The Gen Z Protests Go Global | Ep. 035 Lemonade Stand 🍋

35:08So it is just simply the case. There's maybe more context that I'm missing, but as we've seen and talked about, it's just gone back and forth the whole year, right? And so over the past few weeks, two things really, really, really ramped up the quote unquote trade war, which is we talked about what a week ago, two weeks ago, rare earth minerals. So China came out and said, we are putting this, you know, basic halt or oversight on rare earth minerals and essentially showed the rest of the world that we are dependent on China. Like the entire rest of the world is dependent on China's rare earth minerals.

35:38They have a monopoly. And then in turn, Donald Trump's response was to say, oh yeah, well, Doug, Doug needs to pay$100 ,000 on mugs now. That'll teach you China. That'll teach you Xi Jinping. and uh so he put a 100 tariff on all chinese goods that number has been fucking swinging around wildly all year as we've talked about but uh you know it was as of what a few months ago he made a tweet and he did the uh mission accomplished thing and he said it's only gonna be 30 right that was and i forget if that adds the 20 fentanyl tax whatever it's been changing constantly but yeah but you know until somewhat recently it was like okay there's a tepid kind of like we think it's agreement it's 30 it's a lot more than before but it's 30 and now he a week or two ago was like oh yeah gee it's now 100 and so yeah i mean the framework i saw about this which is i think really interesting is that this is like the opening salvo of a trade world war three i i want to be clear that i i don't think i overstated enough on the last episode how big a deal the rare earth mineral thing is and how powerful it is.

36:45So Trump's strategy in most negotiations is he knows that he's the leader of America, the strongest country. And so he feels in all negotiations that he has what you might call escalation dominance, which is like, if we're fighting and you go like, oh yeah, and you like flex and I go, oh yeah. And I stand up and you go, oh yeah. And you have a gun. Whoever's got the last thing, they, at the end of the day, we all know that if I push this too far, you're going to win. Like that's, and Trump just knows that in general. And so whenever he's in a negotiation with anybody, he just, he throws shit at the wall.

37:17I'll give you a thousand percent tariff. I'll give you a hundred percent tariff. He tweets crazy things about their leader. He can throw everything at the wall knowing that at the end of the day, if push came to shove, he's got escalation dominance. The idea that I saw is that for the first time in 50 years, a country credibly has escalation dominance over America because of how dependent everything is on these rare earth minerals at least at least right now again long term they could find a way off them but china has prepared for this for years now decades not yeah i mean yeah yeah decades but and i say that just to emphasize i've seen people on twitter being like talking about what i will get into in just a second about these trade deals that trump is announcing uh being like trump just checkmated g he just made agreements with this country in this country and we're going to make our own supply of rare earth minerals and it's like you can't just do it you don't just turn it on it's not a key you need millions of people who've learned to develop this industry and there's multiple layers for i forget the exact terminology you know it's like if you want to make gallium i might be getting specific elements wrong here but if you want to make gallium you need aluminum and you need aluminum industry but china controls the aluminum industry so you have to make an aluminum it's like you can't you don't just go fucking like dig it out of the ground and hire somebody out of college and additionally another layer to it that i didn't mention our last episode is that china has put export restrictions and controls not only on the minerals themselves, but on any of the technology used to refine, process, or mine them that they all create.

38:42So anyone building a mine in France or in Australia is buying Chinese technology. And therefore, China goes, okay, you can't export that to America. We control that. That is part of our, in the same way that America does for high-end chips. I was going to say, this is the exact same thing as we do with chips, where we tell that one Dutch company that they can't sell the equipment, that helps makes the chips. 100%. However, rare earth minerals are, it's just becoming more obvious. It's so embedded in the supply chain of almost everything. I mean, EVs everywhere, everything military created, the magnets that they make are just part of almost any high end appliance I can think of.

39:21It's just the level of control of the current modern economy with this is really becoming more and more apparent. And so it is showcasing more of the blust, like the a hundred percent tariff is not causing China to flinch as much as the rare earth metal is. And so, you know, I think from the outside, this could be like, Oh, they're going back and forth, but this really is never before seen in our lifetimes and decades before like this, they plan for this, they prepare for this. And we said decades, but especially since, um, the first mini trade war and Trump won, they have been like ironclad forward on reducing any dependency on america that can fire back yes yes yes yes yeah so you know people look for who to blame and i can give you the little timeline which is like there was this ongoing trade war they negotiated it down there like a 30 percent it was okay and this is all this year and then yeah and then america would say they kicked it off by not buying our soybeans that's what it is yeah we're gonna get to soybeans dude we're gonna get to so they just out of the blue basically didn't buy soybeans this year which is causing you know, the soybean farmers are in an area of America that is deep Trump and it's causing a lot of unrest there.

40:28So that, that was an escalation on his part. And so he fires back with, there was, you know, we already have export controls on a lot of countries for sending high end stuff to China. We did secondary export controls, which is now like, um, it's just a, it's a massive layer up. So any company doing business with those companies is also on the list, which went from like, i don't know 200 companies in the list to 20 000 so it's like it's like really trying to isolate china in a lot of ways and so that was the moment china went okay we're gonna unveil the nuclear that's when they brought out rare earth minerals and they they did it and it it hasn't truly sunk in yet it's like starting to sink in all these different countries and in america how powerful and how ironclad they are ready for this yeah they've got our balls in a chinese yeah and like even i when i'm in the presentation last week i've been reading more and it's like it it they are fucking ready this is a big deal is this uh and also if we go to war with china we don't have the ability to make any weapons all of the weapons are made with these minerals and in factories in china like it's not it's just unsustainable to do we're not gonna go to war china god forbid but like it actually is impossible because all it's another thing in the escalation war of like even Even if we go to war with China and we have our awesome fucking military, whoopsie daisy, all of our stuff is made with Chinese resources and minerals.

41:51And yeah, even if you were to go to war with a Chinese ally, like if you decided to fight a war against Russia, let's say just outright ignoring all of the consequences that come with that, then China has such ability to impact your success in that war. No matter, no matter who you're fighting. It's happening now with, you know, Ukraine, Russia, again drones are such a big part of it China leads in drone technology and they can produce so much more is this a little bit is this the first time that yeah you're saying that this is the first time that the US is really getting a taste of its own medicine on this front at least since World War II right because in the wake of World War II you've sort of intentionally structured a global economic system around your country being the dominant economic player consumer base, having control of all the levers that let you go into these negotiations and arguments with other countries and essentially bully them out of any situation that you really want to put your foot down on.

42:57And now this is the first time that the U S is encountering a situation since then where another country has the upper hand. It is. It is the first time in our lifetimes and beyond 50 plus years that this has happened. And it really is a shifting of everything that the world order has been built on and understood. Again, the countries that don't have that, which are not China, have in the end, you know, we've talked a lot about the insanity of Trump's tactics and, but many of them have in some ways came, like, like countries that have U.S. military bases in them, like Japan, pretty much all of them have in the end, like the new uh p.m of japan takeuchi is like let's go trump all in like and the the trade deals are broadly um at least even or maybe in the u.s's favor there he's getting i don't think the tariffs are a good idea in general but he's getting the ones he wants but china is just flat out ready for it in a way that i don't think he's prepared for i don't think his strategy works well against because they've done too much long-term prep for this it seems like the entire world didn't realize oh whoopsie daisy.

44:04We've let a critical component go entirely to China. I mean, the chaos in Europe as much as I would rather none of this is happening from like a very kind of neutral third party. It's fucking brilliant. Like, oh my God, theory of it's crazy, right? China has successfully established themselves as a world power that that has our balls and it's like, it's kind of incredible. You know when you get outplayed in a game, you're playing the plays. It's just such a savant move and you're kind of like, damn, And they, this is kind of sick. Yeah. And this is what, dude, it's not fun to be on the other end of this thing, but it's interesting.

44:40There's a part of me that's glad because you can just tell the arrogance with which our country has been led in our lifetimes. And for the people in power to realize, hey, you don't just get to coast off the entire world. You can't just make the rest of the world pay for our mistakes. There are other actual competitors. Like I, while I certainly do not want any kind of war of any kind, like there's a part of me that's going, okay, maybe we'll get our shit together a little bit as a country because we realize we can't just coast forever. I mean, that's the constant theme that we've brought up time and again, right?

45:10It's some sort of crisis where this finally is such a prominent issue because you're facing the consequences of it that people take steps to remedy it finally. Build out the infrastructure that you need or the supply chain that you need to combat this leverage. But it'll take presumably decades in return. Yeah, that book Breakneck. I mean, you know, it really is about how we have consistently offshore all manufacturing capability to China, including the ability to manufacture and refine rare earths. And this is the wake up call, if anything is. Yeah. I think Breakneck does a really good job of breaking down what the author just calls process knowledge.

45:55The idea that as we've lost manufacturing over the years or as we've lost certain industries, not just to China, but to different countries all over the world, right? Wherever that industry may have shifted, we not only lose, you know, the jobs that came with that factory or maybe this single industry. You lose all of the components and factories and industries and the way they interact and teach people different skill sets. You lose this web of knowledge that allows you to quickly build new things or quickly add on new industries in reaction to things like this. But we're so far behind now that when you try to build something like a supply chain for refining rare earth minerals, you aren't able to because you don't even have the industries that exist, the in-between sort of industries that give you the people or the knowledge necessary to build up that new supply chain.

46:54100 percent i also want to throw some shade you know we're talking about how uh the mistakes and arrogance of america has led to some problems here but at europe i mean if you're looking at europe recently they are also finding themselves possibly even a worse spot they're caught between two titans in this situation yeah a trade war with america and then also china putting out restriction on all this stuff and what happened recently there's like a really illustrative example that I think went under the radar. There is a company called Nexperia. I believe it's a Dutch company. I want to make sure I got it.

47:27So Nexperia is a Dutch company that was not doing well. They make chips for like low-end chips, chips that go in cars, chips that go in old phones, just computer chips for mass production, okay? And they're important. Like a lot of things built in Europe use these chips all over the world. Nexperia was a Dutch company. They weren't doing that well. A Chinese company bought them years ago. turned them around, moved some of the factories to China, built it up. They still designed them in the Netherlands, but mostly built in China. Recently, the Dutch government, possibly under pressure from the United States, of course, but also based on leaks, like their own personal angst and feeling about this type of way, that way it's going, seized control of this company, you know, just by government authority.

48:16They seized it. They replaced the CEO. They wanted to make sure that like it was a Dutch company and had Dutch control. They were going to let the profits still go to China, but they wanted to have control of the company. Now this is a, that's a pretty big escalation and they didn't, I mean, it's the arrogance. It's like the thought that things are the way they used to be, that you could just do this and there wouldn't be consequences. Yeah. Another country owns a company in your country and has worked to develop it for years and years and that you can come in and go, well, that's just China. Yeah.

48:44That's ours now. we want it we're we're europe and like you and like that that level of understanding of the way the world is tiered is just different right now it's just and they're waking up to it so they do this they take it over china immediately goes to the factory in china and goes you no longer work for them like don't and they throw europe and the and uh the netherlands on an export control for those chips like 58 of the cars in europe use next period chips so they're all freaking out right now Plus all of the stuff they built uses rare earth minerals that are like China has complete in this situation escalation dominance.

49:21They have no, they don't lose it. They keep the factory. They just literally told the people at the factory, you have a new boss. Now it's someone in China. Don't respond to headquarters. And I don't know what they thought would happen in the Netherlands. Like it's like, it's an idea from, I think, old system, old ways of thinking. And, and again, I'm not like. I mean if you think about the timeline that this sort of world order has existed on right you're getting to a stage where everybody working in these places has just existed within that framework for their entire life you don't have a frame of reference for making these decisions without having all that power behind you and now somebody has changed the dynamic and you're like oh I've never had to think about this that way I don't know Wall Street in financials because i'm sure the person was like well the headquarters are here right we if we take the headquarters we own the cup and the total disconnect from like oh actually if you don't make anything that's fucking useless now is the brand they have the brand and some designers which is fine i mean this is also what the book talks about right is like she uh she has has made a very concentrated effort of shifting china's innovation and money away from software in tech and really emphasizing hardware and physical, like physical objects, controlling that rather than going down some software-led path instead.

50:50And for reasons like this. Because what it shows is like, look, the software is important and good, but if you could only do one and you want to figure out the other, doing the hardware and figuring out the software is just, they've proven they can do it. like China has eventually gotten their own, uh, windows OS. They've gotten their own version of Microsoft word. They've gotten, they've gotten your harmony OS, baby. Like they can figure that out. And I think it's even more than that. You just literally can't run software without hardware. Yeah, exactly. It's just one of those more important.

51:20So wait, so, um, can you tell me how the soybeans are tied? So this, that was a long tangent that was fantastic and sets up the context. So that's why in three days, Trump and G are meeting. And that's why everything we just said makes this a big fucking deal, because unlike previous trade wars, quote unquote, China has real teeth and is showing it in the world is going, holy shit. Wait a minute. What the fuck? U.S. can't just come in and stomp all over them like normal. So we've talked about the escalation. This is going to be happening in South Korea in a couple of days leading up to this. So very recently in here is actually pull it up.

51:56Okay, I didn't pull up the thing. So Bloomberg article talked about how in the last couple days, Trump has announced trade agreements with Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam. They are super one-sided for the US. We're going to keep tariffs on these countries. Again, new tariffs that were imposed this year by Trump. And those countries are removing the tariffs that they have on American goods. And they're agreeing to buy billions of dollars of stuff from America. And that's it. so it's just a pure one-sided multiple people were just like this doesn't seem to have any clear benefits to these southeast asian countries so going into this big negotiation with g to try to de-escalate things he basically said we just locked things in with these countries and the u.s is stronger than ever look at what we just did so that's one piece and then going so that that's like the last two this is one piece yeah that's last two three days and so going into this meeting in theory, they'll talk it out and they will both deescalate all this shit because 100 % tariff on China is insane for the US.

52:59And if China actually stops exporting rare earth minerals, the whole world goes crazy. Doug refreshing the New York Times to see if he's going to have to pay for his mugs. Yeah, seriously. So other things that are notable. I want to be clear. If they actually cut off rare earth minerals, it would be World War III. I'm not kidding. Absolute panic. It would cause economic fault lines collapse, stock market collapse. it would like right now what they're doing is export controls where you have to apply for it they're just proving we can do this they're just grabbing your balls but not squeezing them yeah yeah yeah yeah so they're they like g as just big and you realize holy shit those are muscled hands those are big you could feel the power right the heat the heat is emanating from an inch away like it's like oh my yeah and you had no idea you didn't realize he was building up this much muscle the last couple of years.

53:49Imagine he's in a fursuit for Aiden. Imagine he's like wearing a... Oh, and he's like, and he's whispering in my ear. He's like growling. So a couple things Trump is going to try to do. First off, he's going to try to get this rare earth thing de-escalated because that's disastrous. But again, at the same time, he's trying to set up trade negotiations with other countries to start recreating these industries. Does that work in the next 20 years? No, like we just said, but it's something. There's also tariffs on Chinese cars. So for the past, what, four years now we america has had a 100 tariff on chinese cars china really doesn't want that we still are the most lucrative car uh consumer base in the world china would love to get into that industry so it's a potential thing that we can give up a little bit that trump could say we'll reduce those tariffs if you buy our soybeans again so the soybeans have completely stopped china won't buy our beans they will not buy our beans and they just started doing that this year like we talked about turns out i looked into this and this is from a very uh neutral third party source called the united soybean dot org.

54:50I was like, how many people really grow soybeans? Come on. There's a 500 thousand individuals who are involved with soybeans, including 223 thousand full time people. So and then there's a lot of economic impact. Our country's so damn soy. Yeah. The problem is we actually were not because we don't buy it. We actually are not very so soy based all along oh bro and me and my one piece hat welcome my analysis so the soybean farmers desperately want this to end because again china has been buying our soybeans up until this year when g was suddenly like nope no more beans and so they're freaking out that's something to leverage there's also hostages that trump is trying to get released most notably is jimmy lye who is a hong kong businessman who pushed for democracy is this very famous sort of you know he created a newspaper in Hong Kong, incredibly successful.

55:44It was the most successful pro-democracy newspaper. He's a billionaire, tons of success across Hong Kong and has been very critical of China. He was imprisoned by the Chinese government in 2020. He's been in prison since the allegations are clearly bullshit. And that's just because he is a political dissident and he's in solitary confinement right now. He's like a Hong Kong hero and he's just in solitary confinement in China. So there's real pressure. Trump has himself said several times that lies freedom is in quotes on my list for this meeting and told secretary Scott Besant to make his freedom part of the trade negotiations.

56:19There's all these weird things going on. It's, and in theory, we come out of this and everybody says, yeah, we're good. We're good now. And you know, it'll cool off for a month or whatever, but in three, four or five days, we're going to, we're going to see what is actually happening with this because if it escalates that that's really scary but you know knock on wood nobody actually wants this nobody actually nobody actually would neither side one it would be bad for china too it's not right no one wants us it's just but but it's everybody's tension different and it is it's hard because it's hard to trust trump's negotiating style when you finally run into something that you can't the the usual tactic doesn't have you always on top right that He just four times went and bullied four countries.

57:01Yeah. Right before this. And it's worked great those times. Substantial country. I mean, these are big. Vietnam is a huge economy now. We do a ton of business with them and a ton of trade. And they just fucking caved. So, yeah. It is going to be interesting to see. I do think my worry is not. I mean, my worry is World War III, obviously. My worry is like an escalation. My worry in the short term is that he will have a deal that he can sell, which is that he's going to get them to buy soybeans, which they just stopped in order to have this leverage for this negotiation. They can turn them on anytime they can buy it again.

57:34We're going to get soybeans and maybe a prisoner released. And that's the bone we get thrown as part of this trade deal. Right. But no fundamental change in our dependency on China. Probably a real chance that we're giving up our defense of Taiwan in some way, like reducing our... Yeah, that'd be another lever that we could employ. So I don't know. I mean, it feels like we're going in, as you might have said about Zelensky, with not enough cards. Like, it's not, that's what it feels like. But, and I do want to say, America still has a lot going for the biggest consumer economy in the world. And also the power of the U.S.

58:08dollar is still very important. China still holds a lot of dollars. It's not, but they've done a lot to reduce their dependency. And this is the first big negotiation where it's different. Yeah. So Dan Wang, who wrote the book Breakneck, which is, again, phenomenal. He talked about this in the free press today and said, even if there is a truce and then in quotes, this, this history suggests no truce is likely to be enduring. Both Trump and G have shown they are not very good at keeping their word quick as they are to walk away or renegotiate if they feel like a deal no longer suits them. And so that's my kind of sense is this is incredibly important.

58:40What happens in three days and also not because either one of them will change their mind. Like we've seen it change a hundred times this year. So unfortunately you would love it if it's like, this is the day it definitely will settle in one way or the other. And I don't know, man, who knows what we shouldn't talk about this episode, but little thing for the future, the big next, um, I don't know, earthquake point friction point in this gigantic struggle is Ukraine, Russia in that. Like if it resolves one way or another, if one side wins or Russia ends up getting, because they made progress in the past few days to a city they thought they couldn't get.

59:19If that happens, it is a big shift. Right now, there is a struggle on the European and American side to find continuous sources of money to give. Everybody's been trying to point the finger at someone else to give them money. Nobody wants to do it. Everyone wants to spend money on themselves. And the money and the shipments to Ukraine have been drying up. And so while they're fighting incredibly bravely and valiantly, and I'm fully in support of Zelensky and Ukraine on this one, it's like, it is feel like they're getting grinded down. And if that was to end, and aside for the Russia, China, Dragon Bear Alliance, I mean, it's a big shift in how not only NATO and America sees themselves, but how the rest of the global South sees the order of the world, like sees how they see this rare thing and they see how Ukraine and Russia goes and it changes the tier.

1:00:12It changes how you see it. The world order shifts after those moments. And, and it's worth talking. I mean, we're going to follow it up on it. Luckily we're doing it in fucking one piece outfits. Yeah. My, my 28 year old podcaster analysis. I guess I had a question. This meeting off of the back of forming four trade agreements with four Southeast Asian countries that are heavily favoring the US. I feel like at the same time that you're losing a battle of leverage to China, you're making massive decisions where you sort of blow your load of leverage and push those people away to another side in the future.

1:00:57Like you're making a decision that in the long run feels like it unravels your ability to have that leverage you're using in the future. There's a perfect example of that, which is Canada, which is right. Canada should be the closest U.S. ally there is. Just by all geographical and cultural and historical reasons should be our closest ally. but because we have such a strained relationship with Canada because this trade war and because they ran an ad of Ronald Reagan being anti-tariffs during the Dodgers Blue Jays World Series Trump got pissed threw another tariff on him because of that this just happened what oh you know what yeah during the World Series it just happened Canada ran an ad because it's a it's a Canadian team the Blue Jays yeah they ran an ad showing it's just Ronald Reagan speaking to camera they just took an old clip of him saying tariffs are they seem good at first but in the end they lead to reprisal and reduced alliances and reduced trade.

1:01:51That was taken out of context. Yeah, and that's what Trump said. He's like, it's not real. He's like, it's fake. It's not fake. It's a real quote. Anyway, so he threw a tariff on him and Canada is now in talks with China to get rid of the Canadian 100 % EV tariff because that's their leverage is to go to China. And so these things I think have consequences. Even if you can get an extraction in the short term, you are pushing people into a system that is proving itself to be stronger. I mean, to me, it's a little spooky because I love my country and I love, you know, I'm, you know, dominating Canada.

1:02:26We should be able to dominate them forever. You know, a web of connected alliances is a good thing. It makes your country feel safer. It makes you feel more prosperous. It makes you feel like you can travel freer. The idea that, you know, we're headed into a more multipolar world order is multipolar will be okay. Chinese led one is even spookier. Like it's a thing worth thinking about. So, yeah, I mean, that's a great question. I think that's the Canadian example is like what might happen in a few years with some of these countries where we've pushed them in such extractive terms. Yeah. I'm going to start switching sides, huh?

1:02:59Ni hao. Chi, if you're listening, China's number one. I've been saying it a long time. Hey, you know what? Let's talk about one of the ways China's number one, dude. Let's talk about it because there is some good news. Did you know that the share of people living at below the global poverty line of$3 has dropped a ton over the past couple decades? Yes, sir. I've heard this. Yes, sir. Now, that probably, maybe you've heard that and you've gone, yeah, cool. And then you start worrying about the price of eggs again because that makes sense. Sure. But I just want to, we're going to talk about Poland and how Poland has actually had an incredible, I don't know what to say, advancement.

1:03:34I'd say trajectory or like a huge wind of economic growth. A divine presence. the lord has chosen poland right there's right some sort of commandment i and i supposedly there's a jesus in there somewhere like he is hiding in poland somewhere but he's working at one of them jesus has come back and he's in poland he's never knew he'd be polish that one dick talk it's like you're in heaven i just didn't know it'd be polish So if you pull this up, Perry, so to set up, I, you know, I do think optimism is important. I, and it's so easy for us and everybody on the internet to just talk about how shitty everything is.

1:04:15But as a reminder, over the past, let's say 50 years, the amount of people living globally in extreme poverty, including in China, which has a dramatic transformation, has decreased dramatically. For people who are watching on YouTube, here's a little visual of watching countries. Dark red means an extremely high percentage of people are in extreme poverty. And as the timeline moves forward, Africa starts popping up because they start measuring it. You can see that basically all of Asia just starts to drop off of this thing. And in fact, if you pull up a line chart and you go to the world here, and this is from your world and data, which is really, really excellent, you will see that the percentage of people around the world living in extreme poverty, 1990 was 43%.

1:04:59It is now at 10. So that's a big number, and it might not mean enough or mean very much. But what does that specifically means? It means that if you're in extreme poverty, you have$3 of purchasing power in your respective country. And when I heard that up until like this week researching this, I was like, well, okay, well,$3. Obviously you couldn't live off$3 a day in America, but you know,$3 could get you a lot of stuff in Sudan or whatever, but that's not what it is. The metric that the world bank uses is adjusted. So it's the same amount of purchasing power. So when you say someone is living in extreme poverty right now in South Sudan, It doesn't mean they have three United States dollars every day.

1:05:37They're living in the equivalent of having three United States dollars in America. It is the same living condition. So that means most likely you're getting one, two meals a day, maybe. Housing, you probably are not able to afford. You're probably sharing something that is very temporary. No electricity, no piped water. There's dirt on the floors. No real sanitation. No ability to access healthcare of any kind. There's no real education opportunities except maybe if something is available in your region. Could I give some context to this too? This is from this recent call I had with somebody who's been living in Sudan for 20 years.

1:06:12I think he helped shape my understanding of how people really interact with this poverty day to day. Most people in areas operate like self-sustaining operations to just eat. Like they, they have a garden or do local farming with their community. And that is the way they get food. There isn't, they don't go to a market or travel or, or go to go somewhere else to purchase their food from them. They have to make it for themselves or for their local communities. Why don't they just get the Haley Brewer smoothie? I don't understand that. Your skin gets, it glows. And I think it really clicked for me when you see a lot of articles about famine hitting areas that are war torn.

1:07:01Right. Why? It's not just because the, you know, the supply chain that fills like the market or grocery store where people go and buy things in their city is is compromised. for a lot of people. It's literally because they had to leave their home and they aren't able to garden and grow their food anymore. Right. Like you have, you have no backup. You have no savings. If there's a medical emergency war, your home is ruined. You have nothing. Yeah. Nothing. I think it's, it's really like you, I think you come into these with like our ideas of the way we live. Like, like just, just if I need food, I go to the store or market or equivalent and I go buy it somewhere.

1:07:47But there's, you know, a lot of people don't even have access to that layer of interacting with. Like it doesn't matter if they have the money or not. The place to go get the food doesn't exist to begin with. Right. And that is, you know, that was a really important illustration to me of, oh, that's how these famines play out and develop. That's the level of poverty that people in areas of Sudan are dealing with when you when you read these headlines. Yeah. And so I was shocked to understand this because I thought, could I live off of three dollars a day in the United States? And the answer is you could probably live, right?

1:08:28You can probably get you get like a meal or two from that, you know, get instant ramen and maybe sliced bread and peanut butter or something. maybe a drink, maybe a bus ride, but you definitely you need shelter from other people, which in most of America, it's like not consistent. You maybe have shelter some of the time, no health care, no, not like nothing. Right. They contextualize or do you know one question I've always had is why that happens to be the threshold, especially given that it's purchasing power. Uh, like why, why isn't it for 10? Because none of those amounts would be a lot either.

1:08:57right? I was reading about this today. So they adjust it over time to basically reflect, uh, how purchasing has changed. So it was$1 for a long time, which again, is not really a U S dollar. It's the purchasing power of the, in America. And then it became$1 90 cents, something like a decade ago. And then four years ago was update upgraded to$3. So I, I was reading through the methodology. I don't remember the specifics right now, but essentially they do update it. So as of the last couple of years, it's$3 a day is the equivalent. And so now that we've set up the fact that living in extreme poverty is incredibly brutal and sad, and it's something we desperately would not hope for anybody on earth.

1:09:38It is truly astounding to look at how many people have been pulled out of that. If you look at China in 1981, that is 44 years ago, 97 % of China was in that state that is over a billion people a billion people and now zero 2022 now i'm sure yeah no there might be some you know it's estimated in america it's like you know less than one percentage but obviously you know people homeless living on the street they they fall into this category right so presumably that's true in china as well but it is pretty irrefutable that these that this type of trajectory has happened if you look at india india 60 were living in extreme poverty 1977 right now it is five and india is notable for being one of the most impoverished and sort of you know horrific slums horrific living conditions just unbelievable poverty for people who've traveled there decades ago like my mom lived there for a while yeah these are also the two key countries in the lowering the global stat because their yes their populations are so large and they've generally made so much progress over the last few decades yeah that they they have helped lower the global average by the amount that you're talking about 2 billion people and just the scale of that is so unbelievably mind-boggling and this has happened essentially in our lifetimes that it's just as much as there are problems in the world like man that's encouraging like it's so good to hear that humanity has done this vietnam similar thing 30 years ago 57 of people were living in extreme poverty now it is 1.6 i have vietnamese friends who've talked about the change uh rwanda africa is struggling africa has not made that big of a difference but there are a couple outliers rwanda 25 years ago 82 percent of people are living in extreme poverty it is now 38 percent i also was reading articles about how uh in the last like 15 years something like that six percent of people had electricity in rwanda now 75 percent have electricity so rwanda you know asterisks there it's kind of a dictatorship but you know there are these well i mean that's I want to say is like, you know, the human condition is inherently some sort of struggle as you, we've all, even in America, we went from like people on the frontier dying to dysentery to, you know, you move up to the value chain of problems in Rwanda.

1:11:57Once you get past, we're starving and electricity, you move into, we want political enfranchisement. We want, you know, that, that. So I think some of the struggles we're seeing in the world are because we've gotten past the phase where these countries are in desperate poverty. right now they are in like okay we have strong men we have problems elsewhere yeah so in a way progress in a way yes yes and you look here these are the four these are the four countries that are four of the countries we talked about earlier today that are having protests all of them i mean indonesia and nepal were like 90 poverty and these have all plummeted down to like five percent and so while yes it's sad to hear about protests happening in these countries where political I mean, I was going to say, yeah, I don't even know if it's sad, right?

1:12:41Cause it's also the symbol of people being lifted up out of poverty and wanting a better life. And like these protests are happening online from Gen Z because so much of the society was able to pull themselves up. And so I, I'm, I am appreciative of humanity for the unbelievable scale at which we've been able to improve people's lives. Obviously lots more to do, but fuck man, there's so much good. but happening as well. And leading into that is Poland, which Poland was not poor, not like extreme poverty, poor, but a poor country until pretty recently. And they've had this, I mean, I, my understanding is St.

1:13:19Gabriel literally descended into parliament and told them to build a certain type of infrastructure inside Krakow. Yeah, they did. It's all, it's all, it's all religious. Really? That's all I cracked. It's Jesus saved them. I, I think Poland has been in a tough situation historically where they geographically exist in a spot that is difficult to defend between world powers. Yeah, not just world powers, Stalin and Hitler in history has also been in a position where they're a power in their region as well. Like in further back history, but in the wake of world war two being invaded, having a lot of their infrastructure damage, a lot of their wealth and like gold reserves taken.

1:14:06They were - And many people killed. Many, many people killed. Oh my God, dude, the number of people, it was like 20%. I think it was like 20 % of the population of Poland died in World War II. Horrific. Like one in five people. Yeah, it's horrific. The, after World War II ends, they fall under Soviet control. They're not literally a part of the Soviet Union, which I didn't really know, but they are under the umbrella of the Soviet Union. And they're turned into, you know, a Soviet manufacturing state. And a lot of nationalized industry exists. And although agriculture is never nationalized, which is something I didn't know, they do experience a lot of economic stagnation throughout this period, like over the long term of that century, right?

1:15:00Most of the Soviet Union did, right? Yeah, yeah. A ton of economic stagnation, yeah. Yeah, they're in a very similar spot to a lot of these, like, Eastern European countries that end up splitting off, like the fall of the Soviet Union happens. And then we arrive to 2004, and Poland becomes a part of the European Union. And this isn't the only thing that moves them forward, but in their time being in the EU, They've been the number one beneficiary of EU directed funds to their country. They've received about 245 billion euros through the end of 2023 from when they joined. And they transitioned out of kind of Soviet era economics in a bit of a different, slower way than a lot of these other Eastern bloc countries did.

1:15:51And they also had the benefit of since a large portion of their economic output was this agricultural sector that was never nationalized to begin with, at least under Soviet rules. They had sort of a an economic buffer from that industry that allowed them to slowly transition the remainder of their industry out of just this nationalized system that they had before. And then once they start receiving this massive amount of money from the European Union, they use it to develop infrastructure, things like developing better roads, developing better train networks, more manufacturing infrastructure programs, educational programs for people, better health care infrastructure.

1:16:37All of these things are slowly built up over time. And then also something they did was invest heavily in like technological education and digital infrastructure. So we're building and providing really good internet access to businesses and people all over the country. It's like a pretty thriving game dev scene in my understanding because of education there, internet opportunities, cost. Like a lot of big games come out of Poland. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And alongside of this, uh, this tech sector that they're big building, like they're educating kids at a really young age to, uh, become like technologically savvy.

1:17:14A lot of like software engineers, devs, uh, a lot of people that work in it. And then on top of that, all the huge advancements in their manufacturing industry where they're building things like automobiles, machinery, uh, electronic parts. And they position themselves because of their place in the EU as this source for either higher end services or higher end manufacturing and even low end manufacturing, too, that can be supplied to the rest of the EU because they have relatively low labor costs. Like they are in a position where average salary there has increased a ton over the last 20 years.

1:17:57Right. I think it's I was looking at like since 2004, the average monthly wage has like seven X or eight X. It's something something crazy. And but that's still a lot cheaper than hiring somebody from Germany or hiring somebody from France. So they have this economic advantage of providing services and goods to the rest of the European Union. So they're all because of that. They have a bunch of growth. You have a bunch of people who are educated in these unique fields and also effectively combating the brain drain that they had experienced for a long time. At the beginning of joining the EU, a lot of educated young people in Poland, because the prospects weren't as good, were leaving to other European countries for better opportunities.

1:18:48But as Poland has managed to build up so much industry within its own place, even though salaries are still lower, the cost of living is lower and they've become attractive enough of a business sector for a lot of Polish people who left to come back. And a lot of people who are becoming educated are growing up in Poland to just stay and build their careers there. So they're on a really, really strong trajectory. I mean, I first heard about this British newspapers were reporting, you know, it was kind of a shocker. Again, like the old order versus new order, right? People have always had a certain tier list of economic power in Europe.

1:19:27And very recently, the Poland per capita income didn't quite reach it, but it's knocking on the door of the UK. It's like, yeah, and the line goes from like low, flat to vertical to catch up to where. so it's like it's like a shifting of like oh poland is you know the lifestyle of poland will be thought of to be way lower than that of like the the developed ones in europe and now it's it's a lot lot closer yeah it's catching up it's closing this gap that is going so much faster so it's like the the trend line is is what's uh causing people to get you know they also have a culture of working so hard sure so hard and i guess that's a common theme for countries that have like lifted themselves up for example china like and japan and south korea like brutal unhealthy levels of work and that's my experience working with polish people when i was in esports like they uh i the first esports show i went to poland i went to katowice and i was in their office and they were like yeah we're doing a world of tank show today and i was like what are you talking about we have the hearthstone show tomorrow that we've been building for months like no no it's fine we're gonna do it today and then we'll do rehearsal tonight i'm like it's what are you talking about?

1:20:36I was like, Oh no, we just won't sleep. And so they didn't. And so they stayed up for 24 hours. They did a eight hour show for world of tanks. And then it's eight hours rehearsing. And then we did a 12 hour show and then they went to bed and it was, and this was normal. It was just like, obviously not every day, but like this was a not uncommon on a weekly basis. It was like, Holy shit. I've heard that from other folks as well. It's like, that is a common thing of part of this culturally is Polish people going, we are willing to work unbelievably hard. And then with all due respect, compare that to the French, French love to take some time off.

1:21:09I love it. They love it. I love it. My French coworker up with the email on email. And then it's like, they're gone. I'm gone for the next three weeks. Oh, you hit me up on Friday. Friday's not a work day here. Oh, I'll be Mondays. We leave at 2 PM. Sorry. Yeah. Those things are good too though. Well, what's the French birth rate versus Poland is what I want to know. Cause they're probably, France is pretty high, right? Yeah, France is like pretty high. France is higher than Poland. Way higher than Poland. Way higher than Poland. Poland is only 1.16? Holy! That's bad! That's so much like South Korea that are like killing themselves to move the economic ladder are hitting a different price.

1:21:48They aren't porking, man. It's tough. There's another big economic mover here and it's the amount of military investment and spending that Poland is making too so they compare to a lot of europe right that's lagging behind making these commitments to start spending like two to three percent of their gdp on military defense spending in the next uh 10 years or whatever yeah i forget what the term is at five but they're not doing it and uh poland is already spending about five percent of its gdp i think for way more understandable historic reasons. They have been burned a few times. So this is, but this is also a vehicle for economic growth in the country because so many people are either employed through this sector or tied in through the, you know, technological innovations that have to happen because of that, or the manufacturing that has, has to happen because of that.

1:22:48And one question I did have is so much of the economic success that they have found themselves in from my reading. And I'd love if anybody lives in Poland or can weigh in on this and share their experience of living there, because I'd really, really like to hear. But what I've gathered is it depends so largely on their cheap labor. Like they are able to do provide things at a cost that is just very, very effective. And if you continue to raise the standard of living and continue to raise wages over time, which I'm not saying that shouldn't happen. Sure. But eventually, if you are to catch up, because there's this constant conversation around Poland that I've seen of, are they going to surpass the France's and the Germany's in the European Union?

1:23:38But if so much of your competitive advantage comes from just beating those people on price, basically, how will, can you actually outgrow them? I would love to hear what they say, But like, this is exactly the argument people made about China a few decades ago, which is like, they do cheap labor and that, how are they going to ever get out of that? So I have the built-in counter argument, which is that at least in the tech sector, let's say in Poland, they've really angled themselves towards building out companies that are new or innovative in some way that differentiates them from the tech sectors that have managed to build up in places like France or Germany.

1:24:20so that they have some sort of like expertise or advantage in these spaces that even after the prices catch up, yeah, I'm countering my own point, that even after they catch up to these, because they have the skillset that these countries or cities in those countries haven't developed in their own tech sector, they still have something of value. No, and that's the China model, right? Which you have cheap labor, so everybody moves their manufacturing or whatever to you, then you get really good at it. And then as your standard living improves, you still make things that no one else can make. Yeah.

1:24:52And you have money off that you're, you become a become wealthier. It's like me paying the tariff because nobody else can make that goddamn chess boxing. It's what am I supposed to do? Oh, that was from Poland. That's not a Polish factory made by God, made by God. God, the lesson I talked to a hope. He doesn't mind me saying my Polish editor who is here last week and asked him, I was like, the last 10 years for Poland have been incredible. You know, it's like, it's going up. Do you actually notice that? Or is that one of that? Is it one of those situations where all the time you hear on the news here in America, like the economy is doing great.

1:25:31Or when you see the Ireland GDP per capita graph explode, but nobody there is. Is it just going to the richest people? What's going on? He was like, no, it's you really can tell just in the last 10 years. Like growing up, you'd go to friends' houses, all the buildings were like crumbling, stairs are broken. Most appliances don't work. Cars on the road are from the sixties and everything has just been improving and getting nicer and everybody's noticing it and appreciating it. Just again, it's like there is this happening in the world that people's lives are getting better. We want to hear it's not all fire.

1:26:03There's good things happening and I'm like, ah, it's awesome. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, this was this was nice to I want to like because you had shared a bit of that anecdote last week. Again, if you worked in Poland, studied in Poland, you're from Poland, live there. I really would like to hear more anecdotes from your experience and how they line up or differ from this, because it's a country that I've, you know, I got to travel around so much, especially for smash. And I feel like I have friends all over the world. And Poland just is a place where I, I think I literally know. Yeah, I really want to go.

1:26:36So yeah. Anyway, that's this week's Lemonade Sticks. Thanks for watching Lemonade Sticks. Real quick, final note, we talk about this on our Patreon in more detail. I just want to address last week's episode. I know there were a lot of critical comments. While I completely understand frustration with the way a guest word something, in the case of Prime, I think he worded things in a way that did not come off as very understanding to the plight of many people right now, and that was a a miss, I think, frankly. And I chatted with him and I think he agrees. He thinks it was not well worded. There's a lot of frustration with the way he kind of ended the episode.

1:27:12And I would just ask to please, you don't have to, but just assume that people are not dumb. I don't know. Like, you know, people are well-intentioned. Like, this is a person who is so, he is so smart and caring and thoughtful towards people. I think the way he phrased that was not particularly, it didn't make somebody feel heard who's really struggling right now. I think it was framed in a way that sort of dismissive sounds very dismissive of what a lot of people are experiencing That is something that i'm only aware of because of this show and how much we've talked to people and read the discord messages and all these things but like Somebody like that is not stupid is not is fully aware that situations are different for different people And I would just hope there's more empathy and understanding to be frustrated with what somebody said Obviously that is completely legit to not agree completely legit There's a little disheartening how many people seem to be like if somebody isn't fully 100 saying my narrative that's bad and i just like man we should assume something better in each other man yeah i think also that conversation if we you know if we had just talked through it more knowing what prime like actually thinks about the subject at large i think people would not have had the same reaction uh and we you know we just wanted to basically cap the episode at two hours and like came up to time but uh yeah exactly that is like i think if you were sitting down one-on-one with prime and we're talking about uh this with him i think you'd understand that certainly you don't think every single person who can't get a job is this and he obviously would say oh no not obviously not that i'm focusing on that example case which does exist yeah but there's met anyway so and then uh i guess as a last thing because a lot of people came at the the water stat cited specifically it does i'm it does sound like the water you should stat about golf courses was incorrect yes and no yes like i so i've been looking into a bunch since then so i i hadn't been familiar with it but there there are sources of people it's hard to calculate and when you say that this is much this is how much water that can mean many different things so by some interpretations by some people that that's a legit number golf courses use a ton of water i think that was presented in a way that was over generalized though without giving the specific context but yeah and i think some people just were complaining about other issues related to water that we didn't touch on i think with all of these topics there's so many directions to push and pull in and i uh and i would i'll just film this in advance and for the future uh i know you guys a lot of comments on our depicting of one piece and how it wasn't accurate in any way and that aiden did a really bad job i did do a pretty bad job.

1:29:50I did do a pretty bad job. And I just want to apologize for that and say we will do better. And I'm really working on telling Aiden to do more reading around here. If you want to see me do more reading on one piece or you want to see our longer thoughts on the prime episode in general, you can subscribe to our Patreon. You can check it out at patreon.com slash lemonade stand where we release a bunch of extra content per month. We do extra episodes of the show, other bonus shows for higher tiers. And we had a really long, good conversation about the feedback to the episode, why it happens and how we felt about it.

1:30:25And, you know, giving, listening to people in good faith and all, all these sorts of things. So thank you. There were, there were, I don't want to be too negative. There were tons of comments of people say, Hey, prime, I respectfully disagree with you. And here's why here's been my experience. And those comments were great. And I appreciate them a ton. So I just want to make that clear. lots of really good discussion our community is awesome yeah yeah it really is so i don't want to end on that negative note no you're saying i'm good see y 'all that wait no i won't see you next week see uh doug won't be here next week because he's leaving on vacation funny he could learn a thing from the pole from the polish i'm out vacation time later everybody bye