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Ryan Reynolds here for, I guess, my 100th Mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, honestly, when I started this, I thought I'd only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much? I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash save whenever you're ready. For
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Episode 305. 305 is the area code belonging to parts of Florida. True story, a man after killing his partner and then eating his partner took his dog for a walk. How come you just knew that guy lived in Florida? Not a joke. Not a joke. No! No!
Welcome to the 305th episode of the Prop G Pod. I am still in the south of France, the Cannes Lion Festival. My pivot co-host Kara Swish and I recorded live on stage at the Adweek House. You can hear that episode over the pivot feed tomorrow. It was lovely. It was lovely. We had Rose after. It was very nice. Also, the Olympic torch came marching through. Does anyone care? Does anyone care about the Olympics anymore? I
I got invited to the Olympics, and I said to my kids, hey, do you want to go to the Olympics? And they're like, what are the Olympics? Literally, they're like, do we have football tickets? You know, soccer. And I'm like, no. And they're like, no, we're not interested. We don't want to hear—we don't want to see 100 hours of diving, swimming, and discus throwing. It's such an interesting case study, and I don't know the answer and why the Olympics have fallen so far and the World Cup has ascended so
At such an incredible pace. Anyways, I'm making the rounds again. I like it here because people come up to me and say hi, and I purposely take my boys into town because I'm desperate for their affirmation. I want them to see that what I do actually gets some recognition. So what are we doing? We're skipping our news headlines and busting right into our conversation with Rushir Sharma.
the chairman of Rockefeller International and founder and chief investment officer of Breakout Capital, an investment firm focused on emerging markets. We hear all about Rushir's new book, What Went Wrong with Capitalism. Okay, Rushir, where does this podcast find you? I'm here in New York in Midtown. Oh, nice. Well, let's bust right into it. In your new book, What Went Wrong with Capitalism, it's really a critique of capitalism, a capitalist critique of capitalism, as you say. So tell us, how has the system been ruined?
Yeah, I think as I show in the book here, Scott, which is the fact that if you look at what's been happening in America, pretty much a lot of the Western world over the last few decades, is that we have progressively seen greater and greater government intervention in the economy. The suite of habits extends to just more than government spending. Government spending of the share of the economy has gone up from a century ago at just 3% when the government would do little more than deliver your mail.
to about 36% today. But it's not just that. It is, if you look at the
regulatory state. We look at the impulse to bail out, the proclivity to manage the business cycle. Just across the board, we have seen a massive increase in government intervention in the economy, with the consequence that it's destroyed the creative, destructive fiber of the economy, and productivity growth has been declining for the
last few decades as well. So that's the point I try and make, which is that there are lots of perverse consequences that have come out of this
systematic intervention in the economy. And those consequences include declining productivity, rising inequality, and also this feeling amongst most Americans that the system they have in place is not working. Nearly 70 percent of Americans want big economic change or want the current economic system to be turned down.
So let's break that down. So it's impossible to deny that government spending is not out of control, right? $7 trillion on $5 trillion in receipts. There's been unbelievable or staggering bailouts, I think $6 to $8 trillion COVID relief. The only thing I would push back on or require or would double click on
is this notion that we're over-regulated. My sense is that some of the biggest industries are under-regulated and we've had monopolies form. Your thoughts? Yeah. So again, let's look at the data, right? Which is the fact that America is introducing 3,000 new regulations a year. And that's
gone up over time. And I argue in the book that, in fact, regulation tends to be pro-incumbent and pro-big business, because when you introduce new regulations, the existing people are able to game the system much better, get the regulations they want.
And also, it makes it that much more expensive for new companies to come up. So therefore, it's one of the reasons I think that the number of startups in America has been declining right up until the pandemic. We saw a big decrease in the number of startups in America over the preceding two or three decades. So I would say that, yes, that we possibly can do with
better antitrust regulation, which is what I think that you're alluding to. But I think that we sort of have to see that in every industry otherwise, we have seen regulations increase and that tends to hurt small and medium-sized businesses from coming up. I know it from personal experience that the cost of, let's say, setting up a new fund is up
10 times over the last 20 years. So that makes it very difficult for someone looking to set up a new fund and breaking even compared to some large fund, which is already there, has the resources, has the legal compliance departments to deal with all this. So it makes sense that certain industries such as financial services where more compliance, you know, Sarbanes-Oxley, whatever you want to, it just gets harder and harder and harder to compete.
or to start up. My understanding is there were more new business applications or permits filed last year than in history. And two, it does seem, though, that some of our biggest industries have figured out a way to weaponize government or weaponize lobbyists. But what you're saying is the majority of industries are overregulated and this suppresses
economic growth. Do I get that right? Absolutely. So I'd say, you know, like, and you're correct that we did see like a spike up in new businesses or so over the last couple of years. But a lot of that was because during the pandemic, many had to shut down. So that's a bit of a churn which is going on. That's not been the true trend over the last 30 to 40 years. So I think we have to keep that in perspective. And the second point, as you say, is that, yes,
you know, there has been some deregulation. For example, there's been financial sector deregulation, which is why financial markets have exploded a lot. But I'd say for most industries in things like hospitality and things like restaurants and stuff, the number of regulations that any small business has to deal with has gone up a lot. And that shows up in all sorts of ways. For example, if you look at
the number of lawyers in America, America has always had a very large legal population. The number of lawyers per capita is about the largest in the world. But again, that this growth has exploded in the last 20 years or so. So it's clearly in terms of who's benefiting and even in terms of lobbyists that you point out, which is that the number of lobbyists in Washington, they have been captured by all the big tech firm, the big
firms dominate the number of new lobbyists in Washington or just total spend on lobbying.
So in your book, you say in the 2010s, economies worldwide began to slow. Why did this happen? And where are we today? Yeah, so productivity growth across the world has been slowing. And so I think that this is what, in fact, looks America a bit better, which is that the productivity growth in places like Europe has been slowing even more than what's happened in America. But the point I make in the book is that's partly because they're the
kind of state intervention they have, the regulatory phalanx that they have is much greater than even here in America. So that's not the right benchmark. But in general, I make the point that productivity growth has been slowing everywhere in the midst of what is otherwise such a powerful tech boom. And this is a trend that
predates even the 2010s. It's been on a decline apart from a brief surge in the late 1990s and early 2000s when you had the internet revolution. Productivity growth has been generally slowing everywhere. And I deal with this productivity paradox in the book extensively, saying that what could be causing this? All these arguments that
It's because of mis-measurement and all. Well, that's not true because, you know, like in the late 90s on the back of the internet boom, you did see a temp research. So I think that the reason economic growth has been slowing a lot has to partly do with demographics. That yes, population growth across the world has slowed down. That
There's not much we can do about that. But as far as productivity growth is concerned, that too has slowed down significantly, despite some tech innovations that have taken place. And now we are hanging our hat on AI boosting productivity. But I think that, as I said, that the capitalist, creative, destructive fiber of the economy has been undermined because we're keeping alive so much dead wood. I mean, today, the number of zombie companies, as I say, that we have in the
economy today by some measures is close to 20 percent what do i mean by that these are companies that are defined as firms that have not uh or not earning enough profits to even cover their interest payments for three years in a row but keep going back to the market to refinance themselves and when we do that we sort of obviously undermine productivity growth in the economy
Yeah, I'm a big believer that you need churn for a robust economy and that the incumbents don't want churn. Just let me put forward a thesis, and I'd like to get your response, that one reason why we've seen a decline in productivity is because of low corporate tax rates, and that is...
corporations have a memory and when they can get 80 cents on the dollar out to a shareholder, they will choose to distribute earnings. Whereas if the tax rate is say 40% and they're only going to get 60 cents out and they get sort of a 40% reduction in the price of reinvesting in the company and plan property and equipment to grow the top line,
that the incentive is to, or the hurdle rate for a go on investment is lower when tax rates are higher. Is there any truth to that? Well, the evidence, again, doesn't really back it up, right? Because if you look at what's happened in Europe, you know, or wherever, you know, like the corporate tax rates have been higher, they haven't been able to sort of get higher productivity growth either. So,
I just don't see the evidence of that. Yes, I do feel the fact that the tax system could do with a big overall. I think we all agree with it. There's too much of a disparity in the way that a W-2 wage earner is taxed compared to how much, you know, like how much lower capital gains taxes are. So, yeah, there are other distortions, which I completely agree with. But I think that in the book, what I'm going to focus on is the fact that what happened to capitalism? What did the founders have in mind?
Is the system today what we have, capitalism? And why are so many young people in places like America disillusioned with the world capitalism? As I say in the book, the surveys show that most young Americans, particularly Democrats, say they would rather have socialism than capitalism. That's a really big statement for a country that was the founder of rural practical purposes, a capitalist system. We'll be right back.
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So let's assume that we agree, that most people agree, that we need to cut government spending. Where do you think we cut it? So that's the point, right? Which is that, how do you prioritize that? I mean, what has the Biden administration done? It has just doubled down on its spending. So now it's spending on everything. It's spending on industrial policy. It's spending on the CHIPS Act. And
I think on an individual basis, when you look at government spending, we all think that, yes, you know, like in terms of each one is justified. But I think that the thing is that we need to prioritize that. Don't we need entitlement reform? Should we really be spending on industrial policy because our priorities are different? If we want a welfare state, if we want to give people lots of, you know, like in terms of even cash benefits, as some people want to do.
I think it's about prioritizing that what can we do realistically and this thinking that debt and deficits don't matter because so many people for so long have been crying wolf about this, right? Which is that in New York, we have had these debt clocks which have been up for decades and it's because nothing has happened. We think that what's the problem? We can go on spending this way and we can...
There is no real consequence to that. And what I try and sort of show here is that, yes, there is a consequence. One, that because of this, we have already seen a decline in terms of productivity because of the suite of government habits. And two, that now we are taking this just to a ridiculous extent that America used to run a budget deficit of around 3% of GDP for the last couple of decades. It was in line with other developed countries.
Today, we're running that at 6% of GDP, way higher than any developed country in the world. And our public debt as a share of the overall economy has crossed 100% and is only behind that of Japan and Italy. And at this pace, we'll be higher than Italy by the end of the decade. So I think that the problem is this, which is that the argument that debt and deficits will cause a crisis is
seems very stale now because nothing has happened despite these crisis warnings for so long. And there is this real confidence which almost borders on arrogance that because we are America, you know, the world will keep funding it. We have the world's
main currency which people use so they keep buying dollars and we'll never have a problem you know it's that kind of complacency and arrogance about you know where else will the money go it has to come here which sort of bothers me and and we were not that way uh and in fact i have you know still like a lot of great things about america but i think that what's happened now is that we've just taken this to another extreme
So the Biden administration calls you and says, okay, give us two or three things, magic wand, you would want to see implemented right away in terms of policy or laws or tax policy. What would those two or three things be?
Yeah, I'd say that in terms of, I know that nobody listens until they have a crisis. So I doubt I'm going to get that call. But still, I think that, you know, let's think about it. I'd say that in terms of one, you know, like stuff is that think about every time you do a new regulation, who's it hurting and who's it benefiting? I mean, I'd put a freeze on that. I mean, Trump tried something like that, but it was a failure by the end because, you know, he couldn't focus on anything. So,
talked about not putting new regulation, but by the end of the administration, there were tons of new regulation which were going on. So I'd say that in terms of focusing, in terms of, okay, some tougher antitrust regulation, yes, I'm in favor of that. But the vast swath of regulations that are put in there really hurt small and mid-sized businesses. So think about, you know, putting a new, like new regulation. Two, you have to think about the debt and deficits, which is that don't have this callous attitude that,
Nothing has happened. There's been no crisis. So we can keep running deficits. We are at full employment in the economy and we have a 6% budget deficit already. Imagine if you have a downturn, it'll be 9 or 10%. So I would say that in terms of, you know, the open-ended CHIPS Act industrial policy, we need to put a check on that. And I think that the other thing that I would say also is the fact that to make a very clear statement that we're not going to bail out companies or
at the slightest hint of trouble. I mean, you know, that statement needs to go out because today you speak to people in private, in the private equity world or other places, there is this implicit assumption that, you know, what the hell, we'll give it a punt and if it doesn't work, yeah, I mean, you know, the government's there to back us out. So that sort of thinking has to go away. So these are just broad points, I would say, at this stage that we need to think about.
A moral hazard. So, Roshir, you have done a great deal of work on India. Can you give us, I would love for you just to sort of give us the cliff notes on the Indian economy and what you think the prospects are for the Indian economy over the next several years? Yeah. So, in fact, I begin this book, like in the prologue, by speaking about my journey from India, because as you say, I was born there. And India was a truly socialist economy when I was born in the mid-1970s.
And so I saw what socialism could do. But fortunately for India, after especially it faced an economic crisis in 1991, it's progressively been getting freer, progressively been moving up the indices of economic freedom. And so therefore, you know, like I've been much more optimistic about the economy as that's happened. But my favorite line about India that I came up with a few years ago is that this is a country that consistently disappoints the optimists and the pessimists.
So there's a lot of optimism I have, but I would keep it in check to know that this is a pretty complex country. It's not a homogeneous country like China, which moves in one direction. It's very heterogeneous, very diverse. So you've got different things and different places which play itself out. But generally, I remain optimistic. I see that the trajectory is positive.
And of course, we can't not have this conversation and speak about the landmark election result. And that was a very hopeful sign, which is the fact that it's a country which believes in its democracy
democratic tradition. And I think that that's something which also helps in the long term, because this is a lot of research that I've done that, you know, like under Modi, there was a real fear that India was moving towards an authoritarian direction. Now you'll argue maybe that's good for its economy because you're moving in an authoritarian direction and you can take tougher decisions. But the research I've done on this is the fact that
under authoritarian regimes, you end up either getting very good economic outcomes for a while, or you end up getting disastrous economic outcomes because there's no one to tell you when you go wrong. And I think that there was a risk that India was moving in that direction. There's more checks and balances here. And typically over time, democracies tend to compound much better in terms of growth rates than authoritarian regimes do. So I feel relatively optimistic about India. Yes,
There'll be some sort of bitter fights politically after the election result last week where the opposition feels emboldened. But I think that, you know, it's moving in the right direction. The only thing I'll keep in check is expectation that this is no next China, which is going to grow at 9 or 10 percent. It's going to be more like a 6, 7 percent type growth rate at best that we'll see in India for the foreseeable future.
So now do UK. I live in London, and I would just be curious. You obviously spent a lot of time thinking about, you know, how your title, 10 Rules for Successful Nations and Breakout Nations in Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracle. Let's assume this is not going to be an economic miracle. I think that ship has sailed. But what rules are they following or breaking or not adhering to when we talk about successful nations?
Well, unfortunately, I think that UK doesn't rank well, you know, because as you rightly say that I maintain this ranking of these, you know, like of all these countries and, you know, where they rank on these various metrics. And in the Anglo-Saxon world, of course, the country that
has been doing the worst, which I think, you know, like a bit of a surprise. And I wrote about that is Canada. That's been the worst really over the last 10, 15 years. And then next comes UK, then Australia. And the US compared to these countries has been doing relatively better. And that's the irony of it.
in terms of all the problems we've spoken about in America. But in terms of all the problems we spoke about in America, in terms of are much more severe in places like UK, in terms of what it's been doing with its deficits, although America now is overtaking it, in terms of what it's been doing in the number of zombie companies. So I'd say that in that regard, UK, in fact, ranks even worse than America on most metrics.
So isn't it's really fascinating, Australia, Canada and the UK
Not doing well. So take them, add in the U.S. Are we all guilty of overspending capitalism on the way up, socialism on the way down, cronyism, bloated government, bailouts? But the difference is the U.S. has AI and a tech sector that just creates so much economic value and draws capital from the rest of the world.
That at least props up or wallpapers over our problems more so than those other three nations. What do you think? Absolutely correct. Yeah. So that's my summary, which is the fact that...
you know, like it just pains me that in terms of the fact that I don't even compare America to these other countries because America is still the beacon for the world, right? It's still the largest economy that everyone looks up to to see as to what is American doing. And the American brand of capitalism, unfortunately, has been dented. But you're right that these Anglo-Saxon other economies that you pointed out are arguably, uh,
in worse shape and doing things even worse than America is. And America, as you point out, has the success of the tech engine there. But again, it's slightly concerning to me that in America, the domination is getting so concentrated that the value is being created, but it's being created in just very few select companies. And I think that that is a real problem. And communities. Yes. Yeah.
It is really striking. What do you think about the notion of, so the one thing we didn't talk about that I think plays a big role in all of this is immigration policy. Compare and contrast different immigration policies across the nations you look at, and what do you think is sort of, if you will, the ideal, if there is an ideal immigration policy, and what does it indicate in terms of America's immigration policy?
Yeah, I think that, you know, as far as America is concerned, even though it's been a big problem in America and it's a big political issue, America has at least been better at assimilating immigrants than a lot of European countries in that regard. And I think that countries like, you know, Australia and all, you know, have been, you know, like pretty good immigrants.
in terms of as well. So I'd say that generally here, the Anglo-Saxon world has been better than Europe in terms of assimilation of immigrants. But again, as I said, that, you know, what is good economics is not always, you know, what's good politics, which is that even last year, like I was, I pointed out that immigration is what really helped countries like America avoid immigration.
a recession and bring inflation down much more than in other countries did. So,
last year. But the problem is the fact that it's become such a political issue about tearing apart the social fabric and stuff, that what is good economics in obvious terms is not good politics. And I don't see that changing. So I'd say that, yes, I think that immigration is out of control for many people out here in America. And so we're going to clamp down on that, regardless, I think, of what happens in
November. But in general, I would say America and the Anglo-Saxon countries like Australia have done a better job at assimilating immigrants compared to European countries like France. Well, let me say something that's, I don't know, is wrought with emotion. Is it that we've done a better job of assimilating or we attract a different type of immigrant?
Well, it could be both. I think a combination of both, right, which is that in terms of what's happening. But I just look at it more from a simulation. But then you start getting into cultural issues in terms of who's coming and what's happening. And that just gets a very slippery slope in terms of looking at immigration in that regard.
So looking at all the economies in the world, what two or three economies are you most bullish on in terms of you mentioned that Canada is doing really poorly, the UK is doing really poorly. America, you would argue, is kind of like it sounds like average to slightly above average. Any other role models for, you know, I think of certain countries in Southeast Asia, I think of Singapore, where we can look at the way they've managed their economy and think this is this is the role model.
I think it depends on the time frame, but I think that the economies that have been sort of good, again, which is the economy that's doing the best in Europe these days? It's Greece, right? Which is a country which, until 10 years ago, was like an example of a complete, if I can say so, a basket case.
But just look at how well Greece has come back. It's booming now. It was again forced. This is what crisis does. It is one silver lining of a crisis. It's the only time when governments reform or change things is when you have a crisis. So Greece runs out of money. It
on the verge of default, and then you end up getting a lot of reform. So Greece, I think, has been a comeback story. In fact, in general, the club-made countries of late have been doing better than their continental peers. But
Greece is an example of that. Then secondly, I would point to, like in Eastern Europe in general, I'd say Poland is a shining example of that, which is that it's a country which I think is next classified to becoming a developed country. Remember that in the world today, there are more than 200 nations. Only 40 or so are classified as developed countries. Everybody else is classified as emerging, and many of them, from Brazil to Mexico, have been emerging forever, right? So, but I'd say that it's,
It's been a while since a major nation joined the ranks of the developed countries. I think the next one to do so could be Poland, which is on the brink of getting a per capita income of $20,000 or so, which makes it like a developed country. Again, a lot is done right from having a very competitive manufacturing sector, not too many flashy billionaires.
And in general, I'd say that the election result in Poland last year sort of also took away some political risk because it's a much more cooperative government that you have in place vis-a-vis the EU.
EU and the European Union helped to give it some pretty strong institutions. So I'd say that, like, I feel relatively optimistic about these countries outside of the core of Europe, from Greece to Poland, as, you know, like, for different reasons, one's a comeback star and the other one's been a consistent star in the post-communist world. And just before you go, we'd be remiss if we didn't ask you about China. Your thoughts?
Well, I've been bearish on China for a while now because, you know, in terms of what's been happening to its both the two pillars of growth, really, which is that it's been relying a lot on, you know, like when China boomed, it had great demographics. And of course, when the boom slowed down, it could still rely on taking on more and more debt to keep going.
those engines are now down. So I feel that China is in a secular decline. On a fundamental basis, I don't see China growing at a rate of more than 2 or 3 percent for the foreseeable future. So I'd say that, yeah, for now, it seems that the risk of a blow up in China has, you know, sort of been papered over because they've again done what it takes to keep the economy afloat. But the problem in China is the fact that they can't get away from the
basic notion that there is no country in the world which is able to grow rapidly and
or even grow when it has a negative population growth rate. That headwind is just very hard to overcome. And then second, obviously, is the debt issue in China, where China has, you know, took on so much debt over the last decade because it ambitiously wanted to keep its growth rate up. But now, you know, it's being forced to pay back that debt in a way, you know, with the property sector and all, which took a lot of that debt in the doghouse. So...
I feel that, yeah, that China may not have a blow-up or a crisis, but it's sort of going the way where the growth rate keeps slipping and sliding. And, you know, 2% or 3% is the growth rate for China, which is a far cry from where it was a decade ago.
Rushir Sharma is chairman of Rockefeller International and founder and chief investment officer of Breakout Capital, an investment firm focused on emerging markets. He moved to Rockefeller in 2022 after a 25-year career at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, where he was head of emerging markets and chief global strategist.
Rushir is also the author of five books, including The Ten Rules of Successful Nations and Breakout Nations in Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles. His latest book, What Went Wrong with Capitalism, is out now. He joins us from the greatest city in the world, New York City. Rushir, thank you very much. Really enjoyed this conversation. Thanks, Garth. Thank you for having me. We'll be right back. The most famous study on happiness, actually every study on happiness, we never get data that's this clean across America.
geographies, cultures, income levels, shows the same thing. If on the Y axis you have happiness and on the X axis you have age, happiness is a smile. Zero to 25, Star Wars prom making out, 25 to 45 are what I call the shit gets real years. Life is hard, money troubles, relationships, someone you love a great deal gets sick and die. I mean, life just hits you in the fucking face. It really does. You get beamed in the face.
And you think, wow, this is harder than I thought. And what I can tell you is a lot of people out there are feeling the same way. And if you're a good person and you work hard, I'm not just saying everything will work out. You need to make sure you're not stuck, right? You're still working. Every night you're saying, what are the three, four things I got to get done tomorrow? You're getting up, you're trying, you're showing up, you're asking others for help, right? You're expressing your emotions. And then when you're in your 40s and 50s, something wonderful happens. And that is you start to take action
I don't know. You start to find joy in the most mundane things, nature, food, your friendships. So what I would tell you is if you're struggling in your 30s and 40s, I'm not suggesting just lay back and everything's going to work out. That's bullshit. But what I can tell you is for the majority of people, it does get better. And again, if you're in your 30s and things are tough, you're kind of where you should be. And what I would tell you is to keep on keeping on, that life does get better, that happiness waits for you.
This episode was produced by Caroline Shagrin. Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer. And Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prof G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn. And please follow our Prof G Markets Pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday. Please, if you can right now and you enjoyed the show, go to Prof G Markets and subscribe.