Luca
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Posts posted by Luca
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8 minutes ago, Luca said:
The video mentioned in this clip:
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It's interesting to see how some European countries decide to turn so positively to China while others don't. This shows again, that the development and foreign politics goals and rewards of one EU country are different for another (unlike the pro EU parties often suggest). They are getting the choice: Move under the protectionist, war and austerity umbrella of the US, Germany and Co. Or move away from it and towards the Chinese-dominated, Eurasian hemisphere. The Chinese come with a lot of money, willing to build out local infrastructure, business, educational and cultural exchanges, increasing tourism from China and vice versa. So much potential in all of these left-alone countries to grow and develop, Hungary, Serbia, Montenegro, etc. China building out trains, streets, ports...lots of cheap goods from china and cheap too unlike the US belt countries which get more and more expensive services and products+deficits, austerity and inflation, their local populations will be happy. From what I see, China is doing foreign and developmental politics at its finest.
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7 minutes ago, ValueArb said:
When I was 57 I had surgery to compensate for a torn tendon in my right ankle and caused it to deteriorate over 30 years, giving me plantar fasciitis and pronating enough to make it impossible to run any more.
When I was 58 I had my left hip replaced, probably because it wore heavily due to the asymmetry caused by that missing tendon.
When I was 59 I was 40 lbs over weight because of a decade of poor diet, combined with increasing sedentary lifestyle from work, divorce, and that bad ankle. I sometimes found myself wheezing when I walked, which was incredibly scary during COVID, and unfathomable to me given I was a college athlete (practice dummy) on a national championship wrestling team, rode as much as a hundred miles a day in the off season, and after college ran 40 miles a month, half marathons, etc until my late 40s.
Today I'm 60 and have to take THC edibles to sleep through the night because of the pain of a (presumably) torn rotator cuff in my shoulder. But I've lost 33 lbs doing hot yoga almost every day for the last 15 months, along with some improvements to my diet. And I got on a weight lifting program this year (along with TRT) which has increased my muscle mass noticeably, even though every morning I wake up with an aching shoulder, and I have to skip some exercises (haven't bench pressed in months) because of the pain. I have an MRI next week, hoping there is an easy arthroscopic fix because shoulder replacement is way harder and rehab takes far longer than hip replacement.
The lesson I wished I had learned before this is that I can't get back all those days I woke up healthy and skipped my run or workout, and ate whatever I wanted. Instead I was forced to put myself through incredibly hard workouts and food choices for over a year just to get back close (but not there) to where my health should have been naturally. Maintenance is so much easier than undoing a decade of bad choices. So my advice to others is, don't take health for granted. Every day I'm grateful that I'm still healthy enough and the pain is not so great that I can still push through it enough to slowly improve my fitness, even if its nowhere near as easy or fast as it was when I was younger.
One of my yoga buddies and me talked about the need to stay ahead of the curve, and how Charlie Munger proactively moved to walkers/wheelchairs to avoid the falls that commonly rapidly accelerate our declines in our last years of life. I am witnessing what can happen in stark terms today. Our best dog ever who would turn 12 this summer and was so active and energetic that people thought she was half her age. Three weeks ago she yelped from pain jumping out of the car and it started a downward spiral to where now her back legs are so weak she needs my help to stand, and all she can do is rest all day. I'm in $2,500 into tests and x-rays without a clear diagnoses or treatment plan for recovery, and on the cusp of the decision whether to put her down or not today.
So my advice to everyone is, stay active even if you don't feel like it. Find something you like, or can tolerate, enough to do regularly. If you can't/won't run, then swim or bike or go to fitness classes, or take up weight lifting. Or just go for long walks or take up hiking. Podcasts can make long workouts more tolerable, but they are also useful times to meditate on your day and your life and think more deeply and clearly. Find and create your own healthy habits that can last you a lifetime so when the inevitable setbacks occur, your body is stronger and more ready to help you recover from them. Because it's the setback we can't recover from that is often the cause of our end.
Thank you for sharing and i should do more exercise! All the best!
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Great book, read it with huge interest.
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Moving Video!
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Bought more PDD
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15 minutes ago, Sweet said:
You are mostly pleasant Luca, to your credit.
It is a good discussion and I could be wrong, though something is suspect here to me in this war, we will see how this develops and of course: discuss!! LEARNING MACHINE
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5 minutes ago, Sweet said:
The war is dragging on because the Ukrainians don’t want to be dominated by the Russians, and the Russians would like to take over all of Ukraine.No further explanation is required.
When I say it’s irrelevant who the war benefits I’m specifically referring to your insinuation that it’s the US causing the war to drag on because it suits America. Bullshit.
It would suit America and Europe just fine if Russia didn’t start the war in the first.Plenty of people cared about Ukraine before the invasion in 2022. I remember a tense meeting with Obama and Putin after Russia invaded Ukraine about a decade ago at a testy meeting.
It’s convenient for you to ignore such concerns but it’s also ironic that people it’s like you that also claim it was the West’s meddling in the Ukrainian’s Orange revolution that started all this. You can’t have it both ways, the West not caring, but also caring enough to meddle.
Well, we have to disagree on our analysis but I appreciate the pushback
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On 2/6/2024 at 1:54 PM, Luca said:
Its the year of the dragon folks, Xi aims to beat SP 500 this year...;-)
On 2/7/2024 at 9:22 AM, Parsad said:That might be tough. Cheers!
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-facing-us-financial-crisis-234945940.html
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On 4/29/2024 at 5:47 PM, Sweet said:
That’s a lie. The drafted document did not contain anything regarding territory.
“The talks had deliberately skirted the question of borders and territory. Evidently, the idea was for Putin and Zelensky to decide on those issues at the planned summit. It is easy to imagine that Putin would have insisted on holding all the territory that his forces had already occupied. The question is whether Zelensky could have been convinced to agree to this land grab. Despite these substantial disagreements, the April 15 draft suggests that the treaty would be signed within two weeks. Granted, that date might have shifted, but it shows that the two teams planned to move fast.”
Your insistence that an agreement was reached in principle but not signed. This is utterly wrong. It’s Russian bs.
I reread the document, you are right that discussions about the regions are not included but its clear that they wont be returned. I talked with a good friend of mine who is russian and from st.petersburg, also has multiple ukranian friends who have their own little community here in Germany. He also has friends from the annexed regions. In general he said that these regions were looking to Russia for a long time, the regions were shitholes, with no jobs, and bandit kind of local government. The people who didn't like Russia either left before or fled to Ukraine after the war but its not as material as the west might want it to look like.
On 4/29/2024 at 5:49 PM, Sweet said:A stalemate is when either side are unable to make significant ground. Ukraine has had a weapons shortage for 6 months and how much has Russia gained? Time will tell if Russia can break the stalemate.
Ukraine tried to break through russian lines but miserably failed because they lack man power and weapons. They went on offense and lost and have to grab more and more man that become also more and more unwilling. My russian friend said that in russia/st Petersburg the atmosphere to this war is surprisingly positive, there are many who want to fight and they get paid very very well. But of course, as with China, we only hear how oppressed and miserable their population is.
On 4/29/2024 at 5:55 PM, Sweet said:It’s irrelevant who it benefits.
Absolutely not. At least its relevant if you want to understand why this war gets dragged on so much and why the west is so heavily invested. Did they care that the eastern regions in ukraine were criminal shitholes? Noone cared. But now ukraine is THE media topic in the most positive light.
On 4/29/2024 at 5:55 PM, Sweet said:The US tried to prevent the war by publicly releasing classified material in troop build up and Putin’s plans to invade in the hopes Putin would see sense.
The US also hoped that the Russian population would go against Putin and their government would crumble together with the sanctions...all of this didn't materialize.
On 4/29/2024 at 5:55 PM, Sweet said:Putin launched it anyway. He has only himself to blame. He didn’t want NATO in his border, Sweden and Finland are now NATO counties. Putin the master strategist.
Well, the Russians certainly learned a lot during the war and look pretty well positioned considering the situation.
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Looking forward to the results later.
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1 hour ago, Dinar said:
Buy a farm with a supply of water, learn how to raise animals and fruits & vegetables, source of energy - ideally hydro and solar (both) and far away from civilization yet close enough so you can get it from your house.
Pretty much what Zuck is doing right now haha!
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13 minutes ago, nwoodman said:
I think you are being awfully kind. Perhaps if I had started 10 years earlier. Agree though Cho Oyu would be the starting point. At this stage I feel quite content gazing at the giants from a distance
Yeah, i also think just staring at em from distance is great too and I cherish life too much too take any extra risk which you do with 8ks...himalaya 6ks are wonderful too from your pictures so...maybe some day the time for me will come too but I had some acclimatization issues on 3200m while skiing already so I think my body is not made for it sadly...at least we have your pictures!!
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1 hour ago, nwoodman said:
Two come to mind
1. Everest Base Camp Trek - probably the most popular. The Khumbu Valley/Sagarmatha Nationa Park is truly stunning but busy.
2. Annapurna Circuit - not done this one but used to be the “go to”. Apparently not as popular now, as like a lot of Nepal, now have roads cut through to the villages.
3. if I was to do another trek there I would be looking at potentially a base camp such as Makalu or Kanchenjungain in the East.
We really enjoyed the trekking portion of this trip because it was a little off the beaten trek. The rural areas we passed through were stunning. A father and son working together to build their house was particularly memorable.
Nepal is full of the friendliest and most beautiful people on the planet. You will find it hard to go wrong
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Great stuff, when will you do your first 8k? Maybe Cho Oyu? Seems to be the easiest one
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How can people not see that this war is brilliant for the US? The perfect excuse to weaken russia perfectly legal and approved by all the western courts etc. China weakened too. PLEASE don't negotiate ukraine but drag this on as long as you can so russia wastes as much military as possible. The US is surely also hoping for more Russian inner destabilization so they can sponsor pro-democracy movements that are US focussed and remove the current leadership.
Now if you ARE that leadership that sees these moves by the west via your own secret service, what would you do?
Is the western media telling us the full story? Why does no one care about nordstream? Why are we only hearing the same one dimensional pro war arguments on the telly?
The western populations were perfectly prepared to accept this war and the media sector for the most part played perfectly along. Dudes like tucker etc will be removed and called nuts, right winger whatever for even talking to putin...
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17 hours ago, Sweet said:
Over a few rural regions - really Luca? Putin tried to take the entire country but was stopped. He is still trying to take the entire country. What the heck are you smoking?
Two of these regions wanted to leave ukraine quite some time ago and see themselves closer to russia, the rest were annexed illegally, yes. But still, why risk this war and your people if peace agreements were in reach?
17 hours ago, Sweet said:The West did not stop peace negotiations. There was no deal, no agreement on territory, or what a post war Ukraine would look like. Ukraine was at the table because of weakness and walked away when they kicked the Russians out from large swathes of territory, and because they didn’t agree on Russian demands.
They did. The peace agreement was already drafted, and agreements on territory were also made. Ukraine was convinced to not agree and follow Boris Johnson and western pro-war arguments which led us to today.
17 hours ago, Sweet said:Putin for his part has been sending mixed messages. Last month he said he wouldn’t negotiate, this month he said he was open to negotiating. Again though, why would you trust Putin? He has broken so many agreements that his word means nothing:
Again, negotiated peace is better than this war, what else is an option for Ukraine?
17 hours ago, Sweet said:Why shouldn’t a post war Ukraine join NATO or the EU? It’s only a problem for Russia if Russia intends to attack Ukraine.
Because Ukraine is sitting next to a nuclear power that will not have its security impacted. The US would not allow anyone doing the same to them and would retaliate similar to russia if China or Russia would do the same at Canadian or Mexican borders...that's just the empire game.
17 hours ago, Sweet said:For what it’s worth, I also think a negotiated settlement is the way out of this. The two sides are stalemated. But just accepting Putin’s demands would be dumb.
Ukraine is not in a stalemate, they are in a way worse position by manpower, intact infrastructure, inner political stability, weapons. They are kept alive by US and western support and also we have to realize that we need negotiations and not further escalations with more and more damaging weapons.
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35 minutes ago, Xerxes said:
I went in 2023 to Japan, my second time after a 15 year hiatus, my first time was in 2005. I missed seeing both times Nagasaki.
I have a thing for old Portuguese colonies. You can add Gao, Macau to that list. I did see Malacca and Penang in Malaysia.
it is interesting how memory works. I went to see the Shogun palace in Kyoto in 2005. And I had good memories of my visit for +15 years. when I visited again in 2023 the exact same location in Kyoto, the museum of course had not changed, but I have no longer access to my 2005 memories. They are now superseded by 2023 of the same location.
Great country...I miss it...
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8 hours ago, nwoodman said:
We are just back from trekking to Mera Peak (6476m) in Nepal. Despite its reputation as the highest but easiest of the “trekking peaks,” we still only got three out of our party of 12 to the top. Two dropped out on the way to base camp (5200m), and the rest made it to high camp (5900m), but a combination of cold and altitude took its toll. I considered our acclimatisation route to be very conservative, but altitude just affects everyone so differently.
I set out with my two boys and a friend’s son around 2am. Unfortunately my oldest son turned back due to the cold (-16C) but the youngest (16 YO) made it to the top. It was a great experience but reaffirmed that anything over 6000m is always going to be a challenge.
Absolutely phenomenal! Congratulations.
Your family is fit as f***!!! And brave too...can be proud of yourself!!
Fairfax 2024
in Fairfax Financial
Posted
Exactly, next to China (in which I am very overweight), I can only find tempting value in coal/oil stocks. FFH is a huge part of my portfolio too and I am absolutely not selling anything as long as the idea universe is that small and very expensive.