Political Posts

[Luke]

So we gotta protect the teslas, exors, apples, amazons etc because their projected earnings don't price in that they get any competition or lower margins and if that happens, well, we will implement lawsuits, tariffs, maybe start a war against that country, coerce them etc 

[Luke]

So what China is doing now of course makes absolute sense, go into developing economies, help them build their infrastructure so they can all become consumers and buy China stuff! Thats the essence of the American dream! (well, now its Chinese! ha!) 

[Luke]

I ordered a bunch of nice shit on temu, 8€ 44 in 1 tool that would cost 50€ made in Germany, swiffer replacement that costs a tenth of what the brand takes here, just amazing! But you can never make bargains! Gotta pay that 30% tax to the 35x PE family business! 

 

Edited September 3, 2024 by Luke

[hillfronter83]

On 4/9/2024 at 9:36 AM, hillfronter83 said:

how often do we see billion$ market cap wiped out in 10 minutes?

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/1252.HK?.tsrc=fin-srch

Oops, did it again.

 

 

[UK]

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-close-agreeing-long-range-missiles-ukraine-delivery-take-months-2024-09-03/

[nsx5200]

2 hours ago, Luke said:

What the financial media calls overproduction is just gaslighting. China is not allowed to participate in a market where the market participants find the right price for what is produced. Id gladly take a cheap EV but I am not allowed to buy it at the right price, henceforth china sits on lots of production it can't sell to me, a market participant looking for things. 

https://insideevs.com/news/717977/china-byd-ev-sales-struggling/

"The many Chinese EV manufacturers that had previously been reporting consistent growth are now announcing a drop in their sales and revenue, and there’s a price war between local manufacturers that seem to be fighting for buyers."

 

There are some other more recent articles that I ran across that indicates that some Chinese EV manufacturers actually lose money on every EV sold due to this race to the bottom.  The Chines EV market is not controlled/restricted by non-Chinese entities, so this is more evidence in support of the previous article.  There are similar stories like that for other industries that CCP cares about, like solar panel.

 

In regards to not able to participate in other markets, IMHO, it's a natural and fair reaction to how the CCP mislead foreign companies into believing they have an fair shot at accessing the Chinese market.  We've seen many foreign corporations withdraw from the Chinese market once they realized that fair access to the Chinese market is only a myth.

 

Quote

So what China is doing now of course makes absolute sense, go into developing economies, help them build their infrastructure so they can all become consumers and buy China stuff! Thats the essence of the American dream! (well, now its Chinese! ha!) 

We're starting to see failures from these BRI loans, and so the borrowing countries are starting to become a new form of tributary states to the CCP.  To the Chinese government's credit, some loans have been renegotiated and partially forgiven.

 

Despite the articles that I posted, I actually have a decent chunk of my holdings in Chinese-based companies, so I'm actually rooting for the Chinese economy(and for the people) to succeed as well.  In my naïve mind, everyone in the world, no matter where they are, should have access to the best products and selection, no matter where they're produced.  But unfortunately the reality is that other forces are in play, and so we see the type of restrictions and reactions from those forces.

 

It's possible that my view is restricted by the sources, but if you have different view points, it would be good to supply links to the sources that create those view points so proper calibration can be applied.  TIA, and I always appreciate a different view point.

[Luke]

36 minutes ago, nsx5200 said:

https://insideevs.com/news/717977/china-byd-ev-sales-struggling/

"The many Chinese EV manufacturers that had previously been reporting consistent growth are now announcing a drop in their sales and revenue, and there’s a price war between local manufacturers that seem to be fighting for buyers."

 

There are some other more recent articles that I ran across that indicates that some Chinese EV manufacturers actually lose money on every EV sold due to this race to the bottom.  The Chines EV market is not controlled/restricted by non-Chinese entities, so this is more evidence in support of the previous article.  There are similar stories like that for other industries that CCP cares about, like solar panel.

The result of this fierce competition will be an incredible edge and advantage in development for the survivors IMO. 

36 minutes ago, nsx5200 said:

In regards to not able to participate in other markets, IMHO, it's a natural and fair reaction to how the CCP mislead foreign companies into believing they have an fair shot at accessing the Chinese market.  We've seen many foreign corporations withdraw from the Chinese market once they realized that fair access to the Chinese market is only a myth.

If China wouldn't have had protections themselves its them who would never would have had a chance against US companies. Its always about who controls technology, resources, etc if you are behind you want to get an information edge and use tariffs etc.

 

Reality is that now the playing field is in favor of Chinese companies which is why the US needs to have all this "make America great again" talk. 

36 minutes ago, nsx5200 said:

We're starting to see failures from these BRI loans, and so the borrowing countries are starting to become a new form of tributary states to the CCP.  To the Chinese government's credit, some loans have been renegotiated and partially forgiven.

Yes, exactly how Western foreign policy worked previously. Contrary though I think once China has that developmental control, they can and will do more than just extract resources from those countries an do more actual development. 

 

I am personally just rooting for a more multipolar world where companies are not concentrated at 60% in the US. Would be great to see more from Asia but also Africa, have good human development and diversity. A world where its not "buy SP 500 and chill" but "buy world etf and chill". 

Edited September 3, 2024 by Luke

[zippy1]

4 hours ago, hillfronter83 said:

Oops, did it again.

 

 

High insider ownership。
BREAKING: Sanergy collapses 98.4% after people discover 98.4% of shares are held by insiders.

[Spekulatius]

8 hours ago, hillfronter83 said:

Oops, did it again.

 

 

LOL, the infamous HK dump, from hero to zero in less than an hour. There are a couple of those every now and then.

Edited September 4, 2024 by Spekulatius

[UK]

https://www.ft.com/content/af04c395-393f-4acf-abe3-ea87bdad9260

[Luke]

which aim to cultivate the development and international expansion of high-quality games that resonate with Chinese culture and values.

 

https://asiatimes.com/2024/09/video-games-are-the-next-front-in-us-china-tech-war/

 

Has anyone played Black Myth Wukong already? Exceptional Game. 

 

 

Edited September 4, 2024 by Luke

[Luke]

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3277076/rock-n-roll-internet-are-potential-western-colour-revolution-traps-chinese-textbook?module=top_story&pgtype=homepage

 

Rock ’n’ roll, internet are potential Western ‘colour revolution’ traps: Chinese textbook

New college textbook draws on speeches of President Xi Jinping in Beijing’s latest move to tighten ideological control and national security

[Luke]

 

Posted today by the Vice-Chancellor of Germany and Minister of Economic Affairs. 

 

Shows very well where the west wants to go with Russia->Regime-Change->Putin into Prison->"democractic russia"->millions hoping to be safed from their government etc 

 

Now selensky said he doesn't plant to return the russian regions...imagine what would happen if the west would gain even more support for a direct war against Russia.

[Luke]

Sounds also like that western intelligence could find some people in Russia who could carry out an assassination against Putin, are they on it already? Will Ukraine AND Russia join Nato then and will the next war then be against China from russian borders?  

[Luke]

The historical record is clear and damning. From 1989, following the fall of the Soviet Union, neoliberal elites in Russia and the West conspired to suppress Russian democracy with violence, in order to divide Russia’s wealth between those who would become known as the oligarchs on the one hand, and Western fund managers and shareholders on the other. It was that deliberate strategy that paved the way for the violent authoritarianism of Vladimir Putin, much as Western neoliberalism and corporate greed was responsible for suppressing democracy in Chile in 1973 and for the bloody regime that followed under General Augusto Pinochet.

 

Properly understood, Vladimir Putin is yet another Frankenstein’s monster of neoliberalism.

 

The West’s suppression of democracy in Russia following the fall of the Soviet Union In the early 1990s, as Russians’ progress towards democracy appeared to be advancing at pace, the vast majority believed the fairest way to distribute the assets of the state would be through workers’ cooperatives. But that ran counter to neoliberal orthodoxy and threatened to deny spectacular profits to foreign investors and a handful of Russians. From the outset, democracy and neoliberalism in the new Russia were set on a course of collision. Influential publications in the West argued that privatisation and “economic reform” should be imposed by force. In 1990, for example, the Economist urged Gorbachev to adopt “strong-man rule … to smash the resistance that has blocked serious economic reform” 2 . In 1991, the Washington Post proposed General Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile as the model: “Pinochet's Chile A Pragmatic Model For Soviet Economy”.

 

As a reminder of what that implied: in 1973, the CIA backed General Augusto Pinochet’s violent coup in Chile against the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende, in order to open up Chile’s resources to US corporations. Pinochet crushed democratic resistance with murder, internment and torture on a massive scale.

 

Such publications foreshadowed what was to come. The US backed Boris Yeltsin in planning a programme of radical economic reform to be forced through so fast the Russian public wouldn’t know what hit them. According to Joseph Stiglitz, chief economist at the World Bank at the time:

 

“Only a blitzkrieg approach during the ‘window of opportunity’ provided by the ‘fog of transition’ would get the changes made before the population had a chance to organise …”

 

As the asset strippers feasted, millions of Russians lost their savings and by 1992 a third of the Russian population had fallen below the poverty line. 4 The Russian Parliament attempted to push back. Yeltsin declared a state of emergency to bypass Parliament, which Russia’s constitutional court ruled unlawful. The US backed Yeltsin with substantial financial support. On 3 October 1993, Yeltsin ordered the army to surround the Russian Parliament. Demonstrators were machine-gunned - about 100 were killed. On 4 October he ordered the storming of Parliament with tanks, setting the Russian “White House” on fire. The Guardian’s contemporary report carries the headline: “Yeltsin crushes revolt: Parliament taken in tank battle; Opposition parties and newspapers banned”. It records that:

 

“Western leaders … promptly declared support [for Yeltsin’s assault on Parliament]”

 

With all opposition removed, there was no impediment to the fire sale of Russian public assets for the vast and immediate enrichment of a handful of Yeltsin’s political allies (now known as “the oligarchs”) and foreign fund managers and shareholders. Giant oil and metals companies were sold-off for a fraction of their market value. Shell and BP grabbed their lucrative shares. The Wall Street Journal flaunted the extraordinary prizes on offer:

 

“Looking for an investment that could gain 2,000 per cent in three years? Only one stock market offers that hope … Russia.”

 

The political problem with this feeding-frenzy was that it came at the expense of the Russian people, whose security and economic circumstances collapsed. As a distraction, and to stave off rebellion, in December 1994 Yeltsin invaded Chechnya. Yeltsin’s national security chief, Oleg Rabov explained to Sergei Yushenkov, a Russian legislator 6 : “We need a small, victorious war to raise the president’s ratings”. The Guardian wrote at the time: “If, as many are suggesting, Yeltsin was reckoning on a short, sharp Falklands-style war to boost his authority and popularity, he has misjudged, and now risks igniting the North Caucasian region and provoking a clash between Orthodox and Muslim.”

 

Approximately 80,000 civilians were killed in this first Chechen War (about 40% of them children). The consequences of this horrific bloodshed would pave the way for the rise of Vladimir Putin. In September 1999, Russia was hit by a number of terrorist attacks attributed to Chechen militants. Putin was put in charge of the response, launching the second Chechen war later that month. Al Jazeera estimates that 300,000 people have been killed in the two Chechen wars. As Yeltsin succumbed to alcoholism, Putin was anointed as his natural successor - he took power without elections in December 1999. Reflecting on this grim history, Wayne Merry, chief political analyst at the US embassy in Moscow between 1990 and 1994 admitted in 2000, with what now seems like understatement: “The US Government chose the economic over the political … Unfortunately, the choice was to ignore popular will and to press on with the policy. And I think there was a huge cost on the long-term development of rule of law and constitutional government in Russia from making that choice.”

 

We should remember also how the US and UK Governments exploited 9/11 to lead us into disastrous wars, including in Iraq. Hundreds of thousands were killed. The real motivation, as we now know, was to open up Iraq’s nationalised oil industry to Western corporations, such as Exxon, Chevron, BP and Shell. Tellingly, former US Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, wrote in his memoir: "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." And how the banker induced financial crisis of 2008 was exploited to impose “austerity”, i.e. to wage war on neoliberalism’s favourite targets - our communities and the public sector. And how the Government’s lies and corruption through the pandemic accompanied a bonanza for its friends and corporate sponsors, while it waged war on dissent, including by fining a nurse £10,000 for protesting a below inflation pay-rise and by proposing legislation which threatens peaceful protestors with 10 years’ imprisonment (legislation that would make headlines if introduced in Russia or China).

 

 

 

Good geopolitical comments worth reading and thinking about while looking at this war.

 

 

Edited September 4, 2024 by Luke

[John Hjorth]

On 9/2/2024 at 7:00 PM, UK said:

 

No problem John:). IIRC, you already had asked once and I answered, but still the same today, I live in Vilnius, Lithuania. So EU and NATO, but at the same time it is like only 36 km to our border with Belarus or only some 40 km from the new Astravets Nuclear Power Plant, which Belarusians have built here for not totally clear reasons:)

 

Thank you, @UK ,

 

I'm sorry for bothering you with these questions twice ... - your factual replies adds up - by logic - to a great extent to what you have posted in this topic - at least to me, that is. 

 

 

[John Hjorth]

@Luke ,

 

Please add source by editing to your last post above for the readers understanding of content and context, thank you.

[UK]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

Sounds also like that western intelligence could find some people in Russia who could carry out an assassination against Putin, are they on it already? Will Ukraine AND Russia join Nato then and will the next war then be against China from russian borders?  

 

Perhaps not so impossible: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/if-china-wants-taiwan-it-should-also-take-back-land-russia-president-says-2024-09-02/

[UK]

56 minutes ago, John Hjorth said:

 

Thank you, @UK ,

 

I'm sorry for bothering you with these questions twice ... - your factual replies adds up - by logic - to a great extent to what you have posted in this topic - at least to me, that is. 

 

 

 

No problem John and btw: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark–Lithuania_relations#Modern_relations

 

Since Lithuanian independence, Denmark has taken a leading role in supporting Lithuania with international recognition and military and internal reforms. Denmark also played a significant role in Lithuania's accession to the EU and maintains a military presence in the country.

 

[Ulti]

This week, host Jason Bordoff talks with Dmitri Alperovitch about his new book “World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the 21st Century.” They discuss what the strategic challenges from China mean for American ….

 

excellent podcast covering many aspects of the”Cold War “ with China 

[nsx5200]

18 hours ago, Luke said:

I am personally just rooting for a more multipolar world where companies are not concentrated at 60% in the US. Would be great to see more from Asia but also Africa, have good human development and diversity. A world where its not "buy SP 500 and chill" but "buy world etf and chill". 

Whenever I travel, especially to different non-US locations, I pay attention to the economic activities, and general living standards.  The question I ask myself is, in a Jared Diamond-ish way, is why isn't this more like Europe/US/Korea/Taiwan/etc?  The answer is always that the structure is not set up to allow for the people to maximize their capability.  In most countries with high living standards, there are mechanisms for the people to feed back to influence the top-level decision making, so the people can essentially create the best environment for their own growth.

 

These structural advantages are present in pretty much all the high-living standard countries, so I think if you buy basket ETFs from these structural advantage countries, you'd probably do just as well as the S&P.  It's just that S&P500 gets so much attention is that a lot of innovations still comes from the US.  Just look at ETFs, a financial innovation from the US.  Think of it as a first-mover advantage that is across many industries.  China is no slouch either, their ability to initially clone and eventually innovate is force to be reckoned with, if the CCP can get out of its way.

[Luke]

8 minutes ago, nsx5200 said:

Whenever I travel, especially to different non-US locations, I pay attention to the economic activities, and general living standards.  The question I ask myself is, in a Jared Diamond-ish way, is why isn't this more like Europe/US/Korea/Taiwan/etc?  The answer is always that the structure is not set up to allow for the people to maximize their capability.  In most countries with high living standards, there are mechanisms for the people to feed back to influence the top-level decision making, so the people can essentially create the best environment for their own growth.

I disagree. China produces more same level engineers, doctors etc as western countries do and they are at least of same quality if not even more higher work ethic and smarter (looking at PISA). If you are smart in China and have a good degree from a target uni, your chances to do well are high, you have plenty of billionaires there too and many millionaires too just like the US does. 

 

Where it is different is at the political level but are you seriously saying the US does well here? Kamala? Trump? Your "best" people are at the top? How about CEOs? Are they the hardest working best educated guys or are they there due to influence and networks? If you look at Chinas tech CEOs, I see a lot to like, as much or even more than in the US. 

 

Regarding the highest political level in China, its hard to say much because its shielded off but I dont think that they are worse than political leadership in the west IMHO. 

8 minutes ago, nsx5200 said:

These structural advantages are present in pretty much all the high-living standard countries, so I think if you buy basket ETFs from these structural advantage countries, you'd probably do just as well as the S&P.  It's just that S&P500 gets so much attention is that a lot of innovations still comes from the US.  Just look at ETFs, a financial innovation from the US.  Think of it as a first-mover advantage that is across many industries.  China is no slouch either, their ability to initially clone and eventually innovate is force to be reckoned with, if the CCP can get out of its way.

Well, a lot of innovation came from the US and they are still riding that wave but IMO there is a lot more competition coming in from elsewhere and technology can change fast and is a disruptive sector. Literally everything can change in 10-15years and the wind can turn eastwards. At least I see a reasonable case for that. At the same time I am getting paid way more handsomely to wait for a changing wind and I like to be in that place. 

[nsx5200]

12 minutes ago, Luke said:

I disagree. China produces more same level engineers, doctors etc as western countries do and they are at least of same quality if not even more higher work ethic and smarter (looking at PISA). If you are smart in China and have a good degree from a target uni, your chances to do well are high, you have plenty of billionaires there too and many millionaires too just like the US does. 

I have no doubt China has a lot of fine engineers and doctors, and believe their living standards have increased significantly over the decades, albeit a bit more unevenly than even in the US.  There are structural issues in China that are concerning, and are solvable, just like similar issues everywhere else in the world, including the US.  Before Xi, a lot of people in the States went to China for better opportunities, but from what I can tell, that is no longer the case.  So I will let that evidence speak for itself in terms of why people prefer to continue putting money in S&P500 w/ PE or almost 30 vs single digit in China.

 

We can debate all we want (I don't), and just wanted to bring up an article that theorize the underlying mechanisms and causes behind the bundle of issues that China is currently facing.  The purpose is really not to make China look bad, but to see if there are valid criticisms that can poke holes in the theory.

 

At the end of the day, it's irrelevant whether we 'win' debates in forums or not, but whether we're right in our thinking that guides our investment decisions.  I welcome new data and theories that can add to the knowledge pool, but will refrain from participating in debates that are subjective in nature.

[Spekulatius]

17 hours ago, Luke said:

 

Posted today by the Vice-Chancellor of Germany and Minister of Economic Affairs. 

 

Shows very well where the west wants to go with Russia->Regime-Change->Putin into Prison->"democractic russia"->millions hoping to be safed from their government etc 

 

Now selensky said he doesn't plant to return the russian regions...imagine what would happen if the west would gain even more support for a direct war against Russia.

So what wrong with above?

 

As far as the a Russian land, I they could become a bargaining chip if Ukraine can keep them am sure Ukraine would trade them for Ukrainian land that Russia has occupied.

 

[UK]

https://www.reuters.com/world/lavrov-warns-us-not-mock-russias-red-lines-2024-09-04/

 

A new day, a new warning on red lines.