Private credit bubble. Chairman of UBS.
PIKs. We prefer less transparency, we want them to lie to us. Huge forward risk. Things are not being priced appropriately.

Streaming isn't profitable, people are saying.

Alibaba to Invest in China AI Firm MiniMax at $2.5 Billion Valuation - YouTube
Government regulator website featured(endorsed) Eddy Woo. Endorsing in what Alibaba seems to be doing (for now), which is investing in one of Xi's key initiatives, AI and cutting edge scientific innovation.

China looking to lift all foreign restrictions in manufacturing sector, they said, it's reported.

Investors Beware: US farmland to see historic price crash, amid soaring global ag productivity - YouTube
US paying much more for machinery than rest of wrld. EPA is part.
#China

Wall Street investment funds lose billions on Evergrande bonds gamble - YouTube
People outside China don't understand China. These things (property speculation gaming, Evergrande failure) aren't problems, they're solutions.
China wants 100s of m to move to cities.

We can't learn very much from China other than that the system/structure is very different, they're starting from a very different place. They can just build roads and infrastructure, but that can't be done in the West because you can't just kick people out of their homes. The West prefers our structure, so the things achieved in China can't even be considered in the West (to be done in the same way as China). Clifford Coonan

China's government doesn't have disputes. It just gets rid of oppositions.

Live: How China plans to resuscitate its economy | DW News - YouTube

You can't subsidize EVs or solar panels in Germany to the extent of China, where the company's DNA has the state in it. Theoretically the subsidies on Chinese imports to Germany ‘should be massive’ to protect an industry that will otherwise disappear, like Nokia, whose tech was absorbed and more cheaply produced and sold to into the market. Germany used to have solar panel companies but China subsidized theirs and they exported to Germany. Germany didn't combat this with subsidies/tariffs, and now German solar panel companies sell Chinese panels.

On the other side of things, China could theoretically grow in lots of areas but it's limited by the structure of control by the Party. Internet, journalism, communicaitons, privatization (insurance), tech companies. All are part of the broader picture of economic well-being. The West can do these things. The internet in China is just buying and selling goods.

And the Party can't really reform. It can't make a lot of these reforms. They would be fundamental reforms. It would require levels of freedom that it cannot tolerate.

Cash for clunkers policy in China. They buy your old car or home appliances, and want you to buy a new one. In the past people would just save the money to pay for education etc. Now the money goes straight to their phones and they have to spend it. (Smallish effect.)

China big focus on exports. State subsidies, loans for EVs, probably will be for chips.

China has no green party, so climate change is not an issue in that way.

China, because lockdown was so severe, is perhaps still reeling from that. Could this mean growth for another year just from continued unfreezing (they did 5% last year in whatever part because of this)?

China has deflation. You won't buy a big ticket item if you think price will go down.

Making difficult decisions to protect national brands, not shortterm sales.

China property markets represents savings for a lot of Chinese. Is destruction of these savings a tacit goal?

A porsche, a lakehouse, first class.

China will export components, parts of manufacture, in their move to circumvent tarifs and sanctions in export, relocating manufacture to other places.

2017 China started cracking down on unsustainable growth in banks. Depositors have become cautious in investing in high-risk products. Leverage.
State owned banks lend to domestic businesses. State funded.
Insuring project completion. Banks will be selective in property development. Safeguard asset quality. Not just affordability but confidence the projects will be delivered on time.

China mainland stocks. Fundamental investing is not quite working because there's a lot of structural outflow. Policy and regulatory uncertainty, people are just giving up. Low return on effort. But the reset might be largely done.
Look for companies that can help themselves, reinvent themselves, improve operating efficiency, find new markets, be winners of industry consolidation.
China macro is quite unpredictable.

Musk Vs OpenAI. If people can form a company as a nonprofit (lower tax) and then make it public and make profits, why wouldn't everyone do this?
Microsoft bought 49% (estimated Microsoft invested $10b in OpenAI). Microsoft has gone up $63b since OpenAI, putting Microsoft at $3t, the largest company in the world now.
It appears OpenAI started opensource, with the stated concern that one company (then Google but now Microsoft appears the same thing) would get all the benefits of AI. Elon was a big investor, the biggest investor, on tihs goal. They got other investors, on the idea it was opensource and would benefit everyone. Then it was closed. (Did they also remove all the opensource people?) Then they raised money on the idea of profits and employees sold a couple billion of stock into their pockets. If it had been opensource, Microsoft could have just used the models for free and not had to pay OpenAI.
There's also consideration Altman may have used the openAI name to do other deals not for OpenAI which might be in the region of taking the corporation's opportunities. (Alman may be getting corporate opportunities as a form of compensation when perhaps he should just be getting compensation in the corporation and the corporation should own all its opportunities. He can monetize the ecosystem. He ‘famously’ doesn't get compensated at OpenAI directly.)
Musk put in the first $40m, most of the money. Elon would own half the company if it had been initially private, maybe. So maybe you could give him 20% to make him whole (but Elon doesn't want money it seems)?

You would think it was more valuable in 2020, nonsovereign, decentralized, the fundamentals seem good but the product wasn't valued. ... 98% doesn't understand it, it's a bit too complicated, they're afraid of it. Saylor bought Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. ... Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it's not true. ... Then, in 2020, 20-somethings know they should buy Amazon, every Uber driver knows that. Get off the mobile wave, get on the crypto wave and think that through. It wasn't without risk but the alternative was throw in the towel pretty much.

Companies forget what it means to make great products.

Rebecca Patterson says China is biggest factor driving gold prices higher - YouTube
From 2k to 2200. China government has been buying reserves 16 months straight, not expected to stop. Chinese people putting money in gold because where else?
Gold's not a story until it is.
I haven't seen gold in economics news for months, not even one headline.

The Downfall Of Amazon Has Started - YouTube
New fees (which theoretically should have been there before but Amazon bore them itself to win over sellers). Fees for carrying low inventory (so Amazon can't easily store it everywhere and deliver it in a day like they want to to maintain their value proposition of fast delivery). Fees for returns if a product gets a lot of returns. Cost subsidy. (This reminds me of what we might expect from Uber at some point, because other than removing number-of-cars limits for cities, it's basically taxis, which was already a long-settled cost/profit system.
This particularly affects low-margin sellers.
Anectodally, some shipment costs rise from $10 to $100. 20-30% cost increases.
These fees are to use Amazon's own shipping, Amazon Prime. Sellers can use FDM if they want, and this is expensive.
Twitter spoke up, then reddit, then MSM.
FTC now probing Amazon. Chain Lina Khan has been writing about the Amazon ‘antitrust paradox’ since college. Now there are public complaints, whereas before going after Amazon would have provoked large criticism (from market entrants not from established businesses which were put out of business by Amazon, Walmart, etc).
All of Amaon's profit since 2017, presumably, is from AWS, Carlson said. Amazon has actually been losing money on retail for years.
Amazon still offers customers their (?artificially) cheap shipping, fast shipping, trust (this is under question), consistency. Amazon customers are considered wealthier than average, and sticky, not likely to switch to a third party to save money.

For regional banks, once they reach $100b, they get extra regulations without the benefits of scale. Marketing, technology, regulating ability to spread across banking market. More mergers? Even if smaller banks have billions on the books and appear safe, compared with what JPM has, just scale makes them look less secure.

It's been 30 years since law allowed interstate banking in the US. Diversification.

Big Tech has been deteriorating in relative standing for 6, 8 months.

China is world leader in EVs, low-cost photovoltaics, wind turbines, fast rail, 5G.
A lot of these are global directional trends. Low cost supplier to core infrastructure.
Europe and US protectionist fighting against import of Chinese EVs, but rest of the world wants them bad. ... American business is not in line with American politics. American business people applaud Chinese when they visit.