The President's Daily Brief - June 3rd, 2022. America’s Economic Dependence on Globalism Is About to Cause a Major Problem.

Episode Date: June 3, 2022

It’s June 3rd. You’re listening to the President’s Daily Brief. I’m your host and former CIA Officer Bryan Dean Wright. Your morning intel starts now. First up, the economic war between Russia and the West took another bad turn yesterday. It has to do with neon gas, of all things. We’re going to discuss the potential major impact it could have on your family and this country. As always, I’m watching a few other stories this morning, all updates from past briefs. So put this one back on your radar. Wheat Wars. Some of Ukraine’s agricultural products are finally getting out to market by way of Poland. And what an effort it is. I’ll share the latest. All up next on the President’s Daily Brief. ------ Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's June 3rd. You're listening to the President's Daily Brief. I'm your host and former CIA Officer Brian Dean Wright. Your morning intel starts now. The brief you're about to hear is in the same spirit of the actual President's Daily Brief, which is a top secret summary of the most critical events in the past 24 hours, all delivered to the president each day by the nation's spymasters. And so, ladies and gentlemen, I am your spy and this is your brief. Here's what we're going to be talking about this morning. First up, the economic war between Russia and the West took a another bad turn yesterday. It has to do with neon gas, of all things. We're going to discuss the potential major impact that it could have on your family and this country. As always, I'm watching

a few other stories this morning, all updates from past briefs. So put this one back on your radar. Wheat wars. Some of Ukraine's agricultural products are finally getting out to market by way of Poland. And what an effort that this has been. I'll share the latest. All up next on the President's Daily Brief. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong. Bro, Skycoin, way better than points. Never fly during a Scorpio full moon. Just tell the manager you'll sue.

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about neon moons, but it has a much more important role in helping run our economy, helping to build virtually every electronic device that you own, from cars to playstations. Well, yesterday Russia slapped an export ban on neon and other gases like it. These are called noble gases. To understand how big of a deal that that could be to our modern economy, we need to recall something from our old economy. That's a vinyl record. So stick with me for a moment as I create this analogy to help us really understand neon gas and why Russia's band is such a big deal. All right. So when record companies used to create music records, they'd start with a master disc. You've probably seen movies with them hanging on a wall. They're an aluminum plate covered

in a very thick coat of lacquer. But in order to move the audio music onto that plate, they had to use a chisel of sorts. It's called a cutting lathe. And it would carve out grooves in the aluminum. And the grooves, of course, would go on to become our music when you drop the needle down and the record player. Well, that chisel, that lathe, would get so hot as it cut that they had to use helium gas to cool it. And helium is actually a noble gas, just like neon. And of their many cool properties, these gases aren't generally combustible. They don't light on fire, no matter how hot they get. And that takes us back to our modern economy and Russia's export ban on these noble gases. Almost everything in our world runs on a computer chip, also called a semiconductor chip.

They're the brains that tell the devices what to do and how to do it and when to do it. But these semiconductor chips aren't born as brains. They're just a chunk of silicon to begin with, and that's a type of material that's similar in function to that aluminum master disk that we use to create our vinyl records. And in both cases, the silicon computer chip or the aluminum master disk to record. Well, you have to have something that cuts grooves into that material. Again, it's a chisel of sorts, that lathe. Well, when silicon computer chips are made, that chisel is a laser. And to keep that laser super sharp and focused, manufacturers use neon to help keep it absolutely accurate. Now, precisely how all that works is

a bit complicated. It has to do with laser light and wavelengths. But regardless, that's why noble gases like neon are so important to our modern economy, because without them, the computer chips don't get made. And without computer chips, our economy, the world's economy, well, it's over. It goes back to the 1950s. And that takes us back to Russia's new export ban on neon and those other noble gases. Russia is a very important supplier of this stuff, and unfortunately, so was Ukraine. That's because neon is a byproduct of steel production. And both countries, Russia and Ukraine, make, or used to make, a lot of steel. So back in January before the Ukraine invasion began, computer chip makers, well, they knew

something was coming. A war, yes, but a neon shortage to follow. And so they started conserving what they had or they tried to find new suppliers. They had some success in doing it, but all their efforts were largely short-term band-aids. And that's because they just really need Ukraine and Russia's neon, which make up about 40% of global neon output, give or take. By the way, the other major producer of neon is China. They control upwards of 50% depending on who you ask.

Well, I think you can probably see where this is going. Less supply of neon means fewer computer chips. And the ones that we do have will become more expensive. And that shortage means waiting lists for products, or the products become a lot more expensive, or both. We've already seen that so far over the past year, haven't we? You probably read about the computer chip shortage, but this neon gas ban by Russia is only going to make that worse.

All right, more bad news. This problem gets worse because, unfortunately, the United States produces very few computer chips on our own. Only about 12% of the world supply, in fact. Now, that wasn't always the case. In 1990, we used to produce about 40% of the world supply, and then companies just shipped it all of birth. broad, most production now sits in Taiwan and South Korea.

So let's recap this brief so far. We know that our modern economy runs on computer chips, and those computer chips have to be carved up just like an old vinyl record did. And that carving process involves lasers that are kept steady and accurate, more or less, by neon gas, of all things. The United States doesn't produce a lot of neon gas, but Russia, China, and Ukraine do. and that's bad because Russia just slapped on an export ban on that gas that is to say neon and all the other gases in that same family which are called noble gases.

And as an extra set of bad news, America doesn't produce many computer chips anymore because we let that slip out of our hands and into Taiwan and South Korea's. All right. So let's start by asking the question that we always ask at this point in the brief. Why should you care? Well, I think it's pretty evident that we're, we're not just talking about not having a new cell phone under the Christmas tree this year. We're talking about the very future of our economy, of our country, because we need computer chips to survive at this point, chips that we largely don't produce with neon gas that we largely don't have. And all of that production is now in the hands of foreign nations, some of whom either

hate us or view us as a competitor, China, or we are currently bombing them this morning in Ukraine. That, of course, would be Russia and Ukraine with all those weapons that we're sending over. Now, for what it's worth, we do have a little bit of neon production in this country. There's a new plant in Texas, for instance, and some of our old steel mills are trying to pump things back up, but it's going to take a while. Experts in noble gases say that there's anywhere between one to six months' worth of neon gas and reserve. And if that runs out, well, we're all in big, big trouble. So if you were president this morning and God bless you if you were, here would be my counsel. First, we need to get cranking on that neon production and other noble gases too. Whatever we got

to do, let's get it going. Because this is a no kidding moment of our nation's survival. Second, we've got to have semiconductor manufacturers back in this country and at a much bigger scale than we currently do. The problem is that it takes many years to fully build out that capacity and it's wildly expensive. Now, there is some good news here. There are a couple of bills currently under consideration on Capitol Hill. They've actually been passed by both the House and the Senate. They just have to be what's called reconciled. In other words, the leadership in the House and the Senate have to sit down and iron out their differences. Well, that should be finished by next month, and we've got to get that thing signed pronto. But there's a much bigger story here. And shame on us

if we don't stop to recognize it. We are at this moment of profound economic vulnerability, no neon gas, and very few computer chip companies on our shores, because of globalism. Now, that was a very popular idea back in the 80s and the 90s, that America should ship our manufacturing base to countries all around the world so that we could accomplish three goals. First, our companies could enjoy cheap labor and bigger profits. Second, when you as consumers buy all those cheap new products coming from abroad, they would be cheaper than if produced in America, so you would save money. Third goal, by globalizing the world's economies, we would be so married to each other, so economically intertwined, that divorce would be just

inconceivable. It would be too messy. So we'd just have to work things out peacefully. Well, it turns out that the first goal of corporations making money, boy oh boy, did they. But along the way, the American factory workers, well, they got passed over, didn't they? Because there were no good paying jobs that swept in after all the factories swept out. Now, this is a really big subject and one that deserves its own brief, but suffice to say, blue-collar workers in this country did not and have not benefited from globalization. Regarding that second goal, yes, you all get to buy cheap products made from China and Mexico. It's absolutely true. But I'll let you decide if those products are both well-made and if the trade-off is worth it. Finally, our economy is

absolutely unquestionably now married to a bunch of people around the world. Russia and China, in fact, and a mess of other countries who happen to be very, very corrupt. We are married to people and nations that we can't control or we can't really influence, who don't follow the rules. And now we're actually bombing one of them in Ukraine. So this Friday morning, you tell me if you think that this idea of globalization has worked out for us. Because it appears to me that our fate is no longer in our own hands. All because of computer chips and neon gas. Olivia Rodriguez.

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evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. As always, I'm watching a few other stories this morning. All updates from past briefs, so put this one back on your radar. Wheat Wars, as we've talked a lot about on the PDB, the world needs Ukraine's wheat, both the stuff in storage and the stuff in the fields, all set to be harvested in the next couple of months. But Russia isn't letting it out. Seaports are blocked. I previously briefed you on one alternative. That's shipping wheat and sunflower oil out via road or rail through neighboring Poland. Of course, that's a country that has lots of ports ready to ship products to market. But there were problems, if you recall. First,

the rail lines in Ukraine are a different width than the ones in Poland. That means a lot of headaches and delays to swap out wheels on the rail cars or to unload the wheat in Ukraine and then reload it in Poland. The second problem was volume. Trucks in particular can't carry the volume the trains can. Plus, there were too few drivers of the big rigs in the region. The third and final problem was security. Russians are bombing roads and rail lines throughout the country, and repairing all that takes time. Well, I've got some good news to report. Maybe not great news, but good news. So let's first talk about rail. The European Union is scouring the world for old Soviet equipment that will lift up those

Ukrainian rail cars and set them on new Polish wheels. They've had some luck, but just not as much as they'd like, and it's not going very quickly. So the concern remains that it won't all be done and ready in time for harvest, which is just about a month or so away. Plus, the Russians just bombed a key tunnel on Wednesday, one that was going from Ukraine into Poland. And that's obviously stopped trains. So authorities in Kiev are trying to repair it as quickly as they can, but obviously that's going to take some time.

They're having better luck via road. Shipments by truck are getting through, which is great, but lines are massively long, miles and miles long, all because of three key checkpoints and a customs requirement. So for instance, Ukraine's wheat has to undergo a series of tests to ensure good quality. And one of those tests is for radiation. And that's to ensure that no crop has been tainted by the Chernobyl disaster. from many decades ago. Now, those tests are obviously important, and they take people in time to process. Now, Poland has hired more customs inspectors, and they are running tests around the

clock, so there's some progress there. Still, there's the other issue of drivers and trucks. In the past, many Ukrainian men were the drivers of those trucks, and those men have either fled or they are fighting in the war. And as for extra trucks, they're pretty scarce. Polish and Ukrainian officials have put out the word, but so far not enough trucks. And even then, there's the driver shortage. So all in all, the Polish export route, either by rail or truck, it's going to be slow and it's going to be modest and impact. But as compared to a month ago, when I first briefed you on this, there is in fact more wheat and sunflower products that are going to market. Now, we still need the ports. That's absolutely key. But still, there's some progress. And even if it's just a little,

just a tiny bit. You know, I think that's worth celebrating as we head into our weekend. And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes your morning brief. As always, we close out the show reminding each other of why we are here, talking about our country and our world. It's the creed of every good spy and every smart American. It's from John chapter 8, verse 32. And you shall know the truth. And the truth shall make you free. Good day. San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th,

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