3min chapter

Kitces and Carl - Real Talk for Real Financial Advisors cover image

Explaining The Full Value Of (Life) Planning By Unlocking The Emotional Job To Be Done: Kitces & Carl Ep 145

Kitces and Carl - Real Talk for Real Financial Advisors

CHAPTER

Intro

This chapter explores the intricate discussions financial advisors should engage in with their clients to highlight the value of their services. It emphasizes the importance of addressing both presented issues and deeper emotional needs while advocating for a proactive life planning approach.

00:00
Speaker 2
insertantly have gotten quite bad in the I'm trying to hold podcasts here quiet. Things aren't good in the Solomon Islands. Tell us more.
Speaker 1
Okay, no, that that is correct. Or so going back, you've covered this story very well and comprehensively, and thank you, because it's important. It's not just the Solomon's. Solomon's is, tragically, for the people of Solomon's, become the case study of how China can weaken and almost destroy a country in the process of taking it over. And they did it really fast. So understanding what happened to Solomon's Shows you a lot about how it kind of operates not just in the region, but also even in the US I mean their direct parallels for a lot of the operations that they're running there. So What happened? The reason it's such a clear case study is because until about 2019 until September 2019 exactly Solomon's recognized Taiwan and then there was an election earlier that year new person came in from minister so bivari and he Unilaterally switched from Taiwan to China. So we have a starting point for the major overt Chinese influence operation that September 2019. And after that, what showed how they operate was the groupings within the country that didn't want that closer relationship with China and how they were attacked. So the classic case within that case study is the case of the premier of Melita profits, which is the most fabulous profits in Solomon's man called Daniel sui Danny, who, who you interviewed. He and his leadership, it isn't just him, he was representing the will of his people use very popular elected leader, and the traditional chiefs in in about a few months later, in October 2019, put out the AUKI communique, A -U -K -I. That communique named after the province capital, AUKI, says what they want for their province in terms of development, who they thank in terms of their development partners and, you know, it's US Australia Israel like all these everybody but they say specifically they do not want any more business coming into the province that is linked to the Chinese Communist Party and They give a bunch of different reasons including they believe in freedom of religion and Chinese Communist Party is systemically atheist. And so that goes against their their core beliefs. They know how people of faith are persecuted persecuted in China and they don't want to deal with a country like that. They also don't want their province turned into a police state. All of these things are listed as a very interesting document for understanding how people around the world know what the CCP is and know what happens to their communities and their country when the CCP comes in. But what happened, of course, was when they put that out, Daniel Suidani, the premier of that province, became public enemy number one for Chinese, but also for their proxy prime minister, Sughubari, who came in. He got sick. So then when Suidani got sick, the central government wouldn't provide funding for him to get medical care. He needed an MRI outside the Neither were the Australians. Neither did the Americans. Nobody would help him. They literally wanted him to die. He was an inconvenient person because he was standing up to China and being very clear about why. Luckily, what happened was an Indian, influential Indian man had heard about it, got in touch with President Tsai's office in Taiwan, and they got him to Taiwan for the medical care. And then he came back. By the time he came back, so Gavari and that Chinese clique had poured a ton of money into his province to try to get the assembly provincial to vote him out, vote without confidence, to get rid of him. That didn't work. The people of Melita province protested and physically blocked the entrance to parliament. And the police in Melita said, calm down, okay, we get it. We don't want violence here. And they went and talked to the guys who have been bought off by China and I'm perfectly comfortable saying you're bought off by China because we've seen bank records of Money going to all of these people like they're on Twitter public them. We know who they are We know some of the amounts the amounts that were done through bank transactions We know the bank account numbers. None of this has been followed up on by anybody, but it's all publicly available now. And so they withdrew because they saw this as a real problem. Now, since then, what happened was, there's been a lot of police training, a lot more weapons coming in, including from Australia, the sent in water cannons. And so now, after a little bit over a year, the pro -Chinese forces in Solomon are better armed, they've spread around a lot more money, they have much better influence operations. And just a few weeks ago, they had another boat of no confidence Daniel Suidani, and he lost. So he's no longer the premier of Melita Province. And in fact, he had to leave the country, because he and his team are very concerned that, you know, they'll try to get a trumped up charge and throw them in jail.
Speaker 2
How have the people of Melita Province responded to this?
Speaker 1
So what happened, so Sudan is, they knew this was coming, they've been warning for a while, and he didn't want to give those heavily armed pro -Sogabari police, paramilitary basically, an excuse to kill his people. So they did not even attend the vote in Parliament for the vote of no confidence. They didn't want their people to come out and demonstrate. They knew that the position of the police had changed. For the last vote of no confidence, the police were doing their job normally, but now they've been replaced. In fact, one of the main police kind of chief was replaced for this new phase. And this new phase, these police are, the concern is much more loyal to Sogavari and to the CCP agenda. And
Speaker 4
those police actually were trained in China, some of them, right? Some
Speaker 1
of them, yeah. And
Speaker 4
armed by Australia.
Speaker 1
And armed by Australia. And if I were the Chinese, that's exactly what I do. I try to make sure that the first demonstrators were shot with Australian bullets. You know, that's exactly how they play it. You know, they were rivals in Paniar in the capital. And Sogavari got the Australian troops to come in as an excuse to then bring in the Chinese troops, right? So Australia has it's either complicit or moronic but it's not playing a Beneficial role at all and you know so Guevari That the getting rid of them getting rid of suidani of the you know, pro -democracy guy, that's sent a chill for the entire Pacific Island region. So there are four countries that still recognize Taiwan. And they all have influence operations in their countries that are very similar to this ongoing. So I'm getting calls from people in Marshalls, people in Palau saying, if nobody will protect Sudan, they're not going to protect me. They're not going to, if we make this stand for democracy in Taiwan and all the things we believe in but nobody is protecting even the most visible proponent of this in the region then We're out on a lip and it's not just our political lives that are at risk well,
Speaker 2
hey now and let me push back on that because The US government after 30 years of not having an embassy on Solomon Islands, this month they opened one. So, problem solved, right? Problem
Speaker 1
solved. They're good people and they're trying hard, but I think there might be half a dozen of them. This is really, really deep. I mean, tens of millions in cash are the amounts that I've heard of being spread around. Solomon's Solomon's, I can't remember what it is, 600 ,000, 700,000 people. And what happened with the Aukey Communiqué, remember, which said no more Chinese business investment. So what they did, what the Chinese did, very smart. And again, this is a way of, you know, I highly recommend studying this case because it shows you how they can't run businesses in the light of it. You know what? We're going to fund the mini hospital. And so they they've said they're going to put in this hospital. You can't say no to a hospital. And according to Peter Canaleria, who's the son of the first prime minister of Solomon's, he's in Parliament, highly respected, he's saying that the bribe money is now is likely being run through that hospital. So they would normally use a local business, you know, logging or fisheries or whatever to buy off the locals, but they couldn't do it because they out -he -communicate. So they're using this hospital to be a cover for laundering the money into the region. The first public announcement of what that new Melita government is going to do, now that they got rid of Sudan, is get rid of the Alki community. Okay.
Speaker 4
So let's say I'm an official in Melita province and you know, I could really go either way on the side of justice or on the side of Chinese money. How much from that Chinese slush fund could I get for switching sides?
Speaker 1
So they did they bought the they bought the Parliament with half plus one votes So if you're if you're they I think you're at 17 votes So if you're one of those first 16 for bought off for him, you know You you'll get what you're gonna get whatever your pet arrangement, but as you know, they buy you but then they've got stuff like You know if you've gone to China and you've done whatever, they might have the tape, they might have all sorts of other... Oh, the honey
Speaker 4
traps and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, and if you don't like honey, maple syrup traps, if you know, whatever it's...
Speaker 2
Yeah, no, that wouldn't work, sorry, Cleo. That would be a sticky situation. Oh, that one's much better. So,
Speaker 4
but you've seen the numbers, right, for some of these bribes. Give us a range of like how much these bribes can be. They
Speaker 1
can be in the millions. If it's, you know, we're talking, if it's kind of leadership level. Yeah. Otherwise, but, you know, we've also seen really small amounts in in the Marshall Islands, which recognizes Taiwan, and there was an attempt to set up a special economic zone country within a country type thing. There was an indictment against the two Chinese involved in New York, and so some of the, it's a longer story but an interesting one.
Speaker 4
Well, we'll get back to that, but just in terms of the numbers. Yeah,
Speaker 1
so some of those amounts are like $7 ,000, $22 ,000. It can be quite small, but it can also be really big. And Solomon's is a very high value acquisition for Beijing. It's an important location. It's the site of the Battle of Guadalcanal just over 80 years ago, Iron Bottom Sound, Tulagi. And the reason that the Japanese attacked there first was the British had set up there. Tulagi was the head of the British kind of set up for running the region. critical geography, so that Japanese took it and the Americans took it back. You know, if you want to blow a hole in Western defenses, you've jumped the first and the second island chain and you're contradicting Australia.
Speaker 4
So you're saying that the Solomon Islands is a really important strategic place to basically fight a war from, to station your naval vessels and air force, that sort of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1
yeah, offensive or defensive. So, you know, if you've got an, and it's not, if you look at where Wang Yi visited, if you look at this map and you've got the map of where Wang Yi visited during May and June of 2022, you can see he visited the range of countries that go off the coast of Australia and New Zealand. And if you're using the maritime militia and the fishing fleet, you know, you get into a position and you're dropping buoys and you're doing all this other stuff, you're getting into a position where it makes it very hard for Australia or New Zealand to join the fight. You've got a gun to their head right off the coast. So, you know, it's not just about attacking Australia or New Zealand in this case. It's about making Australia or New Zealand not willing to fight because the cost is going to be very high, even if they can break past that island chain. If,
Speaker 2
for instance, there was a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well, functionally, China is setting up its own island chain off the coast of Australia and New Zealand.
Speaker 4
So I remember last year there was some talk about a sort of relationship between China and the Solomon Islands, where they were going to maybe allow some Chinese ships to dock there. But they promised, Sogavari promised, that absolutely definitely the Chinese People's Liberation Army would absolutely set up a naval base there. So, I mean, we should believe him, right?
Speaker 1
Yeah, sure. This is a guy who bought off 39 of his 50 members of parliament, and that could change the constitution, and then amended the constitution to postpone elections. There's supposed to be elections in 2023, which lose. He's now postponed those elections to an indefinite date. It's supposed to be next year, but we'll see. Because he wants to host the Pacific Games instead.
Speaker 4
But the Pacific Games will bring glory to his leadership. So isn't that more important? Yeah.
Speaker 1
And what it also does is it gives him an excuse to crack down on any protesters and demonstrators that might disrupt those games. Does this sound familiar? Well,
Speaker 2
I
Speaker 1
mean,
Speaker 2
like you were saying, this is a great case study and it really does show how the Chinese Communist Party very successfully essentially blow up a democracy from the inside. They get their guy in the top, spread some bribe money around, train some police, and suddenly you have politicians who have a counter narrative, they get purged, protesters become at risk. It's really, it is stunning to see this happen. And over course of just four years. Yeah,
Speaker 3
it's very fast. I was thinking when you were talking about the police thing that it reminded me a lot of Hong Kong, the difference between Hong Kong police in 2014 and 2019. But it took them years to kind of replace and retrain the police force to be more brutal toward protesters and things like that, but you know in this case the last time there were protests and were like 2021, right? So this is or like if you're talking about the vote of no confidence then was that a year ago? So like in a year they managed to do what they did to Hong Kong police in five years Yeah,
Speaker 1
they're they're getting better at it and it's a You know, it's difficult to underestimate how important it is and we focus you know on what the Chinese have done But what are the reasons that they it's been so quick and so effective is there's been zero pushback. They're doing it in a vacuum.

Get the Snipd
podcast app

Unlock the knowledge in podcasts with the podcast player of the future.
App store bannerPlay store banner

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode

Save any
moment

Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways

Share
& Export

Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode