E76.5: Food shortage, China's grand plan, inflation, French election plus an All-In Summit preview

All right. What? Oh, we're doing this again? All right, listen. It's a two-parter. You re- you listened to the first part. Now, this is the second part. Episode 76.5, if you will. This is our first ever two-parter, part two of our two-parter. You already listened to part one of episode 76. That's Elon and Twitter, lots of details there. And now, we're gonna cover some more topics, including the global food crisis, China's plan to stockpile a bunch of food, geopolitics, wall around the horn, French election, Germany, et cetera. And then we'll go into details about a little bit of the drama and details, pageantry, parties, poker, all the good stuff of the All In Summit coming soon. Okay, enjoy the show, everybody. I'll see you on Monday.

(upbeat music) . We'll let your winner slide. Rain Man, David Sachs. I'm going all in. And I said. We open sourced it to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it. Love you, Betsy. Queen of Quinoa. I'm going all in.

There's, uh, still a war raging, but, uh, I wanted to get an update from Friedberg on the food crisis, which he, um, predicted very early. Fertiler- li- ferti- fertilizer prices are still climbing like crazy. There's been some food rioting in China, which I think is a separate issue. He'll educate us in a minute. Sri Lanka. So what is your theory of what we're gonna do from here, Friedberg? Because I think we're all waiting for this shoe to drop, and I think you predicted this is something that we would experience into the fall and into next year. So when- when are we-

So I look at it-

... gonna actually see these food riots occurring? And then does China's food riots have anything to do with this, or does that have to do with a- a fresh food-

Uh, yeah, I think- I- I- I would put the Chinese food riots as kind of a separate localized-

Yeah. Okay.

... supply chain problem related to the lockdowns.

Got it.

But we're definitely... Uh, you know, I- I think I mentioned last week, the USDA planting report showing in the US how acreage is being reduced on corn. And, and we're seeing this around the world where acres are coming out of production, or less fertilizer is being used, which means less food is being made. So everything that we predicted. I mean, this is a slow train, a titanic into the iceberg that we're watching right now, and it's gonna continue for nine to 18 months. So, you know, one of the questions that people are now asking, which I said, you know, would become a really critical next step in this crisis, is how are we gonna bridge the gap in calories? Where's the food gonna come from? And how are we gonna feed nations that are almost entirely dependent on imports that are running out of food or are out of food? So I've mentioned this in the past, the whole world runs on a 90-day food supply, which means roughly 25% of the world's calories are in storage right now. But that's not the case uniformly. So some countries, like Tunisia and Somalia, Ethiopia, have close to zero calories in storage. Some countries, um, like, uh, the United States are roughly, you know, 30-40% of our, you know, annual consumed calories are sitting in storage. China is a complete outlier. For years, China has been stockpiling food, and at this point, China has 150% of their annual consumption of food in storage. So they have supplies that if all food production and import stopped in China, they would be able to feed their population for one and a half years. That's an incredible supply of food. So as you look around the world to places like Sri Lanka and places like Somalia that are struggling to figure out how are we gonna bridge this gap on calories that's about to hit us, Egypt is without four months of food, by the way, and Egypt is dwindling. They cannot get the food, um, out of the Black Sea. So China is gonna be one of the very few potential solutions for bridging the calorie gap over the next year. And I have a strong prediction and a strong belief that because of that, China will use it to maximal leverage, and we will see over the next year an incredible amount of leverage and power being accumulated by China because of transactions that they're gonna start to enter into to bridge the calorie gap around the world. So in the Horn of Africa, for example, there has been this continuous presence of China trying to give themselves a military base, trying to take a, um, uh, um, some influence over local media. Um, and there's been this kind of push and pull with, uh, you know, certain populations around whether or not we should kind of embrace China locally. And I think that, for example, the, uh, the food crisis that we're seeing emerge in Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, is going to be resolved by China, and China is gonna end up gaining influence, gaining military presence, and establishing a more permanent foothold in the Horn of Africa because of the position that they're in of strength with all these calories and the, and the need in these regions. And that's not just there. Sri Lanka, other parts of Southeast Asia, even Western Africa, Northern Africa, China is gonna show up, and they're the only country that can show up. The UN, the World Food Programme, they're gonna do everything they can to shuffle calories around, change food supplies. But I do think that one of the things that everyone's gonna be watching, and it's- it's a slow roll. This isn't gonna be some one big deal and everyone wakes up. Over the next year, while the US is, you know, trying to do everything we can to, uh, maximally impose sanctions on Russia, China is slowly turning the crank around the world on the influence that they are going to gain because of this food crisis and the absolute, um, uh, you know, surplus that they have locally and the ability to export that surplus to support needs around the world. And it's not gonna be free. It's not gonna be cheap. So I- I thought it was worth highlighting what we're seeing, and I shared a couple of articles with you guys and with Nick, articles that no one is paying attention to, and this isn't some conspiratorial, "Oh my God, there's some dangerous thing happening." I'm just pointing out one of the things that's happening as we talk about, you know, the great change in power, the shift in power globally that's happening. It is happening in a very significant way this year, um, given the surplus that China has, the dearth that many countries have, and the inability for the US to, to really adequately respond to the food crisis that, that's emerging.Um, and so I thought it was worth bringing to everyone's attention. There's a lot of little articles that, that support this point. I shared them with you guys. You guys can put them in the show notes and, and put them up on YouTube and whatever. Um, but I think this is going to become a macro trend that we're going to wake up to in six to nine months and be like, "Whoa, what the heck happened?" How, you know, h- how, how did China get so much leverage around the world? And, and, and it's starting now.