Victacular » international

Book Review: Turkmeniscam

Vicki — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:33:26 +0000

I don’t know about you, but I always love a good story about how the U.S. government screws over its constituents. Turkmeniscam by Ken Silverstein (journalist and fellow Jew) promises such a story and delivers with style. The subtitle, “How Washington Lobbyists Fought to Flack for a Stalinist Dictatorship,” says it all.

The amount of corruption that Silverstein uncovers in the United States government is alarming. He starts with the background of the fallout against Jack Abramoff and other lobbyists in the fall of 2006, and goes on to explore the ultrashady relationship between, specifically, international lobbyists willing to shill dictatorships for large amounts of money.

He writes,

When one flips through the pages of the [U.S. government's annual survey of global human rights in March 2007], it becomes apparent that many of the countries most severly criticized for human rights abuses had fon from the Bush administration foreign aid, military assistance, adn expanded trade opportunities. A number of leaders from these countries have also won coveted White House visits, and accompanying photo ops with Bush or other senior officials.

This reaches back much further than the Bush administration, however, and lobbyists and legislators have become inextricably intertwined in government, bonded together by billions of dollars and mutual owed favors.

Silverstein offers several things from his book: 1) An explanation of how lobbying firms work and how they curry favor with the government 2) A history of how such activities come to be and, most fascinating, 3)an expose. He infiltrates two very prestigious Washington, D.C. international lobbying firms, pretending to be a shadowy proxy company, The Maldon Group, which has geopolitical interests in Turkmenistan, a government renowned for its brutality. His goal is to get the groups to lobby and create favor for positive trade relations between Turkmenistan and the United States, without having the groups ask too many questions.

Some of my favorite descriptions of Turkmenistan by Silverstein, who clearly has done meticulous research in planning this book, are those of its past psycho dictator, Sapurmarat Niyazov:

When he was crowned as President-for-Life, Niyazov was presented with a white robe and a palm staff, traditional symbols of the Prophet Mohammed. Not long afterward, he declared himself a “national prophet…

To spread his own pearls of personal and spiritual wsdom, Niyazov penned the Ruhnama, which was described on its official website as being “on par with the Bible and the Koran.” Ruhnama is the veil of the Turkmen people’s face and soul, wrote Niyazov in the first chapter…..September was renamed Ruhnama under the Turkmenbashi, and Saturday was renamed the Day of the Mind, and henceforth was devoted to reading his masterwork.

What’s worse is that, aside from these comic incidents, Niyazov pretty much killed a bunch of people and made his personality cult worse than anything Stalin could have concocted.

Silverstein goes on to say that he would be able to pay $10 million, which gets him not only enormous exposure to Congressmen, who, plied by lobbying firm favors, would be more willing to also promote Turkmenistan, but to think tanks and jorunalists who might promote Turkmenistan in favorable, clearly-biased articles, purchased by money that goes around and around in government.

I’ll ruin the end for you and say that two lobbying firms agreed to represent him in his mission to bring Turkmenistan into a positive light, but the process of going through to research firms and how they prop up rouge governments is what is most important in this book. It’s a book that, like Confessions of an Economic Hitman, really opened my eyes to the way international wheeling and dealing, and the fact that those who lobby for dictatorial regimes justify their actions by saying they are no worse than lawyers who represent clients that may be guilty.

Ivri Lider in Washington, DC: On Wanting to Be Israeli

Vicki — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 02:39:57 +0000

For those of you who live on another planet (or possibly not in Jewlandia in which case you are hereby pardoned,) Ivri Lider is a very popular Israeli musician. Not only has he had more hits than Micahel Tyson, he has also publicly come out as gay and still remained successful and popular, which is a tremendous accomplishment in the fickle world of showbusiness.

Thanks to the kind generosity of 16th Street JCC in DC, I scored two tickets to go see Ivri Lider at 9:30 Club. Tanya went as my date, because you can never have too many Russian girls at an Ivri Lider concert. Also, we were outnumbered by Israelis. How do you know there are Israelis at any given concert? When the flyers outside specifically state that the artists requests you don’t take any pictures or video and as soon as the lights go off, you hear the sound of 10 Sony D-120s turn on and snap away. It was comforting to be in the presence of so many people blatantly breaking laws and social boundaries and strangers talking loudly into my ear. I felt like my internship in Tel Aviv all over again.

If you’ve read my Jewlicious post on Ivri, you’ll see the first two paragraphs regurgitated. Because I’m lazy. What I really wanted to talk about here is the feeling I got when I went to concert.

Every day, I work, live, and play in America. It’s hectic here, people are sometimes unfriendly, and the barista is under enormous pressure to get your order out in three seconds or be scolded. America is a great place for opportunities, but cold, and at times, leaves you burnt out. When you are at work, your mind is constantly on deadlines, on brisk English, and on power lunches.

When you come to a concert for an Israeli artist, something changes. The mood softens, time slows down, and you see lots and lots of Israelis. And suddenly, you don’t feel like you’re in the United States anymore. You feel like you’re on the Frishman beach, on a July night, and it’s sunset. The music is far away, coming from a bar on the beach, and you are sitting in the sand with a hookah in one hand and a slice of watermelon in the other while techno pipes in from far away over the melting sun. The tension fades away. People start talking in Hebrew and checking their cell phones, but it’s not a check for work email. A check to see that it’s 11:00 and it’s a summer night and their friends are just coming down to get the party started.

You are far away, floating on the Mediterranean, smelling the flowers, the salt by the tayelet, the hot, salty foods of the street vendors. You are standing next to people who are a million miles away and a thousand times more relaxed, and you suddenly feel shy to practice the Hebrew you’ve been dying to use since three summers ago.

You forget for a moment all the issues you had in Israel, and you just viscerally feel the connection that you established to Israel the first time you went. It’s like the connection you have with your husband. You can’t really define it. It’s just always there, enveloping you, a source of strength.

Then, the concert ends, and you are back to reality. You feel a distinct sense of homesickness that you always feel when you think of Israel even though you’ve never lived there longer than two months, and, at the same time, the pain of guilt. You’re not Israeli, you didn’t serve in the Army. How can you love and visit Israel but, for long periods of time, support it from afar? You’re a hypocrite, an armchair Zionist. You struggle with these thoughts every day. How can you be proud of the fact that you don’t do anything physical for Israel? You are always embarrassed to talk to Israelis who ask you how you know Hebrew. “Oh, I interned in Israel for two months,” seems equivalent to “Oh, I gave food to hungry Africans by clicking on a website button.” You remain undecided, just like you do every day.

But then Ivri starts singing Kos HaKhula, and, for a moment, you forget about your monumental struggle and you are back in the music.

Apologies for the sentimental musing. I ran fresh out of sarcasm. Come tomorrow for some more, please.

You Can Never Go Home Again: Reverse Immigration

Vicki — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:35:13 +0000

The Washington Post recently had a great article on reverse immigration, where immigrants to the United States go back to their home countries because of the hectic pace of life. I wouldn’t call Africa the promise land, mostly because I am kind of scared of the HIV. Also, I just like saying the HIV. Even though, obviously, not everywhere in Africa has the HIV. Only the populated parts have (the HIV).

The article states,

He wanted a healthier lifestyle for his family, less anxiety, fewer 14-hour days. So he recently traded his deluxe apartment, the pickup truck, the dishwasher and $4.99 McDonald’s combos for life in a place he considers relatively better: sub-Saharan Africa.

“Right now I’m no stress, no anxiety,” said Odhiambo, 34, relaxing in his family home in this western Kenyan city along the shores of Lake Victoria. “Think of it this way: When I was in the U.S., I was close to 300 pounds. Now, I’m like 200. The biggest thing for me was quality of life.”

It’s not certain whether Odhiambo weighs less because the quality of food in Africa is better than in the United States (a topic I lightly grazed in my recent post on Nutella,) or because there is no food in Africa. Either way, it seems like reverse immigration was a positive experience for this family.

Keeping up with experts in reverse immigration (and by experts, I just mean, Neo Indian, who writes about living again in India and eating mangoes at the rate of 5 per day,) I surmise that this process is close to impossible for most.

Reverse immigration is hard, mostly because of the reverse culture shock you experience that validates the saying, “You can never go home again.” My main citations for this experience is A) My parents’ recollections of their visits to Russia versus the nostalgia they always describe about the country and B) My own experiences going back to Russia, where, in an effort to nostalgically return to the apartment building we used to live in, I was almost bitten by wild/stray dogs.

In the spirit of thinking about going back to mother countries, here is a list of things my parents regularly announce that they would not be able to live with if they had to go back to Russia. They play this hypothetical game quite often, as if NKVD agents are already at their door and telling them to pack their suitcases. They are usually very gleeful and smug when they play this game.

The constant red tape and the bribery
The cover that all businesses have to pay to the Mafia to keep going
The fact that I would not be able to have as many opportunities for education
The public bathrooms
The use of the sides of public buildings as public bathrooms

and, for my mom, the bonus round:

the anti-Semitism

Returning is always different, but unfortunately for this economist, it’s not something that can be quantified. It’s the different feel of a courtyard, the way the walls look smaller, and the way the food doesn’t taste as sharp. I’ve been thinking about reverse immigration in the context of this article, and the best way to describe, at least in terms of returning to Russia, it is via Est/Ouest, one of my favorite movies, where a Russian emigre from Paris heeds Stalin’s call for Russians to repatriate and rebuild the mother country. As can be expected, everyone is screwed over, and there is death. Death is a favorite theme for Russians. Unfortunately, this Russian death/screwing over takes place only in French in the Youtube because I couldn’t find one with English subtitles. Apologies in advance.

One of the comments on the You Tube video is also accurate,

welcome to the motherland….Biaaach! *bang!*

Vicki goes to the World Bank

Vicki — Sun, 31 May 2009 02:44:51 +0000

This week, I had lunch at the World Bank. It was AWESOME.

Since I love international politics, international economics, and pretty much international anything (international Nutella), me going to lunch at the World Bank is like a hypochondriac being invited to tour the Centers for Disease Control.

From the moment I set foot in the door, I instantly forgot about the concern and criticism surrounding the effectiveness of the Bank’s programs (found here, here, and here.) I was in awe. There was artwork from around the world. You could go to different lectures, about Iraq or water security, or any other international development topic you could think of. People walked around in both suits and kimonos. (Well, ok, not kimonos, but they were dressed pretty awesome-ly.)

Near the courtyard in the middle is a fountain (but no Oompa Loompas)

Not only was the building gorgeous, but the thrill of being surrounded by so many people doing so many different things in the realm of international economics was very exciting, not only on a personal, but also on a professional level. Even though D.C. is the best place to build your career if you are trying to be an international economic expert, I should admit I haven’t tried my hardest to network and join the community, the biggest reason being that it might be possible for me to move to Philadelphia in the (near?) future, reducing that opportunity and severing ties significantly. A dilemma I always have is whether I should work on building my network here and now given that I might not be here to leverage it in the future.

Beautiful hallway with paintings along it

Although I couldn’t help thinking that the building and all of the artwork was paid for partly with American tax dollars, it was a real treat. The sushi was delicious, too.

Blurry pictures don't do it justice

I’m going to have to come back to further investigate. The sushi situation.

This sushi massacre clearly deserves the implementation of economic sanctions.

One of these Nutellas is not like the other

Vicki — Thu, 28 May 2009 02:05:10 +0000

Nutella is my crack. I like to run laps just so I can eat Nutella. I’m a slave to the hazelnut. So, when I was eating Nutella out of the jar with a butter knife, shamelessly the other day, I noticed something. Take a look. Do you see it?

No, it’s not the fact that I hoard Nutella jars like a crackhead.

One of the jars, I bought in an American grocery store, made for the American market and one of the jars I bought in a Russian grocery store, made for the Polish market but for some reason being sold in Northeast Philadelphia. Do you see the difference? Can you guess which is which?

Yup, the European one is much smaller. Figures. But why? Everyone knows French women don’t get fat. Why can’t we have the same serving sizes in the United States? Is it a combination of culture plus some sort of economic benefits of economies of scale of producing larger jars of Nutella? Is it because Europe itself is smaller, lending to smaller houses and smaller portion sizes?

Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Русские грибы-Russian mushrooms

Vicki — Tue, 19 May 2009 02:14:29 +0000

Can you guess what this is?

Snake-like

It is not a snake head or the ear of a small gnome. It is, in fact a real mushroom imported from Russia. By imported I mean my aunt brought it when she came for our wedding last October, in the suitcase. She picked them herself in the forest and dried them. This small food is one of my favorites in the world, and one of the things I associate most with Russia.

In Russia, there was not a lot of food, as I’ve referenced in previous posts. This however, did not stop me from being BLOBULA when I was little. I persevere through any foodversity.

Anyway, one of the things that people did to mitigate the scarce shelves,was try their best to resist Soviet propaganda men, drawn to look eerily like my grandfather in his youth, by drinking as much vodka as possible.

Another thing they did was to bulk up their food supply. Much like Mobama and her chic White House garden, they grew food at their dachas (summer houses.) Only, unlike Mobama, if they didn’t have certain kinds of food, they didn’t eat. One of the ways to do this was to pick mushrooms in the woods, in the fall when the mushrooms were ready. It wasn’t seen as a chore, more like a national pastime, much like the World Series and the Clinton-Lewinsky Scandal are in the United States.

I remember faintly going on several of these mushroom outings when I was little. The result was that we would always have mushroom soup when we got home. To this day, it’s my favorite soup to both cook and eat (out of the three soups that I both cook and eat, being a picky cook and eater.)

Mushroom soup by itself is good. But soup made from real, Russian dried mushrooms is FANTASTIC. This is one of the rare cases I wish the Internet had smell-enabled capabilities. Because, look at these mushrooms:

Soaking in their own juices for about three hours. Look at that mushroom juice. Not great to drink unless you want to kill someone, but great to soak in. As they soak, out of them comes a woodsy flavor, something that seems old, like a library full of leathery books, but also smelling like moss and the Russian forest, where a great deal of Russian folklore and magic always occurs. In the forest, there is always enchantment. Little girls go to pick mushrooms and they might get a glimpse of leshii or rusalki, forest mermaids stuck in deep pools, pining for their lost lovers. Or they might not see anything, but Russian forests are always rife with whispers of old pagan religion. And the mushrooms grow, cool, undisturbed, until they are picked.

Then, you take them out of the bowl, and cut them up, and the juice is all over your knife, but they still retain their stately flavor, and now your whole kitchen smells like rich, woodsy, raw mushroom.

And then comes the best part. While the rest of the soup is boiling, you throw them in the frying pan to give them some flavor.

And they start to sizzle and hiss and protest, because they’re meant to be in cool, dark, deep, lovely wooded places, not on your skillet. And then, their rich smell fills your whole kitchen. At this point, your husband wanders over from the computer and asks when the soup is going to be ready, and if there’s anything he can do to help, namely by eating the soup.

Then, they’re done frying, and your apartment smells like your mom’s house has always smelled, like Russia and frying mushrooms and boiling potatoes, of gossip she’s told you over the years while she was standing at the stove making this soup and you thought it was all a huge mystery, of how delicious it came out every time.

But suddenly, you are the хозяйка (hozaika-hostess or mistress of the house), and it is you who is producing the delicious soup, and you can hardly believe yourself.

Trip to the Newseum

Vicki — Sun, 17 May 2009 22:51:37 +0000

Mr. B and I went to the Newseum today. Going to amalgamate it into some thoughts later, when my mind stops spinning from how AWESOME it was. For now, enjoy these pics.

Let’s legalize prostitution and have a party!

Vicki — Thu, 14 May 2009 02:35:28 +0000

I’ve been having this conversation with several people over the past week or so. That’s why it’s important to get this off my chest (no pun intended.) Prostitution should be legalized.

There are several reasons I take this position (again, no pun-oh, never mind.) Most of them can be found here,along with a link to the Sex Workers Alliance of Vancouver. Oh, Canadians.

Here’s a main line from the legalization of prostitution in Sweden:

According to this Web site for the Women’s Justice Center, Sweden’s way of doing things is a big success. “In the capital city of Stockholm the number of women in street prostitution has been reduced by two thirds, and the number of johns has been reduced by 80%.” Trafficking is reportedly down to 200 to 400 girls and women a year, compared with 15,000 to 17,000 in nearby Finland. Max Waltman, a doctoral candidate in Stockholm who is studying the country’s prostitution laws, says that those stats hold up. He also said the police are actually going after the johns as ordered: In 2006, more than 150 were convicted and fined. (That might not sound like many, but then Sweden has a population of only 9 million.)

Basically, criminalizing an activity only makes it go underground. Case in point: drugs. Places where prostitution is legal, such as the Netherlands, even have laws to help with health care for prostitutes. Let’s waste our time on more salient issues, like, oh, I don’t know, how horrible Israel’s Eurovision entry is.

Finally, this doesn’t have to do with pro-legalization or not, but here is the most thorough economic study of prostitution I have seen to date. The poor grad students who compiled the sample data.

Combining transaction-level data on street prostitutes with ethnographic observation and
official police force data, we analyze the economics of prostitution in Chicago.
Prostitution, because it is a market, is much more geographically concentrated than other
criminal activity. Street prostitutes earn roughly $25-$30 per hour, roughly four times
their hourly wage in other activities, but this higher wage represents relatively meager
compensation for the significant risk they bear.

May 9: The Day we Pwned the Germans

Vicki — Fri, 08 May 2009 19:54:25 +0000

World War II is kind of a Big Deal for Russians. As much as the Americans helped, we like to say that “Russia threw bodies at Hitler,” and that’s how we won. By just burying him in bodies. Also, we probably started making German soldiers drink moonshine vodka (that would be vodka made out of cleaning alcohols.) That would be the other point of victory.

We celebrate it on May 9, which is Victory Day and a HUGE deal in Russia. The way we remember it best is with the lentochka Svetova Georgiya (St. George ribbon), which commemorates the enormous sacrifices that ordinary Russians made to win against the Nazis.

Within my own family, these stories aren’t too hard to find. Many, many Russians on my dad’s side were conscripted to serve. Many never came back. One did. My great-aunt Masha (Maria.) When I last saw her, she was about 85 years old. She still walks and she walks with a chest full of medals given to her by the Soviet government for bravery. She served on the front, in the Baltic countries, as a radio transmitter, and as a woman. I can’t say how proud this makes me of my family.

While my Russian side of the family was serving, my Russian Jewish side of the family, my mom’s side was busy serving AND escaping the Nazi tidal wave. My grandpa’s father and two brothers went to serve. Two were killed and one came back severely injured, leaving my great-grandma with my grandpa and his sisters. They began the long evacuation from Belarussia, to Uzbekistan because living in the Asian republics was safter. Those who didn’t were murdered by Nazis that had advanced.

Life was tough in Uzbekistan, too. My grandpa told me a story that I will never forget. I was about eight years old, and he was putting me to bed because my parents were out for some reason. “Tell me a story,” I begged him.

“There was a little boy who lived in Uzbekistan. He evacuated there with his mother, and times were hard. There wasn’t a lot of food; sometimes, they got some from working, some from potatoes, other times from scavaging. One night when he was awake from hunger, he heard a noise by the side of his mattress on the floor. He realized that it was a mouse, who was just as hungry as he was. So he started saving his food and feeding it to the mouse so the mouse could feel better.”

“Stop,” I begged my grandpa, crying. I couldn’t handle the story anymore.

“It’s just a story! It’s fine,” he said.

But I couldn’t calm down and spent the rest of the night crying, picturing the little boy giving the mouse food.

I never realized whether this was a true story or not. Maybe not. My grandpa likes to make stuff up a lot, one of my favorite traits about him. But today, I realize that the story could have come out of something that he faced when he was in evacuation.

So, while I don’t always wear the lentochka, I always remember.

Heart of DeBeers: Conflict Diamonds and Kanye

Vicki — Wed, 06 May 2009 01:38:07 +0000

Put this video on play in the background as you read the post:

It says a lot about a post when Kanye’s involved right off the bat.

I just saw Blood Diamond. I thought it was a great movie, and obviously a great segue into talking about the worldwide diamond industry.

There have already been a lot of important things said about this movie and about conflict diamonds. Here‘s one. Here‘s another. And here’s a third. For those not in the know, conflict diamonds are stones purchased to fuel civil war in Africa or other hotspots. In return for money, guns, and ammunition to fight civil wars, smugglers sell diamonds into the prestegious houses in Amsterdam and London. I hate how the world works in Blood Diamond (according to stuff that I’ve read, close to real life, as well.) I love how clearly it shows economic trends.

Any country that has natural resources falls prey to what is called the natural resource curse. I wrote a little bit about this in my undergraduate economic honors thesis with resepct to Russia and its oil industry. Any country that has an abundance of natural resources, as Sierra Leone does, tends to have less economic growth than countries with more resources. The reason behind this is that the government often becomes corrupt and mismanages the resources. Additionally, price volatility comes into play. Natural resources, particularly petrolum, are always in price flux. When countries base their revenue models on these resources, they tend to collapse, as Russian oil prices are doing now.

What was shown in Blood Diamond is the mismanagement by the government, but not the price instability. The reason that diamonds always cost so much is, that, as DiCaprio’s character explained, the jewlery houses hoard them to artificially inflate demand in a classic case of a centrally-planned industry economy. The reality is that there are more diamonds in the world than stars in the sky. This was known as early as the 1980s, when Epstien wrote a huge article about it in The Atlantic.

“The creation of the idea that diamonds are rare and valuable, and are essential signs of esteem is a relatively recent development in the history of the diamond trade.”

De Beers proved to be the most successful cartel arrangement in the annals of modern commerce. While other commodities, such as gold, silver, copper, rubber, and grains, fluctuated wildly in response to economic conditions, diamonds have continued, with few exceptions, to advance upward in price every year since the Depression. Indeed, the cartel seemed so superbly in control of prices — and unassailable — that, in the late 1970s, even speculators began buying diamonds as a guard against the vagaries of inflation and recession. “

As a result of the negative press the movie has gotten and the movement of conscious consumers towards other diamonds options, such as not diamonds, diamond demand is finally starting to come down.

“This is being supported by diamond jewellery sales – particularly in the US which accounts for half the world’s diamond jewellery sales – but understandably, there is some nervousness about the key buying period coming up between Thanksgiving and Christmas,” he said. “However, there will be some gradual increases in supply over the next four years. This may see some price decline from next year ranging from 10% to 20% in 2009 as production levels rise and market demand remains low around current growth rates compared to 8.5% in recent years.” About $76 billion worth of diamonds are sold at the retail level each year.

Seventy-six billion dollars worth of diamonds. That’s as much as 45% of Obama’s stimulus package. How much of those diamonds are purchased conflict-related? The Kimberly process, a certification process put in place to guard against buying conflict diamonds. But how effective is it? Some jewllers claim that conflict diamonds only now number 1% of total cut diamond sales. That’s only $760 million dollars a year. It is working to some extent, though:

Rough diamonds worth $800,000 were reportedly seized by customs officials two weekends ago at JFK Airport, after the jewelers carrying the stones failed to produce the required documentation for the gems. Two U.S. jewelers, who arrived from Sierra Leone by way of London, were caught with 28 rough diamonds that weighed a total of 1,200 carats, according to a report by NBC New York. The diamonds were headed for Brentwood, New York, the report noted.

But really, after seeing the movie, I have to wonder how effective paperwork is in the Third World. Agencies fail there all time where survival instincts kick in. It’s one thing to be looking at a research paper in New York. It’s another to be in the diamond mines in Africa when you have a family to feed and a gun to your head. Us white people always think we can change the world. We donate to Kiva, we aspire to belong to the World Bank, and we pass around e-mails that warn friends and family not to buy this or that. But honestly, how much are we doing?

Case in point: Me. I was always against conflict diamonds. I was against diamonds, period, because I am a Liberated Woman who does Not Need a Man for Anything*. Actually, I wanted a recycled 1920s diamond. I honestly did not want anything that costs more than $500 because I lose jewelry like the Bubonic plague. Case in point? I’ve already lost two wedding rings: my mom’s (first grade show-and-tell), and my own (at the gym.) I’ve also lost countless necklaces and bracelets. So, needless to say, I was extremely nervous about having an engagement ring. When the time came, though, I started wanting a diamond. Because, obviously, everyone had one. And oh wow I would look good. Lucky for me, Mr. B is quite a progressive guy. Not only did he get me a conflict-free certified diamond, but it was also processed in Israel. It makes it that much more meaningful for me every time I look at it that Moshe or Ze’ev processed it in T”A just for me.

Back to the point. We all say we don’t like conflict diamonds on principle. But really, it’s impossible to implement, and until American women (myself included) stop being brainwashed by advertising. And that’s really easy to say, too. Because we all think we won’t be, and then we are. So, really, I guess the first baby step is awareness. Stop buying into Tiffany’s. And if you have to have diamonds? Buy Canadian. Because until demand falls, it’ll all just be a huge game of numbers.

*except opening pickle jars