Political Posts

[Luke]

I will stop posting in this thread from now on, I have written about 400 posts about why I think the view on China is not accurate and why that creates an investing opportunity, it's the same people commenting and disagreeing over and over again and calling me gaslighting, having an agenda etc, at this point our views are clear. I also think the board has pretty much no interest in China as an investing opportunity. 

 

My differing view has been made clear over many posts and I am repeating myself, others can post more about why they think China is going to shit etc and you will get more space for your opinions. 

 

 

[cubsfan]

Most of us understand the actual threat that China is to its neighbors and the West.

 

Concentration camps for Muslims, producing/killing millions with fentanyl, destroying Hong Kong, threatening Taiwan, wrecking economies by releasing killer viruses (accidentally or not), etc.

 

The bloom is off the China rose - I for one, will be happy when China decides to be a good neighbor instead of an expansionary power.  They are clearly a global threat that needs to be held in check.

 

President Xi has taken the country in a new direction - and that is sad.

[Ulti]

26 minutes ago, Luca said:

My differing view has been made clear over many posts

Personally , I enjoy reading your differing view...Its what makes the world go around...As for investing in China, I'm always trying to learn.

https://www.nbim.no/en/publications/podcast/alibaba-co-founder-and-chair-china-jack-ma-ai-and-baseball/

[james22]

7 hours ago, Luca said:

A philosopher king leader party who enables superb outcomes is IMO preferred compared to a flawed democracy that enables inferior outcomes. Outcomes matter the most, not the process towards the outcomes.

 

Yeesh.

[Ulti]

https://www.britannica.com/topic/philosopher-king

[Sweet]

5 hours ago, Hektor said:

+1

I really need to proofread my posts a lot more.  How you managed to understand what I meant with all those errors I’ve no idea lol.  Edited the original.

 

Edited April 13, 2024 by Sweet

[SharperDingaan]

On 4/13/2024 at 10:16 AM, Luca said:

I will stop posting in this thread from now on.

 

There is nothing wrong with dissenting opinion, and it is to be encouraged; but there's also reality.

 

China is a communist country, and for the western investor, property rights are about 'might is right'. You have them only while China needs the West more than the West needs China, after that .... not so much. If you were unsure of that, look no further than both Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

 

Participation also doesn't mean investment in China. China is well known for over-developing mines in 3rd world countries, and using the resultant surplus global over supply to force down the commodities price for decades. When the host nation objects, the mine and rail/port labour is simply replaced with expats and the commodity proceeds processed through the Chinese banking system. Object some more, and you're replaced with civil war. Age-old fair game .... but it's the real meaning of 'belt and road'. 

• However; every former Colonial Power has learnt the hard way, that eventually the natives take back the assets, and the asset strip is a time limited engagement. Changing the face of the colonialist doesn't change the eventual end-game. It eventually catches up. 

China has made amazing progress over the decades, but it's been very much along the failed 'Asian Tiger' model. Same as Japan; burn the population pyramid to do it, finance it with extraordinary credit expansion, and allow the wealth to build up in highly leveraged real estate. Thing is ... you run out of babies 'cause everyone is working stupid hours, the real estate depends on ongoing ability to repay, and the whole thing tanks when the increasingly limited Chinese labour pool eventually ages out. As with Japan, interest rates plummet/stay there for years, and the whole world exploits the dirt cheap money. Do you really want to be the lender in this, or would you much rather be the borrower?

 

Then add to it the dictators playbook; when things aren't going well at home, distract attention by 'creating an enemy' that everyone can be rallied around .... and in a communist country, there is only one 'leader'. If you're going to take this kind of risk, there are a great many other places with better returns/unit risk in which to do it.

 

Not what many want to hear.

 

SD

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 14, 2024 by SharperDingaan

[Sweet]

4 hours ago, Luca said:

In fact that happens in capitalistic "democratic" systems where the ruler just buys himself the government. 

Attached you find a well researched presenting you the flaws: 

 

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B#

Luca, respectfully, I don’t know what you are talking about.  ‘Buys the government’ - really?  In the US there is undoubtedly too much money in politics, way too much, but ‘buy the government’ - I don’t see that.

 

There have been several rebuttals of that paper which I could find online which argue the analysis and conclusions are flawed.  
 

Nevertheless I agree with the paper that rich influential people have an outsized impact on government policy, that is obvious, but that’s far away from saying it’s a capitalist oligarchy.  The money and lobbying in the US does need addressed.
 

I disagree that ordinary people have no impact.  This paper was published before the 2016 election of Trump and the Brexit vote in the UK which categorically destroys such an idea.  In both instances the vast majority of influence groups and rich people took the side which opposed Trump and Brexit and they lost.  Another recent example is the referendum defeat in Ireland.

 

Edited April 13, 2024 by Sweet

[RichardGibbons]

I mean, even the Luca's "China's raising everyone up rather than just helping rich people" argument doesn't actually align with reality.  Pretty well every democratic country on earth has a lower Gini coefficient than China.

 

My guess is what he thinks of as evidence is actually propaganda, and he's ignoring the actual outcomes of the last 150 years of authoritarianism and communism.

 

It's pretty amazing to me that managed economies have been tried since Marx, and not one has even had close to the astounding beneficial results that arise from liberal free-market economies. And even more amazing that many people are so eager to completely ignore that evidence in favor of a story.

[Hektor]

6 hours ago, Sweet said:

How you managed to understand what I meant with all those errors I’ve no idea lol.

I might have read your edited version. Not sure what the edits were @Sweet, but what you wrote made sense to me 

[Libs]

On 4/13/2024 at 12:27 PM, RichardGibbons said:

It's pretty amazing to me that managed economies have been tried since Marx, and not one has even had close to the astounding beneficial results that arise from liberal free-market economies. And even more amazing that many people are so eager to completely ignore that evidence in favor of a story.

Bingo. As a friend of mine says, "wow, Marxism is the unluckiest system; if only some country could finally pick the right people to try it out!"

 

Karl Marx inflicted untold misery upon the world. 

Edited April 15, 2024 by Libs

[abyli]

On 4/13/2024 at 2:27 PM, RichardGibbons said:

I mean, even the Luca's "China's raising everyone up rather than just helping rich people" argument doesn't actually align with reality.  Pretty well every democratic country on earth has a lower Gini coefficient than China.

 

My guess is what he thinks of as evidence is actually propaganda, and he's ignoring the actual outcomes of the last 150 years of authoritarianism and communism.

 

It's pretty amazing to me that managed economies have been tried since Marx, and not one has even had close to the astounding beneficial results that arise from liberal free-market economies. And even more amazing that many people are so eager to completely ignore that evidence in favor of a story.

 

I am Chinese. I was born in China and now in US. I can tell that Luca has no clue what he is talking about. In China, 2.xx% people own 80% assets and 93% of people (around 1.3 Billion) owns 7% of total assets. Now the housing bubble is bursting (already down 30-40% from the peak in 2021), large home builders are filing bankruptcy one after another. (Hengda, BiGuiyuan, Wanke... ), local government owe so much debt (40 Trillion RMB + 60 Trillion RMB of City Investments companies, that is about total $14Trillion US dollar debt just for the local gov) that they do not even have cash to pay government employees. Financial crisis is ongoing because all those debts borrowed from big banks. All wakeup Chinese are trying to get out of the country, rich or poor. There is no future, no hope in the country. 

[formthirteen]

On 4/13/2024 at 6:20 PM, Ulti said:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/philosopher-king

 

This seems to have been implemented in Iran. This is from the brittanica.com link:

 

Quote

Meanwhile, in the Islamic world, the medieval philosopher Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī had championed the notion of a religiously devout philosopher king. More than 1,000 years later the notion of such a figure acting as the interpreter of law inspired the Ayatollah Khomeini and the revolutionary state that he shaped in Iran. Finally, and more broadly, the notion of the philosopher ruler has come to signify a general claim to domination by an unaccountable, if putatively beneficent, elite, as in certain forms of Marxism and other revolutionary political movements.

 

[Ulti]

19 minutes ago, formthirteen said:

More than 1,000 years later the notion of such a figure acting as the interpreter of law inspired the Ayatollah Khomeini and the revolutionary state that he shaped in Iran.

I read that and thought of the late 19th century quote .. to paraphrase...

Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.. Seems to be catching on all over the world.

https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/absolute-power-corrupts-absolutely.html

[Parsad]

Chinese accounting books are about as fair and accurate:

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/chinese-runner-win-invites-suspicion-115741551.html

 

Hilarious!  They're waving him forward because he was still so slow compared to them running at half speed.

 

Cheers!

[Parsad]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinese-city-zhengzhou-tells-state-055850040.html

 

Cheers!

[whatstheofficerproblem]

14 hours ago, abyli said:

All wakeup Chinese are trying to get out of the country, rich or poor. There is no future, no hope in the country. 

 

I don't know if you're being sarcastic here. Sure, China has its flaws & ofcourse there is propaganda around but this statement seems a little farfetched.

 

I notice that you've had positions in China in the past, you've held PDD since IPO, do you still hold it? Also JD & BABA. What is your view on Chinese equities right now if you don't mind me asking. How do you see the equities market in China going forward, has your perception changed over the years? How much significance do you place on the broader macro here? Since you're from the country originally, your insight would be worth knowing.

[Hektor]

https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/china-growth-forecasts-alibaba-stock-155814f4

 

Chinese growth blew past expectations in the first quarter, but official figures of gross domestic product (GDP) released Tuesday belie wider weakness in the world’s second-largest economy, including persistent pressures from the property sector. 

Analysts see China’s economic recovery—on which the fortunes of some widely-held stocks rest—as fragile.

 

 

[whatstheofficerproblem]

2 hours ago, Hektor said:

Chinese growth blew past expectations in the first quarter, but official figures of gross domestic product (GDP) released Tuesday belie wider weakness in the world’s second-largest economy, including persistent pressures from the property sector.

 

Bold of you to post it on here knowing it will be called fake. The hate China gets is somewhat justified, but this thread has the same arguments repeated over and over with the same rebuttals given over and over. This thread has taken a couple inches off my hairline, a very frustrating read.

[Sweet]

7 hours ago, whatstheofficerproblem said:

 

Bold of you to post it on here knowing it will be called fake. The hate China gets is somewhat justified, but this thread has the same arguments repeated over and over with the same rebuttals given over and over. This thread has taken a couple inches off my hairline, a very frustrating read.

Why is it bold to post that? 

 

I didn’t detect anyone complaining about commentary like this.

[Hektor]

7 hours ago, whatstheofficerproblem said:

Bold of you to post it on here knowing it will be called fake. The hate China gets is somewhat justified, but this thread has the same arguments repeated over and over with the same rebuttals given over and over. This thread has taken a couple inches off my hairline, a very frustrating read.

Not my opinion. It’s an excerpt from the article, so that one can decide to click and read more or simply ignore

[Spekulatius]

10 hours ago, Hektor said:

https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/china-growth-forecasts-alibaba-stock-155814f4

 

 

Chinese growth blew past expectations in the first quarter, but official figures of gross domestic product (GDP) released Tuesday belie wider weakness in the world’s second-largest economy, including persistent pressures from the property sector. 

Analysts see China’s economic recovery—on which the fortunes of some widely-held stocks rest—as fragile.

 

 

Alibaba falling seems to be a case of where economic good news is bad news for the stock market. I have heard another economic forecaster talking about the Chinese economy looking stronger than predicted.

 

Here is the version on Archive:

https://archive.ph/IRPMZ

[cubsfan]

Unfortunately & plain as day - Americans, overwhelming  want the Southern Border sealed before any more major aid packages go to Ukraine.  Biden can easily solve the roadblock - but it's not likely.

 

https://thefederalist.com/2024/04/16/poll-voters-say-stopping-bidens-border-invasion-is-more-important-than-funding-ukraine/

 

Battleground state swing voters overwhelmingly believe stopping President Biden’s border invasion is more important than bankrolling Ukraine’s forever war with Russia, a newly released poll found.

 

Of those surveyed, 54 percent said the “best approach” for America is to “spend more to secure the U.S. border than to help Ukraine,” while 10 percent said the opposite.

 

 

[Ulti]

Seems like a bipartisan bill was shot down earlier this year ( even the border is patrol urged passage)

https://www.factcheck.org/2024/02/unraveling-misinformation-about-bipartisan-immigration-bill/

[abyli]

15 hours ago, Hektor said:

https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/china-growth-forecasts-alibaba-stock-155814f4

 

 

Chinese growth blew past expectations in the first quarter, but official figures of gross domestic product (GDP) released Tuesday belie wider weakness in the world’s second-largest economy, including persistent pressures from the property sector. 

Analysts see China’s economic recovery—on which the fortunes of some widely-held stocks rest—as fragile.

 

 

 

Q1 2024 29.6Trillion

Q1 2023 28.5 Trillion

 

29.6/28.5 = 103.9%, that was 3.9% increase from Q1 2023, where did the 5.3% come from? 

 

Q4 2023 34.4Trillion

29.6/34.4 = 86%, so Q1 2024 was down 14% from last quarter Q4 2023. 

 

It is obvious all those GDP numbers are faked....