Luca

"only bad when the west does it" LOL, have you read the news the last years? I read only china bad china bad. Finally we see some of the dirt the wests pulls... The more interesting thing about this is to stop the belt and road initiative, that tells you a lot about the potential of this project. Chinese surely should know about the wealth of their leaders, never argued against it. I just enjoy seeing the CIA deep down in the dirt too, its not only China

How large was the position?

So then we read all over the news how "bad" the belt and road initiative is, bad china etc...while trump and the CIA try their best to block china just from developing and spreading their interests, same as everyone.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-launched-cia-covert-influence-operation-against-china-2024-03-14/ Like, how afraid do you have to be as president and administration that you ask the CIA to PLEASE sew disapproval for the belt and road initiative within the Chinese society... How pathetic is this: "The CIA team promoted allegations that members of the ruling Communist Party were hiding ill-gotten money overseas and slammed as corrupt and wasteful China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which provides financing for infrastructure projects in the developing world, the sources told Reuters." And then the US gets mad that the CCP tightens its grip on their local media...

We will see what happens, I think we are at the bottom now and that bottom is very comfortable to sit on compared to the lofty highs for the US...id not feel comfortable up there...meanwhile we collect the dividends and buybacks and let the Chinese work...

I think the odds are over 90% that these businesses will just chugg along and do their thing, invest into china, asia in the world, they will buy back their stock, they will issue dividends etc just like western peers and as they already did the last 10 years.

Just look at PDD, brilliant founders, management team executing like no other business, utilizing the huge manufacturing powerhouse of the peoples' republic and the scale is so huge...3b earnings last quarter, bombing everything away, trading at 10x earnings NTM...you tell me how something like PDD looks like when chinas GDP doubles the next 15 years and the Asian region grows...they all look like multibaggers and already have been. BUT the market hates it... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3256500/china-ready-remove-barriers-foreign-companies-premier-li-qiang-tells-international-forum?module=top_story&pgtype=homepage Does this sound like Stalinist central planning?: Li said the Chinese government was “carefully” studying some of the issues raised frequently by businesses, including market access, public tendering and cross-border data flow. “Some of the questions have been basically resolved, and for some others we are still working on solutions to ensure a good settlement,” he said, two days after China eased security checks for cross-border data transfers. He also said Beijing would make government services more efficient and protect the lawful rights and interests of businesses of all types. “We are convinced that a more open China will bring more opportunities of win-win cooperation to the world,” he said. President Xi Jinping signalled China’s interest in foreign investment and hi-tech firms with a trip last week to BASF Shanshan Battery Materials, a Chinese-German joint venture producing lithium battery materials in the central province of Hunan. Commerce Minister Wang Wentao has also met an array of top global tech, finance and pharmaceutical executives, including Apple chief Tim Cook as well as the CEOs of US chip markers Qualcomm and Micron and South Korean semiconductor producer SK Hynix. “China is now working to build a modernised industrial system with advanced manufacturing as its backbone, which is also an opportunity for the world,” Li said. He also highlighted the importance of the nation’s “vibrant and dynamic” private sector in bolstering economic growth through generating confidence to invest, expand business and create employment, which in turn leads to consumer confidence.

Which economy will grow better: A): An economy that is mostly deindustrialized and harms their own energy consumption with green initiatives promoted by ideologues: 40% of GDP coming from "insurance" and "finance"+"business services"+"healthcare" B): An economy that has a huge industrial base, local supply chains, large and cheap worker pool

The game got a lot better for china now with Russia as a very reliable resource exporter and economic partner, the KEY partner Europe needed. India also doesn't say no to Russia The sanctions completely backfired, Europe has weakened incredibly while US still feels threatened by global south alliances. But "everything" is collapsing in China, and they are very mean people (no democracy!!!!), very dangerous, we need to encircle them and pressuring them into subordination and stop them to try to get independent and exert their interests globally!

They are competitive already on all fronts except semiconductors. Nobody can say with certainty how and if they can catch up, black box. Although I wouldn't say, it's impossible. The more I think about china, the more I come to the conclusion that they are in a window of opportunity for their country right now that could easily close with foreign interference. If I see Trump already using intelligence services to sow distrust against the Chinese government, the US likely feels threatened in their economic dominance, justifiably so. To counteract that, china needs strong leadership that can not be influenced by foreign sponsored pro-democracy movements that try to move china back into a US satellite position that just serves as a giant market for us firms. Putin knows that, Xi knows that... Based on chinese infrastructure, access to universities, talent pool, local industrial base there is so much potential, even more than for the US which has deindustrialized a lot, making local processes slower. The growth story in China is far from over.

I like him, too, regularly check his filings to source ideas!

What do you think are his conclusions, and why are they wrong?

I would even propose that WHILE there is NO catalyst in sight and the rest of the market goes parabolic, that creates extra downward pressure for these disregarded stocks.

Remains to be seen what impact vaping and other replacements can do, but yes, I see this ice cube potentially melting faster than expected @Dinar pointed out. No position and currently no interest in one. Aren't the best prices offered when there is NO catalyst? As we can see with Lufax as an example.

1. Tobacco Stocks 2. Coal and Oil Stocks 3. Gambling Stocks 4. Chinese Stocks. By how much will this outperform the SP 500 in the next decade? :D!

But we are getting off topic again. Main argument were the problematic tendencies of western capitalism that china tries to counter balance. I think that assessment of the situation is well-thought-out and these regulatory crackdowns are one sign of their willingness to change it.

really nice to see!

Exactly. I have no idea where dinar has his numbers coming from, a basic google search shows you reality. YES, after being at uni for a decade as assistant professor and if a spot opens up you can MAYBE go high 100k but still. Average Salary of public professor with PHD: 150k. No way he can survive on that with all the vacations, house, good school for kids etc. what dinar always preaches @Dinar

Was your phd such a freebie and what do you consider as a "fair salary" for someone with a phd?

You make it sound so easy. You need a 3 years bachelors, 2 years masters, and a Phd takes a minimum of 5 years where i live. Thats a total of 10 years full time hardcore studying. Then you have to consider that more than 50% take longer for either bachelors or masters. So maybe you are done with 30 after going through the grinder. Meanwhile the trade school guys already have a house, kids, fat portfolio etc while you were in school studying your ass off. Weren't you the one who said you are not rich with 10m in your account? How the hell are these guys living on 170k-250k after having studied for a decade+?

I can absolutely not understand how people think Xi wants a Stalinist communism while he travels far to the US to talk with CEOs etc for investment, leaves a wide room for private economy etc. But the state will play a bigger role than it does in the west from now on and i think people see that too negative because the fordist type economies also had way more growth than the kind of deindustrialized neoliberal service economies in the west.

He differentiates between industrial capitalists and financial capitalists. Private equity who buys up apartments, lobbies the government for rent liberalization and then squeezes working class families with high rents are parasites. People who abuse their workers, prevent unionization etc are parasites. Not ALL capitalists are parasites and he never said that. But there are some folks that do only harm in this system and thats whats important to point out. The more important point is: The left is lost in fights that benefit the financial type of capitalists, gender equality, diversity etc. Even if they focus on economic abuse they forget the most important thing: HOW do people get rich and HOW do societies get wealthy? And how can we politically use that knowledge to increase the wealth for our societies? The way he framed china seeing this is, that china allowed the western market mechanism and benefitted of it but also received the bad parts of the west, high inequality, monopolization, overleveraged gamblers that do no good (real estate developers hello) etc. Its now for them to decide what kind of ways are endorsed to get rich and which ways are not endorsed or even regulated.

Those guys are from the previous generations and indeed had much better times and prospects. But the times have changed and the liberalization at universities really lead to what @thepupil described. The suicide rate for PHD students is by a large factor higher than to the already higher rate for normal students compared to non studying peers in the same age group. A phd is a race to the bottom and really badly paid. In my opinion you must hate yourself to a degree to put up with it. For the few who attain the PHD and then go into university, i think they deserve a high salary and good working conditions considering they did almost 10 years of high level studying. Of course that is likely different for literature and arts where i do understand that some things are questionable. But anything science related is a tough nut.

I dont know about the situation in the US but professors in the EU are suffering shitbags, slaves during exhaustive PHDs, tons of debt, bad pay compared to efforts, hard to become tenured, hard to get funding, publication pressure etc The professors i know dont make bank, work hard and are an asset to the country. Maybe a tiny percentage of gender professors do weird things but its super hard to get to these positions too.

If you would have listened to the interview, he talks about exactly that at minute 50:00. The problem with today's left, wrong focus of the problem, china and milton friedman etc He also didnt celebrate Marx, but he pointed things out that marx already talked about, which are a correct assesment of the current economic situation.