Spekulatius

It’s probably another example of Biden half-assery: doing just enough to not lose but not enough to win. Will be interesting to see if Trump will do better. To deal with Putin, you must be willing to back up your position and bring out the big stick if need to. Sanction Russia until kingdom come and give an Ukraine weapons to destroy their energy infrastructure which finance the war will slowly destroy Russias economy to finance the war. Time is not on the Russian side. Note that Ukraine just restarted their Kursk offensive. No doubt it was partly done to sent a signal to Washington

Of course If these tariffs get implemented , it would cause great pain to Canada but also to the US economy. Replacing components like Linamar produces would take month and where would they even come from- Mexico is about to get tariffs slapped on as well so a no go. To build a facility like this in the US would take month and the ramp would take time too, so maybe a year without car production. Or get the stuff from China which has ironically lower tariffs than Mexico and Canada- does this make any sense at all? The whole thing is completely nonsensical for all involved. I think the chances of this occurring are probably below 5% but for sure we are going to get a lot of noise beforehand.

It is certainly happening - the US is getting more sober. The cancer label won’t help either. My son probably won’t touch booze and he isn’t the only one in his circle. This would be a first in our family at least from my branch making living from producing wine and ancillary thing like spirits for generations.

Oil and Gas is like 3% (+change) of Canadas GDP, how can it have such a strong impact on growth? It is on Trudeau and perhaps other politicians. My Canadian colleges telling me that the divergence between the US and Canada began earlier - in the early 2000 post tech boom. I think the demise of tech co‘s like Nortel, RIMM! and JDSU etc has more to do with it than O&G. Those were never replaced unlike in the US where Cisco, Lucent etc were replaced with other tech companies.

Ghee’s, I just noticed how far down this went. STZ has been a perpetual market share gainer, but all the booze stocks have been disaster lately. HEIO ought to be close to 11x earnings now. I do agree STZ looks attractive here.

These tariffs would basically dismantle NAFTA. Canada best shot to keep the NAFTA stub with Mexico and seek a trade alliance with the EU, slap 25% tariffs on US imports altogether. Perhaps turn of electric power deliveries to the US and with some luck, bad weather plunges Michigan and some NE states into darkness. Fun stuff.

China looks more and more like Japan in 1990. Real estate grinding lower, sclerotic SOE dominating the economy, same party running the country with top down control (even less chance of change than in Japan since there are no real elections), lousy demographics and a failed economic model based on exports.

Asking for a friend - are there riots in the South when there is 2” of snowfall?

People think today is tough should time travel back to the 70’s , 80’s or even 90’s and I bet they would not like it. The labor market was totally crap for most of the decades up until the mid/ late 90’s, pollution, crime in the cities way worse than what we have now etc.

He actually deregulated more than that - he deregulated the trucking industry as well and ai think the deregulated of the telecom industry started under his administration too. Camp David (peace between Egypt and Israel) was a huge success, I don’t think he was the worst president but one of the most unlucky ones. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the fall of the Sha regime happened under his watch and hardliners called for US intervention. However history Sowjets that he was probably correct not to intervene.

Yep, that’s how it works in a nutshell. The system always looks like a yenga stack that it about to collapse and sometimes it does, but it’s hard to predict at which point every time another block is pulled. It is better to be humble about it that trying to predict something that even economist can’t predict. Keep some rainy day cash around, invest sensibly to the best of your knowledge and hope that bubble gum and shoestring hold together.

Injustice bought a few shares of Thales HO.PA yesterday. defense electronics, avionics and. security. trades at ~14x earnings with an enormous order book. This investigation has depressed shares: https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/group/investors/press_release/press-release

$3.49 at a Trader Joe in NC. Similar prices in MA.

Who would want Chinese citizenship anyways? it just means if you travel in China, you may get treated as a Chinese citizen which means no rights. You are also obligated by law to spy for the CCP. You got to be dumb as a rock to apply for Chinese citizenship. You are much better off living as a foreigner in China.

Privwte security to a certain degree but not for the really bad stuff . At some point, the private security could easily become your prison guards. Thats why the rich have escape pods like second citizenships and foreign assets, Swiss bank accounts etc.

The poor are generally dumb. That why they are poor.

Bought a few shares of Thales, the French aviation electronics/ defense and security company. Looks quite cheap here ~13x earnings with good visibility for growth the next few years. The stock came down due to the investigation announced in November 11/20 which sounds like it could be an export control violation, but hard to know.

Probably need more than a slap on the wrist to prevent this going forward: https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2025/01/05/2003829674 Als the more reason shadow fleet taken care of. Look at this rust bucket!

But it ticks all boxes, veteran owned, re- occurring revenue, demographic trends .

X has gone downhill quite a bit since the Musk takeover. Search doesn’t work any more, the messages are full with spam for sex and crypto offerings the $ ticker symbols are all squatted by crypto coin spams. It’s only useful if you narrow down the scope to FinTwit by blocking Elon Musk and other noisy accounts that post bullshit as well as key words like Tesla, TSLA, TSLAQ.

I got already in an open air concern in CLT with Bob Dylan playing amongst others. The ticket was $25 but later the same day dropped to $20. Bob Dylan wasn’t really good live, the other acts were better even the unknown ones. I just went to a free gig at brewpub around my apartment last night. was themed “Phish” tribute. I don’t know that Phish band, but those tribute guys were awesome. I have rarely seen a Guitarplayer as good as this grandpa. I listen to some Phish tracks later (a band from Vermont- country rock classified) and I think the tribute band is better than the original. There are two learnings from this: 1) cheap can always get cheaper ( I would almost says “will” 2) be careful about wanting to meet your hero’s. Most won’t live up to your expectations . Heroes are just average people that do or did something exceptional in one discipline. Other than that they are probably just average.

Social unrest is about the only thing that a real rich person fears, because money can not provide protection from this if it’s gets bad enough.

Got to do this too: https://archive.ph/MT875

I am there just in case as spekulatiusone. Havent found much use for this app.

Yes, the people from Turkey that came to Germany were mostly doing the jobs that really nobody wanted - Trash service, the dirty work in steels mills. Ten years later in the 80’s they had small shops and business and their kids were going to German schools and spoke German, unlike their parents who spoke only broken German. Another 10 year and many make it to Universities and they have better jobs. How do you think integration happens - just flip a switch and you become American and Gamers etc Did the Irish or Italians or Hispanics do this in the US? It takes a generation to really integrate which keens the 2nd generation who becomes fully integrated. the Turkish immigrant of the late 60’s and 70’s had a tougher time because their curvature is more different and they were less educated than the Italians or Spanish wave that came to Germany first. However, eventually they get there (its still a work in progress).