james22

He Keng, a former deputy head of the National Bureau of Statistics, spoke on Saturday about the struggling housing market in China. When commenting on its vast oversupply of homes, He said some experts have suggested that these empty homes available in China would be enough to accommodate a whopping 3 billion people. "How many vacant homes are there now?" said He at an economic forum in the city of Dongguan. "The experts are presenting figures that vary greatly. The most extreme believe the number of vacant homes are now enough for 3 billion people. We only have 1.4 billion people." "That estimate might be a bit much, but 1.4 billion people probably can't live in all of them," He added. https://archive.ph/psE7c#selection-1685.0-1699.50 LOL

The Chinese economy is already sucking. If the housing oversupply is really as bad as Zeihan makes out, China is in for an economic upheaval that makes 1929 look like a mild case of the hiccups. https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=57128

China is going to make Japan's real estate bubble look insignificant.

If you can't report on China, why would you invest in China? https://chinaarticles.substack.com/p/failure-at-the-wall-street-journal

Has the Great Upshift arrived? Another strong quarter for US productivity growth is far from conclusive. But it's also a super encouraging sign. Let's enjoy it. https://fasterplease.substack.com/p/has-the-great-upshift-arrived

Just like every other medium.

When even the Washington Post calls it out... On Friday, however, that same Biden administration ordered a de facto halt to the approval of new facilities for exporting the resource to countries with which the United States does not have free trade agreements — a category that includes all of Europe. It’s an election-year sop to climate activists that will do much more to unsettle vital U.S. alliances than to save the planet. ... The main short-run damage the administration’s obviously political decision does is to the United States’ reputation for rational, fact-based policymaking, and for wise consideration of climate control in the context of geopolitics. You cannot change demand for energy by destroying supply: If the United States did indeed curtail LNG exports, it would just drive customers into the arms of competitors such as Australia, Qatar, Algeria and, yes, Russia. Quite possibly, some potential customers would choose to meet their needs with coal instead. https://archive.ph/Nk71D#selection-1389.0-1393.528

She holds left-wing views that skew towards socialism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_White_(writer)

With the exception of BRK (and a sliver of MSTR), I hold only indices (SV, IT, Energy). But market timing various sector funds is very different than buy-and-holding the S&P500 or a Global index. That's why I'm here rather than Bogleheads.

No landing.

Intentions? The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.

LOL

When the NYT admits the reason: The move comes as Mr. Biden gears up for what is likely to be a contentious re-election campaign. He is courting climate voters, particularly the young activists who helped him win election in 2020 and who have been angered by his administration’s approval last year of the Willow project, an enormous oil drilling operation in Alaska. Why question it?

The Biden administration is pausing a decision on whether to approve what would be the largest natural gas export terminal in the United States, a delay that could stretch past the November election and spell trouble for that project and 16 other proposed terminals, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. ... The move comes as Mr. Biden gears up for what is likely to be a contentious re-election campaign. He is courting climate voters, particularly the young activists who helped him win election in 2020 and who have been angered by his administration’s approval last year of the Willow project, an enormous oil drilling operation in Alaska. It also comes as the United States leads the world in both liquefied natural gas exports and oil and gas production. The country has seven export terminals with five more already under construction. The project in question, Calcasieu Pass 2, is among 17 additional terminals that have been proposed by the fossil fuel industry. ... “This move would amount to a functional ban on new LNG export permits,” Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “The administration’s war on affordable domestic energy has been bad news for American workers and consumers alike.” https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/24/climate/biden-lng-export-terminal-cp2.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Qk0.jvIM.QKolC5yqRJkA&smid=url-share But stymying America’s LNG exports may also cede the market share to other nations, which would obviate the global environmental impact of blocking domestic LNG projects. “It appears the administration may be putting a moratorium on the entire US LNG industry,” Shaylyn Hynes, spokeswoman for Venture Global, said in a statement. “Such an action would shock the global energy market, having the impact of an economic sanction, and send a devastating signal to our allies that they can no longer rely on the United States.” https://www.gridbrief.com/p/white-house-pauses-louisiana-lng-decision-australian-mining-takes-beating

Not so much.

The appropriate percentage of your net worth you should put in a stock when its a cinch is 150% Sure, if only I knew a cinch when I saw it.

Manila cannot react similarly because it differs by higher population density (it has no large numbers of warehouses full of stores), weaker infrastructure (transport of new supplies would not be arranged), weaker social cohesion, etc. Not to mention the lack of external aid it could rely upon. https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings.jsp https://fragilestatesindex.org/ https://www.preventionweb.net/publication/resilient-cities-index-2023

How a 27-year-old busted the myth of Bitcoin’s anonymity https://arstechnica.com/features/2024/01/how-a-27-year-old-busted-the-myth-of-bitcoins-anonymity/

Kyiv? Manhattan?? Manila is unlike either.

Reminds me of this: In the military literature he had become familiar with a subject called The Fragile City scenario, a term used to describe the vulnerability of mega-metropolises in the Third World. The theory was they were subject to the special danger of catastrophic collapse. Nothing like these cities had ever been been seen in human history; they were creatures, not of local conditions, but of globalization. Paid for by the entire output of their countries, these gigantic urban sprawls held together by imported food, imported cars, imported fuel and imported telecommunications. In 1800, only 3% of the world's population lived in cities, a that figure rose to 47% by the end of the 20th century. In 1950, there were only 83 cities with populations in excess of 1 million; by 2007, this number had risen to 468. In the first decades of the 21st century, there were more than 30 cities with a population greater than ten million, each larger than the largest city in the world at the end of the World War 2. All but a handful of these monster mega-cities were in the Third World. The biggest were in Asia of a size that in human terms boggled the mind. Tokyo was now the largest concentration of humans ever seen, with 35 million people, packed 4,900 to the square mile. The mega cities on the China coast, Guangzhou with 32 million and Shanghai with 29 million, were next biggest with densities of 5,000 and 10,000 people per square mile. By comparison New York with 24 million people at 1,876 people per square mile was pastoral. But Manila’s 22 million people were crowded in at an incredibly 48,000 per square mile -- 25 times the density of New York was in a league by itself. Just what happened when a human hive with 48,000 to the square mile suddenly lost power and fuel for weeks was a matter for conjecture. No one really knew because it had never happened before. But the Fragile City scenario suggested the power loss would literally have the effect of an atomic bomb or perhaps more accurately, one of apocalyptic zombie infections seen only in movies. Great masses of people would suddenly be deprived of every necessity of life. The power plants that lighted them, the trucks that fed them, the cell towers that held together the links in an incalculable chain would suddenly stop working. The city would have no means of sustenance, no power to organize a recovery. Without power food would spoil, hospitals would could become airless infernos, communications would collapse, sewage and water supply would cease. High rise apartments predicated on uninterrupted air conditioning couldn’t even open the windows. Chaos would at most be 48 hours away. If China ever destroyed the fuel storage of a mega-city Manila the result would not resemble the bombings of World War 2 cities, horrible as these had been. They would be something never before witnessed: a mountain of humanity collapsing of its own weight. https://docs.google.com/document/d/10jMqhI2_N1RvopXlH4L-BeYu-rldDfCLHzxdXqgq8pQ/pub

It'll all seem very obvious looking back 10 years from now. Even moreso with Bitcoin. Ha.

This is how I take it.