mcliu

From a trade perspective, the fact that you have cash means you’re already running a trade surplus. Otherwise you wouldn’t have cash to spend. The other option is if you swap it for an asset. Just think it through and you’ll see it.

100%. Chinese industrial policy and protectionism for domestic champions helped make it a manufacturing powerhouse. But the USA is also at fault for not countering such policy at the onset. Look at the solar and battery business. Massive Chinese subsidies a few decades ago bankrupted huge swaths of US manufacturers. Once the supply chain and economies of scale have built up, it's difficult to replicate without tremendous pain. Yes in many ways, these countries did destroy the manufacturing base of the US but the US is also complicit in letting it happen by not crafting an adequate response from the beginning.

I don't think you have a trade deficit with the grocery store because you're paying for your groceries. The better analogy would be if you were part owner of the grocery store and as such, you paid your groceries in IOUs or shareholder advances. However, these IOUs are exchangeable for fractions of your ownership. Overtime your ownership of the store would be diluted.

You probably don’t want to manufacture cheap shoes or toys etc but what is the case against domestic manufacturing of technical products like solar panels or batteries or ships or semiconductors or pharmaceuticals, etc? So what if it cost a bit more than outsourcing it? Those retained jobs will also employ tons of highly skilled workers. Also, manufacturing itself is a difficult task, once you lose the work force and institutional knowledge, it’s difficult to get it back. There’s also the flywheel aspect, the more manufacturing you do, the better you get at it, more manufacturing talent is created etc..

It makes tremendous sense to bring certain manufacturing back onshore.. but the way Trump is going about it is pretty insane. On the other hand, it seems like no other administration is even willing to tackle this issue.

Agreed! It is extremely rare on the internet to see intelligent people have intelligent conversations about complex issues such as politics. On most social media, it's either tribalism or bots or both or somehow degenerates into flame wars. Whereas most of the conversations here actually present highly articulate arguments from many sides.

Has anyone tried switching from a Tesla to ICE car or non-Tesla EV? It’s like going from an iPhone to a BlackBerry or flip phone..

Random question but why does Europe even need US in the Ukraine proxy war? Europe has a far higher population, GDP and better weapons compared to Russia. Europe also has nuclear weapons.. Also, I thought Ukraine isn’t a NATO member?

Don’t trade surplus countries subsidize trade deficit countries since exports of real goods and services are being paid with credit?

Is it really only 3% of GDP? Isn't that only $70B or so? Isn't SU + CNQ revenue = $80B..? Yeah I agree, I think the tech sector in the US has driven a ton of growth and productivity. It's why the US is outperforming the entire world, not just Canada. That said, Canada's govt under Trudeau has been totally incompetent. We might not have caught up to the US, but we shouldn't be lagging so far behind either.

Aircraft, shipping, so many possible uses. Airplanes don't even have satellite tracking today, kind of insane right? There's probably tons of applications that we have not thought of because the enabling technology never existed. If there's data congestion, they can always put more satellites up there. There's so much space in space..

Sorry, it's more of a rhetorical question. Anyone with common sense knows what's happening in Gaza is a tragedy but not a genocide. The media is at fault for parroting Hamas figures without skepticism. Anyhow it's absurd that these Palestinian "anti-zionist" supporters are protesting in Jewish neighbourhoods in Canada as if they have any influence over Israeli policy. It sounds like Israel and Hamas are close to a ceasefire agreement. https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-gaza-war-ceasefire-egypt-qatar-264087c7a547031a9433ecbbdcd920d2

Rare to see this today! All major economies are seeing debt/gdp ratios exploding higher. Surprise surprise, Palestinian health authority aka Hamas dramatically over-inflates Gaza civilians deaths.

Guessing the top is hard but things feel pretty overbought right now. Everyone and their cousins are buying/speculating on stocks and crypto. Growth companies hitting 100x PE, 50x sales. Mature companies trading at 40x, 50x earnings. Shitcoins hitting record highs. Berkshire raising record cash. On the other hand, the US is still the most attractive market and one of the only big economies with a growth mindset. Rest of the world economy is slowing and has turned to financial easing (aka money printing). Tons of capital flowing into the US.

https://nationalpost.com/news/hamas-vastly-inflated-gaza-death-statistics-study-shows

Awesome thanks! Has anyone ever used those secondary market to buy shares of private or pre-ipo companies?

This is kind interesting. Israel has been running annual budget deficit (3-7%) for the last 25 years. But because their GDP has grown so quickly. Debt to GDP has gone from ~90% of GDP to ~60%.

Is there a way to buy SpaceX shares?

Also crime. People are buying bollards for their driveways cause car theft has gotten so bad. We just don't have the budget for NATO because so much money is wasted here. CAD is breaking record lows. We don't even know what the deficit looks like for this year. Govt is bent on spending more and more. I guess that's what we should expect when the guy in charge thinks the "budget will balance itself".

Ontario. Are you in Quebec? I think Ontario's in a bigger mess than most of the country because most newcomers end up here.

If any election happens today it would be a Conservative majority but anything can happen between now and the election in Oct. We don’t have an illegal immigration problem. Our govt deliberately blew up the immigration system by accepting millions of unskilled temporary workers. No there is no system to ensure they leave.

It doesn’t matter because Canada has 0 influence globally. We are neither a hard power nor a soft power. We have no power and the Middle East conflicts will play out regardless of who our PM is and how many protests there are. We should pick the best person to fix our own problems like healthcare, education, economy.

How is he still in business..? Hussman would be a great newsletter writer like Tilson.