In the legendary words of Marshall Mathers - Guess who’s back - back again!
Let’s be friends again?
After a year of geopolitical showdown where China was asserting its geopolitical and military dominance over the US, China has marked a complete U-turn in its policy. China now wants to be friends again with the US and is playing down all rumors of possible invasions of Taiwan invasion.
China went from this in March
Xi accused the US of leading Western countries to “contain and suppress” China and bring it “unprecedented severe challenges.”
Xi’s new foreign minister, Qin Gang, warned that if the US doesn’t “hit the brakes,” the two superpowers will surely descend into “conflict and confrontation.”
to now
“China does not seek spheres of influence and will not fight a cold war or a hot war with anyone.”
China ‘never bets against the United States,’ Xi says at event
“China is ready to be a partner and friend of the United States,”
and Chinese leader Xi Jinping called on nations to spurn decoupling and the cutting of supply chains
That’s quite a U-turn.
How bad the things must be for China to do a U-turn?
China is talking about peace, partnership, and re-opening business borders. That is quite a turnaround from 1 year ago when they were preparing for the Taiwan invasion. That makes me question what has changed. Why the change of direction and tone? Possible answers: China can’t afford a war right now.
Why? Two answers
Economy: China’s economy is struggling, really struggling. After Covid and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there has been a reset of global supply chains and outsourcing. Countries realized that outsourcing everything (including essential sectors like chips and Pharma) to China might be a security risk *DUH*. And now the US and EU are aggressively supporting in-housing and giving high incentives to companies to shift manufacturing to the US and EU. That puts China in a precarious situation, China’s economy is centered around the outsourcing business model, and any deceleration in outsourcing and investments from the West impede its growth. Some of the results are already visible
After a strong start to 2023, Chinese economic activity has sharply fallen short of expectations. Exports have collapsed. Consumption, production and investment have slowed, while inflation levelled out and the unemployment rate edged up. The Chinese renminbi hit new lows in August and September 2023, driven by worries about the domestic economy.
Population and unemployment: China’s population is decreasing at an alarming pace led by a high number of unexpected Covid deaths ( which China tried to keep under wraps) and a low birth rate to blame. Add to that the unemployment of youth.
Germany’s Nuclear Scandal
So you shut down your Nuclear plants - substitute them with burning brown coal ( worse than black coal) and when the industry cries that electricity prices are too high ( highest in the EU and in the world) you plan a subsidy for 10 billion euros. But you still need electricity so where do you get it from? From your neighbor France that generates it’s from …drum roll…Nuclear plants.
Oh Germany, oh Green Party - for a symbolic win they have caused the taxpayer a loss of 10 Billion at least! Besides killing the job and the industry for Nuclear power plants whichever were some of the most efficient plants in the world. Now they’re going to buy it from the neighbor who is planning to double down on Nuclear power ( like everyone else) and generate 100k jobs all this while building and maintaining most of the plants on German borders while Germany has to use taxpayers’ money to subsidies industry in order to prevent them from going out of business. Can’t get more ironic than this.
This is what happens when political idealogy overtakes all rationale.
Adverse material impact of Jujutsu
What happens when Mark Zuckerberg does Jujutsu? Possibility of material adverse effect on Meta.
Let’s understand this -
Every publically listed company has to release its Risk filling. And for Meta, one of the biggest risks is Mark not being available as they state here.
“We currently depend on the continued services and performance of our key personnel, including Mark Zuckerberg. If Mr. Zuckerberg were to become unavailable for any reason, there could be a material adverse impact on our operations.”
Now Mark is a billionaire who likes doing weird and exotic sports, like most of his peers.
He does MMA and Jujutsu for fun
He gets injured and is admitted to the hospital
Now is it material risk that Meta hasn’t disclosed to shareholders? Some are debating yes.
There is a serious consideration here about whether Meta Platforms Inc.’s co-founder, CEO, and controlling shareholder has a duty to disclose his MMA [mixed martial arts] activities to investors, particularly if formal contests are in his future. What if it’s worse next time? Zuckerberg posted about his surgery on Instagram, and there was no filing or company statement
So every time Mark decides to play a sport where he can get injured - he needs to disclose it to the world?
Ah, ever interesting life of billionaires.
That’s all, folks.