Elon Musk and David Beasley Chief of World Food Programme, Debate Global Famine Rescue Program
Can the World’s Billionaires Save The Human Race From Starvation?
ANSWER: YES.
I found this ominous quote, by chance, scrolling down Elon Musk’s Twitter account and took a screenshot of it, wondering about the meaning of it all.
Elon Musk’s Quote:
“Population collapse is potentially the greatest risk to the future of civilization.” — Elon Musk.
This quote made me wonder, “Is this a blanket statement made by Elon Musk? Or is it specific to the WSJ article below as posted on Twitter?” Who can read Elon Musk’s mind? The tweet however, on the outset, seems weighty covering all of the globe, in my opinion, not just the population of the United States alone, had the Wsj.com post not been there below.
On a broader topic about the “Collapse of the global population,” UN World Food Program Director David Beasley made a specific plea, on Oct 26, 2021, on CNN, saying, they need “Six billion dollars to help 42 million people that are literally going to die if we don’t reach them. It’s not complicated,” he said, mentioning that Billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos easily make that amount in a single day. He said “step up now, on a one-time basis.”
The circumstance that brought this plea on was when Elon Musk’s personal portfolio gained $36 Billion in a single day, because TESLA’s shares ($TSLA) sky-rocketed on speculative news that Hertz ($HTZZ) was planning to order 100,000 electric cars for its fleet of rentals. On the flip side, Elon Musk stands to lose just as much in a single day if he made a flippant remark or did something ludicrous such as smoking pot on T.V. People don’t worry as much when you lose money. But they’d sure want some of it, when you make a lot.
Elon Musk later said that there’s no contract that’s been signed, indicating Hertz would have to wait like everybody else, signaling that his customers come first over a fleet order of a hundred thousand cars. Stocks dropped steeply between 18:15 and 4 AM, then climbed back up early in the morning, after the market opened. It had a shaky climb back to $1250 high per share.
However, coming back to the global famine crisis at hand, I feel that this is the first time in history that a prominent figure like David Beasley, the Chief of the World Food Programme, directly pleaded to the World’s Billionaires on CNN to step up and take care of eradicating global famine.
Watch this video, which started the entire debate on Twitter:
David Beasley called upon the world’s ultra rich, the top, elite billionaires to donate .36% of their profits, on a one-time basis.
ASIDE: If I were in David Beasley’s place, I’d have asked for more from the world’s top 500 Billionaires, and that too on a consistent basis, in rotation, yearly. Remember, don’t be shy or too modest in asking. Why? Because, Billionaires have already figured out how to make boat loads of money.
To this, Elon Musk replied, “Show me the math how $6.6 Billion can feed the entire global population,” and demanded transparency in the process of actually feeding the world’s population.
Either, Elon Musk did not watch the full conversation on CNN (Billionaires normally don’t have time for such things, watching news on TV) or he was just stalling for time, and did not want to part ways with his billions. We will never know which.
David Beasley tweeted this in response to Elon Musk’s tweet:
There’s a whole hoard of tweets by Chief David Beasley about having plans and programs, systems in place, how they were “Nobel Laureates,” and experts at feeding at least 115 million of the global population. He even reminded Elon Musk that just as he was an expert at making Electric cars, they were experts at handling the logistics of feeding hundreds of millions of people. He also added that he was not just picking on Elon Musk alone, but wanted the other billionaires to recognize the gravity of the situation at hand.
Elon Musk wanted to know how the $6 Billion would be handled, and how much transparency would be there. Chief David Beasley tweeted vouching for transparency and open books. Elon Musk also wanted to know how a donation of $6 Billion can take care of feeding the masses. It clearly won’t.
For all intents and purposes, I plan to showcase Philippines, one nation, where the dollar conversion to the Philippine Peso comes to:
$1 Dollar = $50.21 Philippine Pesos.
Let’s say $1 Billion was donated by a billionaire to help out Philippines.
$1,000,000,000 x P50.21 = P50,210,000,000 (50 Billion Pesos and change).
Philippines population: The current population of the Philippines is 111,532,078 million people as of Thursday, November 4, 2021, based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data.
Handing out P50,210,000,000 / 111,532,078 population = equals to P450 per person. Going by the chart below, this will not last a person to feed an adult, a single day. ***If my math is wrong, correct me.
Here’s the cost of living in the Philippines on a daily basis.
What is the GDP of Philippines? *Gross Domestic Product
Google states: “GDP in Philippines is expected to reach 373.00 USD Billion by the end of 2021, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. In the long-term, the Philippines GDP is projected to trend around 379.00 USD Billion in 2022, according to our econometric models.”
What is the GDP per capita (per person) in the Philippines?
GDP per capita in Philippines is expected to reach 3160.00 USD by the end of 2021, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. In the long-term, the Philippines GDP per capita is projected to trend around 3300.00 USD in 2022, according to our econometric models.
This is $3300/12 months = $275 per month / 31 days = $8.87 per person, per day. **Accounting for extreme poverty, I took the 31 day calendar month.
Note that not every citizen in the Philippines makes this amount, some make triple, five, or ten times, when many starve and die in poverty. Wealth is not equally distributed in this world, even so in the Philippines, as you well know. The above GDP figures are aggregates/averages and in many cases, adjusted or skewed numbers, taking various factors into account.
Chief David Beasley on Twitter seemed to be blowing his own horn stating “We are Nobel Laureates.”
Much as I hated doing it, I had to step in. I do not like people tooting their own horn, especially when the food wastage problem has not been tackled by a Nobel Laureate, such as he. First, plug the holes in your boat and try to get to the shore, before you buy a brand new boat (metaphorically speaking). So I posted this response on Twitter.
What Chief David Beasley has to look into is to salvage perfectly good food and implement a #zerofoodwaste program globally.
“The current world population is 7.9 billion as of November 2021 according to the most recent United Nations estimates elaborated by Worldometer.” Tipping at 8 billion people, it is an easy guess that more than 2 billion people are suffering from daily starvation or partial hunger.
Forgive me if this article is too long. But this issue is too close to my heart. I have been witness to 1) 2) 4) and 6). The other points have been in the news.
1) Grocery Stores throwing away perfectly good food (due to the fear of being sued, if they gave it to poor people, way before the sell by date).
2) Restaurants, Caterers throwing away food while some donate it to food banks and soup kitchens, including the homeless.
3) Food banks, Soup kitchens throwing away food to get increased donations. (to show empty shelves). Some food banks sell food donations and pocket the money. Corruption is rampant and human behavior is predictable.
4) Schools are throwing away fruits, cheese, milk, and veggies, to get funding for more food. Students are not taking them home with the exception of a few. No one is keeping track of this massive food wastage.
5) Hospitals and prisons throwing away perfectly good food.
6) Families, couples and singles wasting food daily/weekly by buying more food than is necessary. (The winter freeze in Texas in Feb 2021 was an eye-opener on how much food was thrown away when families lost power. Families including ours had to throw away food that got spoiled).
7) Farmers being asked to destroy perfectly good, edible produce to keep up market demand and prices up for products.
The Global Food Shortage can be solved when humans get less greedy and the problem of corruption is rectified.
We need to find ways to curb food wastage around the world to help feed the global population. It needs to happen now. Please share this article if you feel the urgency just as I do. Thank you.
