The Xi Jinping Episode | Lemonade Stand 🍋

Summary

Lemonade Stand Podcast – "The Xi Jinping Episode" (April 1, 2026)

Hosts: Aiden, Atrioc, DougDoug
Podcast Network: Vox Media
Podcast theme: Business and global observations from "three guys with the expertise to run a lemonade stand"

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Episode Overview

In this special episode, Aiden, Atrioc, and DougDoug travel to Shenzhen, China, and (in their usual satirical fashion) "host" Xi Jinping as a guest. The episode centers on their hands-on experiences, conversations with locals, and observations on business, society, youth, education, infrastructure, and China's evolving place on the world stage. The hosts address both the positives and the stark challenges of rapid development, culminating in reflections on what the West might learn from China's changes.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Arrival in Shenzhen & Urban Transformation

Timestamp: 03:09–04:35

• The hosts are in Shenzhen, their fourth city after Shanghai, Chengdu, and Chongqing.
• Shenzhen's growth is highlighted: once a fishing village, it's now a massive skyline of cranes and buildings.
• Shenzhen was China’s first "Special Economic Zone" (SEZ), kickstarting Chinese capitalism under Deng Xiaoping.

“This city is just an absolutely insane amount of building. This used to be a mud flat.” – C, 03:33

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2. Local Life & Basketball as Social Lens

Timestamp: 04:39–06:48

• Doug shares a late-night basketball experience with high schoolers prepping for the critical gaokao exam, reflecting how rare downtime is for Chinese youth.
• Chinese cities feel safe at night, even compared to Los Angeles, highlighting contrasts in urban life and public safety.
• The basketball court is a rare "break" for students facing grinding study schedules.

“This is our one break a week. This basketball that they play at this night, outside of that they're grinding, studying.” – C, 06:46

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3. Shifting from Glaze to "Anti-Glaze" – Harsh Realities

Timestamp: 06:57–08:28

• After several weeks, the hosts feel compelled to address more of the challenging truths about China.
• Long-form chats with 10–15 locals provide a nuanced, less filtered picture.
• Mr. Fu, a new Chinese friend, is referenced as a helpful informant throughout.

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4. Chinese Youth: Anxiety, Jobs & Discontent

Timestamp: 08:29–11:33

• Interviews with young professionals (under 30) reveal job market frustrations, heavy competition, and a lack of career choice—even for well-educated returnees from US universities.
• A generational gap is apparent: older, wealthier people express strong faith in the system and leadership, while the youth are more critical, mirroring Western trends.

"It's exactly the same here...the older, the more stable they seem, they're 100% bought in." – C, 10:09

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5. The Chinese Education System

Timestamp: 11:45–16:44

• Intense exam cycles: the shokao (middle school), zhongkao (high school), and gaokao (university).
• Recent reforms funnel lower-performing students into vocational schools—a government directive to rebalance labor needs.
• The “arms race” for tutoring persists, despite government crackdowns; private tutoring continues underground.

"The people who have been most critical of the system have been the people in their late 30s, early 40s who have kids...they both said, this is one of the number one problems in China." – A, 15:00

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6. Jobs & Work Life: Wages, White-Collar vs Factories, and Overwork

Timestamp: 17:07–28:19

• White-collar pay: around 21,000 RMB/month (~$3,000).
• Delivery drivers in Shanghai: 10,000 RMB/month (~$1,400).
• Many work 9am–6pm, six days a week; overtime is common in factories, office work slightly less harsh.
• Huawei is profiled as both a symbol of China's tech growth and notorious for historic overwork—the "996" culture (9am–9pm, 6 days/week) is discussed.
• Personality tests at Huawei favor submissiveness in candidates.

"He specifically looked up how to answer the personality test so that it would make him look really submissive. And that got him the next round." – B, 26:16

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7. Factory Tour: Realities of Chinese Manufacturing

Timestamp: 28:34–31:41

• They tour a factory that produces clothing for Western brands, engaging with a 64-year-old owner who’s witnessed China’s transformation since Mao.
• Factory workers labor long hours (six days/week), but amenities like meals and nearby housing apartments are standard.
• The hosts confirm: No child labor, experienced adult workers only.

"We toured the factory in the la... the owner of the factory gave us a full tour of the facility. It's a relatively small factory..." – A, 28:41

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8. Generational Views on Xi Jinping and Leadership

Timestamp: 34:49–36:38

• The factory owner described Xi Jinping as a "genius" and the "best" leader he's lived under, though his views on term limits contradicted widely reported facts.

“He said Xi Jinping is a genius...He did do that.” – B, 35:33

• Most older, affluent interviewees echo that China "has developed so much" under current leadership.

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9. The Real Estate Bubble: National Crisis

Timestamp: 46:16–56:24

• Universal agreement: the real estate downturn is real and severe.
• Overbuilding, local government shell companies, unsustainable debt, and government efforts to slowly deflate the bubble—all discussed in detail. Many Chinese citizens have invested life savings into properties that may never be completed.
• Local government officials' incentives to build and pass debt exacerbate the problem.
• The government’s actions are seen as trying to handle a slow deflation to preserve stability rather than a sharp crash (as in the US 2008 crisis).

"Every single person has said there's been a massive downturn. Now, whether it's... China ends in 30 days. Not by any means." – C, 46:16

“For millions...they bought a home that was supposed to be constructed...and it is just not there.” – B, 48:03

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10. Infrastructure: Debt for Development

Timestamp: 57:58–60:16

• Despite financial risk, the hosts argue the real estate bubble at least generated valuable infrastructure, contrasting it with (for example) endless US military spending.

"If you're going to make a giant bubble, this is one of the more valuable ones. Like... one of the bubbles we keep doing is bombing the Middle East. I'd argue that's less interesting. There's a less valuable... ROI is lower." – B, 58:28

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11. Rural vs Urban Quality of Life

Timestamp: 58:43–59:41

• Rural quality of life is much improved, though uneven, with infrastructure like high-speed rail visibly reaching into the countryside.

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12. Technology and Live Streaming Commerce

Timestamp: 21:10–22:51

• Live-stream shopping dominates e-commerce in China. Small business owners (like a fashion startup run by a girlfriend of an interviewee) rely on nightly streams with modest but stable audiences to drive sales.
• The hosts contrast this to fledgling attempts at live-stream commerce in the West.

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13. Automation & AI: The Next Factory Revolution

Timestamp: 41:07–45:42

• Larger factories move toward automation/AI to minimize labor, while small custom shops rely on skilled humans.
• The factory owner is resigned, rather than excited, about automation; he observes that Chinese society adapts quickly to change due to its history of constant transformation.

"No big deal here. Everybody get used to. So okay, wow, AI, it's good future for us. Then we have to learn. I’m the old guy, but I still want to take a course in AI...Life has to carry on." – Factory owner (quoted by hosts), 44:08

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14. Social Life, Safety & Cultural Contrasts

Timestamp: 65:18–67:05

• Crime and homelessness rates in the US are a frequent topic among Chinese (and even pro-American) interviewees.
• The “cameras everywhere” system is credited with improved traffic and public safety, although the hosts raise concerns about privacy and the rigidity of enforcement.
• Smoking, chaotic traffic, and ubiquitous scooters are recurring annoyances—smoking is still prevalent in places Westerners would find surprising.

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15. Western Myths about China

Timestamp: 71:05–73:30

• The hosts stress that actually spending time in China often shatters both positive and negative stereotypes; they urge listeners to travel and see for themselves.
• Despite some visitor limitations (like language barriers and the app firewall), the urban experience is modern and vibrant.

“Whatever your preconceptions are, whether they be positive or negative, I think if you come here...they will be challenged in some way.” – A, 72:19

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16. Comparing Social Media Lawsuits – US Perspective

Timestamp: 87:41–95:50

• Discussion of US lawsuits against Meta and Google for knowingly harming minors via social media addiction and lack of safety features, with comparisons to China’s more draconian but easily evaded regulations.
• Parental controls and digital censors are circumvented by savvy users in both East and West.

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17. International Politics: The Iran War

Timestamp: 76:30–85:29

• The “Iran war” is heavily covered in Chinese media, more so (anecdotally) than in America.
• The Strait of Hormuz is now effectively "taxed" by Iran—oil must pay a yuan tariff, shifting global trade dynamics.
• The hosts critique US escalation and speculate on major geopolitical impacts, with tongue-in-cheek comparisons between "infrastructure mega-cities" and military interventions.

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18. Reflections and Takeaways

Timestamp: 97:53–99:23

• Universalities: Peoples everywhere want stability, dignity, and a good life; ordinary Chinese and Americans face similar daily concerns.
• Language barriers are overcome in small, joyful moments: e.g., a shared song in a cab.
• Key closing advice: Travel, talk to locals, and approach the world with curiosity and humility.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You need to let the corrective period play out in order to start fixing the root of the problem.” – A, 55:22 (re: real estate bubble)
• "No children in this factory. In fact, [the owner] made a specific mention of how experienced and not children these workers were." – C, 30:13
• “She plays it again, and then we…repeat the song for the rest of the ride…there's a language barrier, but everyone is having a good time. It was a beautiful moment.” – C, 97:22
• "The people who you meet here who have been to America said the same thing...everybody's the same everywhere." – C, 98:09

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Key Timestamps for Reference

• 03:09–04:35 — Shenzhen’s explosive urban growth
• 04:39–06:48 — Local basketball & youth grind culture
• 11:45–16:44 — Education system: stress and stratification
• 21:10–22:51 — Live-stream e-commerce phenomena
• 28:34–31:41 — Factory tour: working realities
• 34:49–36:38 — Intergenerational views on Xi Jinping
• 46:16–56:24 — Real estate crisis: causes and consequences
• 57:58–60:16 — Debate: bubble as "productive" infrastructure
• 65:18–67:05 — Public safety and perception of America vs China
• 71:05–73:30 — Breaking stereotypes, travel as education
• 76:30–85:29 — The Iran war through Chinese/Western lens
• 97:53–99:23 — Universality of human experience, closing reflections

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Tone & Style

• The hosts combine self-deprecating humor, candid curiosity, and real empathy.
• Satirical elements abound (e.g., pretending Xi Jinping is present), but interviews and observations reflect genuine engagement.
• They frequently make tongue-in-cheek remarks about "white guys spending two weeks in China," poking fun at their outsider status but leveraging it for candid outsider insights.

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Final Thoughts

This episode offers a blend of on-the-ground reporting, honest skepticism, and cultural bridge-building, questioning both prevailing Western narratives about China and the limits of Chinese self-perception. The “lemonade stand” lens—simple, disarming curiosity—makes complex issues approachable and thoughtful, amplifying the importance of first-hand experience and cross-cultural dialogue.

Recommendation:
For anyone interested in understanding modern China beyond punditry, this episode is both accessible and rich with insight, equal parts fun and thought-provoking.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

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[C]

I N Boys, this is an exciting one.

[A]

This is special episode.

[C]

I cannot believe we did this.

[A]

We had to pull some strings.

[B]

Welcome to the show. Xi Jinping.

[C]

Xi Jinping. What's that, baby? Wow.

[B]

We didn't bring enough cameras.

[C]

This is our bad. This is our goof. I feel like such a silly billy.

[A]

But we didn't expect to have a a guest on. So we only brought two cameras. Normally we have three.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

It's kind of last minute.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. But we appreciate it.

[B]

He messaged us back on WeChat like last night.

[C]

We just did. It was a cold. It was. Can you.

[A]

And then I was like, she. How do you have my number? And then I thought about it for like two seconds. You got. No, no, no, no. Yeah.

[B]

He's like, heard you guys play ball. You want to hang out? This literally was so jeeves. So excited to have you here. We're gonna get your thoughts throughout various parts of this ep. So it's you know, real.

[C]

Yeah. I think he's gonna have some deep insight. I really appreciate it.

[B]

On today, April 1st. Yeah. Also, you know, he'll be a little muffled because we're all. We're actually all sick unironically. So he also. He's like standing like 30ft that way.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

With a mask on.

[C]

So if the voice.

[B]

If the voice sounds like he's not in the same room. That's why the audio is a little weird.

[C]

But he is here. It is April 1st for just unrelated reasons, and he's here having a good time and I'm excited about it. Guys, we are beat. We're chopped. I have to say it. I need to get it out of the way early. The trip has slowly but surely taken its toll. If you probably chart a course from our first episode in China to now, we look beat. We.

[B]

Yeah, speak for yourself.

[C]

You called us a hot piece of ass.

[B]

I did call you a hot piece of. Which was meant to be an insult until I realized what I had said. We're here in Shenzhen. This is the fourth city that we've been to on this trip. We started in Shanghai and then did Chengdu and then did Chongqing. And we were here in Shenzhen. And it's kind of appropriate. Like what the skyline is here, which is that it's just buildings. This city is just an absolutely insane amount of building. This used to be a mud flat.

[C]

Some guy told me that. I'll tell you the basketball story in second, where I was at last night. But they said, yeah, it used to be a really small village, small fishing village, and now massive. I look, I was counting out my window. I can see 14 cranes. Literally 14. There was.

[A]

Yeah, there's. Oh, my God. There's literally five over there.

[B]

Wait, this is actually for people who didn't hear the book club. So Shenzhen. The reason we were interested is this is like the high tech and electronics capital of China and kind of of the world, including the broader area in the surrounding regions. Not just Shenzhen, but this was the first special economic zone that our boy Deng Xiaoping created.

[C]

He's our boy.

[B]

This is basically where capitalism kicked off in China. And then this literally used to be a small mud flat fishing village and has just gone up like absolute fucking crazy. We'll talk about it in a little bit. But we went to tour a factory yesterday and talked to a factory owner for a while. And on the way there, we're driving an hour and a half. City it is. Endless buildings like this being made as far as the eye can see forever. Like forever. It's unbelievable.

[C]

Yeah. Factory owner was. We started that. The factory owner.

[B]

I want to hear about basketball.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Okay. I'll tell you my last night.

[A]

Basketball. Yes, that's right. We have a second best basketball story

[C]

has hit the well.

[B]

So I don't know the details and I'm curious if this redeems like for me it does.

[C]

For me it does. I'll tell you. Last night was one of the most magical experiences I've had in China. I decided to walk to a local basketball court late at night. Two things I'll say I was out, you know, after 10pm in a city.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Probably could not do this safely in the part of town I'm in of Los Angeles, just walking. I could probably do it, but I would feel something. Not only was it well lit, vibrant, bright, and this is the most glaze I'm gonna give to China on everything. This is a truly magical experience. There was old people out exercising, shirtless, like on monkey bars and exercising. People were playing ping pong, people were playing tennis. I walk into a restaurant, people were super friendly. And then I go to the basketball court and it's a bunch of like final two month high schoolers. They have to do the GAO cow test in two months and they are just grinding basketball, having a good time. I sit down in the corner and then they. One of them knows English. He asked me to come play. Cause they need one more. I play 4 on 4 basketball for the next two hours till the light showed off at midnight. They just keep shouting NBA players at me. Anytime I make a shot, they go, Steph Curry. Or, or.

[B]

You do have a striking resemblance.

[C]

I don't. Luke Canard. They kept saying I look like him. And then they all added me on WeChat and they found my YouTube channel from my username on WeChat. And they've been texting me like broken English summaries of some of my videos overnight. So this guy this morning, he's like, he texts me on WeChat. He goes, you have a video about Lego Ninjago. That's my childhood bro. I was like, that's popular in China. He's like, hell yeah. So I don't know, it was just an awesome experience. Everyone was super nice. And then I chatted him a bit about the education system because we've talked about that with a lot of people, you know, especially parents we've talked to have said it's a, it's a challenge in China right now. And they all said, they said this Is like our one break a week. This basketball that they play at this night, outside of that they're grinding, studying.

[A]

I'm wondering what she thinks about fostering an environment that is so good for young people.

[C]

He kills me.

[A]

And so I think, okay, I actually want to bring this up because I think last week's episode, the China Glaze, maybe we have to end the China Glaze and we have to talk about some harsher realities. Oh, this follow up having talked about to more, more people since the filming of the last episode. I think at this point we've probably had long form conversations with probably between like 10 and 15 people. Like talking to them for, you know, I mean, 30 minutes to upwards of like five hours in some. In some cases, yeah, long meals.

[B]

The man that Atriox slept with on the train ended up being inappropriately. Not only an hour on the train, then a two hour dinner. And then Aiden every three or so hours turns to us in the silence that said, oh, Mr. Fu just texted me something or says, ooh, I'm gonna send this picture, Mr. Fu. And so there's this like strange train relationship going on that I'm pretty sure he is sending to you in Chinese, right? Yeah, yeah, you're having to translate.

[A]

Yeah, and then I translate it. But he always gives good tips.

[C]

Mr. Fu's.

[B]

And I can't wait for future episodes where Aiden says, I have a friend in China, Mr. Fu.

[A]

Mr. Fu.

[B]

And I called Mr. Fu to get his thoughts. I'm so excited for it.

[A]

So I think a number of the people we've spoken to in these more recent conversations have been younger and we're getting a feel for the maybe difficulties of young people right now in the current economic state of China. And I figured we could start with the conversation that you had last night with an employee that works at Huawei or used to work at Huawei.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Okay. So these are two friends of Stefix, our lovely, wonderful interpreter, and they all went to UCSD together. So I thought this was particularly unique in that these are folks who grew up in China. One of them went to high school in Minnesota, the other just went to ucsd. And then Stefik was the only one who was able to stay in America and get a job. The other two wanted to stay and could not. So first off, I thought that was interesting and I expressed the stupidity of our current immigration system where we welcome people from around the world to get a great education in America and then we kick them out because they couldn't find a job. Quickly enough and it's like, what the fuck are we doing? So they, they both came back here. They're both 25. One is working in Hong Kong now, is basically like a product manager for like aviation type stuff. And then the other is working at Huawei doing sort of like technical review type stuff. I think this is interesting in that it's not like a crazy job for either one of them. It sounds like it's typical white collar stuff. If you went to university, you got to like work at a company and have a nice gig. I'll list out a bunch of the things that we talked about, but I think the high level thing that was, that really struck me is, dude, we're all the fucking same. At one point I said, okay, so for young people right now, how do you guys feel about dating? Because in America everybody's feeling very frustrated with it. They're drinking less, people are getting sick of dating apps and it's like hard to find third spaces to connect with people. So they're increasingly online and feeling lonely. And they're both like, it's exactly the same here. It is exactly the same. It's just, yeah, the young, the older folks we've talked to who are, let's say 30, late 30s, are older, are all like, China fucking rips hard.

[C]

Yeah, dude. The older, and I gotta say, like, the more well off or stable they seem, the more they just seem 100% bought in.

[A]

I think a good note here is Xi. I mean, I'd love to, I'd love to gas you up for a sec. The most pro. I think one thing I want to correct from like last week's episode is I think people have this idea that people can't be critical of the government here in any conversation they have. And that's why we got a lot of positive things from people. But people are pretty nuanced in their feedback. They're often critical of the government. They're often critical of Xi by name. Sorry.

[C]

It's okay to say she.

[A]

We'll talk about it after, we'll sort it out. And. And there's seems to be a trend of the people we talk to is the older and wealthy you are, wealthier you are, the more you like Xi you and the younger you are, the less you like she.

[C]

100%. That is a trend we've seen from multiple long form interviews. Which is funny because it's kind of like boomers in America. The more boomer you are, the more it's like, yeah, shit's been pretty good. It feels like every.

[B]

Even here, Even here, even here.

[C]

It feels like everywhere across the earth, but especially I think in American China. What I'm seeing is like this higher youth unemployment, this a little bit of an economic slowdown and like good white collar jobs for new graduates and then yeah, just generalizing like costs, you know, so it's like this, this tension exists in both places and it's leading to a lot of disaffected youth and it just. That seems fully. Fully here. Yeah, you need quirk, you know. Can we talk about. Did you talk about education system at all?

[B]

No, but let's dive into it.

[C]

I think we should dive into it because I think that is one thing that has been a through line of a lot of our conversations, which is

[B]

just how can one of you guys give a background of the GAO cow and the Jon. How can you. You guys have talked to people more than I have about that. So what, what's the deal? Because it's way more intense than American education or European.

[A]

There's like three big exams from my understanding. You have the first one you encounter is the shokao that I'm not and, and you take that one to get into the equivalent of middle school. And then there is the junkou, which is the one you take to get into high school. And then there is the gaokao which decides likely what college you go to. And it's interesting because I think the outside perspective is often the gaokao is this very intense thing, which it is, but the junkou has come up way almost way more like its importance in place in the intensity of the education system and what it sets you up for in those high school years has come up a lot. Apparently there's a recent change in the last year where if you're in the bottom 50% of Jungkow performers, you're gonna go into a vocational or trade high school instead of a more academic one. Apparently it was a little always like that, but now it's the top down decision from the government is we need to funnel more people into these vocational roles. And, and also what's come up a lot is through all of these tests, the positive things we've heard about it from a handful of people is back in the day it's a very merocratic system that people, no matter where they live in the country, no matter what their income status is, if they grind hard enough, your scores on these tests can dramatically change your life and put you into the best universities, into the best jobs to. And there's a Very definable pipeline there. But as time has passed and as wealth inequality has climbed between the richest and poorest, even though the quality of life for the poorest people has improved considerably, the abuse and like arms race of how much you need to study to succeed on these things has dramatically changed. So what we learned from like this 29 year old guy who used to work in real estate is even 10 years ago, around when he was taking the exam, he was like, I did study hard, but I didn't have to study as hard as the kids do now.

[C]

I asked him that, I asked the kids last night that, and they said it gets harder every year. That's what they said.

[B]

We're talking, by the way, we were talking about kids who going into high school in like 9th grade, 8th and 9th grade are spending two years where almost every day, almost all the time you are grinding tests because otherwise you aren't gonna get to go to a high school where you get a higher education. You get forced into a vocational school so that you can end up in a factory. That's, that's for fucking eighth and ninth graders. It's like two straight years. I, I just want to underscore how intense this is compared to what we have.

[C]

Yeah, I think the intensity going to

[B]

high school, this isn't even, it's not SAT is going into college like we have. They have their own version of that.

[A]

Like, I think very naturally to the people who have been most critical of the system have been the people in their late 30s, early 40s who have kids they like. They both said, this is one of the number one problems in China, presumably because it affects their children very directly. And the way that the tutoring companies, there was like this arms race among tutoring companies to get extra to help your kid out and all of the money that went into that. We asked them about the Tudor company crackdowns that had supposedly happened in the last couple years. And every single person that I've asked this without fail says, yeah, I mean like, nothing actually changed. Like the tutoring companies on the surface went away, but the tutoring economy still exists.

[C]

It's like so much of work, the incentive is so strong because of the good part of it, which is that it can change your life. Like, you could do it, you could do it on this test. You could be from a poor background, it could change your life. You can do a good school, your whole life's different.

[A]

Yeah, but it's getting harder for poor people in this system to use it to succeed.

[C]

So because of those incentives, wealthy parents will spend any amount of money on private tutors, private anything to get their kid an advantage. And the state tried to crack down on that by banning that, but all it did was move it underground. Not a single person we talked to, like you said, thinks that it's gone. And so, you know, this is becoming a huge problem where people are just constantly competing to stay in almost the same spot. Like, there's nobody really getting ahead. And apparently that used to be different. Like, they were talking 29. He was like, yeah, used to be you could, you know, I studied hard, but not that hard. Which, by the way, I think he studied based on what he was saying.

[A]

You seem like you studied. I mean, you seem like a humble guy. I was wondering when you. When you shared about playing basketball, I was like, damn, kids are playing basketball from 10pm until midnight. But then I thought about. It was like, maybe this is the only time they have.

[C]

They said, literally, is our only time. This is our break. I was like, you guys stressed? They said, yes. They're like, it's in two months. They're.

[A]

They're grinding from. I'm curious, from either. Either of you. Like, from these hangouts with the, you know, these two younger people, the basketball last night, any more big takeaways of what they're dealing with. With at the moment?

[B]

I got some pay for you. So they were willing to share their pay, and I. And said we could share it on the thing. So I think this is an interesting example. We've talked to folks across the spectrum, including a delivery driver who made, I believe, 10,000 RMB a month. Right?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Was what we landed on. We talked to.

[A]

That was in Shanghai.

[B]

That was in Shanghai.

[C]

And he was grinding, which is higher.

[B]

And he was grinding in Chongqing. We talked to our tour guide who's lived there our whole life. She was saying that on the lower end, for Chongqing, it's like four to five thousand RMB a month. Xi, could you. What is that in US Dollars? Okay, thanks. I'll Google it as well, just to check.

[C]

You're fact checking Xi Jinping? No, that reminds me of Aiden last night. What did you say? You said, I think what you said. I think Xi Jinping probably has a translator for English. It was the dumbest thing I've ever eaten.

[A]

I was making a joke.

[C]

No, you turned it into a joke.

[A]

I was. Dude, I was making a fucking joke.

[B]

We were talking about how she speaking. She does speak English.

[A]

We were talking about if she speaks English because when I looked this up, I've never been able to find public video of him doing so. And I was just like, he's probably got a guy.

[C]

He's probably got a guy.

[B]

She.

[A]

Do you have that?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

You don't?

[B]

Xi, this interview would be a lot easier if you just.

[A]

I wasn't joking.

[B]

Okay, so on the low end in Chongqing, it was like 5,000 RMB a month, four to five thousand, which is about US$720. And then for the, you know, somebody who's doing well, you know, by the, by standards with delivery driver, that's 1400 US dollars a month, 10,000 RMB. So by contrast, these two folks are in a more white collar job. It's about 21,000 RMB a month and that's $3,000. So this is getting to like, you know, sort of America salaries in that general range.

[C]

Right.

[B]

And so asking that, I was just like, how do you feel about your pay? And they're like, it is great. It is really good. Like Huawei pays well. This Hong Kong company pays well. What happens a lot for Hong Kong, for people are not aware it's right below Shenzhen. So a lot of people live here in this city because it's so massive and there's so much development and it's way, way cheaper. And they just commute into Hong Kong every day. It's like an hour and a half by train. But everybody's like, look, it's going to be, you know, x X amount cheaper here.

[A]

That's it's like those people that work in, they work in like rural parts of France and then they commute into Switzerland. It's like you're going from just a low cost living area to one of the most expensive places in the world and then you just go home across the border and it gets magically cheaper again.

[B]

Yeah, but one of the things I asked was like, did you guys pick these jobs because you liked it or is it like the one job you could get? And they're like, it's the one job, like there it is rough. It sounds like again just like us young people are like, it's really hard to find a job. You don't have a lot of choice. It's super competitive, so you take what you can get. And both of them are in situations where it sounds like they don't necessarily love their job. I don't know if you think that's fair. G was there, by the way. But they're still like, okay, it's great for the current. So even, you know, the guy who Works at Huawei, is considering doing a master's in Hong Kong. But the fear is if he does that, he's leaving his current job. Who knows if he'll be hard to

[C]

find a new knows if he'll be

[B]

able to get one. Who knows if again, just like in America, if a higher education is even going to be that valuable. And you do have to pay for school here in China, apparently. And here's one of the crazy things I didn't know. In America, if you come and study at American University, not only do you pay tuition, you pay way more as a foreign student, even out of state. Oh yeah, right. To go to the ucs.

[C]

That's why the universities love it, because they make bank off.

[B]

They make tons of money off of foreign students. Even someone, a mainland China resident who goes to studies in Hong Kong gets charged a foreigner tax. The rate goes up because of that. Which I was like, that is, that is crazy. So it's, it's one party, two systems. They are right next to each other. They're commuting from Shenzhen. And it's like, well, you're a foreigner, you live in mainland China instead of Hong Kong.

[A]

She I'm starting to be, I'm starting to feel like it's not a part of China in the same way.

[B]

And then another kind of fun tidbit I saw was that he, his girlfriend runs a small fashion brand. There's like I think three of them running the company and they, they like pick items that they, that they like. I think they do some designing, some is like they find items and then they're kind of selling them as part of their brand. So they're, they're pitching themselves as this, you know, sort of niche fashion brand. So small business. And their marketing is all from live streaming. So every night, I don't know how many days a week, but I think most nights a week from 9pm till 1am they are streaming those streams you've seen where they're just should like showing different clothes. It's somebody walking up to the camera and saying this article of clothing looks really great. They put it on, they take it off, they go to the next one. And then Stavik showed me on the, you know, Chinese TikTok, basically Taobao, is it more of a marketplace or TikTok? It's Amazon. Okay. So their equivalent of Amazon, the like second tab on the app is shopping live streams. And they had 100,000 people watching all the top ones.

[C]

Huge.

[B]

All the top ones, which is just people putting on Items of clothing or showing things on and off. And this is how his girlfriend. Their streams. Because it was live, we like saw it live is only like 80 viewers per stream, but that's enough to get like a couple repeat customers and a couple orders. And apparently you do this at night because then everybody's home from work and they're more likely to spend money. And this is just like the way you market right now. And it's fucking wild.

[C]

Yeah. The biggest ones are making millions. They're moving millions of dollars of product. This has been for a while now. And they keep trying to make it happen in America or in the west at least. I think you heard of whatnot. It's like starting to pop off. They're trying to do. It's like all trying to learn from the Chinese livestream shopping. But it hasn't quite hit over in the.

[B]

I don't get it. I don't want to fucking watch someone advertising me. Close. But it is like brain rot. It's like. It's really. QVC is for boomers.

[C]

I assume this could be Zoomer qvc. Eventually.

[B]

QVC was big because nobody. There's nothing else to watch. Right? That's like at 3am you're awake and there's nothing on the channel.

[C]

Maybe this is that background of like,

[A]

haven't you ever had that thought of as a kid seeing infomercials on TV and being like, who the fuck watches this? And then realizing that we're all the same?

[B]

Except her mom exclusively buys livestream shopping clothes now. That's where she buys all her clothes. It's massive. It's crazy.

[A]

Did they talk to you at all about their. I mean, I guess for the kids in school this would be a little different, but for these jobs, do they talk about their hours at all? We've heard a few things about that, yeah.

[B]

Oh, so that's interesting. So in our book club that you can listen to with our Tier 2 Patreon, we read two books about China last year. One is called Breakneck, which I really recommend. It's basically comparing America to China. I think that was the better of the two. But there's also the book House of Huawei, which we also read, which is about the history of Huawei, the company. Very short primer for people. This is one of the companies that started up when Shenzhen became like the Special Economic Capitalism zone. And then they built up and it's all telecoms and they sort of spread throughout China, then started spreading throughout the world. And then there's this infamous battle with the United States, where Trump locked onto Huawei and said this is a security threat and got the entire world, the sort of most of the world to stop using them and attack them. So it's like a death knell for the company. So in that book they talk about how in the early days of Huawei, people literally worked themselves to death. Like, literally would die in the office from overwork and exhaustion or they would be going out into like small vill and whatnot. And the expectation is if you don't return with all of the business that we asked, if you don't personally take out all of the potential clients every night, hardcore heavy drinking, you're a failure. So it's really, really insane of a company for like 20 or 30 years. It sounds like it's a lot more chill now. So for him, his hours are like, you know, nine to six, it's five days a week, except the fourth Saturday of every month you have to go in. So instead of being forced to go six to seven days a week, it's five and then this. But then he followed up and said, like, I have a more chilled apartment. Some of the departments are, are still going insanely hard. And then one of the wild things is the crazy stories about Huawei. In the early days they would have senior employees who are hitting the like, kind of like you're going to get a promotion and get tenure and get all these things. By law, if you're hitting the nine or ten year mark, those people would voluntarily quit the company, immediately get rehired, and that way Huawei doesn't have to spend more money on you and you're like sacrificing for the company that still exists. He was like, oh yeah, people still do that.

[C]

That's crazy.

[B]

So once you get to the point where you're ready to get promoted after like nine or 10 years with the company, you quit so they can rehire you at your same position so you don't have to be promoted. That's the kind of intensity that they have for this company.

[C]

The 29 year old we talked to did mention something about, he's like, he talked about age and how I thought if he said 35 or 45, but he's like, after that they don't want you for these tech companies. Like, he's like, they, I have to like make the money now because after that it's like much harder for them to keep me because I'm not going to want to put many hours or they're going to not pay Me as well.

[B]

Okay, wait. One final tidbit or story that was fascinating. Part of the interviews, before you go into like in person interviews with Huawei, they do a personality test, like a Myers Briggs personality test. You answer all these questions and they only are going to move you to the next round. Both of them had actually applied and. And she had applied and gotten denied. And he specifically looked up how to answer the personality test so that it would make him look really submissive. And that got him the next round. So they literally use a personality test as a barrier to find people who are submissive and will do whatever they're told to do, like endless amounts. And those are the people they hire. That's fucking crazy.

[A]

I think this is a theme across pretty much any team.

[B]

We do that, but we have the balls to do it in person, you know?

[C]

Right. They just.

[A]

At least we say it to your face.

[B]

We say to your face, you're not weak.

[A]

People work extraordinarily hard here. I think we have heard from people that workers rights have improved over time, like over the last few decades. But the hours that people work as like the standard at whatever job people are at are pretty extreme. Like, we were talking to the factory owner and it sounds like most people at the factory, the factory that makes clothes, everybody There comes in six days a week, 9am to 6pm and also often work overtime. And then with people in the offices, they drop a day. They work like five days a week.

[B]

He said five and a half.

[A]

Yeah, he said five and a.

[B]

So it's like you're still going in on a Saturday. You just get to have the evening yourself.

[A]

Yeah. And. And then I think that's carried through. Like even the. The one kid who was Talking about making 10,000 yuan a month from doing delivery, he is working seven. He literally said he works seven days a week. And I do not think there's a single person I've talked to here where they're not verging on like the 966 thing that you hear about Chinese work hours seems to be very true from talking to everybody. Nine, nine, six, nine, nine.

[C]

Six days a week. Yeah, it's. It's a. It's brutal hours and. Wait, sorry, keep going.

[A]

I mean, not literally nine to nine every day, but the most people working at least nine hours every day. Six days.

[C]

Oh, the factory. I remember. So we toured the factory in the la.

[B]

What's the context? What is this factory? For people who don't know, we didn't just like roll up randomly.

[A]

Oh, yeah. So the factory, interestingly enough, had the opportunity to go to the factory that makes most of the cut and sew clothes for mogul moves and the yard. And we've worked with them for like five years, I think. So the owner of the factory gave us a full tour of the facility. It's a relatively small factory compared to other ones. And then we sat down and got to interview him for two hours and then we went to another like two and a half hour dinner. And yeah, so that's the, the context of how we found this.

[C]

He was a fascinating guy. His life, I mean, the guy looked 40, but was actually 60 something.

[A]

I couldn't believe that I was and

[B]

had been through dropping bro and holy, he was dapping us as we left. That was how he left.

[C]

He was a cheer.

[B]

You guys want to check out my new car?

[C]

He was one of the guys, as we mentioned, he was a little more positive, actually. A lot more positive.

[A]

He was a way more positive because

[C]

this guy, you know, he's 64, which means he had been around for Mao through now and seen just absolute radical changes in China and like, you know, overall up into the right. Massive changes in the city. So. And you know, he had a really nice car. Like, like he's balling. He did say he wanted to retire, but his boss, which is his wife, wouldn't let him. But anyway, so we're at the factory on the hours discussion. I'm returning the factory. And it was like, like you said, they're working diligently. I don't see a lot of breaks. And it's like no kids. He mentioned that I wanted to.

[A]

I want to make it so clear. No kids.

[B]

The oldest kids I've ever seen, if their kids, they' gray hair.

[C]

I was so sure that Mogul Moves would use child labor. I just thought, that's Ludwig's brand, that's what he's going to use. But there was no children there. And in fact the guy made a specific mention of like how experienced and not children these workers were.

[B]

But were you upset to see that they didn't have the same nimble fingers that you had hoped for?

[C]

When you were shaking his hands, Aiden

[B]

was just like, this is not the cruel standards that I had hoped for.

[A]

I told you I didn't want to talk about this on the episode.

[C]

I don't want to dig in there. Yeah, but there's a leaderboard. You know, there were people like sewing clothes and they had like a digital leaderboard tracking everyone's name and the number about. I mean this is probably standard in a factory, but it just was. It was wild. You know, the level of output and consistency and I think the treatment, everything there was good, but it's just. It's a lot of hours, a lot of work.

[A]

Yeah, I don't think I really understood the one. All of the ins and outs of the process to make the clothes itself. It was really interesting to see that. But then also what, like they work these crazy hours, but they also get lunch and dinner provided by the factory, which sounds like is normal. And then they also a lot of them lived in the apartment complex literally next door. And it seems like something similar is very standard at a lot of the larger factories too.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Support for this show comes from Tastytrade.

[C]

Guys, I'm getting real tired of you not knowing serious financial terms. This show, okay, Steve Eisman comes on and we can't even explain ourselves in the complicated financial ways we seem like chumps.

[B]

Is Bitcoin a money?

[C]

This is the problem, Aiden. So I came up with a quiz to test you on your financial knowledge. You're going to tell me if these are real or fake.

[B]

Okay, These are financial terms.

[C]

Okay? The Lady Macbeth strategy, is that real or fake?

[B]

That's a chest opening. That's not real.

[A]

That's real for sure.

[B]

It's real.

[C]

Really? It's real.

[A]

Okay. Everyone knows that.

[C]

What about the. What about momentum canceling?

[A]

Momentum cancel. That's from Melee.

[C]

Fake.

[B]

Fake.

[C]

Yeah, it's from Melee.

[A]

All right.

[B]

What about.

[C]

What about. What about a broken wing butterfly?

[B]

That's gotta be. It's too weird to be made up.

[A]

That doesn't make sense. Feels like it's real. Feels like it's real.

[B]

Fair point. That's a fair point.

[C]

Okay, it is real. So you guys are getting some of these, right?

[B]

Brandon, what does it mean?

[C]

Not focus too much on the details. You know who could explain it really well? Tastytrade, because they have an actual jargon library that breaks down these terms help you understand so you can trade with understanding.

[B]

Wow. Are you saying I could go to tastytrade.com lemonade today and that Tastytrade Inc. Is a registered broker dealer?

[C]

That's exactly what I'm saying. You finally got it.

[B]

Okay, I'm taking notes on it.

[A]

And it's a member of finra. Nfa. Nsipc.

[B]

Well, hold on, hold on.

[A]

Is it?

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Okay, I'm in. Thank you tastytrain for supporting the show.

[A]

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[C]

Well, you go into this guy's, I mean that guy's discussion was one of the most fascinating. He gave us hours of discussion. He had a lot to say and in fact, you're gonna like to hear this. He was the most positive on Xi Jinping of anybody we interviewed. He said Xi Jinping is a genius.

[B]

Yeah, we, we, we just asked, we're like, who do you think is that you did it tactfully? Other we have, we've been asking a number of people like, so what do you think about Xi Jinping? And then, you know, people literally tell us and a bunch of said no, he's not that good. It's the Chinese people are what makes this successful. And then you framed it more tactfully.

[C]

And I just listed all the leaders he's been alive for.

[B]

Yeah. And you said, which do you think?

[C]

I was like, what's your favorite? And he was like, and she's the best.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, he was.

[A]

No question.

[B]

It was awesome. So congrats Congrats.

[C]

She has a big win for you.

[B]

Yeah, he did. He then followed up and I was like, are you concerned at all about the lack of term limits? Like that she's just going to be there forever? And he's like, nope, we still have term limits. He. It's. There's a limit. He can't be chairman forever. And I was like, I thought they abolished that. I thought he abolished the term limits. And he's like, nope, that's propaganda. See, this is why you can't trust everything. And people tell you false things about China and we all look at each other. He was basically like, that is not true. He did do that.

[C]

You abolished Turlev.

[B]

You abolish bro.

[C]

You abolish them.

[A]

But I, I was looking this up because I was like, maybe there's just something I missed here because what he was saying is he raised the cap of. From. Of term limits from two to four, and it's not like they're gone entirely. And I was like, oh, maybe I just misunderstood when this decision was made. I can't find anything that says that's the case. So I'm, you know, I was like, I don't need to be right about this. I've just never seen what you're telling me anywhere.

[C]

I couldn't find any verification for his

[B]

claim that there was, but it's the same thing. It's, you know, and I just to. But to reiterate the theme that we felt and expressed in the previous episode, that almost everyone, I think, except younger people, like mid-20s or younger, everybody older than that has expressed China has developed so much, has become so much better. It's an amazing place to live now. It's incredibly convenient. And he expressed the exact same thing. And again, he grew up in Hong Kong. Fucking across the water. Would have been this. With nothing here. And he's. In his lifetime, this has developed into this mega city and talked about how much the supply chains have improved, how much the quality of fabric and materials across China has improved, how he, as a. As a factory, he went and like, founded his own factory. Like, how much better the standards are across the entire country, how quick everything is just like, from a logistics perspective, has just said, like, it is unbelievable the amount of change. And so you hear that from everybody else.

[C]

That's the first thing that we've talked about before, which is that, you know, in the initial days of China industrializing or, you know, getting foreign capital, they were cheap labor. That's what, that's what they started out as. Doing there's factories that would do cheap labor and now they've sort of moved up the value chain. And the new cheap labor he was mentioning is like Vietnam, Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Cambodia. And so factories are actually moving the, the real basic stuff there. That's where that's going. Yeah. Like Chinese factors are moving some stuff there and interesting, sending the fabrics. But the higher end stuff is staying in China because they have process knowledge and infrastructure.

[A]

He also said something I thought, because that was one of my big questions, is how does the competition around these things work? Like, where do the Chinese factories and companies locally still find their business? And he said that they're more cost competitive than people think because of the supply chain infrastructure that's been built up in China. He's basically said, like, there's so much infrastructure and so much supply chain knowledge here, which was something that was super highlighted in Breakneck, that book we read that because that doesn't exist in those foreign countries, we can remain relatively cost competitive with the factories that start up there that aren't owned by Chinese companies.

[C]

Right?

[B]

Yeah. Some examples he gave were, let's say you need a specific type of fabric, he calls somebody and in two days a massive amount is delivered to his factory. Right. You can't get that in other places. They would have to do a whole giant supply chain thing, special parts, custom washes, like for your guys's clothes. Like if you need a specialized thing to make clothes look a certain way or you know, special metal pieces that are custom designed. Like, all of that can be done instantly in this broader area of China. Like everybody making the fundamentals are here, so everybody can just pass it to each other super fast.

[C]

The big thing was the tariffs. He talked about the tariffs and how they impacted his business. You know, there's this sense, I think, on if you were like against Trump in America, which I am, but you would say something like, the tariffs are only hurting people in America, only increased prices. The truth is it did hurt. It hurt factory owners in China as well, but the jobs just didn't move to America. Like, his takeaway was that their business slowed down 20 to 30% and that they had to find ways to cut costs or whatever to try and make it competitive. However, he also mentioned that to get around that either factories were at that time moving to, you know, different in between countries, or we went into more details on like, and this is like stuff we hear from other people, but like of the ways people avoid tariffs altogether by shipping through.

[A]

Yeah, he was saying like big companies that Produce a lot of, like, standardized blanks. Would send, like, a shirt that doesn't have one of the sleeves on it, and then they would send, you know, like, thousands of that shirt to a factory in Indonesia where they would sew the last. The last sleeve on it and then change the label.

[C]

And now it's an Indonesian shirt.

[A]

Now it's an Indonesian shirt.

[B]

I have my issues with Trump, but he has been a job creator for Indonesia. For Indonesia. I just want to underscore this. According to this. Andy, who we spoke with for a long period of time, known, like, none of these companies were, like, there's tariffs now. We should set up shop in America. They just moved to cheaper places.

[C]

They just found cheaper places.

[B]

South Asian countries. What is the fucking point?

[A]

He was talking about some of the consequences of AI in this industry, too, or the consequences of AI that he expects. He seems like a pretty pro AI guy, but he said one of the things that these larger factories are looking to do are their process is already fairly automated compared to a factory like his. To briefly explain the difference, his factory makes smaller amounts of highly custom sweatshirts or jackets or whatever. Which is the reason that we work with a company like his is because it's very difficult to get the customization we want at the volume we want with a lot of other places. Like, if I were to try to do that in the US It'd be especially difficult. But he said that larger, larger factories are outputting, like, thousands of the same items. And because of that, they've automated a lot more than his factory has. And we did see that, like, so much of what is done at his place is, like, hand sewn or hand cut because of how frequently the products change. And he doesn't really have a choice. And he said the goal of a lot of these larger factories, especially, is using AI and robots to basically get rid of everybody in the long run. Have a completely automated factory that is running 24 7, that doesn't have to employ any people. And it was interesting to see him talk candidly about the. The, you know, the consequences of that.

[C]

I don't think he was so positive. I don't think he's like. He was like, it's happening. He was, like, shrugging his shoulders, like, what can you do?

[A]

You don't have a choice.

[C]

You don't have a choice. I have to. He's like, I want to take a course to learn about AI because this is the way it's going. I have to figure it out. And this is what the bigger factors are doing. I don't think he was like, I'm so stoked to.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, that's fair. He was also talking about robots being the, the caretakers for the elderly as the population ages.

[C]

Yeah. Because of the demographic problem.

[A]

He's like, no, no old woman wants to help her husband shower every day. That's what we're saying. But the robot will do it fine.

[C]

She.

[A]

Do you get. Who. Who bathes you?

[B]

You gotta. I bet he has somebody who can help bathe.

[C]

Yeah, I bet he has. Probably has a bathing guy.

[B]

I bet he has a bath.

[C]

Almost certainly.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And another theme we heard. We heard and express this in our previous episode and it continues to be expressed over and over and over by people here, which is that Chinese people are used to change. And they are used to the idea that their culture has changed or not even like culture, but you know, the world is changing, technology is upgrading things. And again, they, the average Chinese person has seen a massive, massive change in the world around them that has made their lives measurably, measurably better over the last 30, 40 years. And so when something like AI comes along, they aren't scared or terrified or trying to stop it. They're just saying, this is the next set of changes that we are going to adapt to.

[A]

Yeah. I think he put it the most eloquently out of everyone we've talked to. We did record that interview too. We might even be able to cut. I feel like his answer to that specific question was amazing.

[B]

So maybe we can audit here and then G gets a counter argument.

[C]

But Chinese people, they get used to the way we keep changing. No big deal. Am I right? No big deal here. Everybody get used to. So okay, wow, AI, it's good future for us. Then we have to learn. I'm the old guy, but I still want to take a course of AI. You know what I think is nothing about money. Just like life have to carry on. And then just like the cell phone. Long, long time ago, the analogs for, ah, look here, the best, right? But out of the business, not just us. People don't want to learn from the smartphone, but eventually they need to learn it. Otherwise you can't survive because you need the phone to communicate with the world, with people. Okay? Like the computer. A long, long time ago, Quite a lot of top management they didn't want to touch. Oh, and like I got a secretary help me out. But they were out of the. Out of the day. Just a matter of time. They force them to learn from the computer.

[A]

Learn from the computer, all that.

[C]

You know, the same case. Like, why not? But Chinese people, they get used to it. It'll keep changing. You know, every single day, every single year, there's something new. Wow. Amazing. We feel wow. So amazing.

[A]

We love to see that.

[C]

So everybody, especially those young guys, teenagers, even the old guy like me. Oh, okay. We need to learn something. Otherwise we out of date. I can't communicate with those people, you know, with people, with my friends, all that. So we need to learn something.

[A]

I think in the spirit of maybe the anti glaze episode. Are there any other things?

[C]

There's a massive one.

[B]

Fucking suck.

[C]

No, the dim sum was incredible.

[B]

It was incredible.

[A]

If anything, if you can't knock anything, it's the food.

[B]

They don't have sticky rice and they don't have. Oh, my God, what is it? They don't have a rice noodle.

[C]

They have these things.

[B]

Not at the places we're going to. We've eaten three. We've eaten in the last 28 hours.

[C]

Easy to glaze. The incredible food and, you know, people's been great and the cities are obviously incredible.

[A]

Okay, what are things I want to

[C]

give the biggest anti glaze because the thing I was the most interested in learning about and every single person from the most die hard. I love teaching Ping China Glazer to the hey, I'm trying to get out of here. From everyone we talked to, I had that same agreement on this. The one thing universally agreed on, the real estate crisis is real. It is real. Every single person has said there's been a massive downturn. Now, whether it's. It's not China ends in 30 days. Not by any means. In fact, we're seeing so much construction out here. But the truth is, if you don't know, there was a massive. A gigantic bubble in Chinese real estate. Everybody put their savings into apartments and houses and buildings. There are buildings everywhere. There are multiple apartments. People have multiple apartments. And the prices of these have been cratering. And so it's. It's the reason behind a lot of the job slowdown and a lot of the. Because there's just a general lack of willingness to spend because so much of the savings is tied up in apartments that are growing more and more worthless. This is like everyone's agreed on it. Even that guy who is 100% all in was like, yeah, it's a problem, but, you know, they're doing the right thing. We'll get through it. But that, that nobody disagreed that that was a downturn. And so it's I guess it's just good to verify because you read a lot of sources about this, but you're like, what is it on the ground? And people are feeling it. They know that. Yeah, yeah. The.

[B]

The guy we talked to who worked in real estate.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

He was the most dire.

[B]

Yeah. You know, interned at Evergrande.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Mentioned how he's been looking into this. And he said there are probably, you know, from his estimates. And this is somebody who's really like, researched this stuff. While acknowledging that it's hard to know the exact scale of it, that there are probably millions of Chinese citizens for whom they bought a home that was supposed to be constructed because you buy it before the building goes up. And again, you. I mean, just. These condos are going up everywhere all the time for the entire train ride across the entire country.

[C]

Right.

[B]

And people would buy these homes and they just don't get built. And then you're just fucked. There's no recourse. You can't go to the local government. You can't do the fucking shell companies. You can't do anything. And there's millions of people who basically bought a home that was gonna be their big nest egg and it is just not there. And they just have to accept it.

[A]

Yeah. The specifics are a little vague, but it seems like there's, like, early programs that are meant to help people in this position and some people are being helped, but the majority of people in this situation are, quote, they're just fucked.

[C]

The scale is just massive. It's just a massive. It is very. You know, we talked with a guy. It was funny. If you guys seen the big short, it's like the scene at the dinner when they're understanding the size of the bubble. Aiden's face was like. As this guy was walking through the details of, like, how local governments will use shale companies to borrow money to try to develop land. And then if it is, they can't make any money on that, so they had to shuffle the debt off to a different. It's just. It was wild.

[B]

Yeah. Can you walk through the steps of like.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. Okay.

[B]

So I'll say this is, you know, somebody who's talked to local governments about the process of this. Somebody who's been on the ground talking with them. And he walked us through this weird process that is funding all of this building despite it being a disaster.

[A]

I think to quickly contextualize, he wasn't just an intern at Evergrande. He continued to work in the real estate industry after. For years. And then he recently left the industry to go work at a different company. Because of the downturn?

[C]

Yeah, 100%. And I want to say there is a difference between, you know, the tier one cities like we're in. You can still see, obviously, a ton of construction things. These are still popping. Like the, the bigger cities are, are way more insulated from this. But what the real problem was was all the other areas where there was just a ton of building. But the main thing is, so collecting taxes for local governments is not something they've built great infrastructure for. They're not pulling in a lot of, of income tax money. And so a lot of the way that local governments in China are funded is through selling land or renting land out to be developed. And so they had a enormous incentive to do as much development as possible. And so what they would often do is they would set up a shell corporation from the local government, which would then borrow money to either purchase the land if they needed to purchase it to be developed, or to loan to developers to start developing. And the problem with that is that the thing you are creating, if it doesn't continue to go up in value, you can no longer pay back that development money. And so as everything was sort of working while prices continue to go up, but as prices are now declining, these local governments can no longer profitably rent out any of this land. And so they can't fund a lot. Like you were saying, bus services were getting shut down in some places. And like, it's just becoming more difficult for them to fund their thing. So the central government has to step in and like, buy a lot of this bad debt off of their books. But it's becoming this, this sort of chaotic problem.

[A]

And he also explained that the local. It sounds like from, from what I'm gathering across more conversations is corruption at like, a local government level is still relatively rampant, and the central government is doing their best. And one of the things we've heard Xi be like, praised for, criticized for in some other ways is the cracking down on this corruption within local government. And the local government appointees have a large incentive to continue building and continue taking out this debt because it was one of the major metrics that they were judged on.

[C]

To get promoted.

[A]

Yeah, to get promoted. And if you're in a local government position where you can take out a bunch of debt, build a bunch of stuff, get promoted, you can pass the buck of the debt to whoever the next guy is. So it created this big pipeline of people trying to move as many infrastructure projects forward as Possible so that they can go up the chain themselves and then we'll deal with the debt problem later.

[C]

100%. Yeah. Even the guy who is, you know, the most pro, Xi Jinping, he was like, he's great. The local governments are still corrupt. That's what he said. That's what he said. And yeah, that was that the incentive structure is bad. Now, again, I think we have the same. A very similar incentive structure where people in our government overspend because they know the problem is passed to the next person. But in here, it's very concentrated in the local governments where they are just dumping borrowed money on things that, you know, that may not make sense. You know, I think the first wave of infrastructure always makes a lot of sense. You build the first train or the first bridge or the first whatever, but they're just continually doing it because that's how you get promoted, that gets your growth target.

[A]

Help me, help me say this if I'm. If you think my understanding is incorrect. He was basically saying that local government officials currently in charge that own these buildings or, you know, that could be leased for commercial purposes or leased for housing purposes, don't want to put them on the market because then the loss will be realized from an accounting perspective.

[C]

Yeah. Okay.

[A]

So they can basically hide the values of these things crashing and maintain the facade of these things being worth the amount of money they want them to be if they just don't actually sell them.

[C]

Yeah. So if you're a local government and you have this plot of land that is currently like unfilled apartments or whatever, it's not doing so well. So you make a shell company, you take out debt, you buy that land, and then you're going to build a mall. Now, you haven't done any research or studies whether this mall will be supported, whether enough people will actually use this to make it worth the money you spent. And so what they do is they build the mall, they find out that they can't even fill the space properly. They just can't.

[A]

It.

[C]

They're not making money on this, not even to justify the cost of building it. And they can't pay the interest on the debt. But if they were to sell the land and like declare the loss, then on the books, they would have to mark down the mall is worth what they paid for it until they sell it.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And so they're just. They're just kind of like going forward with everything, knowing that the next guy will have to deal with the problem and sell it to give a visual

[A]

if You've seen the big short. It's that scene where Michael Burry is talking to the bank and he is saying that if the underlying like assets are crumbling, how can you tell me that, like, there's no drop in price of the CDOs? Like, that doesn't make any sense. And it's the same thing if you

[B]

don't sell them ever. You can't prove that people don't want

[A]

it because they don't need. There's no incentive for them to mark it down before that.

[C]

It's something going on in private credit right now in America. It's just very similar. But I guess the thing that this guy was so insistent upon was that this is massive. Like the, this is one of the most leveraged bubbles of all. Leverage, as in like using a lot of debt bubbles of all time and is in a multi. And I will say, you know, I kind of pushed him on this. It feels like the way they're handling it, getting into the situation in the first place was a disaster. Like, it's clearly a problem, but the way they're handling it is like a slow deflation over many years that is avoiding societal, you know, not collapse, but like disruption. Like they are implying that there's maybe four or the guy estimated four or five years to go.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[C]

And,

[A]

well, it's kind of tough because

[B]

right into the mic, man.

[C]

Sorry, isn't that.

[A]

Sorry, G. Kind of tough, isn't there is the argument that, I mean, in the case of like the American housing crisis at the time too, is you need to let the corrective period play out in order to start fixing the root of the problem.

[C]

No, I asked him that. I was like, well, you know, you're talking about the prices keep going down and the price of everything is going down because there's deflation and there's, you know, the consequence of that in the short term is that there's no jobs and the economy is really slow. But for a young person, eventually it's like, I can get an affordable place and things are more affordable. And so I asked him that and he's like, yeah, well, it has to happen. So, you know, I, on some level I have to give credit there. But I do want to say, you know, for people that are like, well, housing shouldn't be an investment. You should do it more like China. It's like they did it as an investment for now 30 years, like they've created one of the largest, like people put money in. Xi Jinping is killing me for my truth.

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[C]

What?

[B]

It's hard, like, going around, at least to. Again, these are like the Tier one cities where apparently the struggle is really being felt a lot more on the smaller ones. But there's part of me. It's like, I don't know, maybe leveraging themselves into a massive bubble, but at least you get massive infrastructure, massive buildings, housing everywhere. Everything is, you know, cheap and affordable. It's like, I would rather that than what we got, which is no infrastructure, no housing. No, it's, you know, I think it's definitely a pro.

[A]

It's like, okay, well, you know, if

[B]

you're gonna make a giant bubble, it's like, this is one of the more valuable ones. Like one of the kind of. One of the bubbles we keep doing is bombing the Middle east. And I would argue that's less interesting. There's a less valuable. Yeah, the ROI is lower.

[A]

Don't nip it in the bud so early.

[B]

You know, let's let it play out.

[A]

Why don't we wait and see? I. I think they're Yeah, I, I've been thinking about that. I like a lot of people. I think a common criticism I hear is how much different the rural countries, the rural parts of the country are and how much lower the quality of life is. And while I think that's true to a degree, asking people here, they've been pretty insistent. And from the little parts of what we've seen, that quality of life in rural areas has drastically improved compared to what it was in the past. Like the level of infrastructure access that even gets built out to more rural areas has been incredible.

[B]

Anecdotally, as we went across a six and a half hour high speed rail from Chongqing to here, I was looking outside most of the time and it was like little villages and you could see everywhere, condo buildings going up, bridges going up, infrastructure going up. Like it is touching, like everywhere.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Even if maybe the leverage and fundamentals behind the finances are bad.

[C]

No, I think like we just clearly underinvest infrastructure in America. And so it's obvious that this is, we take this trade. I do think, you know, he had a really good point, which is about now there's maintenance costs on all of this stuff. You know, it's all freshly built and so it's extra nice, but the maintenance costs add up. And if you, if it wasn't able to be supported before, it's like harder now. But yeah, overall I agree. I think this was a better use of debt and money than other things. Right. This is just, it's clearly had some positive effect.

[A]

You guys really scrutinized this whole Iran thing. I don't get what's up. Keep bringing it up.

[B]

Gas is $50 a gallon here. It's unbelievable.

[A]

Okay, I, I think that whole section on real estate is really good. Any other things I don't like about China after, You know, after three guys, white guys spend two weeks here.

[B]

Damn, some fucking sucks. Don't eat.

[A]

No, that's the only.

[B]

I wanted rice paper.

[A]

It's just so extraordinarily wrong. It's. I. I don't even know what to say.

[B]

I'm sorry, Let me rephrase that. The people who order dim sum here fucking suck. They don't order 15 plates of bao like I do. I thought it was going to be this feast of bao and instead they

[C]

keep ordering delicious food.

[B]

We've eaten so much, it's incredible. Like the food, I should be clear. The food quality is incredible, but it's not exactly what I get in America and that is a tragedy.

[C]

Well, you had McDonald's last night.

[A]

I did.

[C]

Yeah, a little Mickey D's.

[A]

I did. I didn't want to go anywhere, and I couldn't figure out food delivery on my phone, so I went downstairs to the McDonald's next to the hotel.

[B]

Okay. Adish, can you put up the photo of what Aiden looked like when we went to get hot pot in Chongqing? It's very spicy food there. Aiden refused water.

[C]

Oh, yeah. He. We gotta give credit because you're gonna be pissed off. You're gonna be fighting the war in the comments.

[A]

I'm too tired.

[C]

You had the most spice. You were the best among us.

[A]

But also, water doesn't. I would say water, like, famously doesn't help.

[C]

But let's be clear, though. They gave us a bowl of water to dip the meat into, and I didn't use that to reduce the spice. And you didn't use it, but yet you were like, I don't need the water. I'm tough. But then you started crying.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

You were sweating and crying and getting flushed red. But you're like, this is not even bothering me. I kept pulling as you shovel more spicy meat in your mouth.

[B]

Chongqing is famously spicy food, bro.

[A]

I kept accidentally pulling full peppercorns out of the pot.

[B]

Pot.

[A]

So it's funny because for the first 30 minutes, I'm like, this isn't even that bad. But by the time I got to the end, so many peppercorns had accumulated in the little bowl that I was, like, eating multiple at a time. And I was like, oh, it keeps getting spicier as we go.

[B]

Like.

[A]

And my swelling. My forehead is like. Like a waterfall.

[B]

At the end, the workers were staring at us. I don't know if you guys noticed that.

[C]

We showed a picture to the factory owner, and he was crying, laughing. He thought it was hilarious.

[A]

Yeah, but you guys make great food. Gee, I don't know. I don't know what your favorites are, if you dig the spice, but, yeah,

[C]

a couple small things. Smoking. A lot of smoking everywhere.

[B]

The weird thing is, she has exclusively been eating these rice crackers. Can you hand them over me to Wong? The rice crackers, really, I think are going to be a huge hit in America.

[C]

Now, legal to imply that Xi Jinping endorses these rice crackers within China.

[B]

Thank you, G. And I just, you

[C]

know, I mean, he does. He's right here, but.

[B]

Oh, my God. Oh, my God, that's so good. Now, as a reminder, this is the rice cracker brand that I'm going to try to buy a bunch of rice crackers from. And people in Discord were going and trying to find it online so they could buy some and it doesn't exist. Like you can't.

[C]

We didn't make it up.

[B]

No, no. I just mean that like this is not a company that's like selling to Americans. Right. Like I have to buy like 40 crates or whatever.

[A]

I had a thought.

[B]

I'm going to.

[A]

If we're going to pile a bunch of these on our set for a couple episodes after that, we should just sell them at no margin. We should just.

[C]

Oh, we're just a pass through drop shipper for.

[A]

Because we're never going to eat them.

[B]

Why don't we eat them? I don't understand.

[A]

It doesn't make any sense. I did.

[C]

It's a pass through. But Doug gets a little tax on each one.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Okay. I do have my complaint.

[C]

What's your complaint?

[A]

It's funny because even by my own memory having been to mainland China a long time ago, and I came in like 2011, a bunch of people have talked about how much traffic standards have improved, how much smoking has improved. And as far as the traffic stuff goes, it's one of the results of the like Skynet camera system. There's this. There's more video to like hold people accountable for breaking the rules, basically.

[C]

Dude, I looked into this. Can I add something to this? Yeah, I looked into this. I wanted to see more concrete comparisons in like justice application across China. I looked at some Europe countries and look at America and there are concrete studies that show, I think Singapore has learned this as well, that it's not the length or the strength of the punishment that matters nearly as much as applying it 100% of the time. So in fact, prison sentences are longer in America. But if you are hit every single time with a fine or a short prison, they have this. I mean, I don't even know if I like this, but they have like a 20 day prison sentence they can give you before you've even been tried, which is kind of crazy. I don't.

[A]

That's insane.

[C]

But I just understand that like if you are getting hit every time they have like a 95% conviction rate or something absurd, then you just, mathematically you don't try it anymore. You just don't do it. The gap of crime exists in the area of thinking you won't. Of the risk reward of whether or not you will get punished.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, you're saying there's a small number of criminals.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And we need to do what needs to be done.

[C]

Not what I'm saying. I think that's what we're doing in

[B]

the breathing in between the lines.

[C]

I'm saying actually be less punitive. But if you were 100% applying it, if people know that some people are getting away with it and people aren't, then the law loses all meaning. I'm not, I'm not advocating for the system in general. I'm just saying, like, that is. That is why I think you're seeing.

[A]

I mean, the opposite end. The opposite end of this is like my car has gotten broken into twice in L. A Semi recently and I don't have any hope that that's no recourse.

[C]

Nobody.

[A]

Nobody's going to do anything about that.

[B]

It's been a number of people that we've talked to that bring up the homelessness in America. That seems to be like a thing that is broadcast to people on social media or whatever else where they are shown, like, well, it's way worse in America. Lisa's not that bad. And it's. That's so interesting that that has become a sort of like. I don't know if propaganda is the right word, but this like, you know, point of comparison that people keep saying. Well, like, we've heard from two or three people now, like, well, in America there's all this homelessness on the street, and then that includes from the factory owner who has gone to Los Angeles a whole bunch and just said it's gotten really worse. And like, that type of thing can't happen here because of the government systems.

[C]

Yeah, you told him the murder rate was down. He's like, well, numbers are numbers.

[B]

But the feeling, you know, when his family, like his son lives in America until very recently, and he's visited all the time to, like, talk to prospective American clients and just said it just feels a lot less safe over the past 10 years. And that's. That's like in kind of our area of la. Like, this is Los Angeles. And so.

[A]

And this is coming from a relatively pro American guy. Yeah, he's done a lot of business in America and overall has like a fairly positive view of America.

[B]

I was not expecting that aspect of, you know, one of the big challenges that we are dealing with in America, to be something that is basically constantly brought up and broadcasted in other countries, to be like, well, it's not as bad as America. It's. Yeah, it's so strange.

[C]

No, very big here.

[A]

But I mean, there's been. I mean, keep in mind, we've only been to Four major cities. Basically, there's asterisks on that, of stopping in smaller places as we go, but we have seen, I would say, one obviously homeless person the whole time.

[C]

Yeah. Yes. There's not. There's no home, not no homelessness, but essentially none in the major cities.

[A]

With the camera system from earlier and people talking about that improving traffic and things. My nitpicky complaint is that the smoking and the traffic here are surprisingly brutal. Like, driving in the city is very chaotic. The rules around driving seem much looser, much more dangerous. You always have to be on the lookout to get. From getting hit by something. Crosswalks feel like they mean a lot less, and that's saying something. From coming from Los Angeles, where they barely mean anything, and then smoking is just allowed in so many public spaces.

[C]

I've had some smoke blowing in my face a couple of times, and it's just. You kind of forget.

[A]

It's just. And even compared, it is less. Like, I remember being in Beijing in 2011 and being like, there's so much smoking and there's less than there was back then, but it's still a ridiculous amount and not as, like, segmented.

[B]

I don't feel the same. I feel like the traffic is bad, but it's, like, a little more chaotic than in Los Angeles. The main difference being there's scooters everywhere. That's notable, like, as a pedestrian. You're constantly having scooters, like, zip around you and they're like, yeah, they're smoking. But compared to, like, other countries you go to, I don't know, it's just like a European country. I mean, you've spent more time in Europe. I. I feel like you see a person or two smoking every block. It's not like, everywhere, I think it's

[A]

not that smoking doesn't exist. It's where it can happen. It's like. Yeah, that's like. For example, when we were at launch yesterday, our guy who drove us, he was the guy who drove us from Shenzhen, and he was outside the room, in the restaurant, like, right outside of it, just smoking a cigarette in the. In the building.

[B]

There's people in the elevator, like, hallways in Chengdu. They're just, like, smoking in the spa. In the stairwells or. Yeah, the spa.

[C]

There's a good amount of spa.

[A]

We went to, like, a bathhouse, and two guys were smoking in the bathhouse. It'd be like going to, like, the Korean spas in la. It was kind of badass. It's like, totally naked, leg up. And I I did see that. I was like, maybe it's better here, bro.

[C]

They got it figured out. Yeah, the smoking. The scooters are definitely like the, like the most day to day. Like you might notice the difference.

[A]

I think if you're. What, like for me, I think if you're thinking about cities that have like beautiful urban planning and like ultra safe layouts for their streets, like in a place like the Netherlands, it's not like that at all. There's like gigantic roads, gigantic highways, people like, like when we've been in cars, our driver will just like pull out in front of like a mother with two people on the bike and she'll have to slam on the bike.

[C]

She better know. She better know.

[A]

I just, I don't know. I think that's my. I don't love that part.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, I. For me, I think the scooters are just like. There's so many areas that are fucking awesome. Everyone's walking around enjoying themselves and the vibes are good and there's no sound except for the sound of honking scooters trying to get through. And they're always having to dodge them and it, like it, you know, I understand they're a part of this economic movement, but it's. If they didn't exist in that area, it would be like there's, there's, it's flawless outside of that in terms of we're all walking at night, having a good time, the vibes are good and it's honk, honk, honk.

[A]

So any last big like criticisms of China having been here for the two weeks?

[B]

This is a fucking incredible country and I think everybody should come visit and see it for yourself. And I think there's a degree of, you know, we talked about this in the Patreon episode and I believe you guys were chatting about it in a separate one. About the comments that we've gotten on our episodes about the general sentiment of, oh, people are biased, right? They can't talk about how they actually feel or they have this skewed worldview and whatever else. And I think coming to this place, even if you don't spend the amount of time that we've done, at least like 50% of our trip has been like interviewing or talking to people, asking them about their experience of China. I would say even if you don't do that, it's, it's hard not to come here and be like, this is way different than what I expected. You know, what we are told in the. It feels like everybody's Learning that now, it's rapidly. It's like, you know, and we're contributing to that literally right now with the show of. I think we're all realizing it of like, oh, these stereotypes we had about what China is and how it works and what's going on. And even if they like what's going on, they're these hyper nationalists that are, that are biased because no offense of a certain, you know, certain interviewee. And it's just, I think just, just come here and obviously the caveat of we've been to four cities in a.

[C]

Yeah, plenty more to do. I actually think it's good to watch Ludwig's Tip.

[B]

To tip.

[A]

Yeah. Whatever your preconceptions are, whether they be positive or negative, I think if you come here and it's not as hard to come here as you'd think, they will be challenged in some way. You will learn so much in such a short period of time. And we were kind of making this joke about how like, well, if you were visiting America and you only visited like New York, Boston and Baltimore, like, how much would you really understand about the country? And it's like you, it's true, you would have so much more to understand about what America is like and how people live there, but you would have a way better understanding than not having

[B]

been at all, only having gotten TikToks and, you know, mainstream news in your country and.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, if you're Canadian, like, you can go without a visa now, even if you're American, like, it was, it was like a two week visa process. I just really, really encourage people to go because your mind will be blown in so many ways.

[B]

Yeah, it wasn't exactly as negative as you promptly.

[A]

Yeah, this was not the.

[B]

I just, I truly just. I don't, I don't have a lot of neg. Literally. The one thing is, it's fucking miserable to use the apps here and they use apps for everything because. Because the translation is all inconsistent. Like, at least on my phone it's been a, it's been very challenging and that's, that's gonna get fixed. That's like a current minor thing.

[C]

Yeah, the absolute firewall suck. What I would say is I didn't, I think the purpose of us coming here, like, I didn't come here to, I don't know, like, reinforce bad idea, whatever, you know what I'm saying? I came here to find things that are surprising me and things that possibly we could learn from. There's no world where I'm like going to try to become a Chinese citizen, you know what I'm saying? I'm coming here as almost like a learning fact finding mission to see like, hey, this country changed radically in 30 years. Is there things we can take away from that, that I could bring back to my country and like advocate for? That's why I'm. That is the thing that's most interesting to me. That's why I think going to these big four cities is the best places to go to learn the things I'm, you know, possibly all of us are interested in. Like what is the outlier here? Because yeah, obviously we can go to the rural parts and see there's parts where there's poverty. But that's. That almost feeds into the stereotype that I already knew like that, that I could confirm that. But what is crazy is like a modern city developing in 30 years. Like, how did that happen?

[B]

You can make a city, you can make infrastructure, you can make housing. It is possible. Yeah, you see it all around us. It's not impossible. We can do it in other countries. I just, I hope we do and I hope the success of China instigates the rest of the world and particularly America to actually fucking do something to make things for our citizens.

[C]

It's interesting that China causes this. I was thinking about this though, because what's funny is like you can go to a, you know, things I'm impressed with. This city is like clean, great infrastructure. I've seen that in European cities. You know, I've been to European cities where they have. I've seen that in Tokyo. But something about China, I think, because they're also becoming competitive in high tech areas that America used to dominate is like causing a sense of, oh, whoa, you can do both. Or, you know, I think there was almost a sense that like America had worse cities, but it was, it was poor. We have the innovation, we got the innovation. It's like the competitiveness led to it. But so I think China is causing that reckoning in a way that like a little, nice little place in Europe didn't. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Why? It's different.

[B]

I think it's good. I think this will continue to put pressure on other, you know, hopefully our politicians to be competent to invest in infrastructure, to like not just fucking fight in Congress and never change anything. That's what I'm hoping for.

[A]

When Xi. When will the check drop?

[C]

Just. And is that an R and B

[A]

or is that in USD?

[C]

We didn't clarify that for USD. Right.

[B]

Apparently we were told they're handing out money to influencers. And we didn't get any of it. We are not being. I mean, I guess for our lovely, incredible patreons and viewers for supporting the show. Thank you so much.

[A]

I guess I can't let the state pay me for going. I guess I can't fucking do that, dude. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Whatever, dude.

[B]

Guys want to cap off the episode? A few tapas that are about tech events?

[C]

You do a small tapas called the Iran War. Can I please talk about it for one second?

[A]

Yeah. Is it about the 2000, the paratroopers

[C]

that are getting moved into the region?

[B]

Yeah. Fun stuff. All right, let's go. So there's different things you can do in the world. One is you build a mega city with 40 million people with incredible infrastructure.

[A]

Or you can go beast mode.

[C]

Or you can go beast mode. You know what?

[B]

Do what needs to be done.

[A]

Me talking to Andy at lunch yesterday, it's like, you may have all of this and you may have a successful company and I recognize that, but you've never gone beast mode.

[C]

You never gone beast mode.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

In the M1 Abrams tank. No, dude, I was. I'm continually struck by how often the Iran war is covered here, everywhere. Not only on social media. I was in a diner last night at 11pm Massive TV. People were all watching. Covering the Iran war in a way that I think like, you know, I just think people aren't even. They're aware of it. I think people call it Iraq, you know, people are just not as aware of it in America. It's like everywhere here.

[A]

You think people aren't aware of it in America?

[C]

No, they're aware of it, but I don't think they could give you specifics. I don't. You know what I'm saying? I just, I don't know how to put words on it, except that I'm struck by how often it's covered. I'm seeing it all over the place and it's like treated as a really big deal. People were talking about and I don't think I would see the same thing.

[A]

I mean, it's such a. I feel like it's such a dunk to villainize America.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

You barely even. You're state media and you have an antagonistic relationship with the U.S. it's like you don't even need to change anything about this one. You can just talk about it kind of as it is.

[C]

This one's kind of a freebie.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

In the dinner I had with the friends Yesterday, again, they're 25 year old Chinese citizens. And at some point we were talking about Trump and just how we're not a fan. And then they were like, how much longer is Trump in office? It's like three more years. And they're like, it's only been a year. So like, to people in China, they're like, really? They've done this much in here. Not a lot of, not a lot of positivity about Trump that.

[C]

We've heard this at the diner. I'm mad. She's like smiling. We're chatting it up and she asks me where I'm from and I say los Angeles. And she doesn't know. And I show her and she goes, oh, America. Then her face gets sad. She gets like, completely changed her attitude. She goes, I don't like Trump. I was like, damn, bro. I don't know, it was.

[A]

I think I stressed this point a while ago, but. And maybe it doesn't. You know, it obviously doesn't matter to some people or it doesn't matter to a lot of Americans. But it's hard to stress how as someone who's traveled quite a bit, how people's perception of the US has changed within that time. I think there's always been a little energy of like anti American ness from

[C]

places around the world, snootiness in Europe, but it's like a friendly way.

[A]

Yeah, it's like, ah, you guys are doing crazy shit over there.

[C]

Yeah, you Yank.

[A]

And now I need to stress in the last two years, it is, it has become, it's become pretty embarrassing. It's become pretty embarrassing to tell people you're American because they're react. Actions paint the picture for you.

[B]

Well, I think this is a good time to introduce our second guest to kind of counter. President Donald Trump is over here on the right again. Forgot the camera. Anything you have to say, really about our reputation?

[C]

Our nation is back. Oh, it's great.

[B]

She. What do you think? Yeah. What we like to do in our interviews is get someone from both sides of the perspective.

[A]

Never say, we didn't do anything for you,

[C]

but do you guys know what's happening with. With the straight of Hormuz right now? Can I give you a minor update?

[A]

I do know this one thing, which is quick. France recently made an announcement that 30 to 40% of oil refinement capacity in the Strait has been damaged or is completely wiped out. And this is expected to reduce oil output BY I think, 11 million barrels per day. And I thought that was pretty wild, like 30 to 40% of.

[B]

But at least we and that 30

[A]

to 40% of the area, that makes a fifth of the world's oil.

[B]

Okay, but.

[C]

But he did. No, here. We didn't get anything yet until these paratroopers land, and then we'll see what happens.

[B]

What? Trump is planting seeds for trees he'll never sit under the shade of.

[C]

And I appreciate that. About right, Big T. Yeah. So the Strait of Hormuz, you know, is. Was previously freedom of navigation. Anyone could sail through it. And now, because of the war, Iran has. Was started by mining it and threatening to shoot you if you went through it. But now they've switched to a new phase where they have created a small section that you can pass through if you pay the Iranian government, whatever remains of it in yuan. So they've created a petro yuan tollbooth that countries are now paying to go through, and they're making a lot of money.

[B]

That's the thing again, countries building infrastructure.

[C]

So this creates a real panic. So again, we know that Trump strategy usually is to come in, leave a dump there, and then declare victory and walk away.

[B]

Leave a dump?

[C]

Yeah. D,

[A]

you okay, man?

[C]

Oh, I'm dying, bro. I'm actually dying.

[A]

She. She. What, did you slip a little.

[C]

What was that Ozamanthium tea you gave me earlier?

[B]

We're crossing the finish line of this trip just covered in dirt and mud like a car with all the. The tires are popped, the engine's on fire, and we're just barely crossing over. We're crawling, we're struggling, all of us. Last night, Aiden couldn't go to dinner because he had a fever. Like, we're just dying, man.

[C]

Ok, sorry. As I was saying, this tollbooth, basically, Trump. Trump cannot back away. Like, you can't declare victory and walk away because now the new reality in the trade of Hormuz is that you must negotiate with the Iranian government and pay them money. And they are saying no US ships, no US allies. So everyone is now incentivized, if this stayed the way it was, to get rid of their security agreements with America and get a bunch of you on so you can pay to. I mean, it is a catastrophic new reality on the ground from where it was before this war happened. And so he can't walk away, which leaves the only option being escalation, which means the reports we're seeing of paratroopers, and that's 2,000 paratroopers, but also 14,000 more troops being mobilized. Are they line up with what's going on now? There's no confirmed boots on the ground yet. There Are confirmed paratroopers being moved to

[B]

the area, but is also, we're recording us a few days before it goes live. So there's.

[C]

Who knows what could happen.

[B]

Wide window for the lemonade stand curse.

[C]

Yes, the lemonade stand curse.

[B]

Hopefully we should not, we should not talk about these things with this much time in advance.

[C]

But you know, it is just, I got to say I really honestly believe this Iran war is this biggest fuck up of his 10 year career. I think it's such a disaster and you know, I think it's worth asking what you guys have heard and seen politically back in America. But it feels, you know, you know, Twitter used to be a really pro Trump place and I have been scrolling and even all the right wing accounts are like, they're just turning on. I do not see the support. It's like the digital flags are gone. I truly think he's, it's collapsing in real time. This is all day by day, but I legitimately think the force of the movement is gone. He just, the county that Mar A Lago is in just flipped Democrat the Mar A Lago county. Like I don't know, it just feels like I'm seeing a total evaporation which hopefully leads to some change eventually. Because I really think, I think as you know, if this doesn't get solved in two weeks, let's say 10, 14 days, the knock on effects are going to start to be really, really big big because companies will have to default on their contracts, declare force majeure which then goes down the chain. Refineries declare it first the oil tankers declare it, then the forefingers declare it, then the power companies declare it, then everyone down the chain and you just end up this massive clusterfuck. And a lot of countries, in fact, America least of all maybe are going to be feeling dramatically higher prices. And I think they might be met. Some of the gold stakes might be added to ramp. But I think generally the vibe's gonna be like they know what costs this. They know what it was before and what it is now. And I think it's going to be a bad sentiment. So yeah, I don't know. I'm pretty, I'm, I'm doomed on the surround war, bro. Maybe it's based, maybe I'm missing something. Maybe it's all going to work out. But I think it's, it's turning out pretty poor. But you know, it's a live update. We can, we can, we can definitely follow up with more as it happens this day by day and many Things I'm saying could be out of date. Maybe it's all open and things are clear and the straight Hormuz is falling by the time you see this, which would be an incredible outcome and I hope for it, but I, I'm just doubtful.

[B]

There's just not a lot of good here. I don't know, is this weirdly one of those topics that feels like it's, there's like less to talk about. It's just so one sided. I mean, you know.

[C]

Yeah, I agree.

[B]

I think we all, we try on this show to, you know, think about the other viewpoints and express them or understand them and it's like there's nothing, man. I mean, I feel like even, even

[A]

the best case version of this that you could even discuss is that this will be the leverage point that potentially allows the Iranian people to free themselves from the oppression of the regime that they're under. That's like the, the most glowing outcome you could possibly say. It doesn't seem like that's happening. That's not happening at all.

[B]

Nuclear program, right? Is them agreeing to shut down the nuclear program. That would be the other one where Trump could say, see, we did it. We saved the Middle east and Israel and every other country from nuclear armed Iran who explicitly states they want to kill America. Right. So, so, but what I feel like

[C]

is happening instead is that they're going to get a lot more money from this toll booth and then have a. They know they need a nuclear weapon as fast as possible and they're also

[B]

going to be like, why the fuck didn't we put up the toll booth before? Like, thank you, Donald Trump.

[C]

Dude. I literally think this toll booth is, is, is wild. And, and yeah, I don't know.

[B]

Yeah, Trump is like, he comes over there and bomb shit and it's like, yeah. Bet you won't turn on your infinite money machine that has total control over the world.

[C]

90 billion people. The fact that they didn't have a toll booth for is like a huge benefit to the world.

[A]

So it may be a stupid question, but why is the reason they get to. Not in this specific situation, but the straits. In more general terms, why do they get to set up the toll booth when there's so many other countries that

[B]

are straight, famous, anti lgbt. It's only straight.

[C]

Well, they don't get to. They're just doing it because of the war and no one can like it. Other countries will be mad about this and perhaps after the war is over, we'll figure something out because it's a huge tax on trade. But right now they're just doing it and no one can stop them. What, are you gonna bomb them?

[B]

You can fit a lot of toll booths in that straight

[C]

second toll booth on the outside.

[B]

If we want, we counteract it. We're putting another one in.

[C]

But yeah, so we don't talk about this anymore. You have other stories and I do

[A]

want to hear them.

[C]

These tech stories.

[B]

Let's do one. One fun little top of ended at. So on Tuesday, this is the couple days ago, as of recording, the New Mexico Department of Justice in America won a massive lawsuit against Meta, Facebook's company, and basically found that they're liable for misleading customers about the safety of the platforms and endangering children. So the quote is like, this is a historic victory for every child and family who's paid the price for Meta's choice to put profits over kids safety. Meta executives knew their products harmed children, disregarded warnings from their own employees, and lied to the public about what they knew. And so this is interesting I think, because Meta might be kind of fucked because this case happens, the background of this, they're ordered to pay $375 million in civil penalties. Not a ton for a company, that company, for a company that has 1.4 trillion market cap. But this is just New Mexico. And basically the way this setup is New Mexico did like an undercover sting where they sent, they had two of their, their, you know, investigators go undercover and pose as underage girls and they were able to find pedophiles online who are reaching out to them, right? So it started as this operation of like, hey, we're going to try to do that thing where you, you know, you entrap. Is that the right word? Honey pot, Whatever. You find pedophiles, right? But what they found while doing this undercover operation is like that was very easy for creepy adult men to reach out to accounts that are clearly underage girls, right? And so, so they started to build a case based off of this and then started to basically, you know, sue Meta in this pretty high profile case and say, hey, you are endangering young people through the access that it's giving to kids. And these employees from Meta, former employees, have been coming out and the most damning evidence is them testifying that while working at Meta, they expressed concerns about the damage this was doing to kids or that executives were explicitly aware of it and then ignored it.

[C]

It.

[B]

So the one quote from Arturo Behar said his own 14 year old daughter received unwanted sexual advances on Instagram and His quote is like, if you're interested in little. If your interest is in little, sorry. The product is very good at connecting people with interests and if your interest is little girls, it's very good at connecting you with little girls. Brian Boland, a former VP of marketing for 12 years there, left in 2020 and he said he absolutely did not believe that safety was a priority to Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg. And they're uncovering these various times where internally Meta does research or has findings that show this stuff is really addictive to kids. It's really easy for adults to get in contact with kids and they then didn't do anything to stop it. So the employees from Meta are basically surfacing this information about how they are aware of the addictiveness of their platforms. The next day in a Los Angeles trial, Meta and Google were both accused and convicted of harming a young woman's mental health and are ordered to pay $4.2 million.

[C]

Zuckerberg is ruined. How will he survive?

[A]

Wait, to that. To that one person.

[B]

So yeah, so this is. So I bolded that because it's funny, Google has to pay 1.8 million. But what's. If you think about how this goes. So this is a 20 year old woman sued Google, Meta, TikTok and Snapshot saying that they contributed to her anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia and other conditions during her years. Youth and Meta in the courtroom argued that hey, it was actually your disruptive home life and your parents got a divorce, they don't love you. And they said that's the reason you have mental health problems.

[C]

Being the lawyer for Meta arguing that

[B]

your parents don't love you, I mean that was not the actual argument. There was like, hey, she had a fucked up home life.

[C]

That was like discredit, right?

[A]

If your parents loved you, you would be feeling bad at all.

[C]

You wouldn't need to scroll Instagram.

[B]

And so again, they had internal emails that surface. One of the internal emails presented in the case said, quote, our overall company goal is total teen time spent. Mark has decided that the top priority for the company in the first half of 2017 is teens. They found research that showed the parental controls weren't effective in curbing teens use of social media. TikTok and Snapchat settled out of trial because they didn't want to deal with this, which is damning. So I think both of these are very interesting because there are two cases where Meta, in a high profile lawsuit lost badly and was convicted of saying you have intentionally designed a platform that harmed young people. And if you think about the fact that that was just New Mexico and just Los Angeles, how quickly and at what a massive scale this will turn into is mind boggling. Right? Like, yeah, the 4 million, this is $4.2 million they had to pay to a single 20 year old woman. Right. In the New Mexico case it was $5,000 per violation, which is basically applying to anyone in New Mexico that this could have potentially affected. There is a world where, I mean there's already apparently thousands of similar lawsuits starting up where every social media company, it has to be on this extraordinary defensive to say they didn't fuck over the mental health of our entire youth.

[A]

Is it, it's youth specifically. So like in the case of the 24, the 24 year old woman, she, she's talking about the time period where she was using these apps underage.

[B]

So she's 20 now.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The lawsuit's been going on for I believe two years. And this is about saying in my youth, when I was a, before I was an adult, I was a teenager, this was harming my mental health. And again, it's like the other companies seem to have a better argument but Meta just has this evidence that they're like, oh, we're trying to make teens use our apps more. Oh, it turns out this is really addictive.

[C]

Great.

[B]

And they're just not. Yeah, this could be, this could be a major catalyst to these companies having to, I don't know, fucking shut down in the worst case.

[C]

This makes me think of two things. Number one, whatever this investigative team that helped find the pedophiles on Meta is.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Put them on Roblox right now. I just, I, I got a feeling. Get, get on Roblox. I feel like it's going to be the next fucking pedophile story. Roblox is so massive and there's so many kids on it and I just feel like nobody's investigating it.

[A]

It's also a good, I mean if you're an adult who loves being friends with kids, it's gotta be just friends.

[B]

So real reckoning you're saying?

[C]

A real reckoning.

[A]

You ever text a 14 year old about Roblox games?

[C]

And the second thing.

[B]

Gee, you ever text a 14 year old?

[A]

What up with that?

[C]

How much Roblox you playing, G? The second thing.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

Is we, you know, you talked about parental controls not working or at least Meta not making them effective.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

It reminded me of all the children we've been speaking to in China.

[B]

That's A strong way of putting it. Every time we've had the opportunity to talk to a parent or to somebody who is younger, we have asked. There's a rule in China that you're only allowed three hours of gaming per week if you're under. If you're underage. And all of them are like, no, no, you get around that.

[A]

Everyone gets around now.

[B]

You just get around that.

[A]

That.

[B]

It's one of many things where you hear about these dystopian things in China about, like, hey, if you say anything about the government, they're going to pull you over, the police are going to get you, and you get here. And you're like, no, it's not. It's not that extreme. Everybody, there's rules. And then everybody, like, kind of skirts the rules exactly.

[C]

Like, dude, is it funny the guy saying that the Tik Tok or the Doan sensors are asleep at midnight, so you just go and scroll it at

[B]

night and yeah, you post the. The more charged political content at midnight because then the sensors aren't watching.

[A]

That was an interesting revelation. A lot of people talking about how the online censors are the most. You know, the things that crack down the most. But because you can, everybody is trying to push the envelope online all the time because your posts will just get struck down most of the time if you, if you cross that and they, they. They find like, new words or new pictures or new phrases to describe, like, different aspects of the government. And like, that's the new trend of, of how that person or thing is labeled. And then as soon as it's struck, like, people just move on to the next thing. And there's a mixture of automated censoring and manual censoring done by staff that are doing it. So at midnight, when the least people are working, that's when you can post with the most freedom, which was super funny.

[C]

It is wild. Do you think this will get censored? I was with Xi Jinping on this.

[A]

I mean, she. You've had a great time.

[C]

You've got a great time.

[A]

Right?

[C]

Well done. I do apologize. We kind of talked over him a lot this episode. Like, he did not get too many words at edgewise, which I think we might have wasted our.

[B]

Yeah. I think what we do. A really sincere thank you to our audience for supporting the show and allowing us to do this. Really truthfully, this is. This is one of the most meaningful trips I've been on. So informative and interesting. And dare I say, it was pretty fun, too, hanging out with these with Our. With our crew to thank you, Stevik, our lovely, incredible interpreter. She happens to be in the same general vibe as she. Completely different people. Perry, for producing all this. Thank you, guys for supporting. It has just been phenomenally interesting, and I don't think it would happen.

[C]

There was a time either last night or night before, we were all in a Dee Dee, which is like an Uber, and the Chinese woman who was driving put on a fun.

[B]

No, hold on.

[C]

All right, we got it.

[B]

No, no, it's not that she randomly decided to do this. All of us are in an Uber. We're in one of these hectic streets where people are crossing the lanes all the time. I will admit it, the lane crossing is very chaotic. And then Aiden in the front seat puts into his translator app. You can pick a song and shows it to her. So then in the middle of, like, a freeway, she's like, pulling. She, like, veering to the side as she's searching for songs, only looking up at the road every two to three seconds. And then eventually puts on this song and starts driving normally again.

[C]

And it's a banger, and it's just a theater banger. And so after it's over, we're asking about the song, and. And she doesn't quite understand the question, so she just thinks we're play the song again, right?

[B]

I say, I like the singer's voice.

[C]

So she plays it again, and then we kind of get into the bit. And so after it's over, Aiden's like, all right, we're done. And then I pull out a translator and play. Please play the song again. And so for the entire rest of the side, we just do this song on loop. And then we're kind of singing along. It's all in Chinese, so I can't. But she's singing along, and I just. The vibe was. So we're all having a good time, and I just thought that was a beautiful moment. On the trail, everyone was smiling. There's a language barrier, but everyone is having a good time. And I thought that was a. It was a beautiful moment. I really enjoyed.

[A]

We listened to the song six times.

[C]

That's a long song too, dude.

[B]

It's. It's one of those things when you go to another country, it doesn't matter what you hear on the news. You sit and you talk with people in person, and people are kind and caring, and it's. We're all good people underneath.

[C]

The people who you met here who have been to America said the same thing about the regular people. People, everybody Everybody's the same everywhere. Their problems are very similar. The average person just trying to get by, make enough money to live, have a family, you have some free time. Like everyone's trying to do basically the same stuff all over and everyone has more in common than they have different. And it sounds. Sounds trite, but it's so true. And you get it on every one of these trips we go on.

[A]

Yeah. And just if you get a chance, I would, I would come here for yourself. I think it will be revelatory no matter where you stand on anything or any way you feel about China.

[B]

Pick up a basketball, bring it, dribble it for yourself.

[C]

You guys slandered me so hard.

[B]

You can't listen to some podcaster and just trust his dribbling. You gotta dribble in that country.

[C]

I'm just glad by five new friends from high school which by the way with mad at the pedal sounds like

[A]

fucking somebody needs to sue you.

[C]

Check out Roblox and Chinese Basketball Court.

[A]

Thank you for joining us on this trip. We've made a bunch of extra like walk and talk episodes on the Patreon if you want to check those out. They're on patreon.com lemonade stand and where we address some of the other questions people have left on the episode. But yeah, thank you for supporting us and we will see you back home next week.

[B]

We'll let Xi Jinping sign off.

[C]

Score for this show comes from Tasty Trail.

[A]

And if you're an experienced trader like many people are, you could, you could trade using tastytrade. Unless you live in China, where we are right now, I don't think you use Tasty Trade here in China. This is really an ad for all of the people that listen to us.

[C]

I hear a great wailing of sadness outside the window.

[B]

Yeah, 50% of our audience.

[A]

A lot of people in Shenzhen like

[B]

that building back there full of fans watching us and they've been saying they

[A]

wish they could try trade stocks, options and futures and more all in one platform. And with low commissions you can keep.

[C]

You likely can watch it, which is

[B]

crazy because Aiden doesn't really speak Mandarin, but he knows that phrase exactly.

[A]

It's crazy. And I'll do it in a different ad sometime. Become the trader you always wanted to be. Go tracytrade.com lemonade today to get started, tastytrade inc. Is a registered broker, dealer and member of FINRA, NFA and SIPC.

[B]

Pet owner save this TikTok has free training guides and behavior tips, potty training, tricks healthy diet ideas. No expensive classes needed. Just scroll and learn. Download TikTok now.

[A]

Your next chapter in healthcare starts at

[B]

Carrington College's School of Nursing in Portland. Join us for our open house on

[A]

Tuesday, January 13th from 4 to 7pm

[B]

you'll tour our campus, see live demos, meet instructors and learn about our Associate Degree in Nursing program that provides prepares

[A]

you to become a registered nurse. Take the first step toward your nursing career. Save your spot now at Carrington.

[B]

Edu Events. For information on program outcomes, visit carrington.

[C]

Edu Sci Fi.