Tag Archives: famine

The Ukraine war could go for years. Don’t make a famine.

Russia is a collapsing, corrupt state with no meaningful elections. It is also the biggest exporter of food, fertilizer, gas, and oil. Nearly 2 years ago, it invaded Ukraine, another collapsing, corrupt, food-exporting state with suspended elections.

Both countries are in the midst of demographic collapse, with Ukraine worse off. Ukraine was invaded though, and thus has the better claim to our support. Then again Russia has atomic bombs. It’s also the largest exporter of wheat (or was), while Ukraine is only the 5th largest (or was before the war). The other three big exporters are the US, Canada, and France. They have benefitted financially, but don’t have near enough output to make up for lost Russian and Ukrainian production.

Ukraine’s grain terminals in flames, Odessa..

Food and energy prices have gone up, world wide, and will probably continue to rise as the war stretches on. This could lead to a global famine and mass starvation, particularly in the poorest areas of Africa, the Mid East, and India. Unfortunately, the war is popular and patriotic, in Europe, Russia, Ukraine, and the US. It’s good business for our armaments industry, and for our recent mega-farmers (like Bill Gates). Also, for our political and spy class. They spend with little government oversight, and just recently misplaced $16 billion. Surely some of that lost money snuck back to the CIA and our politicians’ pockets. We’d have oversight, but “there’s a war on.”

As wars go, the death toll is low, a total of 354,000 dead and injured on both sides, as revealed by recently leaked documents. This is a small fraction of the countries population. Russia has lost 223,000 soldiers killed or wounded, 0.2% of the population, while the Ukrainians had lost 131,000. That’s 0.3%, many of them civilians. The death rate in the two countries during this time was 3.1 million people, 1.8% of the total, mostly from heart disease, accidents, and alcoholism.

The Ukrainian population. Lots of retirees, few kids, very few of military age. This is a disaster, not a country.

Even more destructive to Russia and Ukraine is the demographic collapse. The fertility rate in Russia is 1.5 child per woman, up fro 1.2 in 2000. For a stable population at low infant death, you need about 2.1 children per woman. Russia has had this low rate for a generation, at least 30 years. The net result is that we can expect that Russia’s population will drop by a third or so over the next generation, about 50 million. In Ukraine the fertility rate is even lower, 1.21 per woman, up from 1.1. It’s been this way for 30 years, the equivalent of killing off 1/2 of the population. Aside from leaving the countries full of old people, with no one to do the work, the demographic collapse is producing a cultural shift that virtually guarantees the breakup of Ukraine and the Russian federation. Europe also has this problem, but they have immigration, and that helps a little. Russia has no immigration, and recently resorted to kidnapping Ukrainian children.

The loss of Russian and Ukrainian exports means famine for the poor importers and food inflation for all.

The coming food and energy shortage is likely to lead to mass migration, I expect. Europe has stopped taking delivery of Russian food and energy, in solidarity with Ukraine. Meanwhile Russia has been destroying Ukrainian fields and food infrastructure. Russia ruined a dam last month, flooding Ukraine’s fields, and yesterday destroyed the grain terminals at the port of Odessa,. This was tit-for-tat since Ukraine destroyed a key bridge, and Crimea’s irrigation canal. What’s more, evidence suggests that Ukraine blew up the Nord Stream pipeline — a key source of finance for Russia and Germany. This sort of tit-for-tat escalated to WWI, fueled by a belief, on both sides, that they would win “decisively and quickly.”

The result of WWI is that Germany was the biggest loser, losing men and land, and suffering a killing famine in 1916. It militarized to prevent it happening again, leading to WWII. Germany is the biggest loser of this war, I’d say, aside from Ukraine. I fear it will militarize. Russia invaded Ukraine but claims a need to militarize. Biden’s promise that Ukraine’s will join NATO is a threat to Russia, as is our delivery of F16s, missiles and cluster bombs. We are killing Russians, and Putin doesn’t like it. Add to this, that Ukraine’s claim for independence rests mostly on its Nazi collaboration. For the good of everyone, maybe we can stop adding gasoline to this fire.

Ukraine deserves our support, I think, but that support need not go beyond small-ish arms, energy deliveries, and tariffs on Russian goods. I think we should Ukraine and Russia export food and energy. Even without WWIII, a world famine and a military Germany does no one any good.

Robert Buxbaum, July 20, 2023. When I was a teen, it was a given that war was bad. Now, for some reason, the kids are in for war, especially the more liberal classes. I find this absolutely bizarre.

New Chinese emperor, will famine not follow

For most of its 2300 year history, the Chinese empire has rattled between strong leaders who brought famine, and weak leaders who brought temporary reprieve. Mao, a strong leader, killed his associates plus over 100 million by his “great leap forward” famine. Since then, 30+ years, we’ve had some weaker leaders, semi-democracy, and some personal wealth, plus the occasional massacre, e.g. at Tiananmen square, and a growing demographic problem. And now a new strongman is establishing himself with hopes of solving China’s problems. I hope for the best, but fear the repeat of the worse parts of Chinese history.

Two weeks ago, Chairman Xi amended the Chinese constitution to make himself emperor for life, essentially. He’s already in charge of the government, the party, and the military. Yesterday (Tuesday), he consolidated his power further by replacing the head of the banks. The legal system is, in theory, is the last independent part of government, but there is hardly any legal system in the sense of a balance of power. If history is any guide, “Emperor” Xi will weaken the courts further before the year is out. He will also likely remove many or all of his close associates and relatives. It is not for nothing that Nero, Stalin, and Mao killed their relatives and friends — generally for “corruption” following a show trial.

China's Imperial past is never is quite out of sight. Picture from the Economist.

China’s past is never is quite out of sight. Picture from the Economist.

Xi might be different, but he faces a looming demographic problem that makes it likely he will follow the president of the stronger emperors. China’s growth was fueled in part by a one child policy. Left behind is an aging, rural population with no children to take care of the elderly. As top-down societies do not tolerate “useless workers,” I can expect a killing famine within the next 10 years. This would shed the rural burden while providing a warning to potential critics. “Burn the chicken to scare the monkey,” is a Chinese Imperial aphorism. Besides, who needs dirt farmers when we have modern machines.

Lazy beds (feannagan) use only half the soil are for planting. The English experts were sure this was inefficient and land-wasting. Plowing was imposed on Ireland, and famine followed

“Lazy beds” of potatoes were used in Ireland for a century until experts forced their abandonment in the mid 1800s. The experts saw the beds, and the Irish as lazy, inefficient, and land-wasting. Famine followed.

Currently about 40% of the country is rural, about 560 million people spread out over a country the size of Canada or the US. The rest, 60% or 830 million, live concentrated in a few cities. The cities are rich, industrial, and young. The countryside is old, agricultural and poor, salaries are about 1/3 those of the cities. The countryside holds about 2/3 of those over 65, about 100 million elderly with no social safety net. The demographic imbalance is likely to become worse — a lot worse — within the next decade.

What is likely to happen, I fear, is that the party leaders — all of whom live in the cities — will decide that the countryside is full of non-productive, uneducated whiners. They will demand that more food should be produced, and will help them achieve this by misguided science and severe punishments. Mao’s experts, like Stalin’s and Queen Victoria’s, demanded unachievable quotas and academic-based advice that neither the leaders nor the academics had ever tried to make work. Mao’s experts told peasants to kill the birds that were stealing their grain. It worked for a while until the insects multiplied. As for the quotas, the party took grain as if the quotas were being met. If the peasants starved, they starved.

I expect that China’s experts will propose machine-based modern agriculture, perhaps imported from the US or Israel: Whatever is in style at the time. The expert attitude exists everywhere to this day, and the results are always the same. See potato famine picture above. When the famine comes, the old will request food and healthcare, but the city leaders will provide none, or just opioids as they did to ailing Elvis. When the complaining stops the doctor is happy.

China's population pyramid as of 2016. Notice the bulge of 40-55 year olds.

China’s population pyramid as of 2016. Notice the bulge of 40-55 year olds. Note too that there are millions more males (blue) than females (pink).

In single leader societies, newspapers do not report bad news. Rather, they like to show happy, well-fed peasants singing the leaders’ praise. When there’s a riot too big to ignore, rioters are presented as lazy malcontents and counter-revolutionaries. Sympathizers are sent to work in the fields. American academia will sing the praises of the autocratic leader, or will be silent. We never see the peasants, but often see the experts. And we live in a society where newspapers report only the bad, and where we only believe when there pictures. No pictures, no story. As with Stalin’s Gulags, Mao’s famine, or North Korea today, there are likely to be few pictures released to the press. Eventually, a census will reveal that tens of million aged have vanished, and we’ll have to guess where they went.

I can expect China to continue its military buildup over the next decade. The military will be necessary to put down riots, and keep young men occupied, and to protect China from foreign intervention. China will especially need to protect its ill-gotten, new oil-assets. Oil is needed if China is to replace its farmers with machines. It will be a challenge for a wise American leader to avoid being drawn into war with China, while protecting some of our interests: Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc. As with Theodore Roosevelt, he should offer support and non-biassed mediation. Is Trump up to this?  Hu Knows?

Robert Buxbaum, March 21, 2018. The above might be Xi-nephobia, Then again, this just in: Chairman Xi announces that Taiwan will face punishment if it attempts to break free. Doesn’t sound good.