{"podcast":{"title":"Economics Matters with Laurence Kotlikoff","slug":"economics-matters-with-laurence-kotlikoff-6614501","podcast_index_feed_id":6614501,"rss_url":"https://anchor.fm/s/e8bfdf7c/podcast/rss","website_url":"https://larrykotlikoff.substack.com/","image_url":"https://d3t3ozftmdmh3i.cloudfront.net/staging/podcast_uploaded_nologo/38948887/38948887-1694271789346-097e16ba7f8da.jpg","author":"Economics Matters","episode_count":149,"summary":"Economics Matters is a podcast hosted by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff, one of the most influential economists in the world, a Global Economics Advisor, NY Times Best Selling Author, President of Economic Security Planning, Inc., and Director of the Fiscal Analysis Center. In each episode, Professor Kotlikoff talks to experts about the power of economics in our modern day society. From personal finance and fiscal policy, to social security and income inequality, Economics Matters delves into much of the economic challenges of modern society.","last_synced_at":"2026-09-12T04:22:26.196756+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/economics-matters-with-laurence-kotlikoff-6614501"},"episode":{"title":"Why Putin Can't Win, China Won't Fold, and Trump Is Running Out of Options","slug":"why-putin-can-t-win-china-won-t-fold-and-trump-is-running-out-of-options","published_at":"2026-08-06T14:32:23+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/economics-matters-with-laurence-kotlikoff-6614501/why-putin-can-t-win-china-won-t-fold-and-trump-is-running-out-of-options","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/economics-matters-with-laurence-kotlikoff-6614501","url":"https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/economics-matters/episodes/Why-Putin-Cant-Win--China-Wont-Fold--and-Trump-Is-Running-Out-of-Options-e3n2en0","audio_url":"https://anchor.fm/s/e8bfdf7c/podcast/play/123861152/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-7-6%2F429343601-44100-2-aab9b37d3db6b.mp3","summary":"What if the three most dangerous regimes on earth — Russia, China, and Iran — are all weaker than they appear, and yet America is still losing ground to all three at once? Sir Niall Ferguson has spent a career studying how empires rise, overreach, and fall. He watched the Soviet Union collapse from the inside out while everyone in Washington assumed it would last forever. He's been warning about China's hidden fragility for years while the consensus said otherwise. Currently, he's watching the United States make the most conventional mistake of Donald Trump's entire political career: getting bogged down in the Middle East on the side of Israel, just like George W. Bush before him. Professor Kotlikoff and his old friend have a wide-ranging, rapid-fire conversation covering the real state of the Iran conflict, why a Taiwan semiconductor crisis is the single biggest threat to the world economy in the next two years, why Putin cannot win in Ukraine and knows it, why nuclear weapons won't be used, what Ferguson would actually tell Trump to do right now, and whether American universities brought the current backlash on themselves. What You'll Learn: [00:11:45] Why this is not World War III [00:13:50] The \"American Suez\" framework [00:17:00] Why there is no great military option left [00:19:15] The desalination plant vulnerability [00:22:00] The missile economics problem [00:25:00] The authoritarian axis [00:31:53] How the regime change in Iran already happened [00:34:15] Ferguson's actual policy prescription [00:45:11] Why Ferguson doesn't think China will overtake the United States [00:45:33] Cold War II and the Cuban Missile Crisis parallel [00:47:01] Why Russia is no longer a great power [00:48:00] Why Putin won't use nuclear weapons [00:53:35] The optimistic scenario [00…","meta_description":"What if the three most dangerous regimes on earth — Russia, China, and Iran — are all weaker than they appear, and yet America is still losing ground to a…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":4127,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/economics-matters-with-laurence-kotlikoff-6614501/episodes/why-putin-can-t-win-china-won-t-fold-and-trump-is-running-out-of-options/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/economics-matters-with-laurence-kotlikoff-6614501/why-putin-can-t-win-china-won-t-fold-and-trump-is-running-out-of-options.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}