Geopolitical Economy Hour

Michael Hudson: Trump Is Desperate To Save The Dollar Ponzi Scheme | GEH W/ Radhika Desai

Is Washington's rescue of the yen an act of friendship, or a sign that the dollar system itself is beginning to crack? I am joined by economist Michael Hudson to unpack the US intervention to save a collapsing yen and why the official story of "solidarity" masks a far more desperate calculation. Michael explains how the yen's weakness threatens the carry trade and capital inflows the dollar system depends on, why the US chose to sell euros rather than dollars to defend it, and how even long-time dollar bulls like Barry Eichengreen now admit the intervention exposes Washington's growing reluctance to let foreign central banks touch their own reserves. We examine the mounting evidence of dollar fatigue, from the ECB now holding more gold than dollars, to the flood of new Treasury issuance the market must somehow absorb, to a Federal Reserve whose credibility is increasingly in question. Michael argues this is not simply a story about Trump's erratic instincts, but about a financial order that is running out of options.

China Expert: Has Beijing Betrayed Palestine? Why The Left Is Asking The Wrong Question | Carlos Martinez & Radhika Desai

Is China betraying the world's oppressed nations, or is it playing a longer, harder game than its critics understand? Carlos Martinez, author of The East is Still Red and co-editor of Friends of Socialist China, joins me to confront the charge, common even on parts of the left, that Beijing does far too little for Palestine, Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela. Martinez traces China's foreign policy from the internationalism of Bandung and the Non-Aligned Movement, through its rapprochement with Washington and entry into the world economy, to its present balancing act between principled solidarity and hard-nosed realism. We examine why China rejects unilateral sanctions even against Israel, why its UN vetoes on Gaza are strategy rather than betrayal, and why the more urgent question isn't what China should be doing, but what the rest of us should.

Ivana Hughes: Capitalism Is Driving Us Toward Climate Collapse & Nuclear War | GEH W/ Radhika Desai

Are nuclear war and climate catastrophe two separate crises, or one civilizational threat with two faces? I'm joined by Ivana Nikolić Hughes to discuss why both dangers have faded into public apathy even as they grow more acute. Ivana walks through the isotope evidence that traces rising CO2 directly to fossil fuels, and the physics of nuclear winter, where soot from even a regional nuclear war could block sunlight and collapse global food production for years. We connect both threats to the same underlying driver: capitalism's demand for endless growth, invoking the idea of the "Capitalocene" as a more honest name than the Anthropocene. We close by contrasting the West's refusal to rein in its capitalist class with China's state-led investment in renewable energy, as a sign these crises are still solvable.

America's AI Boom Is Science Fiction Funding Financial Fiction | Warwick Powell & Radhika Desai

Is the AI boom just the latest chapter in a stock market story that was already fiction? I'm joined by Warwick Powell to trace the line from China's Kimi and DeepSeek shock through what I've called America's "sci-fi/fin-fi" model — science fiction promises like AGI dressed up to justify financial fiction, a bubble with roots in the dot-com crash and Reagan's fabricated Star Wars program. Warwick explains how venture capital functions as a closed, rule-bound game for insiders, how Silicon Valley Bank behaved more like a members' club than a bank, and how decades of buybacks and privatised monopolies have concentrated stock ownership until 93% of market value sits with just 10% of Americans. We contrast this with China's state-driven finance system and its decades-long investment in literacy and human capital.

Mohammad Marandi: Trump Folds & Iran Strikes Gulf | W/ Radhika Desai

Is Trump's Iran war a bluff, or has the empire simply run out of moves? Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi, Iranian political analyst, joins me to explain why each retreat only strengthens Iran, whose indigenous defense doctrine and Axis of Resistance have outmatched a US military still fighting last century's wars, leaving Gulf assets battered and the initiative, per the Financial Times, now with Tehran. Professor Marandi dismantles the myth of Western superiority, upheld only by imperial elites as Western publics turn against these wars, and traces how Washington's own aggression has pushed Iran, Russia, and China closer together.