The boys are back! It's only been like 13 days!! Chill!! Also - the Iran conflict isn't just a headline risk - it's a physical supply crisis hiding in plain sight. Despite oil sitting at $93, Marko argues the world is weeks away from a non-linear cliff: floating storage is depleting, Iranian and Russian sanctioned oil relief is a 30-day band-aid, and by mid-April, petrochemicals, LNG, semiconductors, and plastics all face cascading disruption.
His verdict: this resolves, or it goes Mad Max.
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Timestamps:
00:00 Welcome
01:32 Beer And Banter
05:05 Trump Pause And Troops
06:43 Oil Shock Timeline
08:41 Houthis And Red Sea
11:31 Shortages Beyond Oil
13:43 Troop Math Reality
18:06 War Outlook Shifts
24:38 Island Invasion Scenarios
28:50 Iran Constraints Debate
32:20 Market Mispricing Pain
34:12 China And Allies Fallout
35:09 China Leverage on Iran
36:55 Low Conviction Warnings
37:53 Middle East War Normalized
40:00 Tacit Rules of Engagement
42:19 Pushback and Pain Threshold
48:36 Markets Start to Crack
53:24 Munitions and Time Limits
54:55 Europe Energy Exposure
56:52 Europe Must Get Real
59:51 Germany Nuclear Wake Up
01:07:05 Multipolar Pragmatism
01:09:56 Europe Virtue Signaling
01:12:37 Summing Up the Fog
01:14:19 Two Week Ticking Clock
01:16:11 Constraint Framework Equilibrium
01:17:32 Israel Leverage And Lebanon
01:20:19 Age Of Revisionism
01:24:46 Realism And The 19th Century
01:27:55 Inequality And Soft Power
01:29:39 NBA Talk Starts Here
01:30:10 Relegation And 30 Teams
01:34:13 Baseball Overtakes Basketball
01:43:01 Wrap Up Mad Max Title
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Referenced in the Show:
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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
