America's Copper Contradiction

The American offset model lets the United States outsource the visible costs of mining, emissions, standards, and consumption while preserving a cleaner story about itself. This episode connects copper, carbon, supply chains, and geopolitical risk.

Europe talks tough on Russia — but how consistent is it actually?

Armin Sumansky, a Gen Z Czech student at Bates College, turns the usual question around in Part 2 of our conversation: where Europe's line on Russia goes soft when it's inconvenient, where European consensus on migration is really heading, whether American power makes the world safer or more dangerous, what Europe and the US should actually do about Ukraine, and whether his generation's views travel beyond college-educated peers.

This is Part 2 of our conversation with Armin, a second-year student at Bates College triple-majoring in Economics, Politics, and European Studies, heading to the London School of Economics next year.

Part 1 covered Gen Z framing, why he chose an American college, and how his family's history under Soviet-bloc Czechoslovakia shapes his read on Russia.

Watch Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IxoT5YY__c&t=804s

Topics in this segment: 0:00 Cold open — Ceuta and Europe's migration contradiction – Where European consensus on migration is actually heading – Is Europe's Russia policy as principled as it claims? – Does American power reduce conflict or cause it? – What should Europe — and the US — actually do about Ukraine? – Is there a real US/Europe Gen Z perception gap? – Armin's new political journal and his plans at LSE

The Unpopular View gives credentialed people a platform to make the case for views that are popular with some and unpopular with others. This episode steps outside the usual development-policy lane to hear directly from a Gen Z European.

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USAID has been dismantled. The World Bank's own evaluations keep finding what its projects don't achieve. So the question is no longer whether the aid architecture is broken — it's whether anything should replace it.

In the final segment of my three-part conversation with Dr. Emily Brearley — development economist, 25 years at the World Bank and other international institutions, and author of Aid Inferno: How to Reduce Poverty, Combat Global Warming, and Be a Good Person — we each put a blueprint on the table.

We agree on some fundamental issues and disagree on some important details.

Emily's answer is what she calls Solution 42: sharply narrow what institutions like the World Bank attempt. Stick to the sectors they demonstrably do well. Build in transparency and citizen involvement in project selection and evaluation. Fund a small number of high-impact projects chosen by people in recipient countries themselves. It rhymes with Esther Duflo's evidence-first approach.

We also agree that a social contract is a fundamental missing piece — clear goals, trade-offs and obligations that people on the ground can actually hold institutions to that are negotiated. In 40+ years of fieldwork I never saw one written, and neither USAID nor the World Bank has ever framed a project in those terms. Emily agrees that's a major gap.

Where we diverge somewhat is on who does the work. Should nationals do everything, or is there a place for foreigners with unique capacity building contributions to make?

ABOUT THE GUEST Dr. Emily Brearley is a development economist and former World Bank economist with ~25 years across the World Bank and other international institutions, leading programs in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Aid Inferno is a case-study-driven critique built on World Bank evaluation data arguing that development finance rewards spending and institutional survival over outcomes and accountability.

ABOUT THE SHOW The Unpopular View is for the exhausted middle — evidence over outrage, and criticism that doesn't spare either orthodoxy. Hosted by Michael Brown, international development consultant and author of Redeeming REDD (Routledge, 2013) and Climate Mitigation in the Land Sector of the Global South (Routledge, 2026).

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