Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - April 18, 2022


Ep 601 ｜ Food Shortages & Supply Chains： What’s Coming？ ｜ Guest： Ross Kennedy


Episode Stats

Length

55 minutes

Words per Minute

181.46909

Word Count

10,097

Sentence Count

515

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

14


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. This episode is brought to you by our friends
00:00:05.740 at Good Ranchers. American meat delivered right to your front door. Go to goodranchers.com
00:00:10.620 slash Allie. That's goodranchers.com slash Allie. All right, guys, today we are talking to our
00:00:24.940 friend Ross Kennedy. He is an expert in logistics and supply chains. We talked to him last year in
00:00:32.020 October to tell us why the heck we are not getting the supplies and the food that we need,
00:00:37.980 why are there food shortages, all that kinds of scary stuff. And he really walked us back from the
00:00:43.940 ledge and explained why everything is going on, but that it's going to be okay. And so go listen
00:00:49.500 to that episode if you haven't. It's actually one of my most popular episodes ever. You guys loved
00:00:53.960 it because he is so good at explaining complex things in a way that the average person can
00:00:58.540 understand. So he's going to do that again today. We're going to talk about the state of supply chains,
00:01:02.860 why we are still unable to get the things that we want to get, but also need to get. And how is
00:01:09.000 Russia and Ukraine affecting that? But also how is China and their current actions in places like
00:01:15.380 Shanghai affecting that? We're also going to talk about this fascinating story that's happening in
00:01:22.320 Grand Forks, North Dakota, where a Chinese company is trying to build a plant there that is strategically
00:01:31.880 close to an Air Force base. And what is happening there? Is that project going to go forward? What
00:01:38.300 does that mean for our national security? And it's not just happening there. That kind of thing is
00:01:43.020 actually happening in strategic places across the country. What? That's crazy. So we're going to talk
00:01:50.680 about that. We're going to talk about what we can do as an average citizen. And he's going to kind of
00:01:55.660 paint a picture of worst and best case scenarios for just kind of the state of the world, geopolitics
00:02:03.360 in general, but also specifically supply chains, what he thinks we can expect over the next couple
00:02:08.380 of years. He is a great guest. You're going to learn a lot from this. It's probably going to blow
00:02:12.180 your mind at points. And so I'm excited for you to hear it. But before we get into the conversation,
00:02:16.500 just on a little bit of a lighter note, I hope that you guys had a wonderful Easter.
00:02:21.480 We had a bonus Easter episode on Saturday. It was just a little mini episode just talking about the
00:02:27.500 gospel and why the resurrection matters and why we care about Easter. I tweeted about Easter this
00:02:33.520 week in a few times, and most of them were received how I wanted them to be received. They
00:02:37.720 were well received. But I sent one tweet that caused controversy among Christians that I didn't
00:02:42.600 mean for it to. I guess I should have communicated it more clearly. But I said something along the
00:02:48.700 lines of, you know, the fact that Google doesn't do a little doodle for Easter if they do a doodle
00:02:54.200 for so many other, so many other holidays, including other religious holidays, but they don't do one
00:03:01.000 for Easter. And a lot of a lot of Christians are upset about that, or they point out the bias,
00:03:05.360 which I totally understand. I'm not knocking them for pointing out that bias. However, I'm kind of
00:03:09.820 glad that they don't. Like, let's not allow Easter to be more commercialized than it already
00:03:14.860 is. A lot of people celebrate Christmas, whether they're Christians or not. But the resurrection
00:03:19.140 is different. It's different. And of course, Christmas is just as sacred for Christians. But
00:03:25.900 the resurrection is less commercialized than Christmas is. And I think that that's a good
00:03:30.700 thing. Like, it can't be boiled down to this like trite little doodle on Google. It is offensive.
00:03:37.860 The resurrection is offensive. The resurrection is controversial. The resurrection is polarizing.
00:03:43.980 And I don't mean it's controversial among Christians. Like, we don't know whether it
00:03:47.340 happened or not, which is what some people strangely thought that I was saying. I mean,
00:03:52.680 there were literally people who follow me underneath saying, wow, you hate Christianity. You're calling
00:03:58.220 the resurrection controversial. You hate Christians. Try to hate other religions. I'm like, oh my gosh,
00:04:04.780 can we just take a little fraction of a second to put our thinking caps on for one second and realize
00:04:10.320 that when I say the resurrection is controversial and polarizing and that it's okay that Google doesn't
00:04:15.260 use a doodle, I am not saying that it's bad. I'm saying that that's what Christianity is. It's always
00:04:22.460 been controversial to the world. It has always been polarizing to the world. It has always been
00:04:29.200 the receiver of scorn of the world. It's always been the, it's always been a victim, although I
00:04:37.960 don't really like to use that, use that term, I don't know, recipient of persecution in the world
00:04:44.360 since its very beginning. The cross is controversial and offensive. The gospel is controversial and
00:04:50.080 offensive. Genesis 1.1 is controversial and offensive. That God made the world and he is the
00:04:55.680 authority over all of it. If you believe that, then you can believe the rest of the Bible.
00:04:59.500 If you don't believe that, then the rest of the Bible is going to be really hard to understand and
00:05:02.880 most of the world does not believe Genesis 1.1 and they sure as heck don't believe John 14.6,
00:05:07.220 that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life and that no one can come to the Father except through
00:05:10.900 him. The fact that our God or that our God, that he became flesh and that he rose from the dead,
00:05:18.340 that is what sets Christianity apart. That is the controversial part of it and that's what I was saying.
00:05:24.540 I don't care if Google likes Easter. Let them be offended by Easter. Let them hate Christianity.
00:05:29.840 I really think it's more of like an anti-West, pro-CCP bent that they have than like truly
00:05:36.500 disagreeing with the resurrection or Christian theology. But it is a spiritual problem and I'm
00:05:41.880 okay with that. I'm okay with Google who I think really operates in some ways in an evil way,
00:05:48.040 understanding the gravity and the seriousness and the controversy surrounding Easter and not
00:05:54.140 celebrating it. I don't need them. I don't need them. We're going to celebrate the resurrection as we
00:05:58.440 have for the past 2,000 years and we are going to embrace whatever rejection or criticism or hate or
00:06:06.180 hostility comes from that. That's what I was saying. Also, over the weekends, I ate healthy, as I said,
00:06:16.320 on my Instagram story. I did. I'll just be perfectly honest because we're holding each other accountable.
00:06:22.780 I did eat some like candy Easter egg, the small little candy Easter eggs on Saturday. If you don't
00:06:30.380 know, I'm doing like a 30-day healthy eating plan and working out for at least 10 minutes a day every
00:06:35.280 day for 30 days with my husband who has been doing that and more for 75 days. But anyway, and so I did
00:06:41.920 cheat over the weekend on Saturday, but it's okay. On Sunday, I really wanted to, okay? And so I'm just
00:06:48.440 gonna pat myself on the back here. I really wanted to. I really wanted one of those like Reese's
00:06:55.000 bunnies. I really did. And one of those, it's like an Oreo bunny or no, sorry, the Reese's eggs. And then
00:07:03.080 like the little Oreo bunny. I really, really wanted that on Saturday. And when I was sitting there in the
00:07:09.620 afternoon on the couch and my husband was playing golf, I was like, it would be okay. It would be
00:07:14.640 fine. I could just have a couple. And guys, instead, instead what I did was go work out. I went outside
00:07:22.600 and worked out instead of eating the chocolate that I wanted to eat. And then what did I do? I made
00:07:27.460 myself some guacamole and a turkey patty. That is not what I wanted to do. But let me tell you,
00:07:34.120 just on like a serious note, is that I do think, and those of you who are super disciplined in that,
00:07:40.620 you know this, like making those little decisions, it does, it does build something up. Like it builds
00:07:47.880 up discipline so that the next day you say, you know what? I went the whole day yesterday without
00:07:52.740 giving in to that temptation or whatever it was. I'm not talking about like sin temptation,
00:07:57.560 but temptation to break the rules on your healthy eating plan. And I didn't do it. I resisted it.
00:08:01.880 And so today I can do the same thing. It's the same thing. Like when I was talking about training
00:08:06.280 for the half marathon every week, you know, that all you have to do is run one or one and a half
00:08:10.860 miles more than you did last week. And you can handle that because you've already prepared.
00:08:15.440 You've already prepared so much before this moment. It's the same thing, I think, with healthy eating
00:08:19.240 or with any really hard decision. I actually found that's true in my career too. And I didn't mean to
00:08:23.740 go off on this tangent, but maybe it'll help some of you that whenever I was nervous, I remember the
00:08:30.060 first time that I came to The Blaze in 2017 and I was like doing a Facebook live and they wanted me
00:08:37.280 to do a Facebook live and I was so nervous and I didn't know if I could do it, but then I did it
00:08:41.880 and it was good and it was fine. And then everything after that was like, well, I did that and I was
00:08:46.240 nervous and it was fine. And then the first time I was on Fox News or whatever, I'm like, well,
00:08:50.020 I did that and I was nervous and it was fine. And every moment kind of builds on the last moment.
00:08:55.580 And that's why preparation and discipline and doing scary things and doing hard things
00:09:01.180 is so important because it helps you for whatever moment God is going to bring you to.
00:09:05.840 And God is so strategic and he's so providential that he plans those moments and those risks that
00:09:13.580 you take in your life so that you can be prepared and have the practice to face whatever challenge
00:09:19.160 is coming. All right. That's the beginning of this. Kind of went a lot of different places,
00:09:24.780 doesn't have anything to do with what we are about to talk about, but I hope it encouraged you.
00:09:31.000 Ross, thank you so much for joining us. You joined our show in October, but could you just
00:09:35.900 remind everyone who you are and what you do? Yeah. So I'm the founder of a company called Fortis
00:09:40.420 Analysis. And amongst the many things that we get up to, primarily a strategic consulting firm dealing
00:09:48.140 with logistics supply chain and national security issues. I have numerous different stakeholders
00:09:54.640 around the U.S., around the world, and a finger in a lot of pies as far as data and information and
00:10:01.940 seeing how these things are, you know, these complex systems are. Sometimes they work. Sometimes they are
00:10:09.340 in the midst of a cascading failure like we are right now. And so it's been useful, I guess, to data feed
00:10:17.680 and to be able to explain to people kind of what's going on in the world in a way that helps them
00:10:22.300 understand. So it wasn't the initial intention of Fortis, but it's certainly become part of what
00:10:28.900 we're doing now. Well, logistics is typically behind the scenes. As we talked about last time,
00:10:35.200 most people today don't really think about how our orders get from point A to point B,
00:10:41.860 how our food gets in our grocery store. We start to order it when the thing that we want is
00:10:46.720 unavailable. Either the service that we want is unavailable, or the item that we want is unavailable,
00:10:51.500 or the renovation is going to take longer than usual, or we can't buy a used car or even a new car.
00:10:56.400 And really, for the first time, just your average person has really started thinking about supply
00:11:02.460 chains. In October, we talked because there were many news stories about these shipping containers
00:11:09.480 off the port of Los Angeles and in different parts of the country and the world that were unable
00:11:14.000 to unload and were stuck in some cases. And people didn't really know why. And we kind of blamed it.
00:11:21.260 A lot of Republicans just blamed it on Joe Biden or blamed it on Gavin Newsom. But you really kind of
00:11:25.940 walked us through how the whole supply chain catastrophe that really started to bubble up
00:11:32.240 for the average person at the end of last year, the average person started to notice it. It really goes
00:11:38.260 back before Joe Biden a lot longer than just in the past few months. It's not the fault of any one
00:11:44.440 politician. Can you tell us what has happened since October when it comes to supply chains? Because yes,
00:11:52.320 people still notice this, but I think people have gotten used to it. I don't know. Tell us what has
00:11:57.460 been going on behind the scenes and what we should still be paying attention to and looking out for.
00:12:02.800 Yeah, of course. You know, you made a really good point there that, you know, even as recently as
00:12:09.200 October, people were still wondering what's going on and why are these containers stuck and what's in the
00:12:15.440 containers and why are my shelves empty? And, you know, that's normalcy bias, right? They want to get
00:12:20.940 back to what they had, you know, understood or had known for the longest time. And now I think, you
00:12:27.960 know, we're six months on from that and we've sort of, you know, whether it's good or bad, I'd say we've
00:12:35.660 certainly established something of a new normal with regard to we're just kind of used to not having
00:12:41.460 the availability of product and kind of spoiled for choice the way we were. The newer and interesting
00:12:48.780 developments are really kind of happening. They're twofold. First is the Russia-Ukraine invasion,
00:12:54.060 which has been discussed once or twice in a couple of different forums, right? And the significance of
00:13:01.360 that has really been the disruption to major sources of energy that Europe and the rest of the world rely
00:13:10.660 on, which is, you know, Russian natural gas and crude oil. You're talking about Ukrainian wheat and
00:13:16.300 corn and industrial chemicals and products that are also made in Ukraine that are not able to
00:13:21.940 really get out. And that whole Black Sea region, I think, has been very overlooked for most people,
00:13:29.300 just like the, you know, container sitting off the coast of California had been a months-long issue
00:13:34.440 before people really picked up on it, I would say at a normal, you know, normal observer level.
00:13:40.660 And it's the same for the Black Sea. And the Black Sea is one of the most heavily watched regions of
00:13:43.980 the world for commodities traders. What happens there has an enormous, you know, like a butterfly
00:13:48.940 effect on different markets around the world. And so we're seeing some really significant fears of
00:13:55.900 lack of grain being able to get to the global market out of Ukraine and Russia, some constrictions
00:14:01.760 on energy trade. We're also seeing the impact of sanctions and how that's forcing various nations that
00:14:08.720 trade, you know, primarily China and India, that trade with Russia. They're now denominating their
00:14:13.420 trades and different currencies in order to get around sanctions. And so there's this
00:14:17.720 major global trade realignment that's happening as a result of the Russia-Ukraine war.
00:14:23.480 The other big thing that's going-
00:14:24.040 Yeah, and I just want to pause, I just want to pause right there and dig a little bit into that.
00:14:28.520 And then if you could pick up the thought that you were about, that you were about to explain,
00:14:32.220 because you tweeted, it was at the end of February, and we originally talked about having you on to
00:14:36.520 talk about this. So I'm hoping that you can still recall and explain this. So you tweeted at the
00:14:41.520 end of February, what happens when Russia calls the West Bluff and begins transacting business
00:14:46.020 outside of SWIFT using Yuan and CIPS as clearing houses for trade? The bifurcation is here, I think.
00:14:52.980 Can you explain what you mean by that? Does that have to do with what you're talking about right now?
00:14:56.940 Yes, absolutely. So CIPS is sort of the Chinese version of SWIFT. And SWIFT is a Western, a European,
00:15:08.120 U.S. payment transaction system that allows for companies that are operating in different
00:15:14.240 countries to be able to safely conduct business with one another and know that the documents are
00:15:21.840 going to be secure and that the money, it will be transacted properly. And so we use the SWIFT system
00:15:27.820 as a way of transmitting money from bank to bank worldwide for international trade. And it's really
00:15:33.920 been since it emerged, it's really been the dominant way that global trade gets done is denominated in
00:15:39.880 the major currencies, the euro and the dollar primarily. And that includes for things like oil,
00:15:45.340 that's where we have the petrodollar, where the crude price of crude oil is denominated in U.S.
00:15:51.920 dollars. And so what China is now trying to do is utilize this opportunity and has been for some
00:15:57.620 time planning to try to disrupt or disintermediate the Western system or SWIFT as the way of settling
00:16:04.640 trades by using their CIPS system and denominating trades against the Yuan, the Chinese currency.
00:16:11.680 So what I was saying in there is that in order for these countries to really break away from Western
00:16:20.820 control and the threat of sanctions being such an impactful way to be able to modify behavior,
00:16:29.620 Russia kind of thumbed their nose at the whole thing and said, we don't really care about your
00:16:33.000 sanctions. We're just going to start turning the gas off to Europe. We're going to start turning off
00:16:36.940 the tap of crude oil unless you want to, you know, we'll figure out some mechanism to do these deals
00:16:43.200 outside of the Western system. And so you're seeing, you know, a rupee and ruble, what we call swap or
00:16:50.100 a transaction in those two currencies. You're seeing a ruble one swap. You're seeing, you know,
00:16:54.820 rupees in one. You're seeing these other, you know, major currencies begin to emerge that don't
00:17:00.780 utilize the dollar, don't utilize the euro to facilitate these transactions. And that's really a
00:17:06.140 change. It's taken away an enormous amount of influence and capacity that Europe and the U.S.
00:17:13.480 have to kind of try to keep a lid on some of the more aggressive behaviors of countries like China
00:17:17.860 or Russia. And so that bifurcation, the world now is sort of starting to split into two big spheres of
00:17:24.520 commerce and trade, which is the BRICS countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, kind of
00:17:30.760 leading the charge in that way. And then Western countries, which is primarily, you know, what we would
00:17:35.240 call the transatlantic relationship between North America and Europe is really beginning to split
00:17:41.220 apart and become two totally separate things. Whereas before, you know, the BRICS, you know,
00:17:47.620 kind of had to be a bit, you know, tied to the U.S. and Europe.
00:17:52.440 So tell me what you think some of the consequences are, because obviously we still rely on China for most
00:17:57.920 things. And so there's it's not that like we can just split, at least not very easily between kind
00:18:04.380 of I guess it's not necessarily the East and the West, but kind of how we would understand it.
00:18:10.220 What are the long term consequences of that? If we rely on China, not just for the goods and supplies
00:18:15.660 that you buy in Target, but we're talking about like medical equipment, we're talking about medication.
00:18:20.280 We rely on them for so much. What is it going to look like if we are bifurcating in this way for
00:18:26.780 the United States? Well, short term, it means a lot of pain. We don't make a lot of the things for
00:18:32.660 ourselves that we need to that we would consider critical technologies or critical goods, for
00:18:38.140 example, like pharmaceuticals. So we're going to have to figure out pretty quickly, you know, do we want
00:18:43.740 to be a democracy in decline, so to speak, or a global power in decline where we're sort of
00:18:51.680 subservient to whatever the wishes are of China and their allies and partners because we don't feel
00:18:56.800 like making those things for ourselves? Are we going to sort of take the bull by the horns and
00:19:01.280 understand that, you know, the short term pain also is an opportunity for us to reclaim some of
00:19:05.900 our manufacturing and economic sovereignty and reshore or nearshore, bring these plants, bring this
00:19:12.360 production back to the US, back to the Western Hemisphere, or to Europe, where we, you know, have
00:19:17.980 more traditional stable allies, and then say, okay, what can we bring back for ourselves? And then what
00:19:24.420 do we need, you know, because we can't make the materials here, we don't have access to them,
00:19:28.080 whatever, where do we need to facilitate better trade relationships in order to balance the scales? So
00:19:34.200 if we do those things, we're going to be okay on an intermediate or long term basis. On the short term
00:19:39.940 basis, though, we certainly have some major strategic vulnerabilities that we do need to be aware of,
00:19:45.480 and that we do need to be addressing, you know, yesterday.
00:19:52.600 It seems like there are people on both sides of the aisle that are opposed to the self-reliance
00:20:00.080 in manufacturing that we're talking about, who just seem to be more interested in the interests of
00:20:05.420 the CCP than they are in the United States. I mean, there are many ways that we could go through
00:20:10.740 that it seems like the United States acquiesces to the CCP. And so I'm a little concerned that
00:20:17.100 they're not going to take your advice, the people who are in charge in trying to re-up the manufacturing
00:20:22.920 here and try to stave off or try to help some of the pain that you're talking about feeling. And so I
00:20:30.540 just really, I wonder, like, if we don't take that route, if we don't decide to try to move
00:20:36.160 towards self-reliance, and we do continue to rely on China for the things that we need to literally
00:20:40.860 survive, what that will look like, I guess it'll just look like China solidifying its place as the
00:20:47.380 global world power and us truly just doing whatever they want to do. Now, if there were a lot of
00:20:52.780 conversations just a couple months ago, and as we just kind of mentioned about, I think it was Saudi
00:20:58.180 Arabia starting to use the, what was it? Was it like purchasing oil or the purchases of oil in Saudi
00:21:07.360 Arabia no longer being in the US currency, but in Chinese currency? And what that would mean for
00:21:13.860 the US dollar? Am I getting that right? Yeah, so for a long time, you know, like I said earlier,
00:21:21.480 the dollar was really the currency that global commodities are denominated in. And that's a
00:21:27.840 function of us being the global reserve currency of the world, where pretty much every currency can
00:21:32.160 be pegged against the dollar. And so the stability of our economy, the stability of our governance,
00:21:37.680 the stability of, you know, our fiscal policy has always been sort of the benchmark, or at least for
00:21:43.680 quite a long time has been the benchmark that all of the other global economies kind of measure
00:21:48.140 themselves against and use as a supporter, a stabilizing mechanism. So what Saudi Arabia was
00:21:54.400 proposing was to no longer just exclusively transact in dollars, they were, you know, the proposition was,
00:22:02.380 well, if the dollar is not going to be stable, the US is no longer going to be sort of this great
00:22:08.280 stabilizing force for trade and for, you know, global economics, then we need to consider utilizing
00:22:14.320 other currencies as well, and maybe doing some of these deals and the currencies of other large
00:22:19.080 countries. In this particular case, it was suggested that it would be a China and you'd have a PetroJuan.
00:22:24.480 We haven't seen that happen yet, to my knowledge, but certainly plans are underway. And a lot of
00:22:30.480 people are beginning to hedge their bets against the US and towards China. That carries some real risks
00:22:38.320 for everybody. China in no way is a stable, stable economy or a stable actor. But the US also,
00:22:44.660 we have to keep our house clean, and do everything we can to begin to reassure allies and reassure the
00:22:49.040 world that we're not a basket case, and that we're going to be able to stabilize ourselves and make sure
00:22:55.840 that we, you know, push through the next couple of years without causing any additional issues.
00:23:01.880 I'm not super optimistic about that as much as I do love this country. I'm not sure if under our
00:23:06.840 current leadership, we scream stable. Okay, speaking of the CCP, I want to get in a little bit more to
00:23:14.040 what we had messaged about what is happening in North Dakota with something called the Fufeng Group.
00:23:20.240 I'm really interested to hear what this is and to hear you just kind of dig into it. What the heck
00:23:25.440 is this? Why should we care? How is this connected to what we're talking about?
00:23:30.300 So at its most basic level, Fufeng Group is a Chinese producer of human food and animal feed
00:23:37.220 ingredients. They do this via wet corn milling. So we have wet corn milling operations, numerous of
00:23:43.180 them in the U.S. They make different products. You can make almost 30 different products just from
00:23:48.240 corn. Starches, sweeteners, texturizers among them as well are things like lysine or phalene,
00:23:56.040 diomethionine, threonine. These are all things that go into animal feed and help keep the animals
00:24:00.160 healthy and increase their productivity, whether it's, you know, eggs or milk or their meat, you know,
00:24:05.900 the quality of their meat. And so these are very kind of unknown but critical things. If you look on the
00:24:11.840 back of any bag of pet food, for example, you'll see almost all of those ingredients named and they're
00:24:17.740 all made from, you know, in some way, they're derived from corn processing. So Fufeng is a very large and
00:24:23.880 prominent and politically connected company in China. And they want to come to the U.S. and build a wet corn
00:24:30.920 mill in Grand Forks, North Dakota. And they started that process in the middle of 2020.
00:24:35.820 Just to make money? Or is there a bigger goal there?
00:24:40.720 I would not put a wet corn mill in Grand Forks, North Dakota if I had other options available to
00:24:46.200 me. There's a lot of reasons for that. Availability of the feedstock, which is corn,
00:24:51.340 water concerns as well. But there is something in Grand Forks that continues to seem to be a target
00:24:58.020 of interest for what you would call like subnational Chinese influence campaigns, which is trying to work
00:25:05.480 directly with local or city and state leaders without the involvement of the United States
00:25:11.080 government. So these subnational campaigns continue to target Grand Forks, North Dakota,
00:25:16.320 mainly because they have a little known but very important air force base there called Grand Forks
00:25:20.880 Air Force Base. So this is...
00:25:23.480 I'm already, I'm frightened. I'm frightened by this already. But okay, continue.
00:25:28.820 Yeah. So it's, like I said, from an economic standpoint, there are a lot of places that,
00:25:35.180 you know, Fufang allegedly considered in Nebraska or Iowa or Illinois, where it would make a lot more
00:25:40.840 sense to put a wet corn mill. But, you know, they downselected to Grand Forks and the city officials,
00:25:47.640 by and large, of Grand Forks, North Dakota are looking at this purely on its economic merits,
00:25:52.880 whatever they may or may not be. And, you know, really disclaiming or disregarding any sort of
00:25:58.920 potential risks to U.S. national security for a CCP-linked company, establishing itself, you know,
00:26:04.880 13, 14 miles from this air force base. There are bigger economic interests at work in the community
00:26:10.840 and in the state that you're seeing the state level push for this as well. It's somewhat complex,
00:26:17.020 and I certainly don't want to bore the listeners, but the Fufang project is sort of looked at as a
00:26:23.140 phase one to dramatically increasing natural gas transmission through the state, allowing the
00:26:29.640 state of North Dakota to drill more, you know, to frack and pull more oil out of the ground so that
00:26:35.180 they don't have, you know, they have caps on how much methane or natural gas they can flare off for
00:26:39.780 their oil production. So utilizing that and piping that natural gas allows them to drill for more oil.
00:26:46.040 And it also unlocks a much larger economic project, even in the Fufang one, which is the
00:26:51.160 Northern Plains nitrogen project in Grand Forks. So you're seeing a lot of these interests on the
00:26:57.940 economic and political side come together and then be, you know, harnessed and weaponized and
00:27:03.300 taken advantage of by China's subnational campaign apparatus and really getting American political and
00:27:11.220 economic officials to ultimately do the bidding of what the CCP wants, which is to put one of
00:27:16.800 their own companies right there next door to an Air Force base. But what do they plan to do with the
00:27:22.820 Air Force base? Well, the Air Force base, you know, there are aspects of the base that are not publicly
00:27:28.860 disclosed in terms of mission sets or things that they do there. There is certainly a role that the
00:27:35.800 base plays from a surveillance and reconnaissance standpoint. It's the primary home for the RQ4
00:27:42.160 Global Hawk Fleet that, you know, which is our long loiter surveillance drones that, and those are
00:27:47.620 publicly acknowledged, you know, not revealing anything that's not out there. So those are based
00:27:51.880 out of Grand Forks. It has a major mission set, both from a Space Force side and an Air Force side for
00:27:57.600 management and monitoring of things that go on in the skies above, whether, you know, a little bit
00:28:03.760 closer to Earth or in outer space. And so you're talking about something that's sending a lot of
00:28:08.600 data up and down and around the world to various U.S. installations and allies. And so being able to
00:28:15.620 co-locate a very low visibility monitoring or even signals capture capability on, you know, the
00:28:25.060 infrastructure of a cornmeal, for example, there's a lot of metal, there's a lot of towers, and there's a
00:28:31.040 lot of, you know, just physical things that would be very easy to sort of lose some low visibility
00:28:37.520 technology and be able to, you know, intercept or monitor some of those signals. So it's really not
00:28:45.480 a wise move. And given the push that the company has on for Grand Forks when they had much better
00:28:54.980 options available to them economically, it really kind of begins to show us how China and U.S. officials
00:29:03.120 sort of work hand in hand for their own interests, instead of the interests of the United States
00:29:09.320 citizens. Wow. Is this happening in other parts of the country? Because I've heard things like this
00:29:15.240 before that there are other Air Force bases where suspiciously Chinese groups, companies have decided
00:29:25.420 to build or they've bought land. I think in Texas, this has actually happened. Do you know of this
00:29:31.740 happening in other parts of the country? Yeah, Texas is the most famous. And, you know, God love Kyle
00:29:36.940 Bass and his team and people that he works with for really blowing the whistle on that and turning it
00:29:42.040 into a major national issue because it needed to be. You had a PLA, People's Liberation Army, which is
00:29:48.740 the military arm of the CCP in China. You had one of their former high-level officer in the PLA come to
00:29:56.480 the U.S., establish residency here and begin purchasing. I think by the end of it, he had accrued
00:30:02.280 almost 50,000 acres of land in Texas that was allegedly for a wind farm. But the property was directly in the
00:30:08.700 flight path of and very close to Laughlin Air Force Base in South Texas, which is where we do a lot of our,
00:30:15.220 you know, combat pilot training for the Air Force. So all of the major platforms that the U.S. Air Force
00:30:22.360 operates from a fighter jet standpoint, the F-35, the F-22, F-16, F-15, all of those have a presence there at Laughlin
00:30:29.100 because it's a major training installation. And so we had 50,000 acres of Chinese-owned land that was right, you know,
00:30:36.700 right adjacent to those properties. So again, a very clear and deliberate, you know, pattern of
00:30:44.540 purchases and commercial deals, you know, that are disguised to mask Chinese involvement or Chinese
00:30:50.400 interest close to our military installations. Wow, this is insane. I mean, there's so much that
00:30:55.940 goes on with the CCP and our government and even academia. And I remember being very disturbed when it
00:31:02.620 was announced at the end of February that the Biden DOJ is ending a national security initiative aimed
00:31:07.380 at countering China amid complaints about bias. There was this Trump-era program that I guess was
00:31:12.900 investigating Chinese espionage. And because, I don't know, there were some people who complained
00:31:19.380 that it was targeting people within the program or it was unfair or it was biased against Asian
00:31:28.640 Americans. The Biden administration ended it all. Of course, there is this story, which we won't get
00:31:35.360 into with you right now, but we've talked about before with the possible ties between the Biden
00:31:39.320 family and the CCP. And I don't really think this is just a Democrat issue. It also seems like this is
00:31:45.240 a Republican issue as well. And it's just amazing to me that we've allowed this to happen. Republicans
00:31:50.380 and Democrats have not just allowed our manufacturing to be outsourced to China, but we're actually
00:31:55.340 allowing Chinese groups that are, I'm sure, under the direction of the CCP to do things here on our
00:32:06.280 land that is threatening our national security. And I'm just wondering, like, what is being done
00:32:11.520 about it? We're talking about it, but what is actually being done about it? Like, do you have
00:32:14.860 any optimism there on any of the fronts that we're talking about, whether it comes to manufacturing or
00:32:19.260 whether it comes to actually protecting our national security and not just looking at economic
00:32:23.380 interest when a company from China comes in and says they want to build something or buy something?
00:32:28.600 Yeah, there is some really good work being done on that. Thank goodness. And, you know,
00:32:32.520 you touched on it, but really one of the most powerful quivers in the CCP, you know, arrows in
00:32:37.840 the CCP's quiver, rather, is this conflating of problems with the CCP as being a racial attack that's
00:32:46.760 directed against, you know, Chinese Americans or Chinese nationals.
00:32:49.780 Oh, yeah, they love that. And it couldn't be further from the truth. The CCP does not represent
00:32:57.220 the will of the Chinese people in total. It's a uniparty country. It's a, you know, I think Steve
00:33:03.860 Bannon has somewhat accurately described it as a transnational criminal organization that happens
00:33:09.040 to run, you know, first or second, depending on what metric you use, the first or second largest
00:33:14.280 economy in the world. And it's very mafia-like. There's, you know, there's 90 million members
00:33:19.580 of the Chinese Communist Party in a country that has 150 or 1.5 billion people. So very small
00:33:26.320 percentage, whereas in the U.S., you know, we're a two-party system.
00:33:29.620 But still it's a huge number.
00:33:31.400 It is a huge number of party members, you know, by proportion, much less than, you know,
00:33:36.960 what we have in America as far as registered Republicans or Democrats, but still a vastly
00:33:42.960 powerful political party and, you know, infrastructure at the top of that country.
00:33:48.020 But having issues with the Chinese Communist Party is like saying, well, because I have issues
00:33:53.360 with the Republican Party, you know, I hate all Americans. And that couldn't be further from
00:33:57.540 the truth. It's you have issues with the specific faction or group. But they utilize that very,
00:34:02.860 very effectively as a propaganda tool. And you see that pushed. I mean, there's billions of
00:34:07.380 dollars a year thrown into these influence operations that are part of the United, you
00:34:11.360 know, United Front Work Program, which is this huge web of government-directed or CCP-directed
00:34:17.620 propaganda operations worldwide. Many of them are operating in the U.S. very effectively
00:34:22.200 and influencing the highest levels of our government. So is it a Democrat problem? No. Is it a Republican
00:34:29.280 problem? No, it's an everybody problem, particularly when it comes to D.C. and particularly when it
00:34:33.820 comes to state and local politicians who are, you know, I think easily co-opted by, you know,
00:34:39.180 if I bring this project to town or if I just do this one favor, I just do this one thing,
00:34:43.460 that's going to help my career, help my constituents. It's very easy for us to lie to
00:34:47.780 ourselves and say we're doing the right thing when there's personal interest on the line.
00:34:53.100 You know, on the Republican side, you've got, you know, I can't think of anybody who's been
00:34:56.480 a bigger advocate over the last 20 to 25 years for the interests of the Chinese Communist Party
00:35:01.580 in the U.S. than Mitch McConnell and his wife, Elaine Chao. And I know those are big words.
00:35:05.940 Tell us a little bit more about that. Yeah. Explain that a little bit more.
00:35:09.620 Yeah. So Elaine Chao is the daughter of an individual who owns foremost, you know,
00:35:15.020 founded and owns foremost group. It's one of the more powerful shipping concerns. So they're
00:35:19.500 originally a Taiwanese family, but very, very closely linked to, in particular, Zhang Zemin,
00:35:26.060 former president of China, who's actually a rival faction to Xi Jinping. But so Elaine Chao's family
00:35:33.820 company foremost group is very, very, very large, very, very prominent. Her sister, Angela, was on
00:35:40.220 the board of the Bank of China, is very politically connected. So the McConnells have a very deep and
00:35:46.380 long history of being very soft on China, being very friendly towards Chinese business interests.
00:35:52.900 And that's on the Republican side. On the Democrat side, you know, pretty famously, you've got Dianne
00:35:57.360 Feinstein, who is probably the most co-opted politician in the U.S. from being a captured
00:36:06.100 interest of China. So we have to get our own house clean in a very real way and get serious about
00:36:12.000 understanding that, you know, our greed at the political level, our desire for good stories to
00:36:19.380 tell. All of that is really something that that is used against us very, very effectively by the CCP.
00:36:29.840 When it comes to commentating on this, it does seem like it is almost an exclusively conservative
00:36:37.460 position to point out the problems going on in China with China. It does seem like the left in
00:36:45.500 general. I'm sure that there are many exceptions to this, but in general, really don't want to talk
00:36:50.660 about the problems with the CCP like we saw with the Beijing Olympics. You had NBC and other pundits
00:36:57.560 on other liberal networks basically repeating CCP talking points about how amazing of a job the CCP did or
00:37:04.660 China did in hosting these Olympics and how it was so amazing when a member of
00:37:11.480 now I'm forgetting the Uyghur Muslim like lit the torch at the Olympics and NBC was like, wow, this is
00:37:20.660 such a monumental moment. They seem to be so much more susceptible to CCP propaganda on the left than
00:37:29.540 we are on the right. And it's strange because obviously I think that Putin is an awful dictator and
00:37:36.140 what he's doing in Ukraine is awful. Yes, but it's strange how quickly, especially people on the
00:37:44.020 left, but a lot of people in the United States immediately, corporations included, condemned
00:37:49.520 everything Russia is doing, put Ukrainian flags in their bio and are so quick to highlight the
00:37:57.100 corruption and the depravity that is going on in Russia, which that's fine. But when you ask them
00:38:01.960 about China or what's been going on in China, the kind of corruption and oppression and abuse,
00:38:06.100 even in Shanghai, we're not seeing a whole lot of commentary from the left on that. And I just think
00:38:11.660 that that is odd. I think that that's what is it like a intersectionality thing because Russia is
00:38:17.160 white. They feel like they can criticize them more than they can criticize China. I don't know,
00:38:21.680 but I actually think that it does. It does the United States in our national security and our
00:38:27.400 interests a disservice when only one half of the country is really willing to talk about
00:38:31.820 that. Yeah. Hey, Russia is bad, but look what's been happening over here under the reign of the
00:38:37.340 CCP. And I just happen to think that the CCP is a lot more powerful than Russia. And the strategies
00:38:43.620 that we're talking about them employing in the United States, they're also employing in many
00:38:48.680 different countries and poor countries around the world in much more draconian ways throughout
00:38:53.920 Africa and South America, truly colonizing them. I don't know. It's just strange to me. It's strange
00:38:58.580 to me that this does become a left-right issue when it comes to people giving their opinions about how
00:39:03.220 dangerous the CCP is. Why do you think that is? Why do you think it just tends to be conservatives
00:39:07.760 who are sounding the alarm about this? Well, you're talking about a bit of an unsquarable circle,
00:39:13.300 and it's an important thing to note. So you're right that by and large, the outcry on the left
00:39:19.080 against Russia has been incredibly loud and deservedly so. I mean, you're talking about one country has
00:39:27.280 invaded another country, and war by any measure, regardless of who the actors are involved,
00:39:34.160 is a really horrible, terrible thing. And so war has been visited on Ukraine by Russia.
00:39:38.560 And so that has been condemned loudly by a lot of people who are of the center-left or leftist
00:39:44.920 camps in the U.S. And you're right. At the same time, they do everything they can to fall all over
00:39:50.380 themselves to apologize and run air cover for things that the CCP does in China. And I think a
00:39:58.560 big part of it is that China is still actively a communist country. It has an authoritarian model,
00:40:07.000 and that strain of appreciation for a specific type of authoritarianism that runs through the cultural
00:40:13.720 left of the U.S. There's still very much a strong solidarity that a lot of leftist Americans have
00:40:20.800 and progressives have for Marxist-style authoritarianism. And Putin's particular type
00:40:28.280 of gangster capitalism and totalitarianism is probably more aligned a little bit with the way
00:40:35.780 we would think of historically rightist fascist movements in Europe, like Nazism or the fascist
00:40:43.660 party in Italy. And so there's this, I think, reflexive antagonism towards that from the left,
00:40:50.940 but almost a reflexive desire to defend the interests of the Chinese Communist Party.
00:40:57.240 And at the same time, the third rail of that that nobody wants to acknowledge is the very tight
00:41:02.160 interdependence and cooperation of Russia and China in working against the shared interests of Europe
00:41:10.500 and the U.S. So it is a worldview that's full of internal contradictions. I think it's a lot
00:41:17.080 easier just to say, I'm against corruption and totalitarianism in whatever form it appears in.
00:41:25.020 So if people are being subjugated and harmed and not the natural rights of man not being respected,
00:41:31.220 that life, liberty, and happiness, then we as Americans really do have an obligation to stand
00:41:36.360 against that as well. But like so many other things we've discussed here, and that's discussed
00:41:42.120 elsewhere, these internal contradictions exist largely so that our own political needs and economic
00:41:50.080 needs here in the U.S. can be satisfied in whatever way is most convenient.
00:41:54.320 Yeah, I think even on the most superficial level, people associate wrongly, I think, Russia with
00:42:03.440 Trump. They still believe that there was Russian collusion. And so because that was a narrative
00:42:08.000 that was spun for four years that Trump is in bed with Putin, I think that there are a lot of people
00:42:13.260 on the left who just that's really is as deep as it goes for them. They just think that, you know,
00:42:20.060 Russia is right wing. Russia is Trumpist. Trump likes Russia. Everyone on the right likes Russia,
00:42:24.920 which I think there are some weirdos on the right who think that they do like Putin's authoritarianism,
00:42:29.440 but I think that they are definitely the exception. So I think that's as far as it goes for some people.
00:42:34.900 And just to reiterate, what we're both saying is, yes, we can decry what's happening in Russia,
00:42:38.580 but look, like, let's not turn a blind eye to what's happening in China. And as you mentioned,
00:42:43.760 it's not the Chinese people. It is the CCP. I think there is no greater example of that than
00:42:48.500 what's happening in Shanghai right now. People are locked in their apartments. They're locked in
00:42:52.340 their homes for the past few weeks, many of them without food and water. We're talking about
00:42:56.220 children being separated from their parents if they test positive. If someone in someone's building
00:43:01.160 test positive for COVID, they all have to be quarantined for 14 days. These are people who are
00:43:05.900 stuck in isolation. There's reports of a large number of suicides and, of course, self-harm. And
00:43:13.400 there's been an attempt to protest, but the videos coming out of these police officers just beating
00:43:19.820 these people, taking children away from their parents, beating dogs, putting cats in bags. I mean,
00:43:25.320 it's just awful. And again, I don't think that it's getting the coverage that it should. I mean,
00:43:31.180 we are talking about a humanitarian crisis just as evil, just as wicked as what is happening in Ukraine.
00:43:38.020 And we should definitely be putting our attention and putting our eyes there. And yet the reaction,
00:43:43.900 unfortunately, for a lot of people here seems to just be disproportionate. Tell me, I guess,
00:43:49.160 just your thoughts on what's happening in Shanghai, but also how is that affecting everything that we're
00:43:53.600 talking about? How is that affecting supply chains? How is that also affecting, I guess, the need of
00:44:00.000 China to present itself, just like America needs to, to present itself as kind of a stable force that
00:44:05.600 this now, their side of the bifurcated world can really rely on, if that makes sense?
00:44:11.820 It does. It's something I've said from the beginning. I think a lot of people bought into
00:44:16.320 the whole narrative that Xi Jinping and the CCP, you know, put out of, you know, zero COVID. And
00:44:23.640 that's the, that's the goal. And some people, you know, bought into and promulgated the whole mandate
00:44:28.440 of heaven thing and the pestilence and disease is a sign that the mandate of heaven has, is no longer upon,
00:44:34.440 you know, you know, Xi Jinping. And it's really not about that. I've said from the beginning that
00:44:39.060 the targeting of Shenzhen, the targeting of Shanghai for these extremely repressive, and in the case of
00:44:48.200 Shanghai, violent and deadly lockdowns is not about COVID. It's not about the CCP having egg on its face as
00:44:57.380 COVID continues to spread. COVID is really no worse there than it has been all along. This is 100%
00:45:05.080 about the fact that in October, the, the party Congress is going to meet again as the, as they do
00:45:10.780 every five years. And Xi Jinping has done everything he can to clear all the roadblocks that, that exist,
00:45:16.660 you know, legislatively and internally in, in, in the Chinese Communist Party. And he's, you know,
00:45:22.580 going to make a run at being elected, you know, essentially president for life.
00:45:25.920 How does this help that?
00:45:27.840 Well, so Shanghai is the base of power for, uh, Jiang Ximing, who is, you know, a former, uh,
00:45:33.660 former president of China, uh, who is himself, uh, you know, still a very, very, you know, that faction,
00:45:39.700 the Shanghai gang or the Ximing faction are still very, very, very prominent, uh, and powerful in China.
00:45:45.840 And increasingly over the last few years have been the target of, uh, corruption probes, uh, the
00:45:51.540 target of anti-businessman probes, uh, because that is the business class and the financial class
00:45:56.380 of, of China, uh, really is, you know, located in and around, uh, Shanghai. Historically, that's been
00:46:02.620 their base of power. And the reason for that is that Shanghai is, is absolutely one of, you know,
00:46:07.060 as a economic region, uh, one of the manufacturing powerhouses of the world. Uh, but it's also the
00:46:13.080 gateway for the Yangtze river, uh, which brings about, I think 20% of the goods in China transit
00:46:18.680 on the Yangtze river and come out at the port of Shanghai, uh, and all the various terminals there.
00:46:23.400 So Shanghai, and it's also a very powerful and important, uh, transshipment point for global
00:46:30.160 cargos, uh, that, you know, smaller ships that may run, you know, throughout Asia and, you know,
00:46:35.340 along the Chinese coastal waterways bring smaller volumes of cargo, and then they get on the huge
00:46:39.740 ships that can load at Shanghai and they come to the U S or go to Europe or,
00:46:43.080 whatever. So you're talking about a city that, you know, financially, uh, economically, uh,
00:46:47.700 from a manufacturing standpoint, geographically and logistically, uh, is really one of the,
00:46:52.640 the linchpin cities and regions of the world. And the whole thing is completely locked down,
00:46:57.340 uh, because the faction that comes from there, that's still, you know, that's its base of financial
00:47:02.620 and political power as a threat to Xi Jinping, uh, and to his faction in the October elections.
00:47:07.860 And, uh, it, it almost baffles, you know, or boggles the mind that, uh, we're seeing such a,
00:47:15.300 a overt, uh, exercise of authoritarian and dictatorial control, uh, over such a massive, uh, you know,
00:47:22.760 economic region and body of people. Uh, but that's exactly what we're seeing is this is,
00:47:27.160 this is an output of, uh, internal, you know, communist politics in China. It's, uh, it has a
00:47:34.220 devastating impact on not only on the residents there in a, in a very real humanitarian way,
00:47:38.560 uh, from a supply chain standpoint, it has a very large impact on the U S you're seeing an awful lot
00:47:43.960 of, uh, what is still being manufactured in China and in regions that aren't locked down can't get
00:47:48.980 out of China because the vessels are stuck there waiting to load or unload. Uh, so it's a, again,
00:47:54.200 just, just like so many other things that we've seen, we've got these massive bottlenecks happening
00:47:58.360 at one end of the Pacific ocean or the other, and, uh, has significant downstream impact to the U S
00:48:03.400 economy because we're not getting the things that we need, whether it's pharmaceuticals or
00:48:07.800 electronics or whatever it may be, because they're stuck in China.
00:48:15.000 If you were to predict how all this is going to unfold over the next year or two, when do things
00:48:22.200 get better? Do they get better? Do they get worse before they get better? Give us a best case and
00:48:27.980 worst case scenario. And then I've got one final question. Sure. Best case scenario. Uh,
00:48:33.400 we start to see this clear up, uh, sometime around the end of, uh, you know, sometime around
00:48:37.740 the end of quarter one, early quarter two, about this time, uh, next year, these are the kinds of
00:48:42.340 delays that take months, uh, to really clear out and, and to, you know, to normalize, uh, the tail
00:48:49.140 of this is, you know, potential disruption to Chinese and American companies that, uh, don't have the
00:48:53.860 cashflow and financial resources to weather this storm. Uh, so you'll see a lot of them go out of
00:48:58.380 business and, and, or get, you know, consolidated into or bought up, uh, by larger competitors that
00:49:03.840 have the ability and resources to do that. Uh, so that's the best case scenario is you see some,
00:49:09.380 uh, you see some companies go away that previously were here, but, but, you know, trade does continue
00:49:15.640 to somewhat flow. Uh, you also see a push towards reshoring, uh, and the U S gets, you know, fairly
00:49:21.120 serious about that as, as a, uh, as an economic and national security matter. The worst case scenario
00:49:27.340 is that we really learn nothing from this. And we put our heads in the sand and say, Hey, we'll just,
00:49:32.440 we'll muddle along the best we possibly can and everything eventually will get better. Uh,
00:49:37.360 but choosing not to act is, is in fact making a decision and, uh, it's the wrong decision.
00:49:43.580 My sense is, is that we will land somewhere in the middle of the two, probably more towards the,
00:49:49.780 the worst case scenario here. Uh, and that we will, you know, unfortunately see a mix of stagflation,
00:49:56.080 uh, leading eventually into recession in the U S here over the next year to two years. Uh,
00:50:01.760 we're already seeing demand destruction happen in the U S inventories are growing in the U S and
00:50:06.080 ordering from U S manufacturers into China is slowing down. Uh, so we're already starting to see
00:50:11.640 the beginning of that. We're going to see home prices begin to level off and possibly even fall here
00:50:16.200 in the next, you know, next few months where it's been pretty much red hot going all the way back
00:50:20.260 to the beginning of the Trump administration. Uh, so a lot of these things are negative signals for
00:50:24.380 the U S economy. Uh, but I do believe, uh, in America, I do believe in Americans more than I,
00:50:30.200 much more than I believe in our political class. Uh, but I do know some people that are doing,
00:50:34.460 you know, really heroic and amazing things at trying to mitigate and fight back against,
00:50:40.080 uh, CCP propaganda and influence and commercial programs in the U S. Uh, I know some people,
00:50:46.760 you know, commerce and treasury in the white house department of defense and all these other
00:50:50.420 agencies that do take this very seriously. And yeah. And, and so that's, uh, pain for the short
00:50:56.900 to intermediate time, but I think, uh, I hope, and I believe that this will be the time we do learn
00:51:02.900 our lesson and by 2030 and into 2035, you know, certainly my children and everybody else's children
00:51:09.320 who are elementary and junior high and high school age will, will, I think really begin to see the
00:51:14.020 fruits of that and have very, very good and prosperous adult lives as we come out of this
00:51:18.880 period. Wow. I hope so. That is very optimistic. I think that's what we're all thinking. There are so
00:51:24.940 many moms that listen to this podcast and that's what we're most worried about. What is this world?
00:51:29.540 What is this country going to look like by 2030 by 2035? And I hope that your vision is right. And I
00:51:37.440 hope that your optimism is right. We all want to feel that too. What can the average person do?
00:51:42.840 We don't work in logistics. We don't work in politics. We don't work in the white house.
00:51:46.560 What can the average person do to push back against some of the stuff that we're talking about
00:51:50.160 at the local level? And, and, and I have to really give, you know, a shout out as it were to a lot of
00:51:56.680 the amazing people in Grand Forks, North Dakota. They're, uh, with this Fufang project and its impact on the
00:52:02.540 community. Uh, they're really modeling exactly what, uh, I hope every community who runs into
00:52:10.760 these projects, you know, not all of them are going to be as, uh, you know, big on the order of
00:52:14.980 half a billion dollars as, as the Fufang project is in Grand Forks. But, you know, in ways large and
00:52:19.920 small, what we're seeing up there is, as a group of committed and, and resilient and dedicated
00:52:26.660 individuals put their time and money and effort into saying, no, this is wrong. Here's why it's wrong.
00:52:31.540 And they're using every, you know, legal and political and economic means at their disposal
00:52:35.840 to, to push back. And my goodness, that that's just inspiring. It's, it's really the first time.
00:52:40.660 Is it working?
00:52:41.480 It is working. It is working. I think, I think when we're going to, you know, we look back in a year
00:52:46.300 and that project is, is not going to have moved forward. It's, it's going to be stalled or completely
00:52:50.720 dead in the water. Um, and, and that's, that's 99.9% due to, uh, the efforts of the, you know,
00:52:58.160 of the citizens of Grand Forks that are organizing and rallying. And so in, in, in that way, what's
00:53:03.660 happening there is very much for, in my view, a model for what people can do in their, in their
00:53:08.860 local and county communities. And at the state level is, you know, identifying when these things
00:53:14.140 are, you know, it's sort of the old, if you see something, say something, you know, these sketchy
00:53:17.860 projects are everywhere. And if people just use their common sense and dig a little bit and use
00:53:22.500 the resources that are easily available. And the biggest thing is to not have fear and to ask the
00:53:27.840 questions that make city council members and mayors and economic development people uncomfortable,
00:53:32.660 put them on the spot and make them answer for the ways in which, you know, U S states and
00:53:37.400 communities have, have sort of become these, uh, vectors of Chinese influence against the United
00:53:42.700 States interests.
00:53:44.540 Yes. So pay attention, ask questions, dig, organize, raise a respectful ruckus as we like
00:53:52.400 to say on this podcast, hold the people in charge accountable. It doesn't matter. Republican
00:53:56.900 Democrat, Republicans are very susceptible. I think to economic deals because we, you know,
00:54:04.000 I mean, we want a good economy. Of course, everyone wants more money circulating in your
00:54:08.420 economy and that's a good thing, but it's not a good economy at all costs. A good economy
00:54:13.720 has to, has to be defined by more than just more dollars, more than just a transaction. Um, and
00:54:21.520 so I am so encouraged by what you are seeing in North Dakota with that community there. And I do
00:54:27.280 encourage people to look more into it themselves and try to model any efforts, um, in your own
00:54:33.760 community after that. Well, Ross, thank you so much. You left us on a positive note last time,
00:54:38.560 even though we're talking about pretty complex and kind of sometimes depressing things. Um, I do
00:54:43.740 appreciate your optimistic outlook. Thank you so much. Um, how can people follow you and support you?
00:54:49.020 Uh, so really the two main ways are, uh, ones on Twitter, I'm a at man underscore integrated,
00:54:56.100 and then, uh, Fortis analysis.substack.com. The link's also in my Twitter bio and, uh, you know,
00:55:03.020 you'll occasionally see things, you know, reposted on zero hedge and, and a few other places. Uh,
00:55:07.680 epic times is another one that's been a really kind and, and, you know, generous platform as far as,
00:55:12.580 uh, allowing me to help speak on some of these things. So, uh, it's out there and, uh, you know,
00:55:17.780 certainly my, you know, my messages are, are widely open and, and a lot of people, you know,
00:55:22.680 in ways large and small, you know, take advantage of that opportunity. And I try to be as generous
00:55:26.540 as I can with, with my time and information. Certainly this isn't about money. It's just
00:55:30.580 trying to help people, you know, learn and live a little bit better, uh, you know, here as Americans.
00:55:35.060 Yeah. And I appreciate that so much. Thank you, Ross.
00:55:37.860 Thank you, ma'am.