Luca

Then you would have had to bet against China 20 years ago and that would have led you to a 100% loss! Central planning was key to Chinas success.

The country did a 180 from back then, why continue to blame todays government for things almost 70 years ago. What is the new direction? Where are they heading? I dont see different goals for china compared to 5 years ago. The geopolitical mood changed and Xi has a tighter grip over the country. What fundamentally changed with China that was not obvious 3 years ago when Alibaba made ATHs?

Exactly, theoretically the government could save up bitcoins to give out to the ones affected, or borrow them from another country but It's hard for me to see how 0 government control is beneficial.

For the danish folks here, @John Hjorth, I will travel with the GF to Copenhagen for the weekend, anything worth doing and not worth doing, we thought of visiting Rosenborg Castle, statens museum? What do you recommend:))

Making todays members of the chinese government responsible for the deaths back then is the same as making the current german government guilty for starting WW2 and killing jews. Doesnt make any sense at all!

First, Historically, currencies were created by states and not by the people, so bringing currency back into "private hands" is not accurate. Second, how would that look like in scenarios like the pandemic or during a financial crisis with Bitcoin? Will people who did not save enough bitcoin to make it without a job for 2 years just become homeless? I mean, everything you post regarding bitcoin looks interesting, but do you yourself understand it? The blog consist of some anecdotes that sound smart but to me that was the essence of the bubble, sounded smart and interesting, but nobody really understood it themselves. Why are central bankers "scammers"? Why should we implement bitcoin as our currency? Could you maybe write your thesis down in a precise summary instead of an interesting quote here or there? I believe the subscribers of your blog would appreciate it too. I would like to understand more about it. Thanks! Cheers.

Unemployment rates in EU member states, talking about Sweden, Italy etc. is boring, doesnt make as good of an article than the mysterious autocratic foreign country named china!

People need drama to be entertained, just look at some of these photos and headlines. Clickbait, onesided, trying to make you spend time watching it because the life of most Chinese citizens is normal and boring! They completely miss the full picture. I can make videos like this about every country in europe, we could have made some nice horror show clips about the protests in france!

So i am seeing the negative headlines to continue while over the coming years their economy stabilizes and growth continues. The investments will continue, the huge part of the still poor population in china will get lifted out of poverty with competent financial moves by the CCP (that can regulate like no other state), and china will look better and stronger 10 years down the road. There will be more people taking part in their digital economy, benefitting the smart management of Tencent that knows china inside out. Geopolitics will change too over time, the leaders of today are all 70 years+, if one is willing to own these ownership mindset largecaps like tencent for the next 15 years, even better via prosus due to buybacks and discount. I think the probability is a lot higher we will make a lot of money here than not.

Yeah, it's a rough spot for china right now, but isn't the best time to buy into big strong super well managed companies when the macro looks bad and everybody hates it? Buying in 2008 was hard because everything looked ugly but the reality is that with a long term view, buying big strong companies at a discount was smart. China is a huge country, leading in science and technology, more than 4000 years of recorded history, the government is not filled with idiots (respectable degrees, MBA etc), i seriously don't think they will run things down. There will and always was less freedom of business than in the US, less freedom in what individuals do. So much hate flying against China, from investors especially. Many guys in my circle sold things at big losses in October 2022 and swore "never again". The geopolitical situation is hot because china is so damn well competent in many fields, they have many players that are getting even more superior to western peers and EU and US...the track record for the CCP the last 20 years was massive and with some ups and downs they will recoordinate the economy to achieve the wealth and respect they want to achieve.

His AUM are around 18b, so Micron wasnt that big of a position but yeah

Absolute contrarian indicator, should make people really excited about value in China

Moves for this Quarter!

That SP 500 is indeed a headscratcher lol!

Lots of it was in german, i will send you stuff thats worth reading and watching the coming weeks, i did post an interesting video by asianometry in the samsung thread, it sort of goes into this whole monopolization combination with influencing government+stagnating wages for majority:

I never promoted socialism nor talked about his left policies, what i think where he is right is with the lack of investment, concentration of markets and too little growth for the little man. Less regulation would strengthen monopolies and weaken average consumers because nobody wants to pay good salaries. More entrepreneurism needs people to actually have money to start businesses, in that regard there needs to be less barriers to start your own business (less regulations and taxes for small and medium enterprises) etc. There needs to be a smart regulating state that can't be bought.

Sorry but this is so simplified, i can not take it seriously. First, US universities do have problems and tuition fees are just one. Second, a government is not a private household but this meme portraits it as such, third: Could you explain specifically how you relate the current economic situation with this meme you posted? Thanks!

I think its worth to keep that in the back of mind, these businesses are great, massive and very strong. Regulators seem to be very weak. The overall economy looks rather anemic while we have massive stock market ralleys. That wealth that is pumped into the markets and that is used for buybacks and dividends could have been someones wage or an investment into real infrastructure, universities, education etc. Just as a side note. Meanwhile China is doing the exact opposite: Regulation, forced wage increases, common prosperity, forcing businesses to cover benefits for employees etc, banning harmful technology, banning harmful education companies, preventing gaming for youngsters etc From what I observe, I think the latter is better for the overall economy and society and increases the longevity of the system, political stability and future runway.

It's incredibly interesting to look at US history and observe some of the class wars in the early 20th century, workers faced similar problems as of today: Some cartoons from around 1882 period (note, Jay Gould was not a Jew)

I think that deregulation will just further boost market concentration, M&A and little investment, increase weakening wages, (unions have a hard time fighting for better pay against tech giants like amazon) etc What many businesses do not understand is that paying your employees will is also leading to higher demand. But because most businesses don't like to pay most employees well and some employees incredibly much, demand and sales wont increase at some point in time. The more money concentrates, the more can be spend on campaign financing, the more that campaign financing will lead to deregulation and continueing wealth gaps. It all happened before with Rockefellers standard oil or Jay Goulds rail roads. Regarding deregulation playing a role with no wage increases for the median earners: Other factors that have been suggested include the continuing decline of labor unions; lagging educational attainment relative to other countries; noncompete clauses and other restrictions on job-switching; a large pool of potential workers who are outside the formally defined labor force, neither employed nor seeking work; and broad employment declines in manufacturing and production sectors and a consequent shift toward job growth in low-wage industries. Unions are weak and frowned upon, investment in education is severely lacking (US and also EU), youth population feels left behind, increasing depression rates, that's more than every 10th person between 12-25... https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/abn-abn0000410.pdf Rates of major depressive episode in the last year increased 52% 2005–2017 (from 8.7% to 13.2%) among adolescents aged 12 to 17 and 63% 2009 –2017 (from 8.1% to 13.2%) among young adults 18 –25. Serious psychological distress in the last month and suicide-related outcomes (suicidal ideation, plans, attempts, and deaths by suicide) in the last year also increased among young adults 18 –25 from 2008 –2017 (with a 71% increase in serious psychological distress), with less consistent and weaker increases among adults ages 26 and over. Drawing from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH; N: 611,880) Jobs are becoming more and more demanding, pay is not increasing in most segments leading to financial insecurity, less family planing (birthrates), expensive housing due to speculation is the cherry on top. Its a vicious flywheel.

Yep, i think that is true for the long term. Short term it will hurt.

This especially can keep the party afloat for a long time, top percentile earners/owners will keep buying up assets/invest into the index while most people struggle to make ends need. Then we have this trend with subscriptions, which further hides the lack of purchasing power, 50% of people leasing their iphones, Xbox Subscription, now soon monthly car subscription because most cant buy a new car etc. The mega caps that can offer these subscriptions will benefit and continue to grow, be unharmed by their position while the rest of the economy isnt looking well.

This is a very interesting post, I have been doing some research into this sort of "stagnant capitalism" thesis lately and find it interesting to consider in today's investing. Some points: 1) All time high SP 500 profit margins, concentraded markets, M&A+Buybacks+Dividends instead of Investing (Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon) 2) No wage growth for median percentile earners since more than 20 years and average hourly wages have seen 0 growth adjusted for inflation since 40 years 3) Top 90th percentile of earners captured massive gains of economic growth which won't end up flowing into the real economy (everyday goods pushing demand and following investment into production increase) but in luxury goods and even more assets, squeezing median and lower income workers out I listen to Yanis Varoufakis sometimes (ex finance minister greece) and although I disagree with his proposed solutions (leaving capitalism), this sort of "stagnated capitalism" with trillions of euros that are not invested, no growth for majority, increasing concentration of companies, widening wealth inequality, separation of financial markets and real economy (SP 500 booming while median person not seeing anything) rings a bell here. Its also a recipe for political disaster, right wingers rising up everywhere in the west etc. Dont know how long this party can continue, maybe still for a while but there needs to be some intervention at some point, Standard Oil 2.0? What does the board think about this sort of perspective?

https://displaydaily.com/boe-records-remarkable-27-flagship-smartphone-panel-market-share-in-q123-driven-by-foldable-oled-sales-and-major-partnerships/ https://www.boe.com/en/innovativeTechnologies/BOEInnovation Changing landscape of smartphone panel makers. Samsung dropped from 21.3 to 15% Huge jumps for its Chinese competitor HKC and of course BOE. 3 out of top 4 are from mainland In OLED, Chinese firms hit 120m & >40% in H1

So who is the bad guy here? Consumers are not the losers in this situation, the additional competition will lead to better prices. Its investors, business owners that would lose, coincidentally these persons of interest have huge influence on politics and the media and thats where the growing hate against china is coming from.