Luke

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.

I recently listened to another podcast looking at why china specifically has been able to catch up with their development compared to other underdeveloped nations, I found an additional interesting commentary, I will link some things I found remarkable: 1. 19th century china perceived themselves superior to the west and ignored the industrial revolution, didnt copy the growth happening in england. 2. Outside spectators often wonder how a communist government was able to make this radical economic move towards industrialization, the important key is that government and capitalism always went hand in hand which makes chinas uprising less surprising. 3. Germany in the 19th century was in a similar situation as china was before it started their industrialization, almost no factories, underdeveloped and mainly agricultural economy. Distance to britain got bigger and bigger and what did they do: Stealing technology, textile machines, railroads, steal production etc. Prussian state sent industrial spies to england to get access to these machines, in around 1870 germans catched up with the british economy. From then they developed their own economic research. 4. China is doing the same as germany did now, combination of legal and illegal industrial copying/stealing by means of: a) Western companies that want to export to china are forced to enter agreements with local chinese companies-->technology transfer. (nobody forces western countries to do that, they could simply not invest into china but if they dont they are losing the scale advantage to competition that does have the chinese market) b) the government in peking coordinates and finances ownership of foreign companies to gain technology knowledge-->invested between 2014-2017 in 175 german companies, majority were car suppliers, alternative engines, energy systems, biomedicine, medical devices. c) the government in peking does not punish industrial espionage in foreign countries, they use every trick, observing phone calls, reading mails, infiltrating computers etc. BUT these tricks are not new, Japan, Taiwan and also southkorea only developed because they used foreign know how. This stealing ends when they reach the technological status of the already developed countries. This is happening now in china--> 2017 they were placed on position 5 in administrating patents with the EU, behind the US, Germany, Japan and France. In order to develop their country and catch up, the local economy HAS to deliver and export to the world market because local demand ist too little that industrial companies would be worth it. China targeted on exports which lead to huge trade surpluses. Normally the chinese yuan would have gotten huge currency upgrades because chinese goods where in such high demand but that would have lead to price increases in these goods so the chinese government artificially pushed the yuan down and bought USD and invested these into US treasury bills. The opposite side of this export surplus was that chinese goods became to cheap and they financed american consumption. They cant sell their USD and treasury bills without losses due to the size. Instead of doing the old strategy china now bets on buying factories in foreign countries and building infrastructure->silk road. Goal of the silk road is of course to increase trade with wealthy country with buying power. Banning semiconductor devices in china is actually leading to more chinese independence because previously they were disfavoured due to the edge nvidia and co still have, local companies will have bigger RnD budgets and more customers->better development.

From an Investors Standpoint the US has rights that are far superior, regulation far more lenient etc. Their businesses are super dominant globally, many still side with the US. So understandable people exiting China.

It's also so strange to hear the US government talk about the strength of their system, freedom and democracy while their OWN universities conducted studies (I shared research from princeton university) that showed that the opinion of the majority does not influence the direction of where the US will develop. There is a serious amount of people not voting in the US: Maybe because it doesn't matter what they vote for, their opinions don't matter? Is china so bad because you cant vote but meanwhile you can vote in the US but it doesnt matter one bit? I wonder what chinese secret service knows about the US, hard to see the full picture. Is china better? Hard to say, certainly both countries have their fingers dirty and are fighting for ressources.

Worth to think about: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137028303_3 Ha-Joon Chang enlists economic history to mount a provocative critique of the “Washington Consensus” — the standard set of policy recommendations that aim to promote economic development in poor countries. According to the consensus, developing countries should adopt a set of “good policies” and “good institutions” to improve their economic performance. The good policies include stable macroeconomic policies, a liberal trade and investment regime, and privatization and deregulation. The good institutions include democratic government, protection of property rights (including intellectual property), an independent central bank, and transparent corporate governance institutions and financial establishments. These policies have been embraced by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and many mainstream economists, hence the term Washington Consensus. Chang highlights the paradox that many of today’s high income countries did not pursue such policies when they were climbing the economic ladder of success in the nineteenth century. Rather, these countries implemented high tariffs and sectoral industrial policies, lagged in the introduction of democratic reforms, stole industrial technologies from one another, did not have independent central banks, and so forth. Therefore, in Chang’s view, developed countries are hypocritical when they seek to deny developing countries access to these same policy tools and when they urge them to adopt democratic reforms and protect intellectual property. Chang, who is Assistant Director of Development Studies at the University of Cambridge (UK), divides his slim book into four chapters. Each chapter focuses on the policies pursued a century ago by the leading rich countries of today (Britain, United States, Germany, Japan, and other European countries) and compares those policies to the ones that developing countries are urged to adopt the Washington Consensus. Chapter One introduces the book and asks “How Did the Rich Countries Really Become Rich?” Chapter Two looks at trade and industrial policies designed to allow developing countries to “catch up” with industrial countries. Chapter Three focuses on institutions and good governance. Chapter Four concludes with lessons from the past. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ha-Joon_Chang

Yep!