Sree Iyer: Hello and welcome to episode number 94 or to Daily Global Insights. I’m your host Sree Iyer, joining me today is my co-panellists Sridhar Chityalaji. Sridharji namaskar and welcome to be PGurus Channel.
Sridhar Chityala: Namaskar and good morning to you on this wonderful, February 9th the Tuesday.
Sree Iyer: Thank you, sir. And this is going to be day one of the impeachment proceedings that are going to start in the Senate. The house is already impeached Donald Trump for the second time. Now, what is the agenda? How are things going to play out? I am assuming that from tomorrow for about two weeks, we are going to see here, nothing, but, what is going to happen in this impeachment proceedings? Can you kind of walk us through what is going to happen in the next few days?
Sridhar Chityala: Great. I think that the circus starts tomorrow the breaking news last night and then, we’re still catching up with the specific details. Both Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell have agreed to the terms of the impeachment process. Tuesday, which is today, we will have a four hours debate in the Senate on the floor of the Senate. And if the Senate decides to vote not to proceed further given that they had preliminary voting on the impeachment trials last week, which saw 45 GOP members voting against it, effectively sending the signal there are no 67 votes to convict a president. By a simple majority, they can impeach the president but, there’s no conviction kind of possible, so that is known. So, Tuesday tomorrow is another chance which is to say whether you want to stop this circus or whether you want to continue this process. It looks like we will know later today that if wiser heads prevail this will all end today. If not, then they would be I am told 16 hours each for the president and for the impeachment team to present their respective cases. Then, there will be a four hours’ time slot for the Senators to debate with each of those parties, then, there will be four hours each for the Trump team as well as the impeachment team in terms of making the case cross-examining, the evidence presented, etcetera. If any external witnesses need to be subpoenaed then that they would be subpoenaed and then there’s extra time granted for that. All those things kick off on a Wednesday, and then there’s a small break Friday, Saturday for this sabbath and then we kind of continue this discourse, so, this could probably slip into next week. As we kind of finish this impeachment process we also have February 19th the SCOTUS looking at the alleged election frauds those that come up as well.
While these go on this structure is being laid out and impeachment trial, there is already been open salvos that’s been fired by the Trump team, which is to say he’s just exercising the First Amendment rights and there is nothing that is contravening which constitutes an impeachable offence in his speech. He has spoken several words more than 10,000 words. There is been few occurrences where he has used the word fight but, the story is it’s within the context of the broader conversation not just purely with incitement of violence, so, that’s going to be their case. In the meanwhile Alan Dershowitz has stated, there is no constitutional process, this is house taking on responsibility far beyond what its mandates are and this whole thing is null and void. It’s unconstitutional. So, this is where we are with regard to the impeachment process.
Sree Iyer: Now evidence is mounting that the Capitol breach on the January 6th was actually planned. When will this show up, the actual evidence in terms of like a court case or something? Do you have any idea?
Sridhar Chityala: During the 16-hour process, this will show up. The images will show up, words of the speech will show up and affidavits and some of the case filings will show up. So, all these will be part of their evidence that will be kind of present but, at the end of the day, you will begin to see that, all these will become the main sideshow. It says main Sideshow rather than the main show because the main show is about whether what he said constitutes an impeachable offence and whether there is any correlation. The Democrats make a point, he is a president, he is a president, he is a president, not the first day or the last day, he’s the president. So, his speech definitely constituted the incitement which led to the insurrection.
Sree Iyer: South Dakota Republicans are trying to get a bill pass, seeking to nullify Biden’s executive orders. Viewers South Dakota is one state, where there was a lot of shell processing for getting out crude and perhaps, they also are one of those states where the Keystone Pipeline passes through. We don’t know what it is. I’m guessing here, of course, and perhaps you can set me straight, is that the reason they’re trying to have this passed or are there other reasons?
Sridhar Chityala: I think, that’s one reason. The second reason is oil is the economy in The Dakotas. So, therefore, you know, you don’t kind of kill their economy and you say that okay will kill the jobs, but, we’ll work out the transition plan later. John Kerry made a dry joke, which is to say car runs on four wheels and it will be still running on four wheels. Excuse me, John, you know the story is that he’s not the overnight for somebody to go and move from solar and wind energy, you know overnight and have from turbines to solar panels laid all over the place and electricity generated and used as a consumption material instead of the Ethanol. So, the story is that this is the drama that is being played out. There are people I think we discussed this, I think it’s called Union 789 or Union some specific number, which is what runs out of my memory that Union is objecting to it because these are all solders, welders, pipe layers, pipe connectors all these kinds of people who are very specialized in their training and in their skills. All these characters travel all around the world where you have this type of jobs that pop up. So, the story here is that you know, what’s going to happen to all these people, so, you have South Dakota, you have Wyoming, and you have even the AFL-CIO which is the American labour union that guy, you know, basically, everybody making the statement, this is a very bad and stupid decision that you’re going to kill, thousands if not millions of jobs in the industry.
Sree Iyer: See, it shows the conflict that is existing inside the Democratic Party, isn’t it? I mean these were the pillars on which this party relies for its vote base and they are not happy about this move. So, who is Biden trying to satisfy by doing this Keystone pipe? I was just wondering aloud here perhaps, you know, the answer.
Sridhar Chityala: Progressives, if you see Alexandria Cortez and her team, the squad, they will be telling you clean air, clean energy, UN high commission’s, human rights, open borders that are the progressive agenda. Everything is clean air, clean water, clean energy, we can’t afford to have but, we can kill the economy, but, the story is that because we don’t understand it, but, all we understand is all these great kind of sayings when you really kind of look at it from a very insightful and look at all the agitation that is going on even in India for the farmer’s reform programs that are underway. The people who are educating have no Iota of any economics or the transformative nature of the reforms that are being put in place because these guys have never gone into such economic schools. Their agenda is progressive and progressive often, you know has more social outcome rather than any economic outcome in conjunction with the social outcome. You cannot have a non-economic outcome, then, say we are socially funded, I mean, you know, who is going to feed you. You need to have a proper economic structure that comes out of it. So, therefore I think if you will ask these people, any of these squad members, can you give an economic kind of story behind this? No.
Sree Iyer: Well, one wonders then, if President Biden wants to run a progressive agenda. He might as well allow their person to be the president, what is Biden’s agenda? Can you cast some light on that?
Sridhar Chityala: Biden is supposed to be the unifying factor of the Democratic Party. As you have Centrist, you have leftist and you have progressives, you need to kind of unify the Democratic party is perceptibly the person who could do because if you have Warren or if you have Bernie Sanders, you know, they go into the progressive side or they go into the socialistic side of the agenda. So, then who can be some kind of a balance in between, the balance in between in a perceptive sense is Mr Joe Biden. Joe Biden was not until the last, Bernie Sanders was almost leading until the whole thing flipped and then Biden came to the forefront and he is now the marching Warrior who is going to kind of galvanized all the different factions within the Republican Party. President Obama himself has written that we have to win the Georgia Senate that’s the only way this is the occasion for the progressive agenda to be kind of rolling forward, we can’t afford to lose this election. So, we are in for the progressive time, Iyerji.
Sree Iyer: Well, I am reminded of a story, I’m not sure I read it in Panchatantra or in Bhagavatam. It’s called monkey balancing. Those of you who know that what that is can read and understand where I’m drawing the parlance. Let’s move on to Global News, sir. Australian Journalist Cheng Lei had been arrested in China. What is the story behind this and why did China arrest this journalist?
Sridhar Chityala: I don’t know the full details of the story but there has been a lot of scuffle between Australia and China in terms of the trade as well as, there was also this Afgan issue around the way the Chinese tried to project the Australian Soldiers. So since then, it has been going downhill and obviously, they found a journalist who that they think could be the cause of the story and she obviously has something to do with some of the stuff that is coming out of Australia and then what they do, they basically arrest. That same thing has happened to Yang Maodong. So for him also, it is the same. So he has been arrested. Basically, he’s Democratic, he is a democratic activist. He’s a human rights activist whereas, in the case of Chen Lei, she is more around the adversarial part of, perceived adversarial part of the anti-china rhetoric. So, I think what you are seeing is Biden says, we plan to join the UN Rights Council and then you have all these activities that China is instigating. These are just isolated incidents which are being brought but there are so many of them. Remember, in Hong Kong, the entire Legislative Council was sacked. All of them were said to be marching to the Chinese orders and at least a couple of them, Angela and Joshua, I think, both of them are somewhere in the Chinese prison, who were the advancing activists within 11 of 12 members of the Hong Kong Legislative Council. China does not like democracy. China doesn’t like protests. China doesn’t like dissent. It only likes one thing, everybody marching to Jinping orders, if you do so you’re a good boy.
Sree Iyer: The Chinese company is going to build wind and solar projects off the Sri Lankan coast, very near the Sterlite Plant in Thoothukudi. This is very interesting. I’m hoping some of those protesters will also take on boats and go and protest in front of the Chinese construction. What are your thoughts, sir?
Sridhar Chityala: I call it brooding trouble.
Sree Iyer: Will these wind tunnels suck away all the wind? Nothing will come to the coast.
Sridhar Chityala: Well, I know they’re going to suck away anything that is left of the Sterlite plant and they may be sucking away every fish that is flowing around that the Bay of Bengal seas which is a narrow strip of land between Trincomalee Jaffna and the southern tip Coast which is Tuticorin and Rameshwaram and so on if my Topography is correct from map point of view. Constant problems, once Upon a Time used to be this fish strollers from one side being arrested on the other side and those fellows being arrested. There is also a seamless infiltration of refugees and smuggling that used to happen once upon a time. So I think that to have the solar and wind farms around that and to be developed by the Chinese for a pittance, the cost of the project is about $12 million dollars. This is the second project. Previously, the port development which is near Colombo, which was supposed to be made by Japan and India, got scented and unions to cover. Usually, when unions taking over something like Sterlite plant, you will find that the hand of the Chinese, very much visible in such kind of disruptions that happen So, I think you know it’s interesting as you rightly said that the wind is going to suck out and the soul and the solar is going to blow them back. We’ll see but needless to say enough controversy.
Sree Iyer: In Israel, Netanyahu walked out of his own corruption trial. So, right now there is a crisis in terms of who is in power in Israel. They are probably headed for elections and maybe the timing of this trial was not the most perfect as far as Netanyahu, and his party are concerned. So can you shed a little bit more light on what is happening in Israel?
Sridhar Chityala: On pending corruption charges against Netanyahu, there is this political bickering that goes on in Israel, it is very s similar to what you see in India but Netanyahu has survived almost three times, he will collapse, he’ll come back, he’ll collapse, he’ll come back. So his confidence is, this all politics there’s no corruption, you’re trying to frame this case. So basically walked saying, I’m not corrupt. So, the question therefore is, where does it go? It’ll probably go to an election until then IDF Israeli Defense Forces, fairly disciplined and strong, so I think it will self-govern and there will always be a leader. But I won’t be surprised if Netanyahu comes back again.
Sree Iyer: And let’s hope stronger because then it gives a little bit more stability to the Israeli government. I am skipping covid because we are out of time. In the markets, we see that Tesla has invested about one and a half billion dollars worth of its money in buying Bitcoins and the rumour on the street is that they may actually accept Bitcoins for their cars. This is a big statement because the last time I heard something like this was when overstock.com said that they would accept Bitcoins for the products or the merchandise that you bought at Overstock.
Sridhar Chityala: Last I met Elon was around 2003. We incubated, these were my JPMorgan days, when four of them came and pitched we incubated and enabled the formation of a company called PayPal. At that point in time, Elon was running an online bank payment company called x.com and then from there, he developed with Pierre and others eBay, PayPal concept. So he has a very deep understanding of the payments. And payments comprises of two categories. One is called low-value payments and the other is called high-value payments. Low-value payments are what PayPal dominates, low-value payments are what Amazon dominates, low-value payments is what Apple dominates with Apple pay. Those which are less than typically between 99 Cents going all the way up to $50 to $99, you don’t see many $500-$600. Then you have a high-value payment space. The high-value payment is those with average ticket sizes of minimum hundred or thousand dollars. You don’t do too many $100,000 transactions, but they are significantly larger in value and lower in volume.
So, Elon is saying let me think, I’ve got a car ecosystem, I’m have an electronic vehicle ecosystem, I’m going to have everything within that electronic vehicle ecosystem managed out of a little iPad or something of that ilk sitting in the car. So the question, therefore, is why I should use an inefficient payment model, which is the banking system, for me to be receiving money and giving back money, either for my buying of the cars or buying of the batteries or using the battery stations on one side in terms of the buyers and Tesla as the seller. Second, you have the dealers or a network of Car Dealers of Tesla who are selling. So if I can create an ecosystem where I do not use a banking system for every transaction for this high value but use these simple coins as a mechanism by which I can buy a Tesla car today for one Bitcoin dollar that is $44,000.
So $44,000 means, it has a value element in terms of fees, float, the variability of the currency plus a delay in terms of the settlement, notwithstanding the fact that payments are real-time. So I believe he is trying to say I want to have a place in this huge ecosystem. This could be Tesla’s Bitcoin payment ecosystem for driving (pun intended) the Tesla Commerce, digital payment Tesla Commerce with a Tesla Bitcoin.
Sree Iyer: It’s a fascinating concept and we know that Elon Musk has several verticals, batteries, SpaceX, Hyperloop and so on. So this is the industry of the future and certainly very out of the box thinking on your side sir, and hopefully, our viewers appreciate what we are providing and with this, we come to an end of today’s session. We will be back again tomorrow, bright and early and thanks for watching. Do subscribe to our channel and donate to our channel. Namaskar.
Sridhar Chityala: Namaskar and thank you so much. Have a wonderful day.
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