Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello, welcome to Call It Like I See it presented by Disruption Now, I'm James Keys and in this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to take a look at the supply chain and inflation issues. Issues that we're seeing take hold in the US and try to figure out if, if these things are short term blips or long term concerns.
And later on we're gonna take a look at the US Food and Drug Administration's move to try to cajole food companies and restaurants to reduce the sodium level in the foods that we eat.
Joining me today is a man who feels like busting loose.
Busting loose.
Tunde. Ogon Lana Tunde, are you ready for me to give you the bridge now?
[00:00:58] Speaker B: Yeah, man, I'm ready to boogie down, bro.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: Let's do it. All right. All right. Now we're recording this on October 18, 2021 and I want to get right to this discussion. We have costs for food, energy, things, durable goods, things going up. It's taking longer for things to get anywhere and distributed around. And there's concerns all the way that Christmas may even be on the chopping block here because of what's going on with these, the costs and the distribution issues.
So Tunde, what's your takeaway on what's happening in our economy with these supply chain and inflation issues which may be related as we'll get into and how should we view this as far as what's going on?
[00:01:44] Speaker B: I guess the takeaway is it's definitely sucks and it's painful and it's real. It's here.
No one can deny that prices have increased over the last short period of time, 6:12 months, that kind of thing.
And I do think they're related. The supply chain bottlenecks globally have led to price increases and there's a direct correlation which we'll get into.
So I think it sucks if that can be my professional PhD definition.
But it's also understandable when you look closely, if one cares to look, number one, and not just kind of use it as another excuse for confirmation bias as to why they think everything sucks.
And also if just they, if they, if someone wants to look and then also understands the system. And I think that's what it even preparing for today made me realize that we have such a global interconnected system that in many ways is very complex, but in many ways it isn't because a lot of it is kind of just pragmatic and just.
It's another example where I can say this leads me to believe that we had a well oiled system globally of commerce and goods kind of moving around that we didn't appreciate.
And with the pandemic, which I know we'll get into of March of 2020 and the global shutdown, that really disrupted things. And so, you know, we're still dealing from that and, and the ongoing nature.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: Of the pandemic as well, particularly in other countries.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: Yeah, and I think it's just, it's kind of like the virus, right. It's messy, it's vague, people want to point a finger and hold someone accountable. But it's just like a virus, it's global and it's just hard to see it all at once.
And a lot of people have now put opinions and things in there to try and move the needle with an audience. So that's kind of what I see the initial takeaway there is a lot.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: Of disingenuous efforts to use this for opportunistic type reasons. But actually the takeaway I have is also one, it's similar to yours actually. And it's just that, you know how you said it's a well oiled machine. And what I see here basically is we have from a cultural standpoint, an economic system standpoint, we have done a mad dash to efficiency at all costs.
And so therefore there's two sides of the coin to the efficiency. How much should you value efficiency over other things?
The one side with efficiency, which we've leaned all the way into and we've reaped the benefits of from a. Keep it, it's deflationary, the making things operate as efficiently as possible on a macro level. And I'm talking about the efficiency of a car engine, but just in terms of how the economy operates, the flip side of that is that with, with total efficiency, then one thing goes wrong and it throws off, it causes a cascade because everything is so for the efficiency to happen like that, everything is so dependent on everything else. So the flip side of that is you lack redundancy. So when things are very, very, very efficient, things lack redundancy and one thing can go wrong, will throw off everything else. And so that's kind of the boat we're in. We've talked around this discussion. Sometimes when we talk about oh well, should we produce certain goods here even if it costs more to produce them here? Usually he's talking about in the national security concern, since but should we, even if it costs more, should we have a production capability here just in case something happens? And from a national security concern we would be up the creek without a paddle because we've relied on this unbroken chain of 30 things that all need to go right in order for us to do this at the lowest possible cost. But if one of those things go wrong, then we just don't have it, period. And so that to me is what this kind of reveals is that okay, now if we're smart from smart, we'll learn from it. If we're not just looking at like, hey, let's point fingers, hey, let's capitalize on people being mad about this. We could actually look at this and say, hey, maybe efficiency is good. We should continue to try to explore ways to be efficient. But we should not do it in a single mindedness way where all we care about is efficiency. Like redundancy has, has value when things get messed up. If you have redundancy, if you have other options for accomplishing the same thing, even if it may cost a little bit more, then that will save you in those areas where you have one disruption or in something like this, like we're going to talk about, there's like four or five things that are kind of messed up that basically can break the system down.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: Yeah, and you mentioned something very interesting there, which is the supply chain deflation.
And that's true. And a lot of people I think don't appreciate that because it comes down to technology over the last hundred years or so and for longer. But let me stick to a shorter period of time than going back to ancient history. But if you can imagine, the cost to transport goods has gone down generally and the risk to transporting those goods has gone down and also of moving money and currency. So money is an interesting one. So let's just assume all the stories we know of after 1492 when Columbus discovered Americas, which is another great example of how long the global supply chain has been going on. Because remember.
[00:07:13] Speaker A: But I will say I don't know that Columbus discovered America.
[00:07:16] Speaker B: Well, good point. So I'm going on the narrative I was taught in high school.
So anyway, from the textbooks, but remember, he got lost looking for a faster route to India because of the spice trade. So that's another example of justice. This global trade and commerce in goods and services is nothing new. But long story short, we know the story after the Spaniards discovered the Americas of kind of the theft of gold out from the Native Americans, especially in South America. Imagine the cost for the Spaniards, the Spanish crown, to transport gold at that level in ships and all that versus four or five hundred years later. We can push a button and Money moves across the ocean on a computer.
[00:08:05] Speaker A: So that's a very cost, the cost to actually physically move it, but also the risk because that's why there were pirates and all this other thing. Yeah, but that's.
[00:08:12] Speaker B: People were moving and that's a point around.
And when I talk about costs, because people don't understand things like the insurance industry, all that are hundreds of years old. So you're right, they used to insure these ships. They had to protect them with, you know, military and other and mercenaries. So there was a whole like you didn't just send one ship to go get some gold and come back to Spain, you had to pay insurance premiums on it. You probably had 40 ships around. The one big ship to carry the gold that was full of mercenaries and armed men. They had to go fight the Aztecs and the Incas and hope that they could actually come back. I mean it took six months to a year for a round trip journey with all that. So long story short, today Spain can press a button and they just made a currency trade with the country of Ecuador or Costa Rica. So that's just a very simple example of how the cost and time of movement of capital like that has become much more efficient in a few hundred years.
[00:09:08] Speaker A: Well, but to go to your original where you started, you don't have to go back to 1492 or the 1500s. But I like to give this an example like this was going on in the 1800s, this was going on in the beginning of the 1900s, like how to move things. Like the banking industry in large part sprung up to try to solve this problem where you could take money to somewhere and then they would give you credit elsewhere because that was you deposited that money in London and then you could show up in Paris or in New York and they'd say, oh, you put the money there, we'll give you not the same thing, but we'll give you the equivalent value and so forth. So that's kind of where the banking industry came from in a sense.
And so to account for, because that's a big problem, how do you move value around? But again it goes to also the actual things, not just the gold, but if you're moving coffee or if you're moving tea or if you're moving sugar or things like that, physically getting them around. And to get to your point though, being able the container ships that we've used, the warehousing, all the speed of the ships, the security that's been able to be provided more efficiently, all of those Things cost much less than they now and have progressively cost less over time relative to the amount of money that you're moving around or the value of the things you're moving around. And that has had a deflationary effect that we felt, but not appreciated. And so now that this has become disrupted, now that because this extreme efficiency and getting anything anywhere quickly and safely, this has been disrupted by delays at warehouses or not enough container ships to move things around, then we're feeling that basically now because physically getting things, it's not with the money, but it's actually with the actual physically getting things around is all been jammed up.
Yep.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: And you know, as you, as you speak to that, I just, I wanted to cite a few things because when we think about it, we're here in October of 2021, the pandemic really got going, let's say late February into March 2020. So not two years, what is it, 20 months, something like that, 19 months ago.
And so what do we have? For the first time in world history, we had the whole globe shut down at once. Because like we talk about ancient history or even not ancient, but just a few hundred years ago, I mean, the country of Spain wasn't communicating with the Aztecs to shut everything down at once.
So this was the first time that we've seen that globally. And like you said, we had a well oil machine that was, that basically was grinded to a halt and then the machine didn't turn back on all at once with a lot of grease and oil.
It has been turning on slowly globally with fits and starts. So what happened?
[00:11:53] Speaker A: It's easier to shut it down than.
[00:11:55] Speaker B: It is to start back up and start it up. And so what happened was workers were laid off, prices were slashed, because remember in 2020, companies had a lot of inventory, didn't know what the future held. If we remember, it was the first time the price of oil went negative in world because there was just oil sitting on these container ships and no one wanted to take delivery of it. So the price went down.
Then international factories, not only in 2020, but in 2021, where most of our supply chain starts, the manufacturing in Southeast and Northeast Asia, not only have they been open and shut sporadically due to their own Covid outbreaks, there's now an energy crisis in Asia. So they also have been rationing when the factories are on and off.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: And there's one in Europe as well.
[00:12:41] Speaker B: Yeah, so that doesn' also Europe's dealing with some natural disasters, other things, you know, you had forest fires you had floods. So there's a lot of that going on on top of this backdrop of this kind of sloppiness of what's happened since last year. And then the other thing that we really don't appreciate in the United States is other countries have had an extremely slow dissemination of the vaccines.
We are very fortunate.
[00:13:05] Speaker A: Access widely.
[00:13:06] Speaker B: That's what I was just going to get at. We're very fortunate. We have a few hundred million doses available within the first six, seven months of the vaccine being approved.
A lot of other countries just don't have that supply. And so they're still operating the way we were pre vaccine. Yeah.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: Their factories get shut down because of COVID outbreaks and stuff.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying. Yeah, that's all fits and starts. And then there's also the biggest one which is not talked about as much is the shift in demand from not only us but other first world consumers. So remember, these factories were set up to make in, let's say the third world countries where the supply chain starts because of the lower cost of labor.
They were set up to produce a certain amount of, let's say furnitures and TVs every year, a certain amount of vehicles, a certain amount of shoes, so on and so forth. Well, there's been just a shift in how we purchase over the last 12 months because we're all sitting at home. So now, you know, there's a huge demand for everything from fertilizer to home furniture to outdoor patio sets and all that, which wasn't. Is much higher than it was pre2020. And there's a lot less demand for things like automobiles because people aren't driving as much. So those manufacturing hubs also take time to shift how they're dealing with output and things like that.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: They have to adjust to that.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: Yeah. So when you really think about it and really peel away the layers. That's what I said at the beginning. It sucks, but it's understandable.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: Well, it's understandable if you care to understand it.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: Yeah, that's kind of what I'm saying. Like if you're not trying to look for confirmation bias that this is someone's fault. And I just point a finger to.
[00:14:44] Speaker A: The point you just made. As far as the consumption habits. One of the things actually I saw this has kind of percolated up a couple of times in various ways. But for example, I know there's been a tweet circulating that a lot of these problems are basically first world problems. These are problems of excess which kind of gets to the point you just made as far as like the shift in demand.
And one of the things actually that, that stood out to me about this is that that shift in demand combined with the fact that people saved a lot of money during the pandemic, apparently this is by the numbers. People saved a lot of. There's been reports Americans are sitting on like $2 trillion that they just didn't spend that they otherwise would have during the pandemic.
[00:15:26] Speaker B: Hold on, I'll spend it. If they need help, tell everybody to call me. Okay?
[00:15:31] Speaker A: And so, but no. And so people are buying, like you said, different things because of that as well, because they're trying to make, they're trying to retrofit their homes to be better for work or for better for entertainment or better for exercise or whatever. And so these shift in demand. And so basically it is in a sense kind of because we're buying a lot of stuff, you know, because we are, we, you know, as American consumers, so to speak, and wherever, you know, first, any first world consumers, because we're, because we're buying a lot of stuff and we are, we're trying to, to, to fit all of this purchasing that we would have done, maybe spread out over 18 months into 6 months or into 4 months. The existing supply chain, even if it was working at optimal efficiency, would have a hard time dealing with this. The example I saw in one of the pieces that we reviewed, and it'll be in the show notes, was that you don't build a church for the Christmas surge, basically for the amount of people that are going to come Christmas. That's not what you build the building for. You build the building for what's going to be there in a little bit more for every Sunday. And then you just understand that once a year it's going to be more people than that and you accommodate that. But this is what's happening right now basically on an ongoing basis because we have all this pent up demand. And so yeah, it's like it's a good thing that the economy has hummed along and recovered sufficiently that people have money to buy stuff like this. But it's definitely a problem that it's then creating an overall tight issue because this feeds over into food, for example, or energy because all of these other activities require things to go into it in order for it to happen as well. So like you pointed out, the fertilizer, fertilizer is something that's not getting distributed well right now, which affects how much people, how much food can be produced and so forth. So it. The ripple effects because of the level of streamline and efficiency that we've come to rely on, when that's not there, the ripple effects hit everything, and that becomes unfortunate and that becomes a headache for. For us to have to deal with. So, you know, in. In dealing with it, you know, like.
[00:17:36] Speaker B: One thing I want to add, though, just before we jump, because this is a good one just for the audience.
The other thing that is related to this, not caused by the same effect, but I think adds to this kind of messiness, is the shortage of labor. I mean, I'll just speak here in the US I won't speak about other countries because there is a real shortage of labor at the ports and in the trucking industry.
[00:17:59] Speaker A: Well, but that gets to it because we're having a surge in demand.
[00:18:03] Speaker B: It's naturally going to change.
[00:18:05] Speaker A: I think your point, though, there's a shortage anyway, even from where we were.
[00:18:08] Speaker B: Yeah, there was a shortage of truckers before because young people. I mean, how many people do we know in their 20s and 30s that are saying, I want to go drive a truck? I mean, it's just. That's not something that society was really, I guess, grooming the next generation to be truckers.
[00:18:23] Speaker A: Well, because society's also been giving signals to people that that may not be there in 10 years.
[00:18:28] Speaker B: In the next 10 years. Yeah, you're right. So I just think, again, is that anybody's fault? No, it's just the way society's been going. And you're absolutely right. I've been hearing for two, three years that by 20, 30, up to 50% of the fleet of trucks in the U.S. could be electric. So you're right. If I'm 20 years old, 25 years old, I'm not thinking about going into that industry. And then the pandemic hits. So, you know, I think it's just.
That's why I say it's messy. But, you know, just once you peel away all these layers, it's like, okay, I get it. Like, this is not. This is. Of course this would happen.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:00] Speaker B: And, you know, so. No, I. I appreciate what we had before this. Yeah.
[00:19:05] Speaker A: Yeah. It actually lets you. But I appreciate it. But then I also see the downside to it as far as, again, that that total lean, 100% lean into efficiency with no concern for redundancy in case anything ever gets disrupted or goes wrong. But. Well, let me ask you this.
How concerned are you that these issues that we're seeing now, like you said, you can understand why they're here, but how concerned are you that they're going to persist? And along with that, do you think leadership is doing enough? Whether it's leadership's fault or not, you know, like it is their job to try to come up with a response that utilizes the resources that we have available to us. So do you think the issues will persist and do you think that leadership is doing enough to try to ensure that that won't happen, so to speak?
[00:19:51] Speaker B: I mean, I don't know what leadership, you know, are they doing enough or not? Look, I'm sure they're waking up every day not wanting headlines to make them look bad. So I'm sure that they're out there, you know, trying to do something right whether it's effective or not and all that. That's what everyone else can argue about. I'm not here to because I don't know what they're doing right on a day to day level. But I'm going to assume that they're trying to solve something.
And so, well, one of the things.
[00:20:12] Speaker A: We saw that the ports now and a lot of the trucking, they're going to go 24 hours a day. Like they're not going to just do normal work days. So that's something. I mean that is doing something.
[00:20:22] Speaker B: But here's the thing, because it's also one thing is about long term planning, the other part is about continuity. One thing I saw a headline I saw just a few days ago over the weekend, which was interesting to me, is that President Biden signed to continue the tariffs that started under President Trump against the Chinese when it comes to steel and aluminum and all that.
And that's where I find it interesting because traditionally anyone has studied macroeconomics can tell you that tariffs, international tariffs do cause inflation over time.
But that's not to say point a finger at President Trump or President Biden in that way. What I'm saying is it shows a continuity of I guess the American strategy for dealing with things like this that even between two very different administrations, for some reason this president said I'm going to keep what the last one did because I see something going forward, maybe the need to create more aluminum, steel here in the U.S. yeah, they may.
[00:21:22] Speaker A: Still what a tariff is generally. I mean, it's a term everybody hears a lot, but I don't know if it's ever explained. A tariff basically is an import tax that a country will charge. So we would charge if China sells aluminum for 10 bucks. And we're say we're going to charge a 10% tariff on it, then it's going to be $11 with one of those dollars going to taxes to the government. And so obviously it would cause inflation though, because it increases the cost beyond the cost that's being charged. And also what happens is then things we're sending out, other countries would respond and say, oh, okay, we're going to put a tariff on stuff yours that's coming in as well. And so it leads to all this other stuff. And that's not to say it's good or bad.
It is a tool. So it could be used in a good way, it could be used in a bad way, but that's just what it is, basically.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: Yep. And so the reason I bring it up is the idea of long term planning for a nation. And this is where I think it's going to be even messier and more difficult to kind of just answer directly because it's hard enough to get a big country like ours to agree on something and then do it long term, even through successive administrations. I mean, we seem to have wars that go nowhere over successive administrations, but not real positive things these days.
So when I think of things like that, I say, okay, it's hard enough here domestically now we're talking about something that really does involve the whole world that we really do have. Like we're talking about these global supply chains, connected countries having to shut down and do fits and starts with their own manufacturing plants and bases because of things like Covid outbreaks and, or, you know, electricity that's not, you know, efficient, things like that. So part of it is dealing with the global Covid stuff and just getting the world through that over times, dealing with the global energy crisis that are there, that has nothing to do with just our country alone. So that's why it makes it difficult. And when I was thinking and preparing today, I thought of the Trans Pacific Partnership. Remember that?
[00:23:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: Under a prior administration. And the idea back then was supposed to be that was the, the goal of having a long term, I guess, buffer against China's growth. To say this is a long game of a decade plus to take manufacturing from the Chinese market and spread it amongst other Southeast Asian allies and also bringing it up on our side through South America, on the countries that line the Pacific Ocean. So that would be the Argentinas, Chiles, Ecuadors, countries like that, which also have access to cheap labor. And what happens is you can't just shut down Apple's factory in China and reopen it in Ecuador tomorrow. There's a lot of skill, a lot of time would be taken. You could say a decade might be needed to move those supply chains. But what happens, unfortunately is because that was announced under one administration, when a successive administration got into office for domestic political purposes, it was just, let's just kill everything the last person did. At least that's what it appeared.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: It wasn't like when Obama put that in, there was pushback. And then when Trump came later, the reasons they gave publicly for getting rid of it seemed to be more about Obama and not about. Because it was something that from a long term planning standpoint was a bad idea.
[00:24:55] Speaker B: There was no alternative.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: Maybe they did have reasons beyond that, but that wasn't how it was.
[00:25:02] Speaker B: It wasn't announced that there was a grand alternative in the long run in a measured way to deal with, to address that issue. Chinese manufacturing being a powerhouse. So I'll finish up here, but the reason I bring it up is imagine had that been nurtured and not jettisoned, that right now we might have a little bit of easier time because we might have already had some supply chains starting down in South America which don't take as long to come to China from China and can be brought not only through ship, but also easier over land and air, you know. So that's all I'm saying is that the pandemic is probably going to force some changes that already were probably needed when it comes to where global supply chains start.
[00:25:49] Speaker A: Well, I think you're saying it will. Hopefully.
[00:25:53] Speaker B: Hopefully, yeah, because it could break down further. This could cause society to break down further.
[00:25:56] Speaker A: I mean, this is where it goes to that same issue you just brought up, where for domestic political reasons people may not want to do things that ultimately would be good and they won't have an alternative. They just say, hey, I just don't want the other side to have a win. And so if our politics are that basically where we're just trying to make sure whoever we disagree with on this issue or that issue doesn't have a win on the economy, then, you know, like it may not. But hopefully, you know, like, hopefully these type of events will allow the sober minds to, to gain increased prominence. That may or may not happen. But you would, you would hope so. But I would say there's two things on this. One is there's the short term, is the leadership doing enough and do we think. First off, I don't think this is a long term thing, as long as there is no additional intervening issues.
It's like we're trying to start an Engine back up again and it's popping, pop, pop. Like it's just until it starts running efficiently. It just takes a little bit of time and then it takes a little bit more for the pandemic to recede and vaccines to get everywhere. It's always amazing when I hear about how, you know, in our country, so much of the discussion around the vaccines is how people don't want to take them. And in other countries it's like, oh, we just wish we had enough of them. And that's like, that's your, that's, that's like we sound like a spoiled brat basically. You know, like it's people like, oh man, if we just had enough vaccines, we could get these factories going again. We could do all this stuff. But either that, that's an aside on a short term standpoint, it's going to, it's going to be bumpy. Basically, according to every economist that I'm reading, you know, is saying it's going to be bumpy, but eventually things will line back out into whatever that new normal is going to be.
You know, right now we just have to deal with its bottlenecks at several different junctions. And so once those bottlenecks work, that work themselves through, which may not be till next year, but they will work themselves through, then, you know, it'll be something that again will go to either where we were before or some new normal. So right now I think the leadership has two concerns. You got into kind of the long term and I'll talk about that in a second. There's also the short term, which one it is to build confidence amongst Americans, you know, and also to try to support where it can logistically. Like some of this stuff is not like that. The leadership can snap their finger. And there's twice as many cargo ships, so there's more ports, so there's more people to work. Like, they can't just make that happen. What they can do is almost on the margins, try to make the environment where you can make changes more conducive. So that is talking to the unions, talking to the port operators, like, hey, Instead of going 8 hours or 12 hours, let's go 24 hours. That will ideally help address some of the bottlenecks. So I'm happy that they're doing stuff like that, you know, because the concern would be is if, oh, okay, well, leadership can't itself solve the problem.
So then they throw their hands up and don't do anything. And so that would be where I would be looking at leadership. Like, oh, that's unacceptable. Like, just because you can't solve the whole thing, you still couldn't be trying to do things around the margins and make it better. So I'm happy with that. I mean, we'll see how, you know, like again, it's working bottlenecks through. So yeah, go at the bottlenecks, see if there's anything we can do to try to address the bottlenecks, do that. And then also talk to the American people and try to increase their confidence. Interestingly enough, people who, like, we also see people. If you're out there trying to undermine Americans confidence, you're actually working against the interests of America. Because confidence is an important part of us trying to get through this.
[00:29:13] Speaker B: So the voices, that's where the dysfunction of our domestic politics could hurt us. Run the risk of making this worse, put it that way.
[00:29:22] Speaker A: Just because the dysfunction of our domestic politics are trying to make everything worse right now. Like we have elected officials trying to undermine the idea of elections, you know, like, and the validity of our elections. So that's trying to undermine the government. So it wouldn't be a shock that you'll have politicians out there trying to undermine confidence in the economy. Economy for political reasons. But either way that is pushing in the wrong direction, you know, And I'm talking leadership, I'm talking about all elected officials, you know, like, so ideally the voices that are trying to build confidence and build understanding and saying, okay, we'll get through this, you know, we got to push through these bottlenecks or whatever term that they focus group and find is good, you know, so either way, now I don't want to belabor that, but confidence and logistics would be the short term thing. And so I am, I'm happy with what I've seen in some circles. And then in the circles, some circles I'm concerned long term it's what you just said, it's the deals and thinking forward, thinking like, hey, what are we going to do here?
Are we going to come up with other alternatives so that the next time something like this happens, we have nothing to do. We're just sitting there like, oh, we're screwed again. And so with that we don't know. Like you said, we don't know whether the long term planning is in place or is happening right now that will put us in a better position to deal with these types of things in the future. But I think that's an obligation of leadership at this time as well. Don't just jettison things without a plan for other things to go to replace it or to improve things in the future for foreseen and unforeseen circumstances.
[00:30:57] Speaker B: Yeah. And my closing to this section is the good news is that because the price of food went up, Americans will eat less.
[00:31:06] Speaker A: I don't know if that's the case. They'll just eat worse.
[00:31:08] Speaker B: I was just thinking everyone's complaining. I was at the grocery store and you know, the type of steak we like to buy went up like 100%. And I just thought, okay, I gotta have smaller portions now. It's probably better for me.
[00:31:21] Speaker A: I don't know. Well, see, I was gonna ask you if there's any lessons we can get from this. So I guess that's the less is to eat less.
[00:31:26] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Smaller portions. It's healthy for us.
[00:31:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I think I just kind of. I think the long term planning is kind of the lesson like you got into with the Trans Pacific Partnership. That was a good idea, or at least as good of an idea as anybody else has put forth. And we kind of scrapped that for political reasons. But ideally, I'll say this.
[00:31:47] Speaker B: Oh, go ahead. Sorry.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: No, I was going to say ideally that and other things. We can continue to have some level of forward thinking in, in leadership, in the halls of leadership to try to make our system more robust, the systems we rely on more robust so that when disruptions inevitably happen that we can handle them a little easier. Like some stuff, like the level of the bottleneck we're seeing right now is somewhat unavoidable. But how well you can deal with it is something that is within your control. So I think that's the lesson really is to try to make the systems more robust, add more redundancy, as I was talking about before, and make it so that we can handle these things more effectively.
[00:32:29] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I just think that, I think there's been inartful ways that this has been said.
I think it was recently the Chief of Staff to the President tweeted or retweeted something that was like this is all just first world problem stuff.
And that does sound pretty tone deaf. Cuz there's a lot of people out here that aren't having a good time that are making the minimum wage type of, of income, that when prices go up they really get impacted. But I do think there's many of us in our society that have been living well and this is just a good time for us to reflect and appreciate that we've had a good run here. This system has been great. This United States system that we've grown up in, in the last 40, 50, 60 years generally. I know there's a lot of people that have fallen through the cracks, but generally, you know, when I talk about we were losing 7,8 million jobs a week back during the height of the pandemic, you know, we all thought we'd be in a Great Depression right now and somehow, you know, the economy's been booming. So I think these are things that if we just sit back and turn off the TV and the Internet for a second and stop listening to all the detractors and just look at where we're at, it's painful, but this isn't the worst that humanity's ever been at.
So I think we can, you know, if we all, like you're saying about just, you know, not to be some Kumbaya thing, like we all just got to get along and all this, but meaning if everyone just tries to tune the negative noise out and just keep going about your day, I mean, this stuff will, like you're saying, it will work itself out. So I think that that's an interesting.
[00:34:08] Speaker A: Point you raise as far as, like, we can quibble, and I do quibble with how the spoils have been distributed, but from an economic activity standpoint, you can look back and say, wow, it's been pretty amazing as far as what the system that was set up was able to produce and provide. Like that's a. The economic activity growth like that year after year and everything like. And again, not to say that it was distributed in a way that was a way that was equitable or even sustainable. But yeah, I mean, so I think that, yeah, looking at part of lessons you may take is looking at what was done well and trying to figure out how to continue doing those things well and then see where you can do better and then try to add that in as we move forward. So no, it's interesting, man.
Now, you mentioned a second ago how you're going to have to eat better or eat less because of the pandemic or at least of your kind of guilty pleasure foods. So I'm sure you saw, I mean, you pointed it out to me that the FDA right now is looking to lean on food processors and otherwise, restaurants and things like that, to reduce the sodium content in their food, the food that we get basically. And really this is about the way the food is prepared, processed and, or prepared. And so the high sodium content. The scientific literature has been pretty, it has been able to establish negative health implications and impact from the high sodium level of our diet and the Big notable thing here is that most of the salt consumption that we have comes not from a salt shaker that we sprinkle onto the food, but actually it's already in the food. We don't even know it's in there already when we either order it or when it's prepared at the restaurant or whatever. And so that's where they're trying to reduce the sodium content. So what was your reaction to seeing this? That either that the FDA is not doing this from a mandatory standpoint like they did with trans fat, but they are trying to address it, at least in some way.
[00:36:11] Speaker B: I thought it's great timing for another government regulation. Like I said, just. Just when I can't buy enough food, I can. I can now not feel bad about it because I guess I'm being smaller.
[00:36:21] Speaker A: You don't need as much salt.
[00:36:22] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And you're right. And then I don't need as much marinade that's full of salt. So you're right.
[00:36:28] Speaker A: No, I mean, look, it's. It's.
[00:36:30] Speaker B: I think it's a noble endeavor. Just like any time that any administration tries to do something to make Americans healthier. Right. I mean, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I think that just like in a lot of things we talk about, we as a society don't seem to be that educated about certain things that are important to us from a health perspective and our bodies. And I think the amount of sodium that we take in is a good example and not understanding how sodium itself and excessive sodium leads to some of the most common health ailments out there, like heart and cardiovascular issues, because, you know, it can lead to high blood pressure. That then it's kind of like when we did our show on sugar. You know, just like too much sugar can lead to diabetes, and then the high blood sugar can. Can cause damage to organs. And I think, you know, high. High content of sodium does the same thing. It just can cause damage to the body.
And it's interesting because sodium is something, as a compound that all life has evolved to depend on.
[00:37:41] Speaker A: Yeah, we need it to live.
[00:37:42] Speaker B: Yeah, we need it. And it's part of, you know, obviously part of nature and the earth. So like many things, just like too much carbon in the air for the planet, salt is not unhealthy on its face. It's just that when there's too much of it, when the equilibrium and the balance that the human body evolved to kind of accept in terms of the salt intake is thrown out of whack with too much salt too consistently, then it'll throw your other parts of your body off.
[00:38:12] Speaker A: I just want to jump in real quick and I'll let you continue, but that's an excellent point because without carbon in the form of carbon dioxide in the air, plants would die.
We need carbon dioxide in the air. The problem isn't that carbon dioxide is in the air, it's too much. And then the same thing with, without sodium chloride, which is table salt and you know, like why it's sodium is what the biggest concern they're talking about is. Without sodium chloride, we would die. Like our bodies need a certain amount of sodium, sodium chloride every day and at least at all times in our body. And so it's a really good point you make that the issue is overconsumption. Not that it's existing at all. You know, it's not a toxin per se. But overconsumption throws off the equilibrium in our body in the same way that over too much carbon in the atmosphere throws off the natural balance that we've evolved to live in.
Yep.
[00:39:07] Speaker B: And so the result of that, at least, let's just talk about domestically in the US from our society, is an estimated 400 deaths a year from salt or high sodium related ailments, primarily heart disease, which leads to things like heart attacks and strokes, or, sorry, heart disease doesn't lead to a stroke, but high sodium content can lead to strokes, which can lead to death and just other issues.
And then with an estimated cost to our economy of about a trillion dollars a year.
So again, these are the things that are like, sorry, and If I said 400 deaths, I meant 400,000 deaths.
[00:39:45] Speaker A: Yes. I could see somebody hearing that and say, oh, well, that's not that big of a deal.
[00:39:50] Speaker B: So it's just this idea that there's these silent killers in our society. And unfortunately we spend more time on the more polarizing, emotional topics, like whether it be school shooters or people getting killed by police and things that are very important. I mean, I'm not trying to diminish those things, but the idea is that, you know, not 400,000 people are dying from those things every year in this country. So it's another example that sometimes the glaring things are the ones that we don't tend to focus too much energy on and the ones that are a little bit more on the outlier side get all of our attention.
[00:40:33] Speaker A: Well, it's an emotion issue, because this issue, I mean, and I guess, you.
[00:40:36] Speaker B: Know, silly of us, being salt is an emotional good thing. So no one wants to stop.
[00:40:40] Speaker A: Well, I guess it's silly of us for doing this as a podcast topic because this doesn't evoke any emotion, you know, so people like, ah, these dudes, I don't want to hear about this.
[00:40:47] Speaker B: But whoever's still with us here is pretty cool. That's all I got to say. Thank you.
[00:40:51] Speaker A: But the, but it's a good point though. Like the, this is something that is very harmful from a live standpoint, quality of life standpoint, and you know, it's prevalent throughout society, but it doesn't generate the level of energy and passion that some of the other issues that may actually cost from a live standpoint and a financial standpoint as much on society. And that's not to say that those other things shouldn't get attention, but we should consider that maybe we should give this one more because of that.
From my standpoint, what stood out to me in this was kind of that the fda, in science and so forth, the acknowledgement here that people will not be able to stop this overconsumption of salt voluntarily. Like, they're just unable to. Like, you can tell people all the facts you want. You can tell them, hey, this won't, you know, like, this is bad for you and ever, but people are going to do it if it's available.
And part of the reasoning on this recommendation and what the FDA is trying to do is that if competition won't solve this, because people will generally seek out the foods that taste that meets their, their, their desired taste. And is if there are, there's food producers and restaurants that have the higher salt content, they're going to be at a competitive advantage. And so therefore it won't work to just have the market solve this problem. So this is why you have regulation. This is why this is a scenario where the market won't solve it because of the way we behave. And so the thinking being that if everyone reduces their Salt content by 15%, then what actually will happen is that our taste buds will adjust and we'll become accustomed to lesser salt. And it won't reduce over the long term, it won't reduce our enjoyment in our food, but it will allow us to reduce from across the board. And if one person is doing it or 50% of the people are doing it, then what may happen is, is that people may just a lot of people, you know, enough from a market standpoint will just avoid those places and go to the places with the high sodium. So they're trying to solve it from a systemic standpoint. You know, overall and bring the baseline down across the board and it seems like a good idea, you know, because if the, if it's acknowledged that hey, if high salt foods are available and you put them, if somebody has, you know, a pizza pocket on one hand and some celery on the other hand, and you're giving people the choice on which one they want, guess what? The market is going to fail us there. And so we need to do something across the board. So I thought that was, I mean, but that, that's what we want from a administrative agency like this is to identify that kind of stuff and then figure out ways and whether it needs to be mandatory or not. I'm not really here to discuss at this point. I think it's worthwhile to try to get voluntary compliance at least. But if this is killing people like that, eventually we may need to look at maybe it necessarily not mandatory, but penalties or some other ways to try to really do even more to control people into this. Particularly again if it's not something that the market is capable of solving on its own.
[00:43:58] Speaker B: Yeah, and I think it's just interesting because you're right. I mean when I see corporate America that makes profit off of selling products a certain way, being asked to voluntary change, voluntarily change, I kind of laugh because I'm like, well shoot, if I own General Mills or one of these food companies, just pick any of them. I don't even want to pick on them. And I'm making hand over fist right now in the way it is. Why would I change?
[00:44:25] Speaker A: Well, but that's kind of the thing. You would definitely wouldn't if you're General Mills. You definitely wouldn't if Kellogg isn't, you.
[00:44:30] Speaker B: Know, you're like, oh, that's what I mean. And so, and so it's just, you know, it's like asking, you know, it's like asking the fossil fuel companies to voluntarily just, you know, start getting off oil to deal with climate change. It's just not going to happen voluntarily. And that's just human behavior. So I think, you know, without it being mandatory, I don't think it's going to have much effect because you make a good point that unless everyone does it, the consumer will still run to the better tasting one, which probably has more sodium, which means that everyone else is going to still try and sell their product.
But this is where it's just interesting because this is where the great tension in our country and our culture comes between like regulation and non regulation, you know, free markets versus where it is the government's role in doing. Because if one thing I could see an argument, you know, this is private enterprise. And people can be, you know, are generally educated about sodium in today's world. And there's, you know, calorie counts and sodium counts on the back of the packaging. And isn't that enough? That individual can make up their own mind.
[00:45:29] Speaker A: So let me sell that person some leaded paint or some leaded gasoline.
[00:45:34] Speaker B: But what I'm saying is then there's the other side that says, okay, well, it's hard. Salt is something that's addicting. It hits people's brain a certain ways. The food industry knows how to market. They know how to hide it. Da da da da da da, Right. And that's what it is. So is the role of a government when you know that something is taking the lives of 400,000 people and citizens of your country a year, that's costing your economy a trillion dollars a year, that if this were able to be somewhat dealt with and reduced, that it would kind of grease the wheels of your society a little bit better.
What is the government's role? Should they put a strong hand down like a China would and say, no, every company got to conform to this or you're breaking a law and we'll deal with you that way, like China.
[00:46:21] Speaker A: Would or like a European Union would or very like. It's not like China invokes a certain kind of mentality, but this is, you know, you look at the democracies in various parts in Europe, and they do this a lot of stuff that we do in America.
[00:46:35] Speaker B: Well, when I lived in Australia, for example, their McDonald's, when I had McDonald's in Australia, you know, they didn't have a super size that just didn't exist. And their large was the size of our medium.
They just had different portions. And also they didn't allow their cattle to be raised with the same hormone and antibiotics that we do here. So I agree with you.
[00:46:58] Speaker A: There are a lot of democracies that won't around the world that don't allow food to be sold in their country the way it's sold here.
[00:47:03] Speaker B: Yeah, but that's what I'm saying is that's what makes our country unique in a sense, where you have this kind of the corporatocracy, right. Like corporate America at the high level, The S&P 500 type of, of power is just as powerful as our government. And most nations don't have that. Their government is the overriding power in the nation. So I'm not here to comment on that, whether it's good or bad, because I'm sure it's got pros and cons, but I think that's what makes our system very unique. When you're trying to have something like this, the health of the nation being dictated by, let's say, a government hand, you run the risk in the United States that that also backfires and that it causes resistance. So. Because remember what happened when First Lady Michelle Obama tried to do that thing about sugar reducing sugar and you know, large portion of the country just laughed at her and made fun of it.
[00:48:01] Speaker A: Well, but I mean some of that though there was a hostility to her and so it's hard to separate that out.
[00:48:06] Speaker B: But that's what I'm saying is that Reagan, whether in our country the messenger, matters a lot more than I think in other societies right now.
[00:48:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:17] Speaker B: And so like, had this been a lot of other nations, we can think of even the democracies, not, let's say, authoritarian only.
I don't know if the half of a society would push back just because the prime minister just reflexively.
[00:48:30] Speaker A: Yeah, reflectively.
[00:48:31] Speaker B: Reflexively, where they were trying to do something like reduce sugar in kids school lunches. Like you would think that most people like, yeah, you know, we've got an obesity problem with 10 year olds in this country, we should be doing something. But like you say that, you know, there's an immediate reflexive reaction depending who the messenger is in our nation. And that's sad. That's what's going to hinder us going forward in the long run because it goes back to the TPP like we talked about in the last section, that it prevents us from long term planning. And this could be an example of long term health planning for our country.
[00:49:02] Speaker A: Yeah, it is an example of long term because you won't feel the effects of something like this like in the next year, you'll feel in the next five years, the next 10 years.
[00:49:10] Speaker B: And also long term economic, like we say about it's costing us a trillion a year. I mean, are we bitching about how much money we're spending on infrastructure? I mean, imagine we save that money from reducing sodium, you know. Yeah, just like. Yeah.
[00:49:20] Speaker A: So just if you could.
[00:49:21] Speaker B: These are choices. Yeah, these are choices we're making. Exactly.
[00:49:25] Speaker A: Or, and the failure to make a choice is a choice as well. That's, that's what I'm saying. Make a decision.
[00:49:30] Speaker B: We're choosing to be this way by omission. And I would say we have a podcast. So thank You, America.
[00:49:37] Speaker A: The one thing that you said that kind of just my final thought on this that I wanted to express is that the tension that you talked about as far as how much government intervention is appropriate or necessary in various issues being kind of a fundamental question that we wrestle with in this country, much more so than a lot of other countries. And some of that is the nature of the country. But I think a lot of times people do not contemplate the idea that the government, the way our country is set up and the way that most sovereigns are set up is the governments are oftentimes the only legitimate counterbalance to big business, so to speak. Like big business would run the show but for government, you know, and so big business would do whatever it wants to do. That very rarely in human societies labor unions were temporarily, maybe 70 or 80% as powerful as big business temporarily for 20 years or so. And that's it in this country. Not really. That doesn't happen much. But typically speaking, the big business will do whatever. They will try to internalize their profits and externalize their costs as much as possible, by and large, but for government action. And so again, whether that's leaded gasoline or whether that's emissions or whether that whatever it is, they will try to figure out ways to make the most money and to externalize the cost as most. This is one of those examples where putting the salt in marketing in a way, a certain. Or putting sugar in. We've talked about other conversations.
They know how it affects our brains and they can do that. They can ramp up their prices or excuse me, their, their, their profits based on doing that, getting us hooked and so forth. And the costs of doing that are all external to them. They don't pay those costs because those are health care costs, those are societal costs and so forth. So this is what government is for, is to try to balance that out a little bit and say, well, look, you can't engage in behaviors, you big business can't engage in behavior. Cigarettes is another example of this. You can't engage in behaviors that are, while very profitable for you, put all the expense back on society at large. You know, we have to meter that a little bit.
And so if government's not going to do this, then there's not much else for government to do in order from the standpoint of having a sustainable society because eventually the costs are going to overrun.
You'll have again, one rich person with all the money or ten rich people, a lot of money, and government will cease to exist as a form from the people. And it'll only be for it to represent those 10 interests.
[00:52:12] Speaker B: Or they could just keep printing money.
[00:52:15] Speaker A: Hey, that's gotten us this far.
[00:52:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I kind of like that one.
I'm just gonna have my hand out.
[00:52:21] Speaker A: Hey, man, you gotta think of the little.
[00:52:23] Speaker B: I'm gonna go sit under a tree and watch the blue jays fight. That's what I'm gonna do.
[00:52:27] Speaker A: Hey, that's. That's. That'll keep your mind in a good place.
[00:52:30] Speaker B: The older I get, the more that I enjoy watching ducks and blue jays.
[00:52:34] Speaker A: Cool. So.
[00:52:36] Speaker B: So, yeah, but that's pretty much.
I'm done.
We can wrap up.
[00:52:41] Speaker A: We got a wrap for here. Okay. All right. Well, today I talked enough about salt.
[00:52:46] Speaker B: Let me go get some lunch.
[00:52:47] Speaker A: Well, I'll tell you this. I'm just happy that we made it through without you telling us that we had to eat our broccoli, because I swore that was coming. And either one of these topics, I swore that it was coming and we were gonna have to eat our broccoli. But, you know, we've gotten.
[00:53:00] Speaker B: Watch how much salt you put on the broccoli.
[00:53:02] Speaker A: Hey, that's gonna be the thing. Thing, right? So. Well, now we appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of Call It Like I See It. And until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:53:10] Speaker B: I'm broccoli.
[00:53:12] Speaker A: All right, subscribe, rate, review. Tell us what you think of the podcast, and we'll talk to you next time.
