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China Is Just Another Front in the Zombie War
China Is Just Another Front in the Zombie War
LONDON – This morning, a desperate message from our analyst in Beijing puts us in a lighthearted mood:
I’m sure you must have heard about the recent disaster in the Chinese stock market.
It’s my first time experiencing something like this. And it shocked me. It’s like the world is suddenly turning upside-down. Everyone is running for themselves.
People here feel hopeless, as they see so many government bailout plans fail.
There are so many rumors I can’t tell what’s true and what’s not. Some even said that it was U.S. capital shorting Chinese index futures.
Opportunities Everywhere!
At the Diary, we always look on the bright side: We see opportunity everywhere.
Investors in U.S. stocks seemed to wake up yesterday with a start. They didn’t panic. But they were at least beginning to worry. The Dow dropped 261 points – wiping 1.5% off its value. There is probably a lot more where that came – an opportunity on the downside.
To recap: Greece’s creditors have given Athens until midnight to come up with an acceptable reform plan. Nobody knows what will happen.
But Greeks are pulling as much cash out of ATMs as they can. There have been lines at gas stations and food stores. And Greek stocks are selling with as much as 20% dividend yield and just over two times earnings. This could be a (highly speculative) opportunity on the upside.
Meanwhile in China, investors have seen roughly $3.5 trillion in paper wealth evaporate over the last two months as stock prices there plunged. The Chinese are not sophisticated stock market investors. They have only been at it for a few decades. So, they tend to get over-excited in both directions.
It was only a few weeks ago that Chinese brokers were opening new accounts in record numbers. From farmers to hairdressers, everyone was itching to get a piece of the action, as the stock market soared.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Pathetic Zombie Wars
Pathetic Zombie Wars
Our New Friend, al-Qaeda
The wars go on!
We’re not against them. We might as well be against stomach gas – it will happen whether we like it or not. Real wars, as we’ve been exploring recently, are glorious and moronic. But zombie wars are just sordid are pathetic.
A new item in the Wall Street Journal tells us that our enemy’s enemy is becoming our friend.
“In the three-way war ravaging Syria, should the local al-Qaeda branch be seen as the lesser evil to be wooed rather than bombed?
This is increasingly the view of some of America’s regional allies and even some Western officials. In a war now in its fifth year, in which 230,000 people have been killed and another 7.6 million uprooted, few good options remain for how to tackle the crisis.”
These are not real wars. There are no real war aims, no enemy worthy of the name, and no real victories. Instead, they are zombie wars. They go on and on… with changing targets and shifting alliances. Why do we never win?
Vetting process …
Cartoon by Steve Breen
Because too many people benefit from losing… The media, the military, the contractors, the politicians, the lowlife defense contractors in Northern Virginia, the grandstanders in Congress, the CIA, the NSA … all have been zombified.
Jon Basil Utley in the American Conservative:
“America doesn’t “win” its wars, because winning a war is secondary to other goals in our war making. Winning or losing has little immediate consequence for the United States, because the wars we start, Wars of Choice, are not of vital national interest; losing doesn’t mean getting invaded or our cities being destroyed.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
