Political Posts

[nafregnum]

It seems both sides are running low on ammo...

 

https://www.economist.com/china/2023/03/02/chinese-arms-could-revive-russias-failing-war

 

"For decades Russia pumped arms to China. On average it sent $2bn-worth every year between 2001 and 2010, with a bonanza $7bn deal in 2015. Now the tables have turned. Russia has lost over 9,400 pieces of equipment, including more than 1,500 tanks, during its botched invasion of Ukraine. It is desperately short of ammunition. America says it has intelligence suggesting that China is considering whether to supply Russia with weapons. That could change the course of the war. It would also trigger a deeper crisis in China’s relationship with America and Europe."

Edited March 5, 2023 by nafregnum

[cubsfan]

^^  The Economist article you guys have referenced is great. If it is an accurate picture - what I get out of it is:

 

- Russian armaments industry is running round the clock producing munitions.

- USA/Europe are shipping to Ukraine & drawing down domestic supplies quickly.

- USA/Europe have the capability to outproduce, but are delayed while they bicker/negotiate (whatever term you like) to replenish dwindling supplies.

- I'm seeing the reference that new production might not hit until 2024 !

- China has pretty massive stockpiles that are untouched.

 

Seems to pose the problem of China in the future if Europe/USA decide to defend Taiwan - can production be ramped to supply 2 fronts?

 

Personally, looks like China is galvanizing support against themselves by pissing off Europe with any intention of supply Russia against Ukraine.

Edited March 5, 2023 by cubsfan

[Parsad]

21 hours ago, Viking said:

Do people want to get into the US? Yup. Desperately. Do lots of people want to get out of countries like China. Yup. Desperately.
 

Is the US perfect. No, of course not. It never has been. Go back and watch some videos from the 1960’s and 1970’s. What a mess… What about the 1920’s or 1930’s? Even worse.
 

Despite all the hand wringing, the US is and will be fine. It will prosper and its people will prosper. The winners and losers will change at the margin. Just like always. 
 

I am finding one of the great challenges of getting old is to not become that ‘crazy old uncle’. Angry. Unable to handle change.

 

+1!  Cheers!

[Munger_Disciple]

7 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

LOL, Roach motel:

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/mark-mobius-china-investing-capital-restricting-outflows-markets-strategy-jinping-2023-3

 

 

This guy is an idiot. The writing has been on the wall for awhile starting with required "social contributions" by tech companies & the disappearance of Jack Ma a couple of years back. 

[sleepydragon]

46 minutes ago, Munger_Disciple said:

 

This guy is an idiot. The writing has been on the wall for awhile starting with required "social contributions" by tech companies & the disappearance of Jack Ma a couple of years back. 

 

I have zero sympathy for Jack Ma, btw. He's very smart and creative. He's a Elon Musk type of guy. But this guy tried to steal Alipay from shareholders for himself. He has ethic problem. He's lucky CCP didn't put him into jail.

 

[Munger_Disciple]

40 minutes ago, sleepydragon said:

 

I have zero sympathy for Jack Ma, btw. He's very smart and creative. He's a Elon Musk type of guy. But this guy tried to steal Alipay from shareholders for himself. He has ethic problem. He's lucky CCP didn't put him into jail.

 

 

That's not the point. Mobius should have seen the writing on the CCP wall and get the hell out of there at least a couple of years back. Now he is going to get what her deserves, which is nothing. 

[Dinar]

1 hour ago, sleepydragon said:

 

I have zero sympathy for Jack Ma, btw. He's very smart and creative. He's a Elon Musk type of guy. But this guy tried to steal Alipay from shareholders for himself. He has ethic problem. He's lucky CCP didn't put him into jail.

 

He did not try, he actually did as far as I know.  

[sleepydragon]

28 minutes ago, Munger_Disciple said:

 

That's not the point. Mobius should have seen the writing on the CCP wall and get the hell out of there at least a couple of years back. Now he is going to get what her deserves, which is nothing. 

 

Lots of Chinese trying to move USD out of China nowadays. So they need to do restrict that otherwise they will run out of USDs. It's not much different from Blackstone restricting clients withdrawing from their real estate funds 

[Spekulatius]

1 minute ago, sleepydragon said:

 

Lots of Chinese trying to move USD out of China nowadays. So they need to do restrict that otherwise they will run out of USDs. It's not much different from Blackstone restricting clients withdrawing from their real estate funds 

Actually, it was never that easy to get money out of China even years ago. I know this, the company I worked for years ago had the issue talking to an accountant I knew. You had to apply at some sort of government authority who would be take their sweet time. There was possibly some corruption involved to grease some wheels as well, The Chinese Yuan is not a freely convertible currency either.

[Spekulatius]

In every  war in the last 100+ years, nations went into it unprepared and vastly underestimated  what they needed to produce and move to keep the front lines supplied. I think every war is entered with the assumption (spoken out or not) that it only last a few weeks or at most month and that just isn’t the case any more. Wars tend to last longer nowadays and they are typically won by those who can outproduce and get their material to the front lines (logistics) in time.

 

I think it was a General Bradley who said that the war in Europe was won by Victory cargo  ships , Jeeps and Mack trucks. Germany had none of these, stuff was moved often by railroad and horses, believe it or not in WW2.

[Spekulatius]

Interesting results from Nordstream leak investigating from credible sources:

Seems like a pro Ukrainian group was involved.

[Xerxes]

25 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

In every  war in the last 100+ years, nations went into it unprepared and vastly underestimated  what they needed to produce and move to keep the front lines supplied. I think every war is entered with the assumption (spoken out or not) that it only last a few weeks or at most month and that just isn’t the case any more. Wars tend to last longer nowadays and they are typically won by those who can outproduce and get their material to the front lines (logistics) in time.

 

I think it was a General Bradley who said that the war in Europe was won by Victory cargo  ships , Jeeps and Mack trucks. Germany had none of these, stuff was moved often by railroad and horses, believe it or not in WW2.

 

Not just wars, also hardware and weapons. The first batches of F-4 phantoms, during the early age of air-to-air missiles did not have cannons, because it was said the age of cannon-equipped plane was over with F-86 being the last of that gun-equipped breed fighting in the Korean War. Sure enough subsequent batches of F-4s all had a 20mm guns. And is a standard feature on all fighters since, up to F-22 and F-35.

 

2022: oh no the age of tank is over. We will see perhaps Ukrainian using tanks correctly.

 

Not to argue with Bradley, the last of the rare breed that is a five-star general, but one can write different books about many thing that contributed to tip the balance in the second world war.

 

Given that Bradley was probably a 'logistics guy', it is probably reasonable comment by him.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 8, 2023 by Xerxes

[John Hjorth]

This has hit the news here in Denmark,too, today. If it is so, I consider it mega ballsy and at the same time mega destcructive.

[backtothebeach]

31 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

Interesting results from Nordstream leak investigating from credible sources:

Seems like a pro Ukrainian group was involved.

 

Sure, just a pro Ukrainian group, nothing to do with governments ...

 

 

[cubsfan]

31 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

In every  war in the last 100+ years, nations went into it unprepared and vastly underestimated  what they needed to produce and move to keep the front lines supplied. I think every war is entered with the assumption (spoken out or not) that it only last a few weeks or at most month and that just isn’t the case any more. Wars tend to last longer nowadays and they are typically won by those who can outproduce and get their material to the front lines (logistics) in time.

 

I think it was a General Bradley who said that the war in Europe was won by Victory cargo  ships , Jeeps and Mack trucks. Germany had none of these, stuff was moved often by railroad and horses, believe it or not in WW2.

 

Yeah, I think that's right on. It doesn't seem like we are seeing the ramp up - just stockpiles dwindling  at this point. But I'd agree the capacity is there.

 

Now throw in the wild-card of Taiwan-- and it's a whole new ballgame. Hopefully, China's waiting to see how firm this Europe-USA alliance is against Russia..before they act.

[Xerxes]

15 minutes ago, backtothebeach said:

 

Sure, just a pro Ukrainian group, nothing to do with governments ...

 

 

 

 

Ukraine is at war.

 

Any/all enemy infrastructure(s) are all fair game, if this was indeed sanctioned implicitly or explicitly by the Ukrainian government. If it is just a terrorist attack by Ukrainian (but not sanctioned by Kiev) than it is what it is.

 

However, a NATO member explicit support is a red line.

 

My unsubstantial view was that (and has been) that Poland had a strong role play in this.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 8, 2023 by Xerxes

[no_free_lunch]

Over 100k deaths and we are worried about some gas pipeline.  A pipeline to a country threatening nuclear annihilation on anyone who opposes it.  It's worth following for an intellectual exercise but really what does it matter who did it.  Russia, Ukraine, Poland,  USA, it's one of those but it doesn't matter.  We cant pretend we support Ukraine but pump up the economy of Russia. 

 

To me the most meaningful item is whether this represents some type of narrative shift against Ukraine.  Is the west starting to lose resolve and looking to cut.  1990s gulf war shiite uprising comes to mind. Hopefully not.   At any rate that's what some Russia sources are saying.  It's worth being aware of.

Edited March 8, 2023 by no_free_lunch

[whatstheofficerproblem]

If the Ukrainians had consulted me before blowing up the stream, I would've gone to Russia and bought equity in good businesses like SBER, YNDX etc for pennies on the dollar while telling the sellers that we would never open markets to Russian stocks again. An opportunity missed this one.

 

People already hated giving billions to Ukraine while things in house looked grim, they were just not outspoken about it for obvious reasons. This attack will only turn that fringe vocal minority into a sizeable voice that can't be ignored.

 

Soon Russian stocks will be traded again. If you're an investor in Russian securities and are looking to sell your stake please shoot me a message.

 

My offer prices:

SBER - 20 RUB/sh

YNDX - 200 RUB/sh

GAZP - 20 RUB/sh

POLY - 5 RUB/sh

Edited March 8, 2023 by whatstheofficerproblem

[Spekulatius]

I think it's too early to draw conclusion from the investigation. My guess is that if the Ukrainian pro government organization was indeed involved, it wasn't done with the Ukrainian authorization. The reason is simple - the truth on these type of things do come out and pot. down side too highvs the pot gain  (as we see now). The pipeline wasn't really all that important - it was idle and was supposed to remain so. I thought it was a russian psy operation with the intend to create fear in the west , but that does not seem that likely now. 

 

We do not even know if the leak is true, but it does come from sources that have been credible in the past (major German TV station).

 

If it turns out that the Ukrainian government was involved, then Ukraine will lose a lot of support in the Germany and likely the rest of Europe as well.

[CGJB]

12 hours ago, whatstheofficerproblem said:

Soon Russian stocks will be traded again.

I hope you're right. And I hope that's true for the ADRs as well.

[Spekulatius]

3 minutes ago, CGJB said:

I hope you're right. And I hope that's true for the ADRs as well.

I take the opposite side on this. I think it will take a long time until Russian stocks trade again in western markets.

[CGJB]

3 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

I take the opposite side on this. I think it will take a long time until Russian stocks trade again in western markets.

I agree with you! I hope it's not the case, but my hopes and what I think will happen are two different things.

Edited March 8, 2023 by CGJB
Needed to expand my response.

[Castanza]

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/backing-ukraine-against-russia-with-colin-kahl-and/id682478916?i=1000601391447

 

Latest episode is worth a listen if you haven't. Covers the majority of the stuff you guys have been squabbling about the past few days. 

[no_free_lunch]

23 hours ago, CGJB said:

I agree with you! I hope it's not the case, but my hopes and what I think will happen are two different things.

Well you literally just said you hoped Russian stocks trade again. I mean that is part of free speech so I defend your right to say that. Just know that if you talk against Russia in Russia you are fucked. Probably literally. 

[no_free_lunch]

Can you give us the summary castanza?