself as being, you know, very socially liberal and it is, but it's also very neoliberal. And I'm not saying that's a good thing or a bad thing. I'm not making any value judgments. I am merely saying economic statecraft if it is to be adopted and everyone else is adopting it has to have much more freedom of action. >> Listening to you, I said, "Okay, I understand. I follow this. I understand this. I see the logic. Of course, we don't know how it's going to play out. We don't know how the war is going to end in Iran or whatsoever. But coming down to the essence is we get into a new world. We have been in a world where for decades asset prices have gone up much faster than the size of the economy. So relative to GDP, asset prices have gone up. Listening to you, I just have one takeaway. It doesn't matter which asset I own. Asset prices have to come down relative to GDP. >> Well, I think some do. they won't come down uniformly and some things can still arguably outperform but even there I would agree with you in that people say to me well Michael you're saying for example commodities are going to boom and I will say well yes but not too much because there is no sector in which you are allowed to make that much money the whole point is you can't just sit there and say well I have X and no one else does therefore I'm richer than than God or richer than Cusus that's just not the way it's going to work you have to maintain social stability And to bring it back to brass tax within Europe, within America, within emerging markets, we don't really have a great deal of social stability. Now, I think we can agree that society is fragile and is sowing different stresses in different ways. And if you were to say objectively, what's society for? And you would say, well, to push asset prices up so a certain percentage of the population get very rich and the rest don't. An alien looking down at you would say, oh, really? Have you not tried that for four and a half decades and it's failed spectacularly? Yeah, but clearly what we need to do is more of it right now. But unfortunately that seems to be the human condition that as I said it's very difficult to get people to understand something when their job or their income depends on them not understanding it. >> Michael, you're based in Singapore. Are you based in Singapore because you think it's the best place to be placed in such a world? >> I'm based in Singapore because it's a fantastic place. I didn't choose to move here ahead of any particular policy. Singapore is a country obviously with very limited natural resources and as a result has always played the economic statecraftraft game exceedingly well. I believe it will continue to do so. Obviously, it's going to face challenges as everyone else is and moving from an a period of globalization which suited it very well to one of more real politique. Will it require some pivots? But in the past, it's done very well in that environment and I think as I said it will continue to do so. And I hope I hope everyone can do. That's a message I want to get across here. I'm not keeping this secret. It's not a formula I don't share with people. It's a drum I've been banging to try and warn people. I said it the day Trump was reelected. This is what it will mean. And you know, people found it interesting, but patted me on the head as if it was a rather wild exaggeration. 2025 then proved me right. And I said for 2026, this year we'll say to 2025 and panic over tariffs, hold my beer because this is when it gets real. Now wait for the stable coins to h to happen in the next couple of months and you are right it will be transformative and those who understand it either as individuals with their own you know their own businesses their own lives their own portfolios or countries who understand how they need to find new models and new systems they will be the ones best placed and I wish everyone will >> I hope so as well Michael thank you very much for your time this was very broad discussion and I can just tell you I would be very happy and glad if you could sometime time to talk in the future again when we have new developments. But for today, thank you very much. It was really interesting. >> You're very welcome. Thank you. Hi, this is Farush Tarabi from So Money with Farnous Tarabi and today I want to talk to you about Boost Mobile. Quick money tip. Stop paying a carrier tax. If your phone bill feels trapped in a pricey plan, this is your sign to unlock savings. Boost Mobile helps you reset your spending with the $25 unlimited forever plan. You can bring your own phone, pay $25, and get unlimited wireless forever. And that simple switch can unlock up to $600 in savings a year. That's money you could put towards paying down debt, investing, or something that actually brings you joy. Those savings are based on average annual single line payment of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile customers compared to 12 months on the Boost Mobile Unlimited plan as of January 2026. For full offer details, visit boostmobile.com. This episode is presented by Depop. We all have pieces in our closet that deserve a second life. That jacket you loved for a season. Someone out there is literally searching for it. And that's why I love Depop. It's a fashion resell app where your personal taste actually has value. Selling is quick, simple, and genuinely worth it. You can list an item in just a few taps on Depop. Just snap a photo and their AI powered listings fill in the details. Plus, make money easily with no selling fees on Depot. No seller fees means what you earn is yours. Even selling one item is a win. So, if you've been thinking about clearing out your closet, this is your sign. Download the Depop app and list your first item today.