Andrew Ross Sorkin says the next financial crisis is coming

Summary

GZERO World with Ian Bremmer

Episode: Andrew Ross Sorkin says the next financial crisis is coming

Release Date: November 15, 2025
Host: Ian Bremmer
Guest: Andrew Ross Sorkin (New York Times journalist, CNBC anchor, and author of "1929: The Crash that Shattered a Nation")

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Overview

In this episode, Ian Bremmer speaks with Andrew Ross Sorkin about financial crises past and present, with a focus on the echoes between the 1929 stock market crash and today’s economic environment. As Sorkin unveils his new book chronicling the events and aftermath of the 1929 crash, the conversation explores whether the world is on the brink of another major financial crisis. The discussion ranges from debt-fueled economic booms, policy missteps, the hidden risks of today’s markets (especially in AI and private finance), and the troubling silence of corporate leaders.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Lessons from the Crash of 1929

• Sorkin’s new book draws on nearly a decade of intensive research to put readers "in the room" with major financial and political players of the late 1920s.
  • "The hardest part was putting all of the puzzle pieces together." (Andrew Ross Sorkin, 03:28)
• The 1920s were transformative: the rise of the automobile, radio, and—crucially—consumer and investment credit.
  • "For the first time in America, people, ordinary Americans, were taking on credit...and buying cars." (Sorkin, 04:57)
• The stock market boom was largely powered by cheap and easy credit, a radical cultural shift away from prior generations' distrust of debt.

Missed Off-Ramps and Policy Failures

• Policymakers recognized something was amiss, but were paralyzed by fears of public backlash if they acted too aggressively.
  • "They were all worried out of their minds that things are getting completely out of control, but they're so scared about the political ramifications..." (Sorkin, 07:08)
• Post-crash, a series of compounding policy errors (e.g., raising taxes, protective tariffs, refusal to offer public aid) exacerbated the crisis, leading to massive unemployment and economic hardship.
• Hoover’s administration approached the crisis with a mix of optimism and austerity, sometimes believing “jawboning” would fix the downturn.

Human Cost and Societal Shifts

• The crash caused a generational economic scar, with many Americans blaming themselves rather than bankers.
  • "I think a lot of people thought...it was on them. I think there was a sort of almost a personal responsibility piece of it..." (Sorkin, 11:14)
• Cultural transformation was mirrored in language: "depression" (a Hooverism) replaced "panic" as the euphemism for economic disaster.

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Present Parallels and Looming Risks

• Sorkin is less worried about a repeat of 1929 but sees a “1999” (dotcom) style crash as "almost impossible not to have" in today's environment.
  • "I would argue it's almost impossible for us not to have another 1999. How about that?" (Sorkin, 02:49)
• Euphoric investment in AI, with unclear business models and massive hidden leverage, resembles the unchecked optimism of the Roaring Twenties and the dotcom bubble.
  • "There is no way to truly pencil out the math right now. It’s almost religious in terms of the scale of investment..." (Sorkin, 17:13)

The Problem of Hidden Leverage

• A key new danger: today’s leverage is mostly hidden in less regulated spaces (private credit, private equity, venture, crypto), with little transparency or oversight.
  • "I don't think we even have a good handle on where all the leverage is...it's all on these private equity, private credit vehicles and there's no disclosure." (Sorkin, 15:19)
• Unclear interconnections between shadow finance and traditional banks make the system’s fragility difficult to assess.

Transparency and Data Crisis

• After 1929, reforms increased transparency, but today, new “shadows” have formed, with both government and private actors obscuring key economic data.
  • "We're now in a moment where there's a lot of things happening in the shadows." (Sorkin, 19:25)
  • Sorkin calls for “demonstrable independent data coming out of the government—that's a clear and present danger if we do not have that.” (20:39)

International Complications

• The current era of competing global powers (the “GZERO” world) means crises are complicated by fractured geopolitics and rising nationalism.
• Trade policy, specifically tariffs and the quest for “resilience” and “national security” in supply chains, forces the US to reconsider interdependence.
• Sorkin suggests America should aim for greater connection, not less, warning that radical decoupling could have severe long-term consequences:
  • "That interdependence, I believe, ultimately is important. And I think long term, I worry more about what happens when there's no interdependence..." (Sorkin, 24:46)

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The Silence of Corporate Leaders

• Sorkin highlights a growing unwillingness among CEOs to publicly challenge government policies, driven by fear of political retribution.
  • "Most CEOs are really unwilling to say anything...The biggest concern I have is...are there going to be leaders who are going to be willing to stand up and explain what needs to happen?" (Sorkin, 26:03)
• There are rare exceptions, such as Ken Griffin, who has openly criticized policies he disagrees with.

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Timestamps for Notable Segments

• 02:16 – Sorkin on why he wrote about 1929 and the hope to prevent future crashes
• 03:28 – Research challenges and reconstructing the crash
• 04:57 – The transformative, debt-fueled Roaring Twenties
• 06:42 – Missed opportunities to prevent or mitigate the crash
• 11:14 – The cultural response: blame, responsibility, and the rise of "depression"
• 14:37 – Comparing the government’s wider fiscal latitude in 1929 to today
• 15:19 – Dangers of hidden leverage in non-bank financial institutions
• 17:13 – The AI investment euphoria compared to the dotcom bubble
• 19:25 – The vital need for transparency and independent economic data
• 22:59 – Debate over globalization, national security, and economic resilience
• 24:36 – Sorkin argues for more interdependence, not less
• 26:03 – The troubling silence of today's CEOs and possible consequences in a crisis

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Notable Quotes

• On hope vs. optimism:
  "I like to think that actually we're not going to have another 1929, but I think it's very possible actually...it's almost impossible for us not to have another 1999."
  — Andrew Ross Sorkin, 02:49

• On the current leverage blind spot:
  "I don't think we even have a good handle on where all the leverage is...it's all on these private equity, private credit vehicles and there's no disclosure."
  — Andrew Ross Sorkin, 15:19

• On AI investment euphoria:
  "There is no way to truly pencil out the math right now. It’s almost religious in terms of the scale of investment and there is a level of indiscriminate spending."
  — Andrew Ross Sorkin, 17:13

• On the importance of transparency:
  "I think we need demonstrable independent data coming out of the government—that's a clear and present danger if we do not have that."
  — Andrew Ross Sorkin, 20:39

• On lessons from the past:
  "History rhymes. It repeats. That's where we are."
  — Andrew Ross Sorkin, 26:08

• On CEO silence:
  "Most CEOs are really unwilling to say anything...they are not willing to raise their hand and say, this is a problem."
  — Andrew Ross Sorkin, 26:03

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Memorable Moments

• Sorkin describes his years-long archival deep dive, including undisclosed Fed board minutes and “unpublished memoirs” (03:28), blending historical sleuthing with present-day urgency.
• Discussion of “Sunshine Charlie” Mitchell, who evangelized stock market credit for the masses, and the fine line between innovation and predation (09:43).
• The psychological and linguistic impact: Hoover’s preference for "depression" over "panic" as a form of PR blunder (13:30).
• The tension between economic resilience and security versus efficiency and global connection is made concrete with the example of cars versus refrigerators and supply chain vulnerabilities (23:36–24:36).
• Sorkin’s concern that leaders’ reluctance to speak out publicly could worsen the next crisis, as “emotional armor” is in short supply—even at the top (27:35).

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Conclusion

This episode delivers a sweeping analysis of financial crises, the dangerous lack of transparency and accountability in modern markets, and the risky silence in the executive suite. Drawing chilling parallels between the 1929 crash and the current AI-driven, leverage-laden boom, Sorkin and Bremmer warn that without urgent attention to old lessons—transparency, independent data, and open leadership—a future reckoning may already be brewing.

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Recommended for listeners who want:

• Historical context for today’s financial risks
• Insight into shadow banking, AI bubbles, and global economic fragmentation
• Unvarnished opinions on what policymakers and business leaders must change to avert catastrophe

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Skip directly to key segments:

• Lessons from 1929: 02:16 – 11:54
• Modern echoes & hidden risks: 14:37 – 17:47
• Need for transparency: 19:25 – 21:50
• Globalization vs. resilience: 21:50 – 24:45
• CEO silence & leadership worries: 26:03 – 29:35

Transcript

[Ian Bremmer]

Hello and welcome to the Gzero World Podcast. I'm Ian Bremmer and this is where you can find extended versions of my show on public television.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

This week.

[Ian Bremmer]

I'm talking about financial bubbles, past, present, and one that may already be bursting beneath our feet. My guest today, New York Times journalist and CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin. Best known for his definitive account of the 2008 financial crisis, too big to Fail, Sorkin has spent the last decade researching the events that led to the 1929 stock market crash and how those decisions triggered a financial collapse that nearly broke American capitalism. His new book is 1929 the Crash that Shattered a Nation, diving deep into the lessons unlearned from a century ago. In our conversation, Sorokin explains how today's euphoric investment in AI with unclear returns and massive hidden leverage echoes the unchecked optimism of the Roaring Twenties. Perhaps more alarming is what's not being said. At a time when transparency and leadership are needed, Sorkin warns that America's most powerful CEOs are choosing to stay silent. So let's get to it. Here's my conversation with Andrew Ross Sorkin.

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

The Gzero World Podcast is brought to you by our lead sponsor, prologis. Prologis helps businesses across the globe scale their supply chains with an expansive portfolio of logistics, real estate, and the only end to end solutions platform addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today. Learn [e-mail].

[Ian Bremmer]

Andrew Osturkin it's good to see you, man.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

So good to see you.

[Ian Bremmer]

1929. You are spending a lot of time talking about that right now. I saw you just recently on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange ringing the bell for a book about the biggest crash. It looked like a lot of fun, but isn't that kind of like turkeys cheering for Thanksgiving? What's happening then?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I am hoping that we were celebrating the publication of a book that will prevent us from having another crash, that there are so many lessons embedded in the story of what I've been working on for eight years now that the folks on the floor of the Exchange and folks in Washington start to understand really what happened then and maybe we can avoid it the next time.

[Ian Bremmer]

So there's a difference between hope and optimism, right? I mean, hope means you recognize the possibility. Optimism means you believe that something is actually likely to occur. Where do you sit on this one?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Somewhere in between, but tending towards. I like to think that actually we're not going to have another 1929, but I think it's Very possible, actually. I would argue it's almost impossible for us not to have another 1999. How about that?

[Ian Bremmer]

Which was a pretty major crash, which was a crash.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

There was a bubble that burst. It wasn't 2008 like a financial crisis of that magnitude, but it was a significant and major correction in the system.

[Ian Bremmer]

Now, this is a. It's a big topic. It's a huge book. You've been working on this for almost a decade, right. What was the hardest part of the research and writing?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

The hardest part was putting all of the puzzle pieces together. I wanted to bring the reader, the public in the room, to actually meet the characters, the people, and make them feel something in the moment so you could actually be with them. And the way to do that required me to go find all sorts of different archives, transcripts, memos, letters, diaries. I ultimately got the New York Fed to give me the board minutes, which had never been disclosed before. I was collecting unpublished memoirs. I was going around the country in parts of Europe to go get all sorts of documentation so that when you're in the room and you see somebody quoted saying something to somebody else, that's exactly what was happened and what was recorded in that moment. And finding all of that, it wasn't like there was one or two or three archives that you could just go excavate. And mine, it was almost like a mystery that you were sort of, you know, hunting and praying, frankly, to find a needle in a haystack.

[Ian Bremmer]

So, I mean, here we are, our studios, just half a block off of Madison Square park, which was like, you know, kind of ground zero for go go, boom, boom, Gilded Age. And it just topped out. And you can see that architecturally and physically. But you could feel the manifestation of that here in New York and across the country and around the world share what that trajectory felt like at the time.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Well, look, the 1920s, it's not as they were the roaring twenties. It was the most transformational time, transformational decade, perhaps in the entire century and possibly in American history. Insofar as you had really the emergence of the automobile. You had telecommunications, you had radio. I mean, this really was the future. You had media. I mean, all of this was shifting. And all of it was being powered in large part by debt, by credit. For the first time in America, people, ordinary Americans, were taking on credit. They were, they were, they were participating in the market. Participating not just in the market, but in buying cars. Prior to 1919, it was a moral sin in America to get a loan. People didn't get loans that was like, for the dregs, you did not get a loan. That was not. That was not cool. People sort of decided in 1919 when General Motors wanted to sell more cars, and they said, how are we going to do that? We'll start loaning people money so they can buy the cars. And. And for whatever reason, Americans thought that was okay. And then Sears Roebuck said, oh, well, we can do that too. And then the bankers said, well, we can do that too, and we will loan you money so that you can buy stock in the market under the sort of the guise of democratizing finance. And, you know, all of these people, especially farmers, are coming to New York City. They're seeing the elites. The inequality is real. And I would argue this was also a moment of sort of the shift in even the American dream from sort of a Horatio Alger story to everybody now wants the lottery ticket.

[Ian Bremmer]

And as you're going through this research, I mean, you know how the story ends. Yes, but are there moments where you're thinking, ah, they could have. Here's an obvious off ramp. Here's a place where. If only.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Oh, for sure. And by the way, I think there were moments where there were Cassandras in the room. So, you know, the biggest question is, could have you prevented a crash from happening in 1929? And then if you didn't prevent it, what were you supposed to do in the moments after to prevent it from getting worse? So to me, the story of 1929 and this book is not just a story of a financial crash. It's actually the story of 1929-1930-1931-1932, 1933, because it was a series of dominoes. The crash was really the first. First domino, and then a series of terrible policy errors along the way that made things extraordinarily worse. That ultimately ended in 25% unemployment in 1932 and the stock market declining in 1932 by 90%. And so the question is, if you're standing there in 1929, what could have you done? So Hoover, President Hoover only becomes the president, and in March, March 4, 1929, he doesn't have a lot of time to jump in front of the train. The Federal Reserve back then knew there was a problem. They were all the debates you could see in the diaries and the memos that I found. They're all worried out of their minds that things are getting completely out of control, but they're so scared about the political ramifications of if they were to, for example, raise interest rates, to try to tamp all this down that they would somehow topple over the rest of the economy. And so what were you supposed to do now? I think the answer is you should have tried to just raise interest rates like crazy and try to effectively probably change the way the margin loans were being made. You could have prevented them.

[Ian Bremmer]

By the banks.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

By the banks. I mean, the banks were loaning you. You put down a dollar, they'd give you 10. So you could have come in and said, nobody can take on more than two times leverage or something like that. Maybe that would have stopped it. But it wasn't just that. It was then. Then you have this, this crash, which oddly enough, and this was a surprise for me, takes the stock market down between October and by November 13, down about 50%. But by the end of the year, oddly enough, was only down about 17, 18%. But because everybody.

[Ian Bremmer]

So it's a correction at that point.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

It's a correction at that point, except that all of America had done this with loaned money. So when the stock dropped 50%, it wasn't just they had lost the 50% value of the equity that they owned, it was that they lost everything. All of a sudden they're having to mortgage their home, they're having to sell their home, they have nothing. And so it almost created a sort of scratch, generationally scarring moment. And they didn't have nobody, had enough money to put it back in the market when it went up to only get to that 17% down moment.

[Ian Bremmer]

So who are the predators in this environment?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Well, predators are an interesting sort of turn of phrase. Charlie Mitchell was a guy, ran National City, becomes Citigroup, largest bank in the country at the time. And he really invented the idea of credit and lending people money to buy stock. They called him Sunshine Charlie. He said finance should be demystified. He believed you should be able to sell stock the way you sell a necktie. That was his phrase. And he really did push this idea forward more than just about anybody else. Now the question is, was he a predator? That's a question mark still for me to some degree. And the reason I say that is uniquely unlike actually a lot of the financial crises that we've lived with in panics and busts and things in the last, call it 50 years. Most of the people, at least in the immediate aftermath of the crash of 29, didn't actually blame the bankers. They blame themselves. A lot of people like to do finger pointing, we think a lot of finger pointing. After 2008, the banks, subprime mortgages they shouldn't have predatory this and that. It wasn't really till 31, 32, 33, as the economy really took a toll, that the sort of public bloodlust around the bankers even emerged.

[Ian Bremmer]

Is it because of that transformation that you talk about that it wasn't even okay to take a loan? So suddenly all these people who remember that say my stupidity may occult.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I think a lot of people thought, you know, that it was on them. I think there was a sort of almost a personal responsibility piece of it that maybe culturally that was taking place is maybe a little bit different than the way we approach it today. But I also think as the economy got worse, as so many people were being laid off, as you saw tented camps literally in Central park just some blocks from here, that was a real thing. And. And all of a sudden those were Hoovervilles. So I think that's when people were looking for answers, as the economy, the.

[Ian Bremmer]

Real economy is collapsing, as people are losing everything and becoming unmoored. What piece of this most. What do you find most surprising about what's happening to the country? Its values, its civic nature?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Oh, goodness. Well, is it. And these are sort of like some of the interesting sort of policy choices. Maybe you go back to what was happening in Washington because I think that it relates to sort of civically where things went. You had a president who had a Treasury secretary who was a true capitalist, and his view was sort of, you know, if you do well, great, and if you fall on the ground, your fault, your fault, stay on the ground. And we're not, we're not going to help you. If it really was a period of austerity to some degree, the president thought he could almost jawbone people out of their misery, that this was a psychological problem, that they just didn't understand what was happening. They just could put a smile on their face somehow things could get better. And then he made all series of sort of tactical choices around raising taxes at possibly the worst time you could raise taxes. He was telling CEOs to increase wages for workers at a time when they clearly couldn't do such a thing. You know, he decides to implement, you know, the Smoot hawley tariffs in 1930, in part because in 1928, he was so desperate to get farmers to vote for him that he had told them, if you. If you make me the president, I'm going to put tariffs in to protect you. And he felt that he needed to make good on the pledge. So I think there were all of these sort of. And those were all mistakes. But I think it then affected the culture in such a way that it was just. I mean, we now use the word depression. By the way, the word depression was a Hooverism. Hoover stopped using the word panic. He thought the word panic was too panicky. And so he stopped using it and started using literature. He thought the word depression was better, possibly the worst branding in history.

[Ian Bremmer]

So when we turn the clock forward, you said you believe that we have hopefully can learn some lessons that will allow us to avoid a massive crash. There's so many things about the way that capitalism seems to work today, particularly as it relates to policy. When I think about America's fiscal environment, the lack of any decision to balance a budget, just irrespective of we know that these bills are coming due. We see the costs of the interest service. Where do you think the Americans really need to buckle it up, buckle under?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Okay, so there's two issues here. So one is a political question and a fiscal question about the country, right? So uniquely, by the way, there was a budget surplus in 1929, mind you. So we had very little debt back then. So any problem, any crash or crisis that we might have in the markets today will become more complicated than ever, given our own debt. Because the thing we did learn from 1929 is when you have a crisis, what do you do? And Ben Bernanke figured this out, by the way. His PhD at Princeton, his thesis was on the Great Depression. The lesson was, you throw money at the problem. The problem.

[Ian Bremmer]

QE like crazy.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

QE like crazy. That is the lesson. Yes. That's how you save the system. However, if you continue to keep doing that, you are going to have a different problem. And we are possibly in that problem given sort of our own debt. You can't take on. At what point do bondholders in the world say, you know what, America, I like you, I'll continue lending money to you, but you're going to have to pay me a lot more for the risk that I'm taking, because I'm not sure whether you people are going to pay me back. I think that's a fundamental question. That's the backdrop of all of this. The other problem is, and this is true of every crisis, is sort of, where is the leverage in the system taken today, every, every financial crisis is a function of leverage. Too much debt, it's the match that lights the fire. What I don't know about today is I don't think we even have a good handle on where all the leverage is, because Post Financial Crisis, 2008 so much of the lending in America moved from the banks. It's not at the banks anymore. It's all on these private equity, private credit vehicles and there's no disclosure. And so we have no real conception there. And then there's a question of how connected or disconnected these private credit vehicles actually are, even from the banks. Some of the banks are actually financing and leveraging up, helping the private credit folks. So that's where it all gets complicated. And it's all against the backdrop of this euphoric moment, which actually is demonstrably exciting, as exciting as telecommunications and radio was in the late 20s, which is called AI moment. Called AI, yes.

[Ian Bremmer]

And so, and yet, I mean, I'm easily as excited as you are about the underlying AI technologies and what they can accomplish. I'm really concerned of what appears to be the business model of the lead AI companies in the United States right now.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I think there's a real question about the economics of what's going on. I don't think if you really spend time talking to these CEOs and most of them not say it on TV, there is no way to truly pencil out the math right now. And what they're doing this is, it's almost religious in terms of the sort of scale of the investment and there is a level of indiscriminate spending. And so invariably it seems to me not that we won't have AI in 20 years. Just like the Internet, we will have, you know, in the late 90s we had the Internet and people use the Internet, people use the Internet. So it's not, this is not a.

[Ian Bremmer]

Lot of those companies went under, but.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

A lot of the companies went under. So there's a whole ecosystem of companies right now and the question is how many of those will still be here in five or ten years from now? And will there be a hiccup or worse along the way? And I think it's hard to believe that there won't be.

[Podcast Sponsor/Announcer]

The Gzero World podcast is brought to you by our lead sponsor, prologis. Prologis helps businesses across the globe scale their supply chains with an expansive portfolio of logistics, real estate and the only end to end solutions platform addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today. Learn [e-mail].

[Ian Bremmer]

But I guess the point is, and you got this already when you talked about how finance works in the US right now, the interconnectedness of the challenges, not knowing where the leverage is, much more pressure and constraint in terms of what the US budget would be able to actually afford as a burden this massive, the growth in the US Economy, something that feels like a religion but doesn't actually have math side of it. Competition from China, which actually does have a sense of what they're doing in terms of AI and energy and all of those things. I mean, it feels like it's a lot harder for a government leader, a corporate leader, a banking CEO to apply lessons from 1929, which was a very definable problem, to today. Tell me why I'm wrong.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Well, I think the truth is that you can tamp down speculation if you want. You can have transparency around things, which we do not the way we should. I mean, one of the lessons of 1929 was that we had no transparency on anything. By the way, insider trading was legal. There was no sec. There was no nothing. Someone asked me the other day, when you were doing the research, did you ever read what did the prospectuses look like? I said, prospectuses. If they had a leaflet, you'd be happy. So there was no information. That was part of the problem. And I think we're now in a moment where there's a lot of things happening in the shadows. So I think you have to take everything out of the shadows. I think if things are transparent and people actually can fundamentally see the risks, that is important. But seeing the risk unto themselves doesn't change everything, because people still want to believe.

[Ian Bremmer]

We're in a moment where the US Government is turning away from reportable data.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Yeah.

[Ian Bremmer]

Is making it harder to get information you believe in. Where the banks and blackrock and others are saying, well, here's what we think is going on because we want you to at least have something as a proxy. What would be your clarion call? Some regs we need right now, because otherwise we're heading for peril.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I think we need demonstrable independent data coming out of the government that's a clear and present danger if we do not have that.

[Ian Bremmer]

And specifically on what?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Oh, everything. Everything from the Bureau of Labor. You. You want. You just need people to believe. I mean, not like a religion, but you need to believe that the folks who are running these things are doing these things independently. So start there. I think that especially as the private credit, private equity, venture capital, crypto markets become a bigger component and feature of our economy, that there is real disclosure around those things, especially as they become part of people's pension plans and retirement plans. I mean, that's a sort of unique new element that's being sort of added into our. Into our universe. And I Think we need to understand some of these transactions, even that are happening now with the government and some of the chip makers, and some of the different transactions are happening between the large language models and the chip makers and how all of these things even work. Most people don't really understand it because they can't understand it because there is not enough data.

[Ian Bremmer]

How much does the international environment complicate and undermine what the Americans can do?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Well, the question longer term is, are we going to be living in a G0 world, as you would say, and how much of the world are we sort of putting walls up around ourselves? And how bifurcated is the world when all is said and done? And if it's completely bifurcated and we are basically an island unto ourselves, that means that invariably things will cost more, there'll be less competition, and invariably, I would imagine, will create a lot of complications for us. But in terms of thinking about like a China or our relationship to the Middle east or others, you know, where all of their money comes from, I think becomes more and more interesting. How much leverage do they have in their systems? Becomes important. But again, it depends sort of how interconnected or not we really are.

[Ian Bremmer]

And should Americans in this moment in time want more interdependence and interconnection or less?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

So I have a very mixed view of this. You and I should discuss and debate this topic. So much of the tariffs that are being put on and even just the worldview approach that the US Is taking and others are taking, at least to me, is being sort of wrapped in this flag of either national security or resilience. So if we had no tariffs, for example, on automobiles, there would be no automobile industry in the United States right now. Like zero.

[Ian Bremmer]

It'd be.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

We would buy Chinese, we would all be in the back of BYD vehicles that are running around the country.

[Ian Bremmer]

They're cheaper, they're faster, cheaper, better, all the things.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Yeah. So we as a country have to decide, is that okay? Is that not okay? By the way, interestingly, we make very few refrigerators in America. I think you can get sub zero refrigerators.

[Ian Bremmer]

But if you put wheels on them.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

But if you put wheels on them, then we're golden. So I only say this because I think there is an interesting question. This goes to pharmaceuticals. Do you want to be reliant on other countries? Do you not want to be how reliant or not should we.

[Ian Bremmer]

Right. And I'm asking you, because there's this moment right now where it seems, right, we've had all of this globalization, and some of which clearly is challenging from a national security perspective, right? You've got, like, chips that are being made 100 miles off of mainland China. You know, you've got, you know, critical minerals and rare earths that the Americans clearly don't have access to. Those things seem like problems. But now the public discourse has moved all towards national security and resilience. So I'm asking you, how much? Where do you think the United States should be?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I think if the pendulum is swinging this way, we should be definitely closer to the middle and possibly even closer to being more interconnected ultimately.

[Ian Bremmer]

Because.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Because even though I know people have a lot of concerns that whatever you think of globalization and you think that somehow our relationship with China was never successful as people thought it would be, in terms of shifting their behavior or what they're doing, that ultimately you do want to have, frankly, friends and interdependence. And that interdependence, I believe, ultimately is important. And I think long term, I worry more about what happens when there's no interdependence, when you really think that you don't need the other people at all, what really happens.

[Ian Bremmer]

So before we close, I want to talk a little bit about you as an observer and participants in all this. Because, I mean, the interesting thing about you, in addition to the fact that you've now spent a long piece of your life working on these two magisterial works. Too big to fail, Big Crisis, and now 1929, is that also the people actually participating in the markets at the highest level see you every morning, right? So they kind of feel like they know you a little bit, right? So they. And you interview them. So they reach out to you. So you've written this big book, and you're clearly concerned about what a lot of these market participants are saying publicly and the way they act. So what have they been saying to you since they've read the book?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Oh, my goodness. I think most people who've been reading this book say, oh, my goodness, Andrew, this feels a little too similar. And these characters seem a little bit too modern. I mean, I can't tell you how many people call me up and say, Charlie Mitchell, he seems like Jamie Dimon, John Rascoff, he seems like Elon Musk, Carter Glass, he seems like Elizabeth Warren. And I go, yeah, kind of sort of history rhymes. It repeats. That's where we are. So I think there's a worry. But I'll tell you something that I really worry about today, which is different. Most CEOs are really unwilling to say anything. Right. They'll talk to you privately, absolutely. But publicly, unless they're going to be in praise of what's ever happening in Washington. And if they have a concern, if they have a question, they are not willing to raise their hand and say, this is a problem. And so the biggest concern I have is if, in fact, we ever get to a moment where there is a crisis or we're on the precipice, or we need to make some very difficult decisions, are there going to be leaders who are going to be willing to stand up and explain what needs to happen if whatever those steps are, are counter to whatever's coming out of this White House?

[Ian Bremmer]

And is Jamie Dimon that guy? I mean, obviously a lot of the corporates see him as that guy. Do you think that he would. Would he do that?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I like to believe that somebody like Jamie Dimon in that moment would do that. I think there are some people who may. You know, by the way, Ken Griffin, to me, has been fascinating. A Republican.

[Ian Bremmer]

He's been pretty public, actually, in a way that most of them have not. You and I know him well, absolutely.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

On issues, when he is concerned about something that they are doing that he disagrees with, he raises his hand and says, I disagree with this. It would be very. It hasn't hurt him at all, and it hasn't hurt him one bit. It would be interesting to see whether some of the tech leaders would. I don't know. It's so interesting to me, you know, the public, I think, to the extent that there are people who have questions about what's happening in Washington today and are frustrated or upset about it, and they say to themselves, you know, where are the business leaders, especially the billionaire business leaders? Aren't they protected? If anybody could raise their hand, shouldn't they be the ones to raise their hand? But what's so unique, I think, and this goes to the human story of even 1929, everybody, ultimately there's an insecurity that drives almost everybody in some way. And so I kind of think that no matter how much money you have in your bank account or what business title you have on your business card, I don't think it's like emotional armor, weirdly enough. And so I think a lot of these people still don't know their own station in life or feel. Feel secure enough to raise their hand. And the truth is, I think that what's happening in Washington now, there are real reasons why you would feel insecure. Because if you do raise your hand, You.

[Ian Bremmer]

We've seen cases of them being pointed out.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

We know they get hit pretty hard.

[Ian Bremmer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

So it's this sort of interesting trade off. And the question is, I think for most business leaders that are concerned about, for example, certain things that are happening in Washington now, I think the trade off in their mind is if I raise my hand now, I may not have a hand. Should I raise it now, should I raise it later? And will there be a later? Will there be an opportunity?

[Ian Bremmer]

So what I'm saying is that if there were a big crisis, economic crisis, at this point, it's going to have to be led. The response is going to have to be led by, intelligently, by whoever the admin is in the right position in the administration because otherwise the CEOs aren't going to be there.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I think that's very true. Now, interestingly to me, at least, I remember during the pandemic, what did the Trump administration do? It flooded the system with money. Remember, the Treasury Secretary was. That's what they did. And uniquely, the country did not squawk about it at all. So. So unlike the 2008 bailouts, when people were out of their minds about bailing out banks and all of the different things, the automotive companies. Automotive companies, you know, in 2020, for the most part, people were very happy about PPE loans.

[Ian Bremmer]

And it was a lot more money.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

It was a lot more money. Nobody seemed to get upset when the airlines were being bailed out because everyone was getting some.

[Ian Bremmer]

It was literally everyone.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

And so maybe that's the answer. Maybe everyone was getting some. But I think it'll be very interesting to see and hopefully it'll just be interesting. I hope it's only interesting if there is another crisis. Hope you're right.

[Ian Bremmer]

Andrew Osorkin, thanks for being on the show.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Thank you for having me.

[Ian Bremmer]

That's it for today's edition of the Gzero World Podcast. Do you like what you heard? Of course you do. Why not make it official? Why don't you rate and review GZero World? 5 stars only 5 stars. Otherwise, don't do it on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Tell your friends.

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