The Big Dutch Problem

The Netherlands is becoming a dystopia.

That just can't be true. I'm sorry, but

the Netherlands is like number five

happiest country on earth. A dystopia.

Is it drugs?

>> December 12th, 2025, a report was

released.

>> You need a little misery. That's so

funny you say that because I saw it was

a thing of like different expats to

different countries talking about their

experience. And in the Netherlands, they

said, "Yeah, the country is great, but

it is really boring.

Like I moved here cuz I wanted like a

stability and quality of life, but then

I got here and it was like once I got

it, I realized it was like nothing's

going on. It was like really It was so

It's just boring. You need something

going on. It's just dull. It's slow

living.

>> The CEO was asked to research the Dutch

economy and find out how its future is

looking. And his answer was, "It's not

looking too hot."

>> I am Swedish and I hate Dutch people.

>> 2024. Well, they have an enemy to the

north then.

I guess I guess that's part of the

problem is they've got enemies all

around.

>> The former president of the European

Central Bank is presenting a report on

European competitiveness.

>> We've lost our main supplier of cheap

energy, Russia.

>> American tech companies took over the

world while Europe became dependent on

them.

>> There will be 2 million workers

disappearing from the labor market every

year. Aging

>> money isn't everything until it is.

Countries go broke gradually and then

all at once. Due to an aging population,

European spending on pensions and

healthcare is set to explode. With

Russia on its doorstep, there's also

going to be more spending on defense.

>> It's not unique to Europe, but these are

big problems that are facing a lot of

countries. I will say like I think the

thing that's hitting Europe the most is

all of their manufacturing exports are

getting out competed by China. Like I

just think like especially the big

powerhouses like Germany like just in

pharma in trains in vehicles in energy

and and energy I guess they're importing

a lot of energy like these are the

things I think are the scariest part if

you're looking at just Europe I you know

I talk about American problems every day

so we can talk about Europe for a bit I

I think they're just getting kind of

squos

>> if you have growth future taxes can keep

pace with future spending but Dutch and

European growth is declining

>> you know who's killing it in Europe at

least on growth is Poland. I was talking

with a European guy actually at the my

table at the finance conference and he

was telling me about Polish growth rates

are crazy. In fact, I was also

researching stuff about the games

industry and like there's just these

massive games layoffs in California and

in Montreal. Traditional gaming

superpowers, these two these two areas.

And like there's a huge growth in

Poland. Tons of the games industry is

moving to Poland. A lot of work is being

outsourced to Poland and Switzerland is

pissed. Well, that's another thing the

guy talked about. The guy was Swiss.

He's like, "It was a problem." Cuz

here's the thing is right now all the

money is flooding into Swiss currency

because it's stable. So everyone's

buying Swiss franc. But when the Swiss

currency gets that much stronger, it

makes your exports horribly

uncompetitive. When your currency is

strong, your exports get weaker. And so

like, you know, it's like difficult to

build an exporting factory in

Switzerland or whatever. So you go

outsource it to Poland because it's

cheaper there. So there's like weird

knock-on effects. The Dutch Minister of

Economic Affairs asked Peter Venick to

come up with a similar report

specifically focusing on the

Netherlands. For years, he ran ASML, a

Dutch company that manufactures the

world's best chipmaking machines.

>> Like again, like there's like zero risk

for ASML from the American side. The

risk on American side is that Donald

Trump is crazy and he might invade

Greenland or break up NATO or whatever,

like or tariff. That's the risk on the

American side. But there's not a risk of

like ASML getting replaced. It's just

part of that supply chain. and they're

going to use it. But I think there is a

risk for all of these of a Chinese

competitor just like if China ever

cracked what ASML has. They don't

they're not not they're not not really

close right now to be honest, but

they're working on it. If they cracked

it, it would just it would be overnight

a wipeout of like a massive part of the

Dutch economy. It would be crazy cuz

they would do it cheaper.

>> But the Netherlands is also in a strange

position. Its public finances are pretty

solid. It's well connected to global

markets unlike

>> what is the Netherlands GDP? Netherlands

debt to GDP.

Oh my god, they're incredible. They're

only 40%. That's one of the best in the

world. They're chilling.

They could run it hot if they wanted to.

If they needed to get out of a slump,

damn. They Wait, they're down from 2020.

Their debt is down from 2020. That's so

rare from any country. Wait, why are

they Wait, this Do they have a Why did

they have this? Does Netherlands have a

debt break? They do. Okay. I knew it. I

knew it. That's what we need. We need a

debt break, dude. Was a debt break. No,

break like a car break. B R A K E. It's

like a a rule that caps the amount of

debt you can take on. And you need like

a massive supermajority to change it or

extend it. Yeah. It's like it's like a

debt ceiling we have here, but not a

joke.

Not a joke. Like a serious one. And you

can't get around it very easily because

right now there's just no incentive for

anybody to make a hard choice ever.

>> Unlike France, Germany, or the US, it's

always been shaped by one unique

constraint. It doesn't have enough land.

Half the country is farmland.

>> It's one of the most densely populated

countries in the world.

>> I know the Netherlands has like they

have insane greenhouse technology. They

they like make such a massive percentage

of agricultural exports for their size.

It's absurd. It's like America number

one exporter in like everything and then

Netherlands number two and things like

tomatoes and stuff and it's like they've

they've crammed so much into such space

>> because of its density. The Dutch power

grid is also filled to the brink. Even

when money and the permits for

construction are there, things can't get

built because there's a 2-year waiting

list for a power plug.

>> I definitely believe that there's like

uh bureauc bureaucracy nightmares in the

Netherlands. I I believe that that's a

that's a there's a lot of European

nations where that's the case. There's

that thing in Germany where uh if you

make a contract in Germany, you are

required to sit down and have a

government notary read it out loud the

entire contract.

Like if you Yeah, you have to get like a

not you have to get a government notary

read the thing in front of both parties

and it's like expensive and slow. It's

it's wild. Like there's some of this

stuff is just stupid. They should just

modernize it. The Netherlands also

suffers from a lack of space in the air.

In most of Europe, the gas gets spread

out. But in the Netherlands, it's a

literal Dutch oven. There's too many

cows, factories, and cars in a tiny

space.

>> Nice.

>> So pollution builds up and it has

nowhere to go.

>> Wait, so you're just trapped in with cow

farts? In America, we spread out our

enormous amount of cow farts.

I feel like they should not do cows.

Cows in that small of a country is

crazy. I wouldn't call any of this a

dystopia. By the way, once I have

southern debt to GDP, I'm I'm not super

convinced in this video. I I mean, I

agree these are all problems. These are

problems in many countries in developed

Western Europe. These are problems of

like aging society, bureaucracy. They're

a bit behind on tech and the huge rise

of China as a manufacturing competitor

because they've been kind of untouched

in all these high-end areas for a long

time. These are all real threats to

Europe 100%, but I wouldn't like

Dystopia's pushing it.

The classic way to increase productivity

is through education. Despite the

Netherlands being a well educated

country, Dutch school performance has

been dipping for years.

Oh, they're below the OC average. That's

actually pretty terrible. I work at ASML

in the US and the Dutch guys laugh at us

all the time when they visit. My twoe

vacation was laughed at.

This is so

relatable. When I worked at Nvidia, you

know, I was the global marketing lead,

so I had to do my calls with Europe and

Asia. And the European team, bro, I

could It's like I couldn't even get a

hold of them. They had so many bank

holidays. So many holidays, so many bank

holidays. And then like August, they

just take off. I swear to God. And it's

like it's like, bro, we we're about to

launch a GPU. Are you are you even at

the office? And then you email them and

it's like I'm out on it's like you

always get an autoresponder and the

autoresponder would be different every

time which means they're spending more

time setting up the autoresponder than

they are responding.

It's crazy. It was crazy, bro. It's

actually frustrating to work with at

times. I mean it's like it's you know

they're enjoying life. What do you I'm

not mad about it especially now that I

try to do that myself. But I remember I

would get mad because we had to do a we

launched something. We had a big thing

at Gamescom which is in Germany. So I

had to fly out to Germany with my team

and we were like crunching. We were like

trying to like get all the emails and

the social and the newsletter and the

website and the and the partners and we

were trying we were like crunching.

We're like no sleep mostly in the hotel

room on laptops grinding and the

European guys were drinking.

They were like drinking. They were like,

they didn't do [ __ ] bro. They were just

drinking

nonstop at Gamescom. They They would

like stumble in and it's like, "Bro, we

got to finish this." But you know what?

You know what? They're not going to

regret at the end of their life.

>> Luckily, in his report, Venick at least

offers some ideas to break the

stagnation.

>> Well, that's the Carne idea, right? They

just have to build the trade blocks

outside of the US and China. He wants to

build a 22.5 billion euro AI

gigafactory. He wants to sell stateowned

enterprises so the Netherlands can make

drones. Launch its own satellite fleet,

power it ships with new.

>> It's honestly a super good idea.

Somebody in Europe, some country in

Europe needs to go all in on being the

DJI of the West because it's

unsustainable to have all of the drone

tech made in China. And drones are so so

important for the future of warfare.

Everything you read about modern

warfare, I'm not talking about Call of

Duty. Drones are insane. They break all

the previous rules. They're so

important. If Ukraine ever ends the war,

they could do it. It would actually be a

huge part of their rebuilding if they

did it. but understanding of drone tech.

People are probably going to import

Ukrainian experts to whatever European

country does this and they're going to

try to build modern drone tech and get a

sustainable ecosystem for that because

the demand for it is off the charts and

right now it's made in China like all of

it. They're already doing that now.

Yeah. I mean again I'm not the first

person to say this. are trying to do

this and they say this in the video but

like whatever country masters that is

going to have an actual sustainable

growth industry because it's not

something where even if China out

competes you people can't buy from them.

You have a natural monopoly of outside

of China. It doesn't matter if they

match China's cheapness because people

people will not be able to buy from

China. Like they there will be

government mandates that will not allow

you to have that in your supply chain.

What if I import Chinese drones and sell

them as European drones? Honestly, a

brilliant idea.

If you get caught, you're probably

charged with treason or something. You

go to jail. But if not, if you just find

a way to undercover import a bunch of

Chinese drones, why not just open up the

Chinese better than the US? Literally

hustling that China ever had. The

reason, the actual reason is that

because Europe was a mostly

manufacturing exporter and America was

an importer, it was beneficial. You

could make things and sell them to

America, get money, and do that. But

because China doesn't want to buy

anything from Europe, they're buying

less and less and they're exporting more

and more of the same things. Opening up

to China just means your entire

manufacturing base gets crippled. That's

what's h that's that's the point. That's

the scary part is all the jobs just

leave Europe. Like China's even buying

the luxury brands anymore. All the

luxury they're like there's a rise of

Chinese-made luxury that's starting to

out compete, you know, the Louis Vuitton

and the uh LVMH's. It's like there's no

there's no benefit to you. You can get

the goods from them, I guess, but

there's no German car. Like, that's the

idea. So, they're just getting they're

cooking. I'm not, you know, China's

doing what they have to do, but that's

the reason why as Europe you would want

to make your own drone company, but like

yeah, solar panels imported. Yeah. Get

rid of the ter like if you unless you

think you could really like you should

pick and choose. It should be

strategically important. I think if

China's going to make something good

quality and cheap, just buy it and then

build something using the downstream

industry of that. Nvidia manufacturers

think focus on D. You can do this in a

world that is entirely conflict free

with open global trade

in a multi-olar world where different

nations have different goals and may

have conflict or throw up trade barriers

or then having your own supply chain is

like incredibly important.

That's like incredibly important and

that's what's happening. This is

basically impossible in the US because

wages go up people working

manufacturing.

I think this is not necessarily true.

The wages have been going up in China

for a while now. Like they're no longer

cost

uh benefit. It's no longer like extra

cheap to to hire employees in China and

build things, but they still do it there

because the expertise and the um the

logistics. What we need to do is like

really focus on building like excellent

ports, excellent uh railroads, excellent

delivery, excellent educ excellent

education, excellent Once you have that

stuff, it becomes beneficial to build

something there regardless. Aren't there

certain countries that will just give up

and open up to China whenever they get

called to goods? This has already

happened. This is like tons of

countries, tons of countries are doing

this. You know, countries in Africa are

doing this, but like South America,

there's like a lot of South countries

that are just like, get Brazil is a big

example where they're just like, get

we're going to buy everything. But these

are countries that mostly make their

money off like natural resources, which

is what you kind of don't want to be. A

country that just like dig [ __ ] out of

the ground, sells it, and then gets

goods from China is like fine, I guess.

That's not like the great it's not,

you know, you're not in a good position.

So, what you really want is to be like

high-end top of the value chain

manufacturing. We'll provide raw

materials. Then, I'm not saying it's not

going to happen. It's going to happen.

I'm saying if you have to choose as a

leader, you don't want to be one of

those countries. You want to be you want

to diversify. You want to have uh the

highest ed you can. If you want more

evidence the economy is messed up, I

work in the mortgage industry and the

stuff going on is so bad. Dude,

everything every industry that has

anything debt based is just in a total

extend and pretend mode. They're just

doing so many tricks and things to avoid

pain to hope everything bounces back.

Everything. I don't care if it's CLA,

I'm sorry, just buy later in general or

auto or mortgage or um private equity or

private credit. It's all different

creative extend and pretend ways of

avoiding the write downs and the pain.