Kotkin is a scholar of Russia and the Soviet Union. Most famous for his three-part (only two are published so far) biography of Stalin.
In this interview, he turns his attention to China.
There are a lot of interesting points made here.
“There are two subjects at Party School that are absolutely dominant in the Chinese case. One is the supposed decline of the United States … But the other big subject — in fact, it’s an even bigger subject for them — is not having a Soviet collapse in China“
Interesting to read this together with Dalio’s latest on the US v. China.
It didn’t start with the Inflation Reduction Act or Trump.
It started as early as 2008, and took the form, as this article identifies, of four key forces.
Things in global trade wars move slowly.
“If this analysis is correct, it should be clear that the American protectionist turn has been taken for a long time and will last long, as one doesn’t see the main forces that provoked it changing direction, starting with the desire to push China back.“
Studying these global balances helps understand and predict where the stresses of financial systems build.
To this end, Brad’s re-opening post from November 2022 is a foundational read.
The short summary – deficits are back to pre-GFC highs, have concentrated in autocratic regime countries but with none of the historic reserve growth.
Prescient conclusion – “By implication, private financial intermediaries somewhere around the world will need to absorb Treasury bonds. Just as financial intermediaries globally had to absorb U.S. “subprime” (household) risk prior to the global crisis, now they have to absorb U.S. interest rate risk.”
“Just between 2000 and 2021, the share of public and publicly guaranteed external debt of low and lower-middle income countries (other than that held by IFIs) owed to bondholders jumped from 10 to 50 percent, while the share owed to China rose from 1 to 15 percent. Meanwhile, the share held by the 22 predominantly Western members of the Paris Club of official lenders fell from 55 to 18 per cent. Thus, co-ordinating creditors in a comprehensive debt restructuring operation has become far harder, because of their greater number and their diversity.“
One of the most useful tools in a healthcare investor’s arsenal is medical conferences.
Why? Key opinion leaders (KOLs) meet to discuss the latest data coming out from company-sponsored trials and research. Their views give an unrivaled and direct insight not just into the probability of success but also the commercial potential of various medical interventions.
One way to get a quick overview is summary quotes captured by the Stream blog like this summary of ACC ’23.
NB If you want to have free two-week trial access to the full database of transcripts click here.
