Insights into the COVID Pandemic

[Budge]

[quote=Yodean post_
what do you think about the Chinese Tech. Titans currently? I've been a somewhat careful buyer/accumulator of the CTTs (i.e. BABA, BIDU, TCEHY).
[/quote]

I have been accumulating some of them. Unfortunately, not enough data to run good quarterly charts. Most suffering on the monthlies with perhaps the exception of MOMO putting in nice basing action. Good choice Sol. The rest continue to get the snot kicked out of them - excellent!

[Yodean]

I have been accumulating some of them. Unfortunately, not enough data to run good quarterly charts. Most suffering on the monthlies with perhaps the exception of MOMO putting in nice basing action. Good choice Sol. The rest continue to get the snot kicked out of them - excellent!

Using my non-patented FDG tactic, combined with swing-trading/de-risking a portion (initial phase of Triad Exit Tactic - TET) on upticks, etc., my current open positions in BIDU & TCEHY are slightly positive, and slighty negative on BABA, and I also have realized very minor profits on the group as a whole. I guess I will continue this strategy for the time being. Also, all the CTTs have powerful network effects, currently not reflected in their prices.

My sense is the idea that the U.S.A. is going to go to war with the C.C.P. is overblown, mostly rhetoric. The true war will be in cyberspace and the financial sphere, as well as in the diplomatic arena.

This is how the C.C.P. prefers to wage war (with $$$!):

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/2 ... n-minerals

If one studies a bit of Chinese history and Sun Tzu's _Art of War_, the C.C.P. knows it cannot beat the U.S. in a pure military confrontation. The Chinese military is basically crap, behind all the rhetoric.

Taiwan? Short of some sort of military accident, the C.C.P. do not want to invade by military force - they want to preserve the infrastructure, which includes companies like TSM and HIMX. In any case, for well over a decade, more and more mainland Chinese workers have migrated to Taiwan, so in a sense, China is already well on its way to "taking over" Taiwan.

@ultramartian: what do you think? I know you have insights here to share . . .

[stefk]

@stefk: agree that if it's the bullet or the jab, the Chinese ones may be potentially less harmful, since they are built more along the lines of a traditional vaccine, almost like the mostly useless but slightly harmful flu shots that existed pre-cv19; as for training in Qi Gong and Kung Fu in China, you may find the food difficult to bear, lol, and if you bring your dogs, you may have to keep an eye on them or they may "disappear," if you know what I mean . . .

Yes, I know what you mean, poor dogs !!!!!!!! If I would do a qigong retreat, I should become 100% vegan, no danger to eat a bat or a dog !!!!!!!!

Yodean, are you from mandarine or cantonese origin ? I think that the two cultures and languages are different.

I think that the dog eaters are not everywhere in China.

[stefk]

Is it possible to leave the dogs with your Children or with some other family members. I know how hard it is to give up a dog or dogs, they are very loyal to their owners.

My son, he is 28, he still lives with us, and I would never trust him to take care of my dogs. The irony, one of the dogs is an american staff he bought and brought to us, five years ago. I didnt want this dog in my house, here in belgium they have a bad reputation, my son insisted, "no dad they are very good dogs". This puppy was so lovely, I adopted her, she became my dog. And now, I can assure you, my son was right, american staffs are very good dogs, we are brainwashed by the medias. She would die to protect me, and also to protect my wife. Amstaffs are 100% love for their master. When good educated, they are social, they always like to play, fantastic dogs.

My three daughters are married and have children, and dont have houses with garden, for the moment.

Yes, it would be very hard for me, and for my dogs to leave them.

[Budge]

Is it possible to leave the dogs with your Children or with some other family members. I know how hard it is to give up a dog or dogs, they are very loyal to their owners.

My son, he is 28, he still lives with us, and I would never trust him to take care of my dogs. The irony, one of the dogs is an american staff he bought and brought to us, five years ago. I didnt want this dog in my house, here in belgium they have a bad reputation, my son insisted, "no dad they are very good dogs". This puppy was so lovely, I adopted her, she became my dog. And now, I can assure you, my son was right, american staffs are very good dogs, we are brainwashed by the medias. She would die to protect me, and also to protect my wife. Amstaffs are 100% love for their master. When good educated, they are social, they always like to play, fantastic dogs.

My three daughters are married and have children, and dont have houses with garden, for the moment.

Yes, it would be very hard for me, and for my dogs to leave them.

There are no bad dogs only bad owners.

[Yodean]

Yodean, are you from mandarine or cantonese origin ? I think that the two cultures and languages are different.

@stefk: I am of native Taiwanese origin. My parents took my two sisters and myself out of Taiwan over 40 years ago, when I was six, fearing a military invasion of Taiwan by the CCP. The rhetoric around this hasn't changed much in over 40 years . . . so, if the CCP take over Taiwan by military force in the near future, my parents would have been right, just 40+ years too early!

I have never eaten dog, but I have eaten livers, kidneys, even hearts, of all kinds, intestines, cooked blood (it's a Taiwanese delicacy, although I don't like it) , etc. - I have also eaten brain in Bucharest .

There is a saying that the Chinese eat everything that moves, and half of the things that don't move. Somewhat true.

I was taught to hate the CCP and anything that smelled even remotely Collectivist from an early age, and to believe deeply in pure Individualism, as well as unadulterated Capitalism.

Now, I dislike all governments, not just the CCP. The rest has not changed.

[stefk]

Well Yodean, people who taught you to hate communism were right, it is the deadliest ideology of the human history.

In Taiwan, is it mandarine or cantonese culture, or is it mixed ? Do they speak mandarine ?
In Hong kong, there were politics instability these last years. But in fact, it is based on ethnic rivality, hong Kong population is cantonese, and they have the feeling to be invaded by the mandarine culture.

[symbios]

In Taiwan, they speak mandarin and a dialect that is almost Hokkien/fujian but not entirely. My dialect is hokkien and I can understand like 70% of what they are saying but then it’s probably due to my upbringing where English and mandarin are the primary languages while we use dialect only when speaking to our family.

Hong Kong instability is due to a lot of reasons. Wealth inequality, CCP factions battling each other, CCP promising self-governance for Hong Kong but back-peddled on their words etc. If I have to pinpoint 1 major reason for Hong Kong’s mess, it will be Xi faction trying to reclaim Hong Kong from the Jiang faction. Jiang Zemin and his faction have basically established themselves deeply into the financial system of Hong Kong. Couple of years back, they tried to “crash” the economy from HK stock exchange and create trouble for Xi. We are looking at Xi’s response to that now. A lot of the businesses (Alibaba) that were recently “punished” by Xi are actually controlled by Jiang’s faction. For example, if ant financial got its IPO, jiang’s faction gains the most monetarily. CCP is complicated. It has so many factions all vying for money and power..

[SOL]

In Taiwan, they speak mandarin and a dialect that is almost Hokkien/fujian but not entirely. My dialect is hokkien and I can understand like 70% of what they are saying but then it’s probably due to my upbringing where English and mandarin are the primary languages while we use dialect only when speaking to our family.

Hong Kong instability is due to a lot of reasons. Wealth inequality, CCP factions battling each other, CCP promising self-governance for Hong Kong but back-peddled on their words etc. If I have to pinpoint 1 major reason for Hong Kong’s mess, it will be Xi faction trying to reclaim Hong Kong from the Jiang faction. Jiang Zemin and his faction have basically established themselves deeply into the financial system of Hong Kong. Couple of years back, they tried to “crash” the economy from HK stock exchange and create trouble for Xi. We are looking at Xi’s response to that now. A lot of the businesses (Alibaba) that were recently “punished” by Xi are actually controlled by Jiang’s faction. For example, if ant financial got its IPO, jiang’s faction gains the most monetarily. CCP is complicated. It has so many factions all vying for money and power..

And you will never hear this in the Media. Having critical thinking subscribers from all over the world is what makes this forum priceless. Without individuals like you, this forum would be useless.

[Yodean]

In Taiwan, they speak mandarin and a dialect that is almost Hokkien/fujian but not entirely. My dialect is hokkien and I can understand like 70% of what they are saying ...

A lot of the businesses (Alibaba) that were recently “punished” by Xi are actually controlled by Jiang’s faction. For example, if ant financial got its IPO, jiang’s faction gains the most monetarily. CCP is complicated. It has so many factions all vying for money and power..

@symbios: yeh, during my short time (birth to 6.6 years old) in Taiwan, my parents spoke the "Taiwanese" dialect (Hokkien/Fujian?) to each other and other family members/close friends, but made sure that my sisters and I learned Mandarin as that was the "official" language, and my parents knew Mandarin would be important in the future. Plus, as I am sure you know, there was rampant discrimination against the native Taiwanese majority, so better to speak Mandarin in public, etc.

Very nice summary of the HK vs. CCP situation. May partially explain why BABA has performed worse than BIDU and TCEHY recently, despite BABA looking better from a fundamental and technical analytic perspective, lol. My own current suspicion is that the CCP will make anything remotely "Jack Ma"-related difficult to prosper, but for some reason that hasn't stopped me from constantly buying BABA - the fundamentals and technicals look good, to my eyes.

[stefk]

Thanks for all these replies, de la discussion jaillit la lumière, from the discussion light shines.......

[Budge]

The company I work for announced last week that employees must have a covid vaccination or they will be terminated. This was announced even before Biden's announcement. I am not vaccinated, and I prefer not to be.

Except for a once-a-year team meeting in person (which we haven't had in two years now), I work 100% from home. I'm in my 50s and am probably 6-10 years from retiring.

I feel like I'm the only one on our team who is not vaccinated; but the company is quite large, so I know there must be others who feel like I do.

My wife and daughter both decided to get vaccinated, and I'm fine with that. But I'm not fine with a company or the government deciding for me.

At this point, I don't know what to do. I don't usually stress about things, but this has me feeling really down. Options that have run through my head range from letting them fire me, moving to another country, or just getting the jab.

Thoughts or advice?

Here's a post out of Sundance at Conservative Treehouse which suggests the ventriloquist dummy's statement about national vax mandate for corporations is a "look squirrel" ruse to distract from recent screw ups.

"The absence of even a scintilla of material to indicate the White House or any federal agency is organizing an action plan of how to structure the guidance itself is telling. The silence of the machine tells us it is not turned on. The bureaucracy has not been triggered. The machinery of the federal government has not been instructed to begin any process to execute on the instruction that OSHA will “develop a rule that will require all employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workforce is fully vaccinated.” Nothing.

The silence is deafening......

There’s no deadline for OSHA to generate the guidance – and there’s certainly no deadline for the OSHA rule itself, which will come as an outcome of that initial guidance part.

Some have speculated that Joe Biden’s big White House announcement was nothing more than a distraction. There’s no way for them to ever get over the hurdles that would come from immediate employer backlash on the federal mandate; and they have no intent on even trying. Meaning, it was all a big distraction -never intended execute- and always intended to clear the national conversation of all Biden-centric controversies and reset the administration. I’m starting to think that speculation is exactly correct."

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/bl ... ore-216985

[bpcw]

How are the vilified Swedish doing now then, pretty good it seems, where is this in the media, nowhere it seems!

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/why- ... en-anymore

[Budge]

How are the vilified Swedish doing now then, pretty good it seems, where is this in the media, nowhere it seems!

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/why- ... en-anymore

And, how about Uttar Pradesh in India:

"...33 districts in that state have been declared "Covid-free."

Well, ok, not that entirely the entire state is Covid free, but close enough.

241 million people, 199 active cases. The positive test rate is currently 0.01%. In other words, statistically zero."

Answer: Ivermectin

https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=243599

[SOL]

Calling President Joe Biden’s plan “disastrous,” Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes is among two dozen Republican attorneys general threatening to sue the president if his proposed vaccination mandate for large companies takes effect.

The 24 attorneys general sent a seven-page letter to the president Thursday warning that a lawsuit will follow the implementation of the proposed requirement on private-sector employees to either get a COVID-19 shot, submit to weekly testing, or be fired.

“I am committed to continuing leading with my colleagues to push back and fight this mandate all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary,” Reyes said in a statement.

“Both employers and employees in Utah, with unprecedented fervor, have flooded my office with messages of dire concern and extreme opposition to the proposed mandate. I firmly agree.”

On Tuesday, Eric Moutsos rallied opponents of the vaccine mandate on the Utah Revival Facebook page, posting, “PLEASE CALL SEAN REYES. He’s barely getting calls and he wants to sue Biden for the mandate but he needs to know there’s support.”

Moutsos, who organized events to protest business closures during the pandemic, claimed in the post to the group’s more than 31,000 online members the “mandate is targeted to hamper our religious liberty, our freedom, our health independence, etc.,” and that a friend had been “told that only a few people have called the AG prior to the weekend.”

https://www.deseret.com/utah/2021/9/16/ ... businesses

The COVID disaster narrative is about to run its course, which means plans are in the works for the next one. The driving force is hot money. There is too much easy money in the world, especially in the US, so easy money begets more disasters