Time To Kiss Good Bye…
Last month, Henry Kissinger predicts a “catastrophic’ conflicts unless China and US settle their differences. Kissinger warns:
It will be worse than the world wars that ruined European civilization.
Jane Doe, a MarketWatch reader commented:
Confirmation bias. China’s ascent to economic world dominance was in no small part facilitated by Kissinger. Xi should thank him.
However, Robert Spalding, a retired general, former Senior Director for Strategic Planning at the National Security Council, and author of Stealth War further differs:
This is the same language that was used to convince America that we should not stand up for our interests as we faced Soviet aggression. The challenge for today is that influence is not achieved through force of arms, but using data and economics. America must 1) Secure its institutions from the undue influence of the Chinese Communist Party. 2) Design a military that efficiently creates a deterrent against CCP military aggression, and 3) Quickly shift defense funding toward Infrastructure (Secure Internet), Industrial Base, STEM and R&D. We do not have to accept a world where totalitarianism is rewarded with access to the free world’s innovation, technology, talent and capital. It is about what kind of world do we want to live in. Do we want a world where concentration camps are allowed to exist because our world is ruled by money instead of the might of arms. In the end it matters not how we arrive at tyranny.”
MSCI
Henry Paulson rejected the idea of withdrawl index fuding from China. Paulson commented, at The New Economy Forum in Beijing, that
When the next crisis comes — and a crisis will come, because financial crises are inevitable — we will regret it if we lack mechanisms for the world’s first and second-largest economies to coordinate…It is simply contrary to the foundations of successful capitalism for politicians and bureaucrats to instruct private American players how to deploy private capital for private ends.
Rubio
Rubio and Shaheen say that index includes companies that are under U.S. sanctions and export bans and that investing the retirement assets of federal workers in these kinds of companies could be a security risk and goes against U.S. interests.
Zerohedge Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management
“They can no longer get their money out,” said the investor, a builder of global institutional portfolios.
“Allocators who made private equity investments in mainland China over the past 5-10yrs are now trapped,” he continued. “Not metaphorically trapped – they’re literally not permitted to move cash proceeds out of China as those investments are sold. The problem is widespread and the sums so large that we now have internal people focused on helping these allocators hedge the exchange rate risk.”
Insurance Startups Worldwide: Profitability challenged
- Lemonade (New York) : losemaking, IPO postponed
Softbank-backed fintech startup Lemonade, whose signature produce including $5/mth renter and home insurance, just postponed its IPO. According to Israeli business daily, Globes,
Lemonade’s revenue is high, but like Softbank’s other portfolio companies, it is still a money-losing company that raises huge sums and spends even more that it raises on its growth. According to a report by “The Insurance Insider,” based on reports submitted to the US regulator, Lemonade sold $2.3 million in net premiums in 2017, while its underwriting loss grew several times over to $15.8 million.
Commenting on Lemonade’s losses, Wininger told Globes:
The company could be profitable, but we don’t want it to be profitable. In order to be profitable, it would have to stop growing.
On its postponed IPO, Zerohedge commented :
…total addressable market of $1 trillion not enough?
- ShuiDi Insurance (China) : questionable conversion rate and business morality
A little known to the West, but Chinese startup ShuiDi is a top insurance tech startup by valuation, which focuses on insurance polices for patients with significant condition . It claims to have over 600 million registered users, with 250 million are paid subscribers, according to YiBenChain, a Chinese online publisher.
In March 2019, Shuidi closed its series B funding near RMB 500 million series B funding, backers including Tencent, IDG and Hillhouse Capital. In June, it closed its series C funding for more than 1 billion RBM, led by Boyu Capital and followed by Tencent and CICC Capital.
However, investors who passed ShuiDi funding rounds challenged its’ conversion rate and a department head from Bydance (TouTiao) revealed a stunning number to support that doubt:
ShuiDi places millions of RMB on advertisements on TouTiao every day; you hear it right millions, everyday.
However, business morality seems a bigger challenge to ShuiDi. A recent online video disclosed revealed how ShuiDi’s field sales aggressively approaching patients in hospitals to promote ShuiDi’s Patient-to-Patient, Peer-insurance policy. The video went viral in China.
On Dec 5, SHEN Peng, CEO and founder of ShuiDi, a former and early employee from Meituan, issued apology to the public , promising to discipline its field sales practice.
Many Chinese VCs described SHEN an “aggressive growth hacker”. Deng Yuzhou, a Chinese VC commented on him :
(SHEN is) quick to discover and act on a lucrative opportunity; shoot before aim, without thinking over the consequences. It appeared to me ShuiDi is always hunting for the next story .
The least place to expect new literature influence
Would be China, given the political suppression and culture censorship. But apparently,. Chinese Si-fi are conquering America, according to New York Times. We can all thank to a translator whose name is Ken Liu.
Five years ago, I myself bought English copies of Liu Cixin’s Three Body Problems as gifts and encouraged my bi-lingual friends to read the English version. It turns out, Liu Cixin himself recommenced so too.
“Usually when Chinese literature gets translated to a foreign language, it tends to lose something,” Liu says. “…with ‘The Three-Body Problem.’ I think it gained something.”
As the New York Time piece describes,
(Ken Liu) is an emissary for some of China’s most provocative and boundary-breaking writers; he has become much more than a scout and a translator.He’s now a fixer, an editor and a curator.
When Ken realized “the most thought-provoking science-fiction writers in China aren’t being published through traditional channels, so he searches … sci-fi stories in unusual corners of the internet, including a forum for alumni of Tsinghua University. Now is new works including
- “Broken Stars,” an anthology of short fiction by 14 Chinese sci-fi writers;
- “The Redemption of Time,” by Li Jun ( pen name Baoshu), which takes place in the aftermath of an interstellar war;
- “Waste Tide” by Chen Qiufan, a grim dystopian novel that unfolds on a polluted peninsula on the coast of China, where impoverished migrant workers recycle the world’s electronic trash.
- “Vagabonds” by Hao Jingfang (translationto be published in 2020), an ideological rift between a communalistic human colony on Mars and an increasingly capitalistic Earth.
With an ecletci career from a computer programmer turned patent infringement corporate lawyer turned science-fiction writer, Ken Liu believes
“Every act of communication is a miracle of translation.” (Ken Liu, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories)
The best gauge to a deal or no deal
Chi Girl on Twitte believes it’s not soybean but the peg of USD/CNH is the best gauge to a U.S-China trade deal (or no deal)
When China has been optimistic, (the peg) has been below 7…over 7 and higher…less chance of a deal.
However, twitter user Deep Throat IPO shared his empyphony on this topics
The RMB isn’t going to devalue. That’s not what the clever Chinese Communist Bankers are up to. Their diabolically clever plan is to force Western economies to reset asset values through the ultimate “Pump & Dump”, requiring the Western Central Bankers to print money like there’s no tomorrow. As the Western money supplies increase, the CCP will slowly remove the PBOC SAFE/Currency/Capital controls while (hopefully) keeping everything in balance. Through this carefully constructed mechanism, the RMB won’t weaken toward the Western currencies, Western currencies will weaken toward the real, current, intrinsic, economic value of the RMB.