Politics and also cool stuff
Exactly what’s in the name:
two bros (literally) talking about politics, international relations, geopolitics, societal and socio-economic questions and challenges.
We happen to be politics geeks and numerous universities recklessly gave us postgrad and PhD degrees. We also have long consultancy and think tank careers in Southeast Asia, where we have both lived for decades. We are both right and left, sometimes; conservative at times and very liberal at others.
But because we ain’t no boring geeks, though, we also talk about cool stuff that interests us:
Living in Asia, fighting, sports, men’s health, supplements (both casual and ”Mexican” supplements) and more.
We are Dr Frederick Kliem and Jan Kliem, two brothers, lifelong combat sports enthusiasts and active grapplers, MMA and Muay Thai and Boxing practitioners.Jan is a black belt in BJJ, Fred brown.
No BS politics, martial arts, unarmed combat and pro fighting. No jargon, non-pretentious, no ideology and non-partisan.
We do this podcast mostly for us, to catch up between Singapore (Fred) and Thailand (Jan) on a regular basis. Recording our conversation is supposed to prevent us from getting off the rails and making inappropriate comments (…it helps at least)
We hope you will find our perspectives stimulating and interesting, perhaps infuriating and annoying. Either way, please reach out in the comments and have a civil discussion.
Episodes
Thursday Mar 20, 2025
Thursday Mar 20, 2025
In this episode we try to debunk some myths about the Chineses economy. Forward to 14min if the stuff before does not interest you.
Friday Mar 07, 2025
Friday Mar 07, 2025
This week, we chat mostly about Zelensky in combat boots in the White House, how unpro both Trump and Zelensky handled the situation and what it means immediately for the shifting tides of global power dynamics.
Friday Feb 28, 2025
Friday Feb 28, 2025
We chat without a plan about the German election. We will in coming episodes take aim at some of the many individual cock ups we mentioned here.
Tuesday Feb 11, 2025
Tuesday Feb 11, 2025
As we tackle the other big Trump disappointments, we look a the big mess he made out Gaza - already one of the most horrendous places on earth - and the poorly handled USAID shutdown.
Friday Feb 07, 2025
Friday Feb 07, 2025
We have been rather optimistic about Trump, thus far. But lately a few policies have been very disappointing. We make this a mini series of disappointments.
note: we talk about fighting and gym first and tariffs later, skip ahead to minute 22 or so if our gym talk is not if interest ...
Thursday Jan 30, 2025
Thursday Jan 30, 2025
Not the most coherent chat we've ever had, but we needed to digest the tech stock wipeout as Deepseek reveals some stunning operational details.
Tuesday Jan 21, 2025
Tuesday Jan 21, 2025
We talk about Trump's inauguration, a bit, but more about the amazing authority that rests with POTUS. We also talk about the pharmaindustry and wonder how you can have capitalism and a funtioning pharma industry at the same time. Fred also predicts that the AfD will do very very well in the German elections.
Thursday Jan 09, 2025
Thursday Jan 09, 2025
We digest Donald Trump's plans to take Greenland, invade Panama and annex Canada. We also take a look at Meta's discovery of free speech.
Hope you enjoy