Kind of reminds me of that old joke that was popular inside the old Soviet Union:
Q: What happens when we take over the Sahara Desert?
A: For fifty years- nothing... then there’s a sand shortage...
About shortages, here is another old Soviet joke:
A woman walks into a store and asks: “Don’t you have meat, do you?”
A store worker answers: “We are a Fish store, we don’t have fish. That store across the street, do you see it? That’s a meat store. THEY are who don’t have meat”