[throwawaymaths]

Why do you think I "got it" from Peter zeihan? I was aware of this long before I found out about Peter zeihan, because I have been watching china. And like I said, when pz entered my algorithm, I identified that he was getting some things very right and also many things wrong.

Look, if you are so convinced that China has shit figured out, go put 10,000 on a china index. The markets just collapsed a bunch so it "should" be on an upswing. You can't lose!

I think you toss around a lot of glib shit like "move fast and break things" without really thinking. Look man china really breaks things a lot, like bridges, or whole ass crumbling luxury residences. In the end, "breaking things" alone is not enough, you must also have the introspection to learn from your mistakes. I do think the Chinese in the small are quite good at learning from their mistakes but it's clear that societally there is a problem that policy is reactionary, often driven by goodheart's law, and there is little to no introspection or incentive to "do better".

But by all means, don't let me stop you from putting your bets on that sort of a system.

[cjbgkagh]

I think the markets in China are subordinate to the government so I wouldn’t use them as a proxy for how well China is doing. I see markets as a proxy for financialization which I consider in general to be a net negative. The supposed benefits of efficient allocation of capital seems to always give way to Ponzi schemes and those are very inefficient. There are some that argue that the frenzied investment in boom part of the boom bust cycles pays off in the long term, e.g. investment into telecoms. But I’m not one of those people, it’s hard to AB test it.

My example of ‘moving fast and breaking things’ was not an endorsement, I was making the general point that your example is not necessarily a sign of a things going bad.

It is hard to bet against a Ponzi economy as there are no limits, but my general thesis that there will be a crushing of the middle class and with that a transition from a high trust society to a low trust society. The society will still largely function but will be less efficient because of the increased security costs. So I’ve been investing in private security ventures which as you could imagine are booming.