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In the nineteen nineties, South Korea experienced rapid economic growth. But behind the scenes, problems were piling up, excessive corporate expansion, rising debt, and weak financial regulations. Then came the global financial shift. As foreign investors pulled out of East Asian markets, South Korea found itself in deep trouble. By November 1997, the government had no choice but to seek a $58,000,000,000 bailout from the International Monetary Fund, IMF. In return, Korea had to undergo painful economic reforms, corporate restructuring, financial sector reforms, and fiscal tightening. The impact was severe. Many businesses collapsed, unemployment soared, and families struggled.

This wasn't just about Malaysia's economy, it was about its future. How could a small Southeast Asian nation stand up to the immense forces of global speculation? As Mahathir and Soros prepared to face each other, the stakes couldn't have been higher. Major concerns about the banking system and the collapse of some of the conglomerates. I think it is an embarrassment. Furthermore, I think it has hurt Malaysia that we have seen a direct correlation between some of these outrageous allegations and the fall in the currency in Malaysia as well as the stock market. The crisis was reaching its peak, and the emergency meeting in Hong Kong became the epicenter of global economic debate. The IMF, with its $17,000,000,000 USD bailout offer, seemed like a lifeline for Malaysia. But this lifeline came with chains attached.

The speaker says, “You are going to see a crack in the bond market. Okay? It is going to happen. And I tell this to my regulators, some of whom are in this room, I'm telling you what's gonna happen, and you're gonna panic. I'm not gonna panic. We'll be fine. We'll probably make more money, and then some of my friends will tell me that we're that we cause we like crises because it's good for JPMorgan Chase.”

There's even more bad news as China's economy exposes a deeper problem in shadow banking. The shadow banking sector is estimated to be worth at least $3,000,000,000,000, and that's in China alone. And it all started with real estate. The country is facing a financial meltdown. Every week, there is a new headline about its impairments.

At the end of World War II Asia and Europe were devastated, and the United States emerged as the last man standing, profiting hugely from the war. They ended up, due to isolation, the strongest economy in the world with more than half the world’s gold and half the world’s GDP, with standing industries that could shift from making tanks to making cars and trucks. They did extraordinarily well for a few decades, but then, as described, they began to financialize, and it became more profitable to speculate in investments than to actually invest. In recent years, companies with money often pursue share buybacks rather than expanding research and development or industrial capacity. We are in a stage where the underlying basis for markets is questionable: what are markets for, are they accurate at price discovery, and do they predict productive investment and returns on capital? We are in a transition phase where we’re not sure anymore. There is a huge bubble, and corporations creating these bubbles, with banks that loan money relying on the state because they are too big to fail. Bailouts have totaled trillions since 2008, as the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, and the Bank of Japan pumped trillions of dollars, with help from Gulf Cooperation Council countries to bail out banks in Britain, the United States, and Europe. It’s fascinating because China, since the financial crisis, has also created about 17 to 18 trillion dollars. China has actually been leading in creation of money, while investing that money in building 50,000 kilometers of high-speed rail, a space program, massive industries, and the Belt and Road initiative—real investment and so on. The enormous difference between the two is notable, but how far can states—the United States, Britain, the EU, and Japan—borrow and pump money into the market to keep this bubble going? We don’t know. Bubbles are hard to gauge in terms of expansion and when they break, which is why they can be sustained so long; the bursting of a bubble is painful, and no policymaker wants responsibility. China is interesting and is the only case in history of a property bubble being deflated without collapsing the real economy, deflating its property bubble over five or six years while the economy continued to grow—not at 8% but at 5%—and continued to expand. That is worth studying because other countries let property bubbles run until they burst, causing wider harm and deflation. Japan, for example, has had thirty years of zero growth since it began quantitative easing three decades ago, a growth killer because it protected existing companies, banks, and properties and never really recovered. Europe has had zero growth for about fifteen years since 2007. The United States sustains growth largely by buying it from the rest of the world—acquiring profitable companies or getting them to list on NASDAQ and then earning rents from profitable companies wherever they are—while the US economy has been largely hollowed out. It’s an interesting time to watch monetary dynamics, because this doesn’t go on forever.

Their figurehead is George Soros. The speculation process goes like this: an investor deposits a security of 1,000,000,000 US dollars with a bank somewhere in the world. Then he goes to a bank in Thailand and takes out a loan for 25,000,000,000 baht. This is the official equivalent of $1,000,000,000. He sells the baht on the open market. Immediately, other money traders follow suit because they now fear that the price of the baht will fall. When the exchange rate of the bot to the dollar has fallen, for example, by 30%, the investor then buys back the 25,000,000,000 baht with only 700,000,000 US dollars, thereby redeeming his loan. He has made a $300,000,000 profit and then hightails it out of the country.

Soros makes huge bets on whole countries and economies. Last year, when he saw cracks in the Asia boom, he began selling the currency in Thailand. Traders in Hong Kong followed suit, triggering a financial crisis that plunged much of Asia into a depression. In the last two years, you've been blamed for financial collapse of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, and Russia. All of the all of the above. All of the above. The prime minister of of Malaysia Yes. Said that the region spent forty years trying to build up its economy, and along comes a moron like Soros, k, with a lot of money, and it's all over. He called you a criminal. The French finance minister talked about hanging speculators from lamppost. Soros says the Asian currencies would have collapsed even if he hadn't been in the market. They were over valued. He says people tend to follow his lead because he's been so successful. I have been blamed blamed for everything. I am basically there to to make money. I cannot and do not look at the social consequences of of what I do.

the real risk is if the foreign currency were to appreciate dramatically relative to your own. but if you're a Thai bank in the early nineties, you're like, there's this huge demand of other people wanting to convert their currency into the Thai baht. In fact, so much so that in order to maintain this peg, the Thai Central Bank is is is is printing money and buying those and buying those dollars. It's trying to soak it up. So the Thai Central Bank is building this huge reserve of dollars. So for whatever reason, if those investors were ever to try to pull out, the Thai central bank could still attempt to keep the currency pegged. And so when you go to 1997, that's exactly what happened.

The speaker warns that the global financial system is on the verge of collapse, with a financial weapon of mass destruction 10,000 times larger than the 2008 housing crash. Drawing parallels to World War I, they explain how the British empire's overextension led to the collapse of the sterling pound. They believe the United States is now in a similar position, with its currency about to be unseated as the world reserve currency. The speaker criticizes leaders who believe starting a world war would solve the problem, emphasizing that the geopolitical landscape has changed and few countries would support the US. They conclude that our leaders are making fatal miscalculations.

Speaker 0 questions systemic risk in the Chinese economy, referencing the 2008 financial crisis and the domino effect if a large bank fails. Speaker 1 says: 'the total amount of, the debt to the nonfinancial sector in China. It's about 370,000,000,000,000.' The shadow banking sector 'account for about 77% of it,' while 'The commercial bank themselves account for 65 percent' and are 'the backbone of the Chinese financial system.' Consequently, risk and losses may fall back to commercial banks as they are 'the lender to those shadow bank through those shadow bank to the to the developer child property developer and to the local government financing vehicle and also to some of those private enterprises with less than credit.' He adds that the 'market proport proport of the shuttle banking system to the formal banking system' signals risk; the Chinese government is 'unlikely to pay them out,' but will 'broker some of those SSLs and so on in restructuring.'

The crisis has revealed that rapid shifts are possible when we are motivated by the immediate threat to our livelihoods. It is clear that the previous system was not sustainable. This presents a great opportunity for a reset, utilizing the substantial influx of money and the increased power of policymakers.

Evergrande, the world's largest property developer, has gone bankrupt, causing an 8% drop in indexes. This is part of a larger issue in China, where all public or listed property developers are facing default bankruptcy. China's economy heavily relied on real estate for growth, but now the sector is collapsing after an unregulated climb. The situation is comparable to the US financial crisis, but with three and a half times more banking leverage. China's regulators are trying to protect individuals from short sellers, but the situation is expected to worsen.

The speakers discuss a sharp warning signal they see in precious metals and the implications for the broader economy. Speaker 0 notes that gold prices have more than doubled in the last year and silver prices have nearly tripled. They interpret this as a major warning of an impending financial and economic crisis. They compare this to the subprime crisis warning in 2007, when Ben Bernanke said the issue was contained to subprime and many did not grasp its significance. The speaker explains they were short the market and anticipated the crisis, which subsequently materialized about a year later. Based on the current situation, they believe gold and silver’s rise signals a forthcoming dollar crisis and a US Treasury crisis, suggesting it could hit next year and emphasizing that people need to take action while there is time. The core message is that the metal price increases are not merely inflationary signals but warnings of structural vulnerabilities in US sovereign credit and the dollar, with a potentially tight timeframe for response. Speaker 1 adds that a significant portion of our debt remains sustainable in part because we can trade global currencies, which allows politicians to continue spending more than would otherwise be possible. This point underscores how the international currency system enables higher debt levels and ongoing fiscal expansion, contributing to the conditions that the speakers warn about. Key assertions include: 1) gold and silver surges reflect a looming US dollar and US Treasury crisis rather than just typical commodity inflation; 2) the crisis could emerge within a short horizon, possibly next year; 3) historical parallel to the 2007 subprime episode is used to support the claim that seemingly contained problems can escalate into a major crisis; 4) the global currency system’s flexibility enables continued high spending, contributing to fiscal vulnerabilities. The overall message is a warning to prepare for a potential financial crisis tied to sovereign credit and dollar stability, emphasizing swift consideration of actions in light of the perceived urgency.

We have been working with China on coordinating responses to potential bank failures and assessing sector exposure to climate risks. These discussions are crucial as financial issues in one country can affect others. It's important to engage with major economies like China to address these potential risks.

On the one hand, it increased the overcapacity of the export sector further reducing the profitability and even the viability of the investments made. And on the other hand, given the massive influx of capital, of cash that continue to arrive, the loss of export momentum meant that the current account balance, that is the difference between income and the payments to the rest of the world, would register considerably large deficit levels. The fact was that the accumulation of current account deficits was being financed by foreign debt. So to give you an idea, in 1996, the foreign debt of these countries exceeded 165% of their gross domestic product.

This isn't a recession. This isn't even a crisis in the traditional sense. What we're witnessing is the complete unraveling of the economic model that powered the world's second largest economy for four decades. And the West, we're completely unprepared for what comes next. For forty years, China's growth seemed unstoppable. Double digit GDP increases, gleaming cities rising from farmland, a manufacturing powerhouse that became the world's factory. Western corporations moved their supply chains there. Emerging markets tied their futures to Chinese demand. Everyone believed the twenty first century would belong to Beijing. But beneath the surface, something was fundamentally broken. The property sector that once drove 30% of China's economy has imploded. Evergrande, with its 300,000,000,000 in liabilities, was just the first domino. Country Garden followed, then China, South City. Now even state backed developers are failing.

The speaker is focused on the long-term ability of the U.S. and world economy to recover, not daily stock market fluctuations. The stock market is compared to a tracking poll, with daily changes obscuring the long-term strategy. The banking system suffered due to lax regulation, overleverage, and systemic risks taken by both regulated and unregulated institutions. Losses are working their way through the system, and people are absorbing the depth of the banking problem and its international impact. Profit and earning ratios are reaching levels where buying stocks could be a good long-term investment.

Companies and private investors in Thailand borrowed heavily from abroad to boost exports and profit from property value increases. However, when Japan's economic slump caused Thailand's export boom to falter, companies faced difficulties. The Thai government sought bilateral loans from Beijing and Tokyo to avert devaluation, but both countries refused. Speculation and hedge funds led by George Soros triggered an exchange rate crisis, causing the Thai Central Bank to release the exchange rate of the baht, leading to devaluation. The crisis spread to other Southeast Asian countries, causing recessions, bankruptcies, and social upheaval. The IMF's response was criticized, but Korea managed to recover faster due to restructuring and risk management. The crisis highlighted the need for global financial stability measures.