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Chinese Workers Are Saying Enough Is Enough, and Xi Is Not Amused · Stephanomics

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  Speaker 1: Wow, she was like sugar red, qunchy like chips and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: stuff like that. Actually, the days are crickets. Hello and
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: welcome to Stephanomics, the podcast that brings the global economy
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: to you. What you heard there might well be your
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Christmas dinner in a few years time. Keep listening to
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: find out what those lucky people were tasting why it
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  Speaker 1: might just save the world. We also tell you about
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: a new treasure trove of data showing just how much
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: federal stimulus checks have boosted the spending of black and
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  Speaker 1: Hispanic families and how inflation and a slower economy could
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  Speaker 1: take them back to square one. But first tune in,
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  Speaker 1: drop out, Live flat. Their parents may have worked twelve
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  Speaker 1: hour days for decades, supporting China's breakneck economic growth, but
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  Speaker 1: a growing number of young people in this famously industrious
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  Speaker 1: nation would rather not work at all. You could say
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  Speaker 1: it was the Asian counterpart to the Great Resignation that
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  Speaker 1: has business executives scratching their heads in the US and Europe.
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  Speaker 1: But the life flat movement also tells us quite a
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  Speaker 1: lot about how Chinese society has changed, and it could
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  Speaker 1: even put the government's grand plans for the future at risk.
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  Speaker 1: In a minute, I'll discuss all of that with Bloomberg
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  Speaker 1: opinion columnist Truly Rehn. But first here is our Hong
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  Speaker 1: Kong based China economy reporter Tom Hancock. In what has
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  Speaker 1: been branded as the Great Resignation, US workers are quitting
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  Speaker 1: their jobs in record numbers. More than twenty four million
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  Speaker 1: did so from April to September this year. Millions have
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  Speaker 1: dropped permanently out of the labor force, and similar trends
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  Speaker 1: are being seen in parts of Europe. But even in China,
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  Speaker 1: where coronavirus has been kept largely under control and the
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  Speaker 1: economy has doubled in size in the last decade, people
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  Speaker 1: are having similar feelings. The country's live flat movement, jump
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  Speaker 1: started by a social media post, is also about opting out.
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  Speaker 1: It's a reaction against the system in which are grueling
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  Speaker 1: nine six work schedule nine am to nine pm, six
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  Speaker 1: days a week is common in industries like technology, so
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  Speaker 1: is unrelenting pressure from family, society, and even the government
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  Speaker 1: to keep climbing the ladder. In October, thousands of employees
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  Speaker 1: at Chinese tech giants, including Ali Baba Group and the
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  Speaker 1: owner of TikTok groused about their long work hours in
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  Speaker 1: an online campaign called workers Lives Matter and It's not
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  Speaker 1: just a white color phenomenon. In the southern city of Shenjen,
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  Speaker 1: migrant workers from the countryside, once celebrated for being willing
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  Speaker 1: to work tough jobs in manufacturing, are rejecting manual jobs
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  Speaker 1: and sometimes prefer to spend their time playing online games,
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  Speaker 1: picking up day jobs as needed. Some see parallels between
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  Speaker 1: lie flat sentiment in China and similar ideas that emerged
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  Speaker 1: in Japan in the ninety nineties after its economic growth
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  Speaker 1: slowed sharply, suggesting China might be facing impending Japan style stagnation,
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  Speaker 1: but others argue it's more like the nineteen sixties style
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  Speaker 1: counterculture movements that cropped up in the US and Europe
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  Speaker 1: in a period of affluence, with ordinary people seeking a
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  Speaker 1: lower pressure society that's more focused on personal development the
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  Speaker 1: material success. That's the view of Chenza Young, a twenty
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  Speaker 1: five year old who lives in shen Jen while studying
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  Speaker 1: for a master's degree online. The society needs more definition
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  Speaker 1: about sucsass at the people around you are doing so well,
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  Speaker 1: or you are all competing for the same job or
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  Speaker 1: for the same kind of success, so you kind of
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  Speaker 1: like fear you are gonna laughed out, so some people
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  Speaker 1: just give up. Even though China, the US and Europe
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  Speaker 1: are very different economies, we can connect China's lying flat
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  Speaker 1: discussion with the concept of the great resignation in developed countries,
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  Speaker 1: says Young Bio, director of the Max Planck Institute for
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  Speaker 1: Social Anthropology in Germany. Both are about questioning the pursuit
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  Speaker 1: of wealth at an individual and a social level. They
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  Speaker 1: emerge at at the same time, and we can make
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  Speaker 1: a connection and the even links to bigger idea such
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  Speaker 1: as the growths such as a sustainability and this is
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  Speaker 1: somehow all related because it is about the overheating about
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  Speaker 1: US society. They become a excessively completed too, and just
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  Speaker 1: not as sustainable, not only in terms of environmental extraction,
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  Speaker 1: but also the mental the mental abendance is not as sustainable.
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  Speaker 1: Among the new dropouts is Melana Cooler, a twenty six
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  Speaker 1: year old from Germany who lost her job at the
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  Speaker 1: height of the pandemic last year. She has chosen to
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  Speaker 1: set up an environmentally sustainable commune in the countryside rather
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  Speaker 1: than seeking full time work. Am I enough just the
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  Speaker 1: way I am? Or do I constantly needs new equipment,
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  Speaker 1: new material, new goods in my life, new experiences to
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  Speaker 1: feel full in some form. So that's something I've really changed.
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  Speaker 1: Here in developed countries, pressure has been building for decades.
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  Speaker 1: Incomes of stagnated, job security has become precarious, and the
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  Speaker 1: costs of housing and education of sword making it harder
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  Speaker 1: to build a financially stable life. Melana story indicates how
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  Speaker 1: the pandemic has sometimes converted those simmering concerns into action.
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  Speaker 1: Will the Great Resignation and Life Let have a longer
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  Speaker 1: term impact. While they are a challenge to conventional ideas
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  Speaker 1: about work and consumption, Cimball points out that they seem
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  Speaker 1: to lack specific demands about how to change society. Many
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  Speaker 1: will be waiting to see if those ideas emerge. For
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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg News, I'm Tom Hancock in Hong Kong, so I
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  Speaker 1: wanted to talk a bit more about lying Flat and
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  Speaker 1: what it tells us about China's future with Bloomberg Opinion
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  Speaker 1: columnists Shuli Wren in Hong Kong. Shuli, welcome to Stephanomics.
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  Speaker 1: I love the opening line of a columny wrote the
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  Speaker 1: other day, China's young people are stressed out. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: there are there are concrete forces making young people's lives
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  Speaker 1: more stressful in China and the live flat movement, it's
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  Speaker 1: just one reaction to that, so tell us more absolutely
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  Speaker 1: definitely so so like after the Chinese governments a big
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  Speaker 1: tack and big real estate developer crackdown like that actually
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  Speaker 1: ruined a lot of the job prospects for China's young people,
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  Speaker 1: especially those fresh university graduates. I mean, China has been
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  Speaker 1: training about ten million university graduates every year, and in
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  Speaker 1: the past they already struggled to find good jobs, and
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  Speaker 1: now the jobs are even fewer than before. And then
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  Speaker 1: like in the graduating class of only one third decided
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  Speaker 1: to go into the job market, with another third saying, oh,
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  Speaker 1: I'm just going to try to, you know, go out
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  Speaker 1: to grad school because you know, like when there's a reception,
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  Speaker 1: everyone applies for grass school, right, some young people they
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  Speaker 1: just say, oh, I'm just going to take some time off,
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  Speaker 1: lie on my parents cultures, and figure out what they
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  Speaker 1: want to do. And I guess one of the one
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  Speaker 1: of the things that's happening is that you know, China's
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  Speaker 1: getting richer as a country and now it can have
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  Speaker 1: dropouts just the way that you know, the US had
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  Speaker 1: dropouts in the sixties. Absolutely, I mean being able to
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  Speaker 1: life flat, to be honest, it's a luxury good, right.
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  Speaker 1: And also like that the cost of of UH consumption
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  Speaker 1: for a lot of young people is coming down, like
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  Speaker 1: a China's a chancy just like elsewhere in US and
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  Speaker 1: then the UK. They don't need very much money or
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  Speaker 1: like they spend a lot of time on the internet
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  Speaker 1: right surfing on the internet, chat rooms and playing video games.
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  Speaker 1: It doesn't cost very much money, so they don't need
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  Speaker 1: to really earn that much, so they can afford it
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  Speaker 1: in a way. And also the parents. China has this
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  Speaker 1: major like only child policy, right, so the parents will
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  Speaker 1: be like, oh, that's my baby, and what can I do?
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  Speaker 1: I have to let them life that I want to
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  Speaker 1: get on with two what how the government's responded. But
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  Speaker 1: before I get to that, I wanted to ask you
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  Speaker 1: about young women facing particular challenges in this labor force.
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  Speaker 1: Tell us a bit more about that. So the best
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  Speaker 1: jobs for young women are in the services industries such
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  Speaker 1: as financial industry like UH and the media industry. And
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  Speaker 1: then like in China as in South Korea, like when
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  Speaker 1: when the young people apply for jobs they they need,
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  Speaker 1: they oftentimes are asked to attach a photo of themselves, right,
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  Speaker 1: So so young women start to feel that, oh, you know,
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  Speaker 1: if I I look better that that that makes me
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  Speaker 1: look a little bit more presentable. So a lot of
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  Speaker 1: them start to do a lot of clusters surgery like facelifts,
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  Speaker 1: you know, those jobs, so on, so forth, which is
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  Speaker 1: quite awful. H A while back, I also wrote about
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  Speaker 1: like aesthetics medicine in China, and then most of the
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  Speaker 1: demand don't come from older women but from eighteen to
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  Speaker 1: twenty four year olds, and it has become such a problem.
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  Speaker 1: And then like basically a facelift costs a lot of
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  Speaker 1: money and they don't have money for that, right, So
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  Speaker 1: so there are e commerce websites such as Ali baba
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  Speaker 1: um that uh, that give young women so called consumer
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  Speaker 1: loans to do those um a statics medicine procedures um.
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  Speaker 1: And then the government is calling a stop to that.
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  Speaker 1: They said that, you know, companies can no longer sell
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  Speaker 1: asset back securities which are backed by plastic facelift loans. Unbelievable.
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  Speaker 1: It's clearly alarming, I would think for China's government that
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  Speaker 1: has such big plans to to lead the world in
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  Speaker 1: several critical industries and become bigger and better and more
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  Speaker 1: skilled as a nation. To have young people dropping out
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  Speaker 1: like this, and how's the government responded, I mean present
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  Speaker 1: Shinping is very very worried that he he openly talked
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  Speaker 1: about like the lying flat problem phenomenon in China. And
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  Speaker 1: then like in October, so so like China that the
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  Speaker 1: State Council proposed this so called deal training program. It's
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  Speaker 1: it's essentially the German model. Like basically, China thinks that
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  Speaker 1: that the society is turning out too many fresh university
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  Speaker 1: graduates who just don't want to go to the factory
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  Speaker 1: flaws because they feel like, oh I I did four
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  Speaker 1: years of undergraduate that why do I want to go
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  Speaker 1: to the manufacturing sector? Right, So as a result, they
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  Speaker 1: decide to life flat and China things that society has
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  Speaker 1: too many of these people, and they want to have
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  Speaker 1: more young people go into um like so called the
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  Speaker 1: vocational training, like you know, you spend a few years
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  Speaker 1: learning skills in the school, but also a few more
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  Speaker 1: years you know, doing on the job training at the
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  Speaker 1: biggest blue chip companies such as Huawei or the China's
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  Speaker 1: power grid and that seems to be their their their solutions.
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  Speaker 1: They want more young people to go into high end
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  Speaker 1: manufacturing that does you know, electric evy supply chains or
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  Speaker 1: like chip manufacturing, and the China doesn't have enough of
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  Speaker 1: that right now. Is any of that working? Well, this
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  Speaker 1: is just a start. They just proposed this so called
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  Speaker 1: the German model in October. One problem is like, um,
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  Speaker 1: there is a little bit of a stigma when it
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  Speaker 1: comes to working on the factory floors, and the China's
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  Speaker 1: middle class families they don't really want their children to
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  Speaker 1: go into vocational school training, right, I mean the US
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  Speaker 1: that that hasn't been very successful either. So so what
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  Speaker 1: the state Council proposes that you know, some high, very
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  Speaker 1: high end like vocational schools. They should be able to
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  Speaker 1: offer bachelor's degrees as well. So so even though you
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  Speaker 1: are technically going to you know, um, the German model,
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  Speaker 1: you're still have a degree. So perhaps that will persuade
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  Speaker 1: the China's middle class families to allow their children to
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  Speaker 1: go into this kind of German uh deal track training programs.
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  Speaker 1: There's an awful lot of countries that have tried to
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  Speaker 1: be more German in particularly this respect. For many decades.
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  Speaker 1: Anybody who ever looks at the UK economy always concludes
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  Speaker 1: that we should be more German in our approach to
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  Speaker 1: education and have exactly this emphasis on technical skills and
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  Speaker 1: giving the same amount of esteem and regard to people
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  Speaker 1: doing engineering and working on the shop floors to people
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  Speaker 1: in universities. And it hasn't worked. They've been trying to
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  Speaker 1: do it for decades. Yeah, China will trial as well,
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  Speaker 1: I guess, but it certainly seems like the consequence of
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  Speaker 1: a new kind of China. When you say that, people
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  Speaker 1: say that it is demeaning to work on the shop
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  Speaker 1: on the shop floor in factories. Presumibly its people's parents
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  Speaker 1: originally did that. I mean, all of this development has
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  Speaker 1: happened in very few generations. I mean absolutely. My my
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  Speaker 1: father was a chemical engineer and that he did pretty well,
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  Speaker 1: like you know, like in the last two decades and
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  Speaker 1: basically exporting pollution, like you know, polluting the exporting products
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  Speaker 1: and stuff, and he did well. But he absolutely does
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  Speaker 1: not want me to go into engineering. He said it's
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  Speaker 1: tough work. And then he rather me you know, writing instead.
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  Speaker 1: Like the parents, they just don't want their children to
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  Speaker 1: go out to factory for and I think it's a
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  Speaker 1: sign that China is no longer really the typical virgin market.
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  Speaker 1: It kind of has emerged in a way, you know,
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  Speaker 1: like and you're and you're part of the problem, it seems, yeah, exactly,
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  Speaker 1: And the whole of time, I'm afraid cannot all work
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: at Bloomberg. I'm afraid that Uliman, thank you so much
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: for joining us, Thanks for having me so. Bloomberg has
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: recently published a series of articles under the tagline of
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Race and Recovery, looking at how America's economic recovery is
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: playing out in minority communities. There's some really eye opening
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: data and stories about life in different parts of the
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: economy in this series, and the final article came out
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: this week and seemed to me particularly timely as the
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: US Central Bank starts to talk about raising interest rates
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: and we enter what feels like a new phase of
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: the recovery. Andre Tartar is a data journalist for Bloomberg
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: based in New York, and he's with me now. And
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: the data you pulled together for this piece with Christopher
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Cannon this week paid a fascinating picture of US household
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: spending through this pandemic period and particularly impact that government
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: stimulus money has had on particular parts of the population.
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  Speaker 1: So just give us some of the big headlines from
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: those numbers, sure thing, and thank you so much for
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  Speaker 1: having me. So we got access to spending data for
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: just over a ten million people, a constant sample over
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: time that allowed us to really kind of look for
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: those trends and changes in spending behaviors. And the thing
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: that we really kind of struck us was just how
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: much spending had surged, in particular among black and lower
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: income families, um And we could see the very clear
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: uh impact of those federal stimulus checks, in part because
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: both of those groups, black and lower income groups are
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: much more reliant on debit card spending. And we could
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: see in this data just how much the debit card
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  Speaker 1: usage kind of rows around the time of the stimulus
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: checks because you're already spending what you have. You can
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: only spend what you have in your account because you
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: don't necessarily get credit exactly right. Whereas whereas, for instance,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: if you look at higher income spenders or you know,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: which you know also will capture a large portion of
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: white and agent spenders, their use of credit is much
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: much higher. They were clearly in this data and and
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: other research has shown that they that those groups were
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: much more able to hold back spending right in those
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: first few months waiting this out, which is much harder
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: for those groups which live a bit tighter, you know,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: month to month. What kind of numbers are we talking
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: about in terms of just the impact of the of
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: the stimulus packages relative to what they would have spent
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: would have been spending in say, in the case of
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: say spending by the black people in our sample, it
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: was up almost um this past kind of spring and
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  Speaker 1: summer compared to twenty m minting levels, which is, you know,
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  Speaker 1: a trend that would not be seen normally, you know,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: even factoring in just normal economic growth, normal inflation, that
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: is a really significant bump up um, you know, and
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: there certainly are other factors at play, but you know,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: given kind of this, given the scope of that of
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: that injection of cash really into into parts of economy,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: it was significant, and across the sample, I think it
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: was even it was increase in spending, which only which
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: only came back a certain amount when things like the
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: unemployment benefits ran out in in the full absolutely, I
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: mean as of October, which was the last month that
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: we had data for overall spending across this group of
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: about ten million Americans was still up about fifteen compared
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: to twenty miniting levels. And we should just say briefly
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: what this what this data was? Where did you get
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: hold of these numbers? So this DADA comes from from
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: a company called Affinity Solutions, Inc. Which have been incredibly
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: generous in working with us and often partner with the
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: FED academics to provide access to their data, which nationally
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: covers more than a hundred million debit and credit cards
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: UM and has an incredible amount of depth to it.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: So you know, it was really great Chricket access to
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: this UM and being able to also use the data
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: that they have linking demographics and income into this data,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: which is a very kind of complicated process that they
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: undertake UM on their end, so you know, it really
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: gives a lot of insights that otherwise are hard to
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: get at that at that level of detail. It's so
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: exciting when you get hold of a big, meaty data
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: set like this and to have it been relatively timely
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: as well as going through to October. And I have
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: to say you do a fantastic job of making it
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: come alive with some really lovely colorful graphics, which we're
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: not doing justice too on the podcast. Right a shout
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: out to Christopher Cannon on the graphics who made all
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: those beautiful graphics and definitely recommend folks to go and
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: a metical look. I mean, inflation poses a risk to
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: this big increase in spending power. Right when we look
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: forward to next year, are we potentially seeing this big
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: improvement in in particularly black and Hispanic households spending power
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: being being really hit by both inflation and potentially a
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: slowing economy. I mean absolutely right. So this really kind
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: of that injection of that federals federal simulus really closed
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  Speaker 1: a huge consumption gap and also showed us the kind
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  Speaker 1: of untapped potential right that exists in those communities who
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  Speaker 1: who just tend to have lower incomes and lower access
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: to credit. So both so both kind of the fact
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  Speaker 1: that now most of that you know, additional cash has
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  Speaker 1: have been spent, and as you mentioned, inflation is going
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  Speaker 1: to begin to eat in to some of those core
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: spending staple groups that just can't be avoided. Certainly foods,
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  Speaker 1: certainly gas are ones where you know, groups who have
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  Speaker 1: to go physically into work, who don't have a lot
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  Speaker 1: of ability to hold off spending or access credit. I
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  Speaker 1: think we will certainly see a very you know, a
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  Speaker 1: very likely a kind of a tempering or even a
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: full on slow down of the spending recovery, which as
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: we know, powers the vast majority of the U. S economy.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: So you know, it both has implications for the kind
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: of equity side of the picture, but also just for
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: the recovery more broadly. Yeah, and there's certainly a lesson
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: if you if you want to stimulate the economy and
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: get people to spend, give it to pull people who
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: don't have enough money to buy the things they want
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: to buy. There actually are some fascinating studies out there
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: which have really shown though that that stimulus money, if
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: you were a wealth your household, you basically saved it
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: all right, So I mean, really it wasn't doing what
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: it was meant to do. Of course, for reasons of
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: you know, of efficiency, the idea was to just give
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: checks all around. But as you mentioned, I mean, this
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: data really shows that you can get the biggest bang
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: for your stimulus buck by really sending it to those
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: lower income households and communities of color, you know who
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: kind of aren't being able to tap into their full
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: consumption potential. It's a difficult challenge for the Federal reserver,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: right because they're supposed to be they're supposed to be
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: focused on both stable inflation and full employment. They've said
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: they're going to focus more on everybody's unemployment rate, not
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: just the headline rate, and of course on black unemployment
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: is still quite a lot higher, um than the than
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: the average for the rest of the country, but they're
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: kind of weighing up. Inflation hurts poor people, digs into
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: their spending power, but not getting those jobs created, not
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: bringing down unemployment hurts them too. It's a difficult challenge absolutely, um,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, and on top of that, there's also you know,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: there's a machine momentum that um, we are in where
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: we have I think it's something like a ten million
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: unful jobs, and yet we're still not seeing really that
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: broad based, you know, decline in unemployment. So it really
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: does present a very difficult obstacle course for the Fed policymakers,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: but also fantastic time to be doing data journalism. Thanks
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: so much, Thank you, definitely, I really appreciate it. M H. Finally,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: at the start of the program. I think I promised
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: to you the future of food is Hong Kong reporter
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Juan ha. It has the rain natty taste. That's Malaysian
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: entrepreneur Kevin Wou describing the perfect burger that he wants
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: to put into restaurants and grocery stores. So we added
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: some spices to give it that kind of familiar beefy taste,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: the grounded beef taste. And we've added certain kind of
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: hats like mushroom seasoning to give you that umami flavor.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: And the secret ingredient. We've perized our crickets, you heard right,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: crickets roasted and processed into a fine brown powder, and
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: then we mix it with other plant based protein source.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: I think it's pretty tasty, especially when you when you
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: look at the burglar, it looks at normal burger, small,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: normal burger, even sizzles like a normal burger. Who's the
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: founder and CEO of Ento based in Kuala Lumpur. He's
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: an evangelist for protein made from insects, and he's not alone.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Startups from Europe, Asia and North America are joining the
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: race for alternative proteins and say bugs are making their
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: way to our dinner plates. It's the next big frontier
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: for planet friendly sustainable protein after fake meat. If you
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: were to compare one kilogram of beef versus one kilogram
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: of cricket powder um, it will require tolf times last feet,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: twenty times less land, two thousand times less water, and
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: amid two thousand times less greenhouse gas emissions. So, in
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: its most natural form, insect based protein has already high
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: enriched levels of proteins and other macro nutrients. And in
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: an into promotional video, taste testers who tried the company's
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: cricket snacks gave it a thumbs up. There's like sugars,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: red clunchy like chips and stuff like that. Actually thottle
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: taste are crickets. There's also a sustainability reason why edible
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: bugs are on the menu. Constant Tetter is CEO of
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Fly Farm. You know protein is needed, It's going to
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: be an increasing need as the human population expands. His
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: company is setting up industrial farms to harvest black Soldier
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: fly larvae. You know that those needs cannot be met sustainable,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: and so insect farming has a giant potential to be
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: able to alter that entire protein landscape, whether that use
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: is going directly to humans, or whether it's going to
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: feed that then go to animals that then go to humans.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Tedder and other industry insiders say insect protein is gaining momentum.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: The industry was worth just a little under a billion
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: dollars in nine and Barclay's estimates it will be an
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: eight billion dollar market. Still, there's a lot of ketchup
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: that bug protein needs to do to challenge the plant
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: based protein industry that's now thirty billion dollars strong. The
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: market has matured massively in the last couple of couple
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: of years. Katharina Unger's company Live in Farms is building
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: industrial scale automated factories that grow and harvest the larvae
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: of black soldier flies. The CEO says, one of the
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: biggest obstacles standing in the way of insect protein being
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: accepted as food is the yuck factor. I didn't grow
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: up loving insects or loving the idea of eating insects.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: On the contrary, my hands were shaking when I was
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: first doing doing it, you know, and I really had
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: to also myself get over this. This concept of eating
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: a larva. Larvae is the industry's preferred term for what
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: most people would describe our living writhing maggots. So far,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: many of those willing to try larvae and other critters
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: are young consumers looking to make planet friendly choices. Here's
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: wu from into our current segments, mostly urban, affluent millennials,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: who are aware about the negative impact that traditional agriculture
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: and meat based production has on our planet. Some of
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: the world's major producers are betting on that sustainability value proposition.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: There are now investing millions of dollars to help bring crickets, beetles,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: meal worms, and fly larvae to mouths around the world,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: and the market may not need that much prodding. Globally,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: more than two billion people already eat insects. According to
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: the United Nations, nearly two thousand types of bugs are edible,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: and that's catching the attention of food producers. The company
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Chicken of the Sea Tuna Thai Union launched a thirty
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: million venture fund to invest in alternative proteins. It's invested
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: in three insect protein startups so far, including an Israeli
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: company that's working on tuna from fruit fly larvae. Antoine
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Hubert is CEO of insect in France. So the two
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: main trends are execually meat replacements and false in efficient
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: serial or an eergy drinks, which was the first market
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: before it would be the first grow where it's more
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: about performance and not about tastes. The company is building
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: some of the biggest industrial insect farms after attracting millions
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: of dollars in investments from venture capitalists and Hollywood star
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Robert Downey Jr. Who Bear says the industry got a
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: big boost when European Union lawmakers passed legislation this year
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: to allow insects to be fed to farm animals. Last week,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: crickets were approved as food for humans. They joined meal
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: worms and locusts to get the green light to be
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: marketed in Europe. Lawmakers are also considering nearly a dozen
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: other insects seeking approval to be sold as food. Clearlier,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: the Europe is a more advance framework there, which is
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: then helping companies to innovate Row, which invests with the
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: visibility and investors that there are more stronger insurance of
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: success because the markets are there. The company is selling
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: burger patties made from buffalo meal worm protein that's being
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: offered in restaurants and grocery stores in Austria and Denmark.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Meal worm protein has a nutty mild taste and it's
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: being used in baked goods and pastas. But the company's
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: bigger business now and for the next few years is
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: selling bug protein as feed for animals. Food giants from
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Cargil to Archer Daniels Midland are putting money into such initiatives.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Katharina Unger of Living Farms sees that as the low
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: hanging fruit, turning insects into pet food or as feed
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: for farm animals and fish, our customers in the food
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: and feet industry. They typically make six digit losses on
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: their food waste, disposing it at a cost to biogas digestors.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: A new planet friendly regulations to cut waste and emissions
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: in Europe and elsewhere put insects front and center to
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: upscale organic food waste. Anger's company has contracts to build
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: three plants next year in Europe and Asia for food
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: and beverage companies. Live in Farms plans to work with
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: the likes of breweries, bakeries and juice makers that produce
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: tons of organic waste. With our solution, they can produce
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: higher value products that they can sell so they turn
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: their losses into revenues and into an emission saving process.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: We save about sevent of emissions turning the waste into
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: insect proteins. The bug protein will be sold to pet
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: food producers, while insect oil and excrement called frast is
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: sold as fertilizer. Who bear of insect also sees more
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: our money and investment over the next few years for
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: bug protein and more acceptance by consumers. So we will
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: have thousands of in six months in the world. That's
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: that's supporting this more fest nipple food system. You will
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: see insect on the menu everywhere. It would be a
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: normal You won't eat it every day, of course, but
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: it will be no more to sit on the menu
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: in the restaurants, no more to sit in the supermarkets.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: The company's third factory comes online next year near Paris.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: It says that will be the world's largest insect farm
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: in the world. For Bloomberg News, I'm one hard. That's
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: it for this episode of Stephonomics. Will be back next
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: week with a special Christmas episode of Stephonomics featuring the one,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: the Only Larry Summers. In the meantime, if you like
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: the program, please rate it and follow at economics on
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Twitter for more news analysis from Bloomberg Economics. This episode
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: was produced by Magnus Hendrickson. As we mentioned earlier, Christopher
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Cannon worked with Andrew Tarter on that report on US
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: household spending. Special thanks also to Shulei Wren, Tom Hancock,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: and Juan Haa. Mike Sasso is executive producer of Stephonomics
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: and the head of Bloomberg Podcast is Francesca Levy.