Ferg's Finds

This is a short weekly email that covers a few things I’ve found interesting during the week.

Article

Louis is playing 3D chess while I'm still stuck on checkers: The China Quandaries -Gavekal

Podcast/Video

Good debates have become a scarce commodity with most happy in the comfort of their preferred echo chamber.

These were two of the better ones I’ve found recently:

Debate On "Peak Cheap Oil": Fact Or Overblown Fear? | Doomberg vs Adam Rozencwajg

From Wedlock to Deadlock: The East-West Divorce - with Brent Johnson and Louis Gave

Please drop any good debates you’ve come across in the comments.

Quote(s)

"If they can't tell the difference between men and women they definitely won't be able to tell the difference between what's mine and what's yours."

- Marc Faber

“In a democracy, we have always had to worry about the ignorance of the uneducated. Today we have to worry about the ignorance of people with college degrees.”

– Thomas Sowell

Tweet

Talking of debates, I found Lukes's reply to Tavi's tweet interesting.

Purchasing power parity does paint a very different picture as illustrated in the below chart. That said neither of these measures take into account the importance of commodities/energy (PPP does a better job) as Girolamo points out.

Charts

To quote Bill Singer the world is transitioning from:

"Just in time, to, just in case."

On the basis of “just in time” you can have a GDP rich in selfie apps and luxury services with everything else outsourced i.e emissions.

If we are entering a period of elevated inflation, scare commodities and increased geopolitical tensions, the “just in case” becomes a whole lot more important.

My favourite example of “just in time” being taken to extremes has to be this:

Greg Hayes, chief executive of Raytheon (2nd largest US defence contractor), said the company had “several thousand suppliers in China and decoupling . . . is impossible”.

“We can de-risk but not decouple,” Hayes told the Financial Times in an interview, adding that he believed this to be the case “for everybody”. 

Matt Stoller noted that “the outcome of a war with China will rest on whether China decides to supply us.”

Something I'm Pondering

I'm pondering a few insights in this brilliant piece by Gurwinder.

1. “Few things make you stupider than the belief that you need to have an opinion on everything.”
   -I need to say I don’t know a lot more.

2. “In the long run, a lazy lifestyle creates more work and stress than a disciplined one.”

   -So many things are just consistency/momentum. Be it writing, weights, or BJJ, it's not that hard to maintain momentum. It works the other way around, skipping the workout, or I'll do it tomorrow (negative momentum).
   My favourite quote is Jerzy Gregorek’s;

   “Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.”

3. “If you can’t state the opposing view as well as the people who hold it, you shouldn’t feel entitled to your own view.”

   -To do this, I need to make sure I keep up with the smartest proponents of the opposing view.

4. Don’t create the content you think people want to consume, create the content you want to consume. If it interests you, you’ll make it interesting to others.

   -This is always my approach in I imagine I’m sending it back in time to myself with what i wish I’d known (or forward in time to my son).
   

Cheers,

Ferg

P.S. I now have a directory for all my articles (free and paid). Or if you’re interested in my story and why I started this Substack, you can read the story here.

“If can only read one piece which would it be?” Definitely Moats and Cannibals as this is the big trend I’m trying to capture in my portfolio.