Spekulatius

I agree that Belfast is a movie worth watching. There is nothing wrong with the cinematography and the acting is great.

I am currently in Europe and talked to my brother (living in Germany) about the energy situation and he thinks that Germany is on track to have the NG storage filled before winter, the reduced gas flows from Russia notwithstanding. In fact right now, the storage is already ~74% full. Also, Polands storage is already full right now and the first (out of 5) LNG terminal (Brunsbüttel) on the German coast will be completed in Dezember 2022 and could actually help to alleviate the shortage for this winter. He think power prices will stay high until next winter and then drop a lot. He watches this more than casually, because the company he works for (lumber mill) also operates a cogeneration power plant with wood chips as fuel and it‘s making a lot of money now, but he doesn’t think this will last past this year. He thinks that the German government spreads a bit doom and gloom to force some savings that may not be necessary and think by next year the crisis will be over.

Add NG gas to it, as well as other energy sources.

Seems to be working so far. Selling into this oil spike was the right decision, imo. The US is energy self sufficient and does not need a strategic crude reserve currently. This was not the case when the strategic crude reserve was started in 1975.

Core CPI needs to come down from the 5.9% rate before declaring victory here.

this is not correct. to have the same life style than I currently have in China, I would need to earn much more money than I do currently in the US. Just a simple example - to own a free standing house with one acre of land around it 30 miles of a larger city is virtually impossible in China. Many other things are more expensive as well (cars etc). Then there is still pollution, lack of freedom and many other intangibles.

@tnp20 fair comments. I don't think Xi is out to kill the tech sector, but he was certainly out to get back at individuals (like Jack Ma). The whole crackdown then spread affected the whole sector, whether that was intended or not (See DiDi, education sector and Alibaba / Tencents) My views on China were way more positive in the past and maybe they are too myopic now. I think some bets in Chinese stocks can work out well , but I would rather try my luck with non-tech stocks (China Postal bank being one example) that are less likely to be in the CCP's crosshairs than with Alibaba and others. I just think there are easier ways to make money investing than trying to make money with Chinese stocks that have huge (imo) tail risk.

This does not sounds like a big deal - 2.8k cases and no death. It also does not seem like simple touch may transmit the virus that easily- otherwise we would have seen more cases in the general populace. Monkeypox does look mainly like a STD disease to me. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/monkeypox-outbreak-uk-may-peaking-health-officials-say-rcna41803 It could still develop into something, but chances are that it won’t get transmittted in schools.

Here is a translation of the controversial intelligence law from 2017 that was referenced in the recent DW feature posted above. https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/national-intelligence-law-of-the-p-r-c-2017/ Key provisions see, to be 7 and 11. Those clearly state is that every Chinese citizen or organization has to cooperate with the national intelligence agency, be it in China or abroad. Someone tell if I took crazy pills and TikTok or any other Chinese company would not sent information on US citizens to China if the Chinese intelligence service asks them to.

Russia running out of friends. Probably the next target for an invasion: https://www.wsj.com/video/series/shelby-holliday/kazakhstan-unease-toward-russia-grows-as-ukraine-war-drags-on/2A4C2EC4-481D-401E-89E8-D94D1A185565

Isn’t this supposed to be the other way around? https://www.wsj.com/articles/gop-lawmakers-lobby-oil-industry-to-denounce-tax-and-climate-bill-11659778202?mod=hp_lead_pos1

Good jobs reports are good for the economy , but not good for stocks and almost never have been, except in a deep recession. That’s nothing new.

Russian economy in bad shape:

Well you are just describing stagflation.

What people also forget is that treatment at the start was subpar. I recall in April when my wife had a wave of COVID-19 patience coming to dialysis and they blood clogged up the machines. Nobody knew what to do and only later the doctors found the way to deal with this using steroids and blood thinners. of this first wave, the mortality was pretty high. We are now in good shape because we have vaccines, anti virals, antibodies and the treatment protocols are well established. My take from this is that you don't want to be the amongst the first patients in a pandemic. From what I have seen - fairly little seems to be known about Monkey Pox> we are not even certain if asymptotic patients can transmit it. I probably have some immunity from it due to having the Pox vaccination (and so has my wife) but as long as we don't know we should be cautious and prepare for eventualities, because we do know that an epidemic has huge right tail risk.

SP Net Advantage has some limitations but is free with my Boston Library card. I mostly use tikr.com (paid version):

I think it has a good chance to rip through childcare facilities and kindergardens. From there it could go through homes.Tell small kids not to touch other kids. From there it goes to homes. Also promiscuity is not limited to gay people. Transmission through touch is never going to be as fast then through air and aerosols, so I think it’s going to be a slow burner. Hopefully we get a few million doses quickly, so we can vaccinate health care workers and teachers and other higher risk people that can be transmission vectors, are essential, or at a greater risk of becoming seriously sick.

Zeihan is incorrect in that Russia and Ukraine have fallen off the map. It seems that Russia exports more grain than last year for example and actually fills part of the gap from lack of exports from Ukraine. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-18/russia-s-wheat-exports-are-off-to-flying-start-amid-bumper-crop Ukraine is back online too, but I think their exports will be significantly reduced , but not zero either like Zeihan claims.

Nobody really seems to have any idea. The volume is pretty small throughout the surge . Maybe the ticker symbol being identical with the HK currency (HKD) has something to do with it.

As Spock would say - fascinating: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mystery-meme-stock-no-one-162000061.html

Same here. Small add only though.

The visit was planned for quite some time, initially planned in April and delayed because Pelosi got COVID-19. So, the Chinese knew about this for many many month (probably February). They didn't need to make it a big deal, they choose to.

@Viking as I said before, this was an unforced error by China, which tried to intimidate and failed. I also came to the conclusion that Xi Jinping is tremendously overrated - he is a really poor leader for China. Now it seems that China is stuck with him for likely for a long time, the downside of an autocratic regime. China is un-investible for me. Yes, you can try to make some quick buck here and there, playing some setups but to put money long term there seems irresponsible. Investing in Apple right now isn't a whole lot better, they really need to diversify their manufacturing base away from China as quickly as possible, imo. I do respect that others have a different view.

You can make Diesel out of sweet light crude, if you have to, it’s just not economical. Heavy sour crude is way cheaper than sweet crude so it makes sense to import heavy crude and export sweet crude. But this is en economical consideration and not an energy security problem.

Actually, the USA does not need the Saudis at all. The US is energy Independent. This is different than in the 70‘s when the US needed the Saudis oil. The Saudis need the US more so than the other way around, mostly to assure safe passage of the oil and trade. The Saudis are a huge exporter of oil producers and importer of pretty much everything else. The US deals with them as a frenemy to ensure stability (around is Israel) but also for the benefit of allies like Europe and Japan.