Factual Dispatch #21: Swine & Milkshakes

The trade war heats up, China's pig population is having a tough time, and milkshakes may be replacing the tomato as the protest implement of choice

May 31, 2019

China has a hog of a problem. One of the hallmarks of entry into the middle class is consumption of some form of meat, and the Chinese have gone from consuming 30lbs of meat a year in the 1980s to 140lbs per person per year. While the ramifications for climate change of this are being studied, the tribulations of the Chinese pork markets have been amplified by the trade war, leading us to very precarious places.

Two weeks ago, Reuters reported new slaughterhouse policies being put in place by China, resulting in hog producers pushing frozen reserves onto the market. This was done to stem the effects of the African Swine Flu epidemic currently ravaging the continent, forcing the Chinese to dip into their strategic pork reserve. To put the epidemic in perspective, China has lost 16 million metric tons of pork, more swine than the EU or USA produce annually.

And this crisis isn’t just limited to the world pork markets. The American soybean market has taken a shellacking due to the trade war, and the pig-pocalypse is causing another 6% haircut because it’s one of the main ingredients of pig feed. The two together, Trump’s tariff shenanigans and the porcine equivalent of the Black Death have seriously shaken world markets.There are serious concerns about how companies in China are disposing of the millions of pig carcasses, and pork imports jumped 24% in April, compared to last year. This won’t be nearly enough, and data is already coming in to show that poultry production is spiking to meet the gap in demand for white meat from the middle class. There’s a lesson about globalization and the interconnected latticework of markets here that I assume Trump, Lighthizer, and the rest of the USA’s trade junket will miss entirely.

Trade Wars: Easy To Win

Speaking of selfish myopic idiots, there’s a lot to unpack when it comes to the unforced error that is Trump’s (recently expanded) Trade War. so for everyone playing the home game, here’s what’s been up:

From the mouths of every PR organ or analyst studying China, foreign and domestic, this is just the beginning. We’re in the process of re-restricting tech exports to Asia, China is busy crafting a defensive/nationalist narrative, and this all happened before the verbal jousting surrounding rare earths began.

For all of China’s bluster, some moves will be less effective than others. The Carnegie Endowment studied what China could do to us given their holdings of our securities, and there’s not much that wouldn’t also blow up in their face. They may have tried to hit Australian pilots with lasers during a recent maritime exercise, but that has only hardened the resolve of anti-China voices in the Australian military. Xi Jinping

However, there are still real casualties in this trade war. American universities, especially land grant state schools in flyover country, subsidize a ton of in-state student tuition with immigrant dollars. With the rampant xenophobia and increasingly bitter targeting of Chinese scientists, wealthy families think sending their kids to school here may not be idea it once it was. China’s military, for all of its technological advancement, witnessed another rocket fail in mid-launch last week. Its community of artists and free thinkers are more associated with Berlin than any Chinese city.

While it’s easy to think of trade as a zero sum game, either between countries or between workers and capital, there’s better wisdom out there. Current Affairs has a great treatise on how the Left should think about Trade, and how it can be used to fight for the rights of workers even outside of the USA. Ben Thompson has an amazing, sober discussion of China, its leverage and their protectionist values over at Stratechery. The farther we push China into competition instead of cooperation, the more they’ll allow companies to violate international conventions, like the ones identified spewing Ozone this week. Both our economy and China’s risk sliding back into recession over this, so let’s hope adults arrive any day now to sort it out.

Milkshakes

If you’ve started to see your more British or leftist friends posting about milkshakes, here’s a quick explainer. Tommy Robinson, noted racist, xenophobe, ex-con, and far-right soccer hooligan, was trying to get elected recently. On a campaign stop, a righteous lad, emulating the kid who egged the far-right asshole in Australia, scored a direct hit on Tommy with a milkshake. While the lad took a beating for it and has since received death threats, the mask of polite society he’d been feigning for the cameras slipped. So clearly, someone did it to him again. Sargon of Akkad, a far right YouTube celebrity and UKIP party member, was milkshake’d four times in a week. Then Nigel Farage, who got so scared after it happened, refused to show his face when protesters showed up with dairy treats.

Nigel Farage reportedly got stuck on his Brexit Party campaign bus after people armed with milkshakes surrounded him.

The politician is said to have refused to leave the vehicle just days after he was covered in banana and salted caramel milkshake in Newcastle.

This has led to some hysterical commentary and whataboutism from the far right. The same people who claim that lone gunmen are heroes and waves away bad apples when mass shootings happen, went on to call the milkshake incidents assassination attempts, with all of the pearl clutching you’d expect from kindergarten teachers.

Milkshakes are the natural evolution of the tomato, egging, glitter-bomb, and other absurdist protests that involve the people chucking food at politicians. Fast food milkshakes are surprisingly dense, cheap, taste way better than rotting garbage, and explode on impact beautifully, without causing the injury that a rock, battery, or molotov cocktail would cause. Now that Tommy Robinson & UKIP not only lost hard in their election, their fundraising methods have been unearthed, I bet we’ll be seeing a lot more milkshaking in the future.

Eye-Watering Data Visualization of the Week: 

This population study by Slate. Also, the increase in the price of Insulin since 1997. Also also, monthly active users of social media brand, by owner, or as I call them, Zuckerberg and the 7 dwarves.

Vaguely Dystopian News of the Week: In China, a disappointing-but-expected array of companies are assisting China in building its neo-surveillance state.  But somewhat reassuringly, on the domestic front, facial recognition still sucks, as it's been a while since tech reported a literal 0% hit rate. Also, you can hack a fax by sending it a specific picture. I wish I was kidding.Annoying-But-Correct Take of the Week: Millennials worship at the altar of ambition and work. That’s not sustainable. Also there's no such thing as a bumbling executive or celebrity, so we need to stop letting these fuckboys off the hook. "Huh, Interesting" Read of the Week: Tattoos don’t show up in pictures taken using Wet Plate Photography, a technique used to develop early film. This has oddly interesting implications on our historical understanding of tattoo. Also, everything should take 20 minutes. Any longer, give yourself breaks, any shorter, it doesn’t feel like a real task.

Royal Sampler

Remember the War on Terror? It’s still going on, and Foreign Policy has ideas on how to end it. (by Brahma Chellany)

“There is an old saying that a republican is just an anarchist without the strength of his convictions. We might propose instead that a republican is an anarchist with political common sense, who knows that at the end of any given political day, so to speak, an exercise of authority will probably be required.”

How Socialism Eats Itself and what the DSA and other Social Democrats can do to avoid that fate. (by Win McCormack)

Longer exhalations as a part of a deep breathing practice is one of the best things you can do for your health. Here’s the physiological reason as to why. (by Christopher Bergland)

The Recording Industry stands at a precipice, when it comes to technology, and labor relations. I’m not optimistic, but if the right people make the right calls, the world of music could be materially better for it, forever.

Selective Attention is a skill that very few people have, and even fewer actively cultivate. (by James Clear)

Botanical Sexism is the cause of your allergies. Yes, the patriarchy has even fucked up plants. (by Thomas Leo Ogren)

New Yorkers are struggling to understand what’s going on with the Specialized High School test, and the misinformation campaign being conducted in secret on Chinese American WeChat channels is not helping. (by Mia Shuang Li)

After a Tokyo medical school stopped rigging their exam, women outscored men for the first time in the school’s history. On a related note, research has proven that women are more productive in warmer offices, while men may shine in colder ones. Understanding what makes for an equal playing field has never been more important.

Mueller did not save us and it’s time to accept that we have to fix this problem ourselves (by Elie Mystal, my favorite legal writer working right now.)

Dunk of the Week: 

The summer is heating up, storms are coming, and the year is almost halfway over. What’s next for you?

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