The Jacob Shapiro Podcast

The world has never been wealthier... but a warm patch of ocean in the Pacific is about to reorganize the weather across four continents and all that wealth still might not be enough to cover the damages. Climate scientist Justin Mankin studies how much these events actually cost - and his estimates run to $10 trillion or more in global economic loss over the next five years. Big numbers, short timeframe, scary outlook. But the hardest question that Dr. Mankin brought up with us wasn't about how we're gunna pay for all of this, it's about what gets lost when we measure disasters in GDP instead of lives.
Do we want richer world or a better one?
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Timestamps:
(00:00) - Welcome and Guest Intro
(01:16) - Why El Niño Matters Now
(02:47) - El Niño and IOD Explained
(07:48) - Teleconnections and Predictability
(09:47) - El Niño Life Cycle and Timing
(11:53) - Defining Normal in Climate Data
(14:39) - How El Niño Is Measured
(22:19) - ONI vs RONI and Super El Niño Hype
(26:59) - Drought Monitoring and Shifting Baselines
(32:08) - How Gnarly Is El Niño
(34:31) - Warming World Impacts
(35:20) - Counting El Niño Costs
(38:16) - El Niño to La Niña
(39:12) - Springback Physics Explained
(42:32) - Trillions in Damages
(44:00) - Causal Inference Methods
(50:09) - Conflict and Thresholds
(01:00:03) - Five Year Outlook
(01:05:42) - Closing and Credits
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Referenced in the Show:
Justin's Research - https://jsmankin.github.io/
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Jacob Shapiro Site: jacobshapiro.com
Jacob Shapiro LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jacob-l-s-a9337416
Jacob Twitter: x.com/JacobShap
Jacob Shapiro Substack: jashap.substack.com/subscribe
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The Jacob Shapiro Show is produced and edited by Audiographies LLC. More information at audiographies.com
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Jacob Shapiro is a speaker, consultant, author, and researcher covering global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture. He speaks to audiences of all sizes around the world, helps global multinationals make strategic decisions about political risks and opportunities, and works directly with investors to grow and protect their assets in today’s volatile global environment. His insights help audiences across industries like finance, agriculture, and energy make sense of the world.
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Scott Bessent knows something that we don't. Luke Gromen has spent his whole career reading the fine print of America's balance sheet, and his conclusion is stark: the quiet interventions coming out of Washington - doubled bond buybacks, a yen rescue, a sudden fondness for stablecoins - aren't policy. They're symptoms. The arithmetic of debt, entitlements, and interest has crossed a threshold from which, Gromen argues, there are only three exits, and none of them are painless. We've got a crisis hiding in plain sight - and someone is gunna end up paying for it.
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Timestamps:
(00:00) - Welcome and Guest Intro
(00:21) - Past Episode Reflections
(00:49) - Bitcoin and AI Disagreements
(01:58) - Luke Returns to the Show
(02:24) - Why Everything Feels Faster
(03:52) - Bessent and Bond Buybacks
(08:11) - True Interest Expense Alarm
(15:00) - Is It a Crisis Yet
(20:38) - Crisis Symptoms and Options
(26:54) - Japan Treasury Selling Fears
(29:06) - Allies Follow China Playbook
(34:01) - Stablecoins and CLARITY Act
(36:07) - No Silver Bullet
(36:48) - Inflation Over Bonds
(38:39) - Gold and Bitcoin Hedge
(39:09) - No Currency Alternative
(40:44) - China Gold Yuan System
(43:33) - Gold as Neutral Reserve
(48:31) - Multipolar Reserve Trap
(50:32) - Zugzwang and Supply Chains
(55:30) - Back to Gold Energy Link
(01:01:08) - AI Boom Then Bust
(01:04:00) - White Collar Disruption
(01:10:37) - Closing Thoughts and Outro
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Referenced in the Show:
Forest For The Trees - https://fftt-llc.com/about/
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Jacob Shapiro Site: jacobshapiro.com
Jacob Shapiro LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jacob-l-s-a9337416
Jacob Twitter: x.com/JacobShap
Jacob Shapiro Substack: jashap.substack.com/subscribe
--
The Jacob Shapiro Show is produced and edited by Audiographies LLC. More information at audiographies.com
--
Jacob Shapiro is a speaker, consultant, author, and researcher covering global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture. He speaks to audiences of all sizes around the world, helps global multinationals make strategic decisions about political risks and opportunities, and works directly with investors to grow and protect their assets in today’s volatile global environment. His insights help audiences across industries like finance, agriculture, and energy make sense of the world.
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AI companies are buying up used books, scanning them, and destroying the originals. At least, that's the headline... the real story is weirder. Charlie Becker, a seventh-generation bookseller in Houston, went viral for tracing one of these mysterious bulk orders - following overlooked books into Amazon warehouses filled with entire categories of obscure human knowledge. Today we're taking the plunge into a mystery that spans artificial intelligence, culture, and the LTV of a "rare" book.
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Timestamps:
(00:00) - Episode setup and guest intro
(01:22) - Mic check and welcome
(02:01) - Viral post and lawsuit context
(04:05) - Who is Charlie Becker
(10:40) - Amazon warehouse mystery
(13:02) - Which books are vanishing
(16:28) - FBA arbitrage and pulping
(18:53) - Amazon irony and AI layer
(22:11) - ISBN gap and metadata tool
(26:12) - Missing middle and preservation risk
(28:36) - Used Bookstore Churn Myth
(29:27) - Why Obscure Books Matter
(30:33) - AI Is Not Retrieval
(32:30) - Cookbook Chef Metaphor
(33:51) - Smaller Models Personal Agents
(34:38) - Houston Bookstore Renaissance
(37:31) - Book Crawl Themed Shops
(40:00) - Foreign Language Treasure Troves
(46:06) - Estate Libraries Rare Finds
(47:02) - Mystery Bulk Orders Explained
(51:22) - Optimism And Preservation Tool
(54:44) - Internet Slop Back To Bookstores
(57:22) - Closing Thanks And Outro
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Referenced in the Show:

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Jacob Shapiro Site: jacobshapiro.com
Jacob Shapiro LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jacob-l-s-a9337416
Jacob Twitter: x.com/JacobShap
Jacob Shapiro Substack: jashap.substack.com/subscribe
--
The Jacob Shapiro Show is produced and edited by Audiographies LLC. More information at audiographies.com
--
Jacob Shapiro is a speaker, consultant, author, and researcher covering global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture. He speaks to audiences of all sizes around the world, helps global multinationals make strategic decisions about political risks and opportunities, and works directly with investors to grow and protect their assets in today’s volatile global environment. His insights help audiences across industries like finance, agriculture, and energy make sense of the world.
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Jacob Shapiro welcomes back Peter Harrell, visiting scholar at Georgetown's Institute of International Economic Law and former White House senior director for international economics. Trump keeps finding new legal tools - including a forgotten 1930 law now aimed at Canada - and companies have stopped investing because they can't guess what comes next :/ Also, Washington has quietly bought stakes in 37 companies, with no rules and almost no transparency around any of it.
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Timestamps:
(00:00) - Welcome and Setup
(00:27) - Why Tariffs Matter Now
(02:18) - Rapid Fire Tariff Tools
(03:29) - Supreme Court Fallout
(05:44) - Graham Sanctions Act
(10:22) - Smoot Hawley Meets USMCA
(11:35) - Canada Tariff Mechanics
(15:49) - What Trump Wants
(21:35) - USMCA Future Scenarios
(23:47) - After Trump Trade Path
(25:30) - Next President Tariff Reset
(28:21) - Trade Policy Inflection
(29:25) - Biden vs Trump Tariffs
(30:45) - China Tariffs Reality
(33:08) - Rules of Origin Loopholes
(35:52) - Democrats China Debate
(37:22) - Industrial Policy Needed
(39:25) - Drones Case Study
(44:14) - Manufacturing Culture Shift
(48:29) - Investment Needs Certainty
(50:41) - Government Equity Stakes
(52:13) - Sovereign Wealth Concerns
(56:03) - Wrap Up and Outro
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Referenced in the Show:

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Jacob Shapiro Site: jacobshapiro.com
Jacob Shapiro LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jacob-l-s-a9337416
Jacob Twitter: x.com/JacobShap
Jacob Shapiro Substack: jashap.substack.com/subscribe
--
The Jacob Shapiro Show is produced and edited by Audiographies LLC. More information at audiographies.com
--
Jacob Shapiro is a speaker, consultant, author, and researcher covering global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture. He speaks to audiences of all sizes around the world, helps global multinationals make strategic decisions about political risks and opportunities, and works directly with investors to grow and protect their assets in today’s volatile global environment. His insights help audiences across industries like finance, agriculture, and energy make sense of the world.
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Round two. Same four analysts, a lot more whiskey, and a lot less structure.
Peter Zeihan, Marko Papic, and Matt Gertken sit back down with Jacob - a man who cut his teeth pestering all three of them for their pieces as a Stratfor intern - for an unfiltered conversation about how they actually became geopolitical strategists. They trade formative-moment stories from Stratfor's early-2000s "golden age" (including the Egypt/Mubarak call that made Jacob's career), debate whether corporate America can ever hire real geopolitical talent, and each name the one book that shaped how they see the world - from World War Z to Aristotle to The Ingenuity Gap.
Along the way: George Friedman lore, the DC Comics-vs-Marvel theory of geopolitical shops, and a genuinely moving closing tribute to the mentor who built this whole coaching tree. Part reunion, part masterclass in how to think about the world - and part roast session.
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Timestamps:
(00:00) - Welcome Back Round Two
(00:52) - Whiskey And Loose Format
(01:34) - Formative Stratfor Moments
(02:24) - Arab Spring Cred Test
(04:17) - Stratfor Coaching Tree
(07:50) - Pipeline After Cold War
(14:17) - Academia Versus Geopolitics
(17:14) - Analyst Craft And Courage
(20:22) - Chief Geopolitical Officer Debate
(22:55) - Training Gap And Time Horizons
(25:29) - Universities And MBA Reform
(27:39) - Ideology And Groupthink
(30:02) - Theory Versus Practice
(30:57) - Frameworks Beat Facts
(31:44) - Operationalizing Geopolitics
(34:24) - Training Pipelines and MBAs
(37:39) - Sector Specialists and Scale
(40:01) - Everyone a Geostrategist
(41:01) - Deglobalization in Fashion
(42:51) - Formative Books Roundtable
(51:07) - Great Men and Psychology
(54:21) - Empathetic Analysis Explained
(56:25) - Displacement and Perspective
(58:23) - Formative Experiences Teaser
(58:50) - Yugoslavia Falls Apart
(59:15) - Tito Memories and Disillusion
(59:58) - Conspiracies and Nihilism
(01:01:23) - Identity in the Balkans
(01:03:51) - Living With Uncertainty
(01:04:39) - Midwest Roots and Leaving Home
(01:06:18) - Can Places Change
(01:07:32) - America as Debate Laboratory
(01:10:22) - Learning to Write Analysis
(01:14:39) - Chip on Shoulder Mindset
(01:18:22) - Morality Versus Analysis
(01:21:12) - Breaking Intellectual Chains
(01:23:53) - Finding the Fulcrum Question
(01:24:43) - Final Words and Gratitude
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Geopolitical Cousins is produced and edited by Audiographies LLC. More information at audiographies.com
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Jacob Shapiro is a speaker, consultant, author, and researcher covering global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture. He speaks to audiences of all sizes around the world, helps global multinationals make strategic decisions about political risks and opportunities, and works directly with investors to grow and protect their assets in today’s volatile global environment. His insights help audiences across industries like finance, agriculture, and energy make sense of the world.
Jacob Shapiro Site: jacobshapiro.com
Jacob Shapiro LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jacob-l-s-a9337416
Jacob Twitter: x.com/JacobShap
Jacob Shapiro Substack: jashap.substack.com/subscribe
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Marko Papic is a macro and geopolitical expert at BCA Research, a global investment research firm. He provides in-depth analysis that combines geopolitics and markets in a framework called GeoMacro. He is also the author of Geopolitical Alpha: An Investment Framework for Predicting the Future.
Marko’s Book & Newsletter: www.geopoliticalalpha.com/marko-papic
Marko’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marko-papic-geopolitics/
Marko’s Twitter: https://x.com/Geo_papic
Marko’s Macro & Geopolitical Research at BCA: https://www.bcaresearch.com/marketing/geomacro