UN World Food Program head David Beasley announced yesterday that global food rations for refugees will need to be cut in half due to the unprecedented food crisis. How much of this crisis is man-made as the elites use food as a weapon in what has turned out to be a futile effort to punish Russia? How much of the food and energy crisis is actually being cheered by those pushing the "green" agenda? Also today: Slovakia miffed that Germany won't replace junky Soviet tanks sent to Ukraine with shiny new German models for free.
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today is Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, good to see you today.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you this morning?
Doing fine, thank you.
A little bit warm down here.
But we're going to talk about some people who aren't doing quite so well.
You know, this has been predicted, and it's not a surprise.
It shouldn't shock anybody who has even a very primitive understanding of economics that food might become a problem in an inflationary age.
And that's what's going on.
And we want to talk a little bit about that because the United Nations are worried about it.
And they're going to do their best to keep any serious problems from happening.
And so what have they done so far?
Well, just this weekend, or this week, it says the UN food chief have the refugees' meal rations, cut the rations in half.
So it is a little bit complex, but if you just say, put everything that the government has done as far as regulating food, you know, you could explain everything that's going wrong.
And right now, so far, most of the things that we're going to read today, there's a hint that there's a few people out there that know that exactly what's wrong.
It's too much government regulation.
But it's really the government that has brought this about.
And this is, you know, I could say what we're talking about here is Russia, China, or, you know, Africa.
Well, that's, you know, they're more predator.
They don't have enough food.
We shouldn't be surprised.
But guess what?
There are people in this country that are having trouble getting food as well.
But, you know, there's the major factors that causes starvation and hunger under these conditions is basically what's happening in an age of inflation because the pricing of food is difficult and planning, it messes up economic planning.
So just the fact that a monetary system is messed up and devaluates the currency.
Then you have people on the extreme like in Zimbabwe and Bobesia.
It gets very bad in so many places, including this country in the past and I believe going on right now.
And also what happens under these conditions, especially if you throw in COVID or something, distribution of everything becomes more difficult.
And that can happen internationally as well.
If there's a war going on someplace in the world, this is always a major drain as well.
But then if you top this off with what we've been doing as a nation for not five years or ten years, that's policy.
And it's amazing how everybody's rolled over about protectionism and sanctions.
And with all that, it just wrecks everything.
They've killed the invisible hand.
You know, where things worked out when you allowed people to make their decision.
So now they think that, well, first they're going to demand more money to feed people, and then they're going to cut the food stamps to the people who are starving.
And they're probably not going to look at the foreign policy or specifically what has happened because, you know, Russia's involved in this.
And they claim some people think they can punish Russia because they could lower the price and they're inhibiting the distribution of wheat and other things from Ukraine and from Russia.
And if Russia can do that, because we've learned a lesson in the West, well, we do, we'll fix those Russians.
We're going to put sanctions on their oil.
And they say, oh, okay.
And of course, everybody knows what's happening.
They're doing quite well selling oil.
So they're probably not going to do much better on the food.
But it is, you know, this is so messy when you compare it to the beliefs that we have on how liberty works.
You know, there are so many decisions to be made in any society, economically and socially, religious-wise, and everything.
And then when the government gets involved in doing that, it's an overwhelming task.
But, you know, there's this demand, the globalism.
And right now, in the forefront of this food shortage, United Nations.
Everybody's putting the bet on the United Nations.
If they just could get a little bit more money, there will be a cure for this, more government regulation.
Not going to work.
It'll probably work like us punishing the Russians on their oil exports.
Yeah, we've talked about it before.
What's happened is pretty simple and pretty easy to see.
And the governments that should be blamed are not being blamed.
But the whole idea, as you say, put sanctions on the Russians, make it hard for them to sell their oil.
Well, it's a global market, and so the price of oil has skyrocketed.
Russia goes to friendly countries like China and India and says, hey, here's the world price of oil.
We're going to give you a 30% discount.
I'm a bargain shopper.
My eyes would open up if I saw 30% off today only.
So they're selling it at a 30% to 40% discount to friendly countries.
And they're still making tons more than they would have made before these sanctions hit.
And they're literally financing their war by this increased prices.
So we are literally aiding and abetting the financing of the war with this policy.
But let's put up the first, because that's just one aspect, and there are so many aspects of it.
But this is from the UN website, the World Food Program website, and it is very serious.
Amidst escalating needs and soaring hunger, refugees caught in the eye of the perfect storm.
And from Zero Hedge, here's a quote from David Beasley.
He's the director of the UN World Food Program, if we put that next one up.
And here's what he's talking about.
And yes, it's a headline grabber, but I think it's something that should be paid attention to.
He released a statement detailing the heartbreaking decision to cut food rations for refugees who rely on us for survival.
And he says, as global hunger soars way beyond the resources available to feed all the families who definitely desperately need our help, we're being forced to make the heartbreaking decision to cut food rations for refugees.
And of course, some of this, as you suggest, Dr. Paul, maybe a ploy for money, you know, and that is some of it.
But we've been watching the warnings for weeks now that all of these sanctions, all of these actions, plus a lot of other things that we'll talk about today, they're all going to gather together and they're going to hit the poorest and the most vulnerable first and worst.
And now we're finally starting to see it.
That's right.
And, you know, this type of problem is very complex, but it's not new.
And I was just thinking of the times when it got the major attention and found a spot in history on it.
There was something a long time ago.
Most people have read about this in history, that there was a promise of bread and circuses, and you could have it.
It finally ended an empire.
It was so bad that you could have all the luxuries that you want of an inflated society.
And also, you could have a lot of fun, sit around and go to the circuses.
But then there are some other ones that have occurred.
In the 60s, the saying always was, and then especially, you know, after Johnson got in, he says, we can have guns and butter.
We don't have to cut back.
That was all through the 60s.
That brought down the dollar.
The dollar had to be declared bankrupt in 1971 and a massive inflation of the 70s.
And right now we're in the midst.
It's a little more complex because it's more complicated.
But right now, what are we talking about?
We're talking about food.
Oh, they're coming up short of food.
And yet everybody wants tanks.
Food and tanks and weaponry.
And there will be some people making some money off that.
And it might be, you know, I made a suggestion to you, Daniel, and you didn't take me up on it, but I thought it was a great thing.
If these people need to make so much profit on weapons, why don't we have this law that says, yeah, you can buy the weapons, but you're not allowed to have any bullets or something.
But that's not the case.
And it's that type of policy around the world, and the United Nations being in.
But the United Nations, and I see the United Nations and NATO and all this globalism all one and the same.
And that's been around.
They're the ones who got us into this trouble.
So how are they going to expect the UN to solve this problem?
How are we going to expect NATO to figure this out?
And how are we going to take the bullets away from the military industrial complex?
Well, let's put on this next clip because we want to talk a little bit about causes because there are plenty and it's easy to point the finger at one thing, but I think that's insufficient.
And this is from the FT Financial Times of last month.
It says, African Union warms of collateral impact as EU's Russia sanctions hit food supply.
So again, this is a warning about a month ago, and we've seen many of them.
But so what is the issue?
Well, African countries were having a difficult time buying things because of the Russia sanctions, including on the SWIFT, because they would use the SWIFT system to buy fertilizer, to buy grains, to buy seed, what have you.
So Russia being shut out of SWIFT is causing a lot of damage to the global food supply market for what food they can raise there.
But it's not, again, as you say, Dr. Paul, we can't just blame the sanctions, although they're a big part of it.
But if you look at what we're having, we just had two years of COVID, you know, and all of those lockdowns and shutdowns drastically and desperately affected the food supply, the supply chain, everything from A to Z, even though Biden wants us to believe that it's Putin's price hike.
No, it's something that's not even just his fault because Trump and a lot of the world leaders went along with it.
But you also have, because of the war, you have less area planted, and Russia and Ukraine are the biggest exporters of grain in the world.
So you have less area planted because it's all being blown up.
You have less workers to do the planning because they're all getting blown up themselves.
And you have the sanctions on fuel, fertilizer.
You know, the biggest producers of fertilizer are also Russia and Ukraine.
You can't buy it from Russia now.
So there's a lot of factors.
And again, I think really the perfect storm is a good way to describe it.
So the sad reality is that millions of people are probably going to at least be hungry or die because of this.
You know, you're not allowed to mention this because it's so controversial or at least people think it's unpatriotic.
But one of the final conclusion, concluding event to precipitate World War II, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, was the freezing of assets where the Japanese couldn't buy fuel.
But you can't say that was the whole thing because the rationale was Japan were bad people and that sort of thing.
But it was, the principle was the same, the freezing of assets over oil.
And there are some pretty good arguments that the negotiations for peace prior to Pearl Harbor were purposely neglected.
That's a bigger story.
But anyway, I think that also there's a lot of other people that want to get involved in this.
And that is the people who want to take advantage of this mess.
The greenies think this is a great deal.
The more chaos and the more problem it is, the better chance they have to getting people out of their cars.
And then they wonder why there's going to be shortages and all, if there's no hydrocarbons.
That whole thing has fallen into the hands of the greenies.
But I don't think they're going to get away with it.
Because it just seems so bizarre that they won't be caught.
And they are getting caught more often now, you know, the far left.
And maybe they won't be able to capitalize on this.
But the whole suggestion, see, they don't back away from it.
They say inflation is actually needed.
If we have it, this provides the opportunity for us to do the right thing, you know, and that is save the world.
Let them die of food shortages, but in the meantime, we're going to make sure that they don't die of CO2.
Yeah.
It's the incredible, incredible arrogance and cruelty of the elites, you know, across the globe.
And here's an example.
This is from Newsweek recently.
And then we'll go to what you mentioned here.
But if we put that next one up, so Africa, we have established a starving.
Here's just a couple weeks ago.
U.S. warns starving African nations to not buy grain stolen by Russia.
So here they are.
They're down there in Africa.
They are literally starving.
And the U.S. says, hey, we got sanctions on that grain.
You better not try to buy that and circumvent these sanctions.
So that shows the unbelievable cynicism and cruelty, which is exasperated by this story you mentioned.
If you can put on the next one, sorry.
The elites, again, CNN analysts suggest inflation is needed to achieve the green agenda.
And this is a host they had on CNN, Reina Foruhar.
I think that's how you pronounce the name from CNN, who came on and she said, This is a great thing.
This is going to be a revolution.
The green is coming in.
Energy, green energy.
You know, what all this made me think about was, you know, the amazing thing that the market can do.
And Adam Smith was pretty good at this, but talking about the invisible hand, while you didn't have economic planning, you had individual planning, and much more good came from it, no matter what the motive was for spending money or doing whatever you want to do.
But it was what some people say, well, that was all chaos, yes, but it was chaos, but it produced very many positive things.
So back then, what he was talking about was not saying, well, what we need is ESG.
We need these investments and these companies that care about the environment and care about social reforms and care about corporate government governance.
My Argument Is Price Inflation00:04:38
And that's what they argue for.
But the fact that we've had all this failure by this, and the big corporations that are all behind this wokeism, the ESG movement and investments, this has distorted the whole system even more so.
But they're trying to do what the market could do.
And I think that's what Adam Smith really brought to our attention.
But no, they're going to do it, but we're going to do more and more of this.
And you just demonstrate how dumb it gets.
How are they going to help the poor people?
Well, we'll go and do ABC, and it makes all the problems worse.
It's dumb, but it's also cruel and evil.
You know, it really is.
And here's Raina Faruhar.
I believe that's how you pronounce it.
Here she is on CNN.
She's actually praying.
People in Africa are starving.
You know, it's a good idea.
I'm sure Raina has not missed a meal, and she's probably not out eating bugs either.
But here's what she had to say.
This is something I think, unfortunately, no politician, particularly the Democrats right now in advance of midterms or presidental election, wants to land on, which is some of the transitions to a kinder, gentler, I believe, more stable and ultimately more resilient economy are going to be inflationary in the short to medium term.
What's the cost of something if you have to actually have a real price on carbon?
And then you have to tally how much it costs to tote it over tens of thousands of miles from the South China Seas.
What's the cost if you have a proper environmental and labor standards?
This is the conversion happening right now.
And once you start pricing all these costs in and you really start thinking about the economy in a different way, yeah, it certainly is inflationary.
That is spoken from someone who, again, has not known any hardship.
You can obviously tell through the way she talks.
The irony of this whole thing is, I'm sure you saw this, Dr. Paul, Germany and the Netherlands have announced they're going back to coal, right?
So they shut the whole thing down for green, for Russia to do all this, and then say, oh my gosh.
What will the greenies say about this?
Yes, coal.
Bring back coal.
I tell you what, there's somebody that's very famous in this country, a woman that was head of the audit, you know, the Fed, and now is a Treasury Secretary.
And she has a solution.
And I'm sure you're going to agree with it.
Let's put an oil cap.
Let's get our friends to put an oil cap and punish the Russians.
I mean, where has she been?
She's proposing that.
And of course, that's only going to make it much worse.
And another statement that has come out with all this worldwide, this is a worldwide event that I'm thinking along those lines.
But it's all together now.
You can't just say it's Africa or it's Ukraine or it's the United States.
It certainly is a world market.
And they said that the real problems are just getting started.
And that's been my argument.
My argument is that we have just barely entered into the price inflation.
Price increases that reflects the monetary inflation of the past.
I actually had data back to 2008.
And so the money's coming out of the woodwork.
We were creating money for a long time.
And people who were in office took credit.
Oh, we don't even have 2% of inflation.
At the same time, that money is coming out now.
COVID and these other things has brought it out.
This has pushed up the price inflation.
And what somebody pointed out, I think it was on Zero Hedge, that the evidence is, food prices, everybody knows about food prices and oil prices.
But what they haven't calculated, and this is on the food, is the cost of production of food.
Maybe cost of land, cost of the energy for enough fertilizers.
Ukraine evidently provides a lot of substance for fertilizer.
That hasn't even been touched.
The prices haven't even moved.
So the prices on food right now going up is past mistakes when it came to it.
Of course, past monetary mistakes.
So the monetary mistakes are going to continue.
At the same time, the prediction by this individual writing this is saying, you know, this is going to get compounded because the cost of production hasn't been worked into it.
Encouraging Engagement With The Show00:02:18
So we look at this and say, well, this was dumb, dumb, dumb, they shouldn't have done it.
And all you have to do is do a little bit less of that.
It's far from it.
It is ingrained.
It's monolithic.
It involves everything.
And then you have this, then you have this group of people who are really the cultural Marxists.
And they like chaos.
They like wokeism and all this stuff.
And so yes, this is the reason why I think that we're in for some really bad times.
But I'm also convinced that if our message get out, it's not our message, it's the message of liberty.
When the message of liberty gets out, find out, you mean that's all we have to do is just let people take care of themselves and get the government out of the way.
And really, it isn't more complicated than that.
Absolutely.
Well, I'm going to close out if you think we're about done.
I'm going to thank our viewers again for watching.
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That's understandable.
We're not going to force you to sit here every day and watch the show, but we certainly appreciate when you do.
But when our numbers go down, Dr. Paul, and I do get a little bit depressed, or at least speaking for myself, a little depressed.
So we do thank you, and we hope that you'll continue to watch and find a way to help us continue the show.
Obviously, a contribution to the Ron Paul Institute, which produces this show, which is tax deductible, would be very, very appreciated.
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Very good.
Regulating Freedom and Prosperity00:03:35
I'm going to close by re-emphasizing this whole notion that many of us hold is that the problems we have is not very, you know, real complicated, and they can be put in place, but there's usually some people who have special agenda and they have power and clout.
But the people know that basically the majority of people still do want to live in a free society, especially when it creates more prosperity.
But you know, people say, well, did it ever happen?
Did people ever switch and all of a sudden test what you're saying?
Did it work?
And the best test was before we became a country at Plymouth Colony, 1620, because the group there, the very, very small group trying to survive and realize how tough things were.
They say, we have to be a collective society.
We have to put things together and then we'll divvy up the food and we will regulate it.
And it was a total failure and the colony was getting worse and more people were dying.
And it looked like it was total disaster and it would end.
And Governor Bradford finally said, let's try something different.
Because it was known back then that there was a difference between government control and also more individual freedom.
So they switched from a total authoritarian society that raised the food and distributed the food and everybody had to obey the rules because it was so dangerous living in Plymouth at that particular time.
So the whole thing is, is that within a year or two, the recovery occurred.
People were given, Bradford changed the rules.
People could have their own plot of land, and they got rewarded for what they did.
It was no time where they had food again, they were taking care of themselves, they were trading again, and it changed the whole thing.
The trouble is, that message of how disastrous socialism was at that time didn't last long enough.
I'm sure the founders knew those examples and made a very sincere attempt to put into the Constitution that opportunity to solve our problems and take care of our lives in a free society.
But we've drifted away from it.
But the message is still there, the desire is still there.
The majority of American people still are there, and they're going to especially look for some answers under today's conditions because we're back to a point where we're not going to have enough food, and the world's beginning to starve.
It's all dependent on and looking to having international government and globalism, united nations, and entangling alliances and wars to bring about prosperity.
Now, it's evident that it doesn't work, and that is why we should take an opportunity.
You know, the bad people take a care, they make an opportunity of it when we have bad things happening that they say, Well, this is an excuse for us cracking down on environmental laws and their agenda.
But it should be that we should look at this and say, It is the radicals and interventionists, the radicals that print money out of thin air and regulate our lives and fight wars that are necessary.
They're the cause of the problem, and therefore, the answer is not so much we'd be creating anything brand new, but just observing what history has shown: that the freer a society, the more prosperous it is.
So, there's no reason why we shouldn't give freedom a chance.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.