Xerxes

Thank you, The "Making of Hong Kong" looks interesting. Will probably buy that one. I finally finished reading "The Last Kings of Shanghai"; great fast read and contrary to my first post, the story does not end in 1949. Of the two families, the Sassoons were the stronger than Kadoorie family up until 1949. Their mistake was putting all their eggs in Shanghai. After the fall of Shanghai, Victor Sassoon, the patriach, folded his card and left Asia entirely somewhat disappointed and disillusioned. In contrast, the less powerful Kadoorie had some holdings in Hong Kong so had a diversified set of assets. After losing Shanghai, they stayed in Hong Kong and doubled down in a time where there were threats of Red invasion of the island, their patience and their commitment to stay in the game, was rewarded by being there in the region when China re-opened. At the time of writing of the book (few years ago), they were worth north of +$10 billion dollars and committed to Hong Kong and PRC. The book quotes President Xi telling Michael Kadoories, the current patriach, that "they were always friend of China", and reportedly he is the only western Hong Kong billionaire in business meetings (involving HK) with Beijing. Their two main holdings are China Light and Power Company & The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels CLP is worth HK$165 billion market cap while HongKong & Shangai Hotel is worth KH$11 billion market cap. Next time you are staying at a Peninsula Hotel, know that there is an interesting history behind it going back to the Baghdad and an exiled jewish family. Contrast that legacy to the Sassoons who are now history. --------------------------------------------------- There is another book that is coming out soon. The focus is really just on the Sassoons at the height of their power in the 19th centuary. That timeline is also covered by the first book that I mentioned but this one goes into great depth. The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire: Sassoon, Joseph: 9780593679029: Books - Amazon.ca

There was something that I heard from Walt Disney a while back, that as they move more on the periphery of the Marvel Universe with the characters that are less well known, the die-hard fan base backlash is also correpondingly less. The Second Age, with its rings, Isildur etc., has enough 'backbone' to make it highly relevant to the overall LOTR franchise, but probably doesnt have enough meat for the die-hard fandom to claw at it. Amazon will be ok, as long as they do not make the mistake that Apple made with Foundation series. (i.e. really bad writing coupled while overstreching a galactic arc, where the story gets diluted).

Elon Musk complainng about Rings of Power is no different than Bezos throwing darts at Musk for his bid for Twitter. Just two billionaires with nothing else to do. I think Rings of Power need to be judged indepedently than Thrones. The latter was always more intriguing to an adult audiance, and given that House of Dragons and Rings of Powers are being relesaed in parallel, people would implicitly making comparisions. The fact is both are being released in a time, when the consumer is overwhelm with content. Could you imagine how Lord of the Rings would do if it was released TODAY in the threaters amidst all these content instead of early 2000. It was then the only fantasy-with-sword franchise out there and had the whole market to itself. Game of Throne came later in 2008 and established itself as the adult oriented (more geopolitically relevant) genre and took that market for itself. I gave bad grades to Apple' Foundation series, but after watching a good few episodes to confirm my initial suspisions. I actually think Rings of Power looks pretty intriguing. (and btw i dont care about effects or CGI; all i care about is the story and character development)

Natural gas is a smaller component of Russia's federal budget and exports when compared to sales of crude oil. The natural gas exports to Europe were always a tool of leverage ... and getting paid for having a leverage over Europe. When compared to overall export in 2021, less than 14% of it was from natural gas + liquidifed natrual gas vs. +36% for crude and refined oil. I could not find a good source on Russia' federal budget itself, to put those export dollar sales against it, but putting them against export sales provides a good proxy. The Economist also had a good article few weeks ago about Rosneft and its importance given the outsize role crude/refined oil sales play vs. natural gas for Kremlin. From Jan 2022 (pre-invasion) Factbox: Russia's oil and gas revenue windfall | Reuters - According to the central bank, Russia's total exports reached $489.8 billion in 2021. Of that, crude oil accounted for $110.2 billion, oil products for $68.7 billion, pipeline natural gas for $54.2 billion and liquefied natural gas $7.6 billion.

Watched the second episodes. It is getting good & i am getting excited in terms of where they are going with this. I never read the related source material (never cared too much about the Second Age; preferred the Third Age), so have no clue on the details.

To the Allies, Americans were like the rich uncle. So they let the uncle to pay the tab. A recurring event post-1945, that was perhaps offset by the U.S. dollar hegemony over others. I think either the Fourth or the Fifth Republics (i.e pre- or post-centralization of presidental power in France), DeGaulle and his minister of coins had major qualms about that hegemony that allowed the American to just print U.S. dlollar and buy fine french wine and other luxuary, while the French laoured. He did not hesitate to let the American know.

Only if JRR Tolkien knew that some day +$400 million would be spend on some obscure appendix attached to Lord of the Rings. It is not easy what Prime is doing. With Game of Thrones, HBO has access to the source talent, and the show has more of an adult theme to it. And that is what the market wants. I think Peter Jackson Hobbit’ 3rd movie left a bad taste and turned the whole thing into a joke. The third movie had no substance, beyond being an amalgamation of jokes. unclear how this will unfold in this day and age. The first episode was ok.

@maxthetrade i enjoyed also the “D-Day” beaches but like more than 15 years ago. There this one place I ll never forget, it was cliff overlooking some of the “beaches” on one side and “Utah beach” I think on the other side. It was packed with German battery installations. when I went to see it there were no howitzers, but their placement were there and massive cavities caused by the Allied bombardment. The massive bunkers are still there. For some reason, I remember the name Pointe du Chut but looks like it is called Pointe du Hoc. Even Call of Duty back in the day had a level where you had to climb those cliffs and disable those howitzers, only to discover that the Germans moved them more inland. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointe_du_Hoc

I found this to be an illuminating and hilarious read

@Viking i think I have done my fifth day trip down to the Adirondacks (for hiking) this summer since border re-opened. will probably go to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand for Christmas but not for hiking or biking. Just normal tourist stuff.

The Economist on Occidental. Blomstran also alluded to the potential carbon capture business with OXY

was there last august. I personally enjoyed Garibaldi hike couple of hours drive from the city. If you are into hiking, highly recommend.

Apologies if already posted. About BYD

See attached piece about the passing of a titan in India. See the last paragraph. Conviction is inversely correlated to your geographical distance from the promise land. We are in North America so we see FIH as boring, boring, boring

I have done the volcano in Sicily, walking on ashes is not fun. Patagonia is however interesting.

Is there a major economical distinction between say (1) Allied World itself directly doing a buyback using its own equity to buy the minority (thereby making FFH full owner) and (2) FFH using its balance sheet to buyout the minority thereby making FFH full owner directly. One is a buyback at a subsidiary level while another is buyout at the group level.

Didnt Buffett already blew off CVX when he invested in the preferred in Occidental, (i.e. thereby giving Oxy firepower to take over Anadarko

House of Dragon was pretty good ! They really did a good job of showing who is who in the Taygaran familly & give full context in the span of one hour. Not an easy feat.

Thanks @Viking @glider3834 Cheers

Game of Thrones : Warsaw, Moscow, Constantinople, Kiev and Crimea. Same locations as today but several hundred years ago.

Thanks Viking, I must have misunderstood your earlier comment, few pages back. I thought you were making an argument that over time FFH will start to be valued on an earning multiple (P/E) as the earning grows and not be based on book value (P/B). So my last comment was really an answer to that

The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China: Kaufman, Jonathan: 9780735224438: Books - Amazon.ca First heard about this book, in the book recommendation section of The Economist. In fact there were two books but the second one i don t really remember, but will look for it. Just bought this paperbook and am a good one third through. I was always fascinated by Hong Kong, trade, opuim wars, China etc and more or less that region of the world and this is superb book that covers a lot of it. I highly recommend this book, it follows the story of two merchant famillies from Baghdad, who end up establishing themselves in east Asia and built their commercial enterprises. Their commercial dynaties end with the Communist take over in 1949. The one dark cloud in this otherwise successfull establishment (Sassons) was their wholesale participation in the opuim trade and the immense profits they made of it.

Great read: Vladimir Putin is in thrall to a distinctive brand of Russian fascism | The Economist

First time i see an article from the Western media that is so appropritly titled. The lingering collapse of the Soviet Union with its half a dozen frozen and not to frozen conflict. Well done Bloomberg. "Yet empires don’t die quickly: Their collapse, historian Serhii Plokhy wrote, is a “process rather than an event.” When a vast entity once held together by the iron discipline of the metropole gives way, don’t expect a new, stable status quo overnight." Russia's War in Ukraine Is How the Soviet Union Finally Ends - Bloomberg