Fossil fuels is old-school but Trump shall support it.
Electric vehicles are new, but Trump might remove the EV subsidy.
Solar & wind likely will not be seen as good as they were.
Carbon emission will probably not be strictly watched.
Buildings and construction sites shall boom.
And interestingly, the company, Caterpillar, was helped by Trump during his last term.
While EV is not popular, Musk did pivot to Republican by moving headquarters of Tesla, and more recently, SpaceX and X.com.
Musk also donates to Trump.
But problem is that his companies are not something Trump likes.
Besides electric vehicles, Optimum, which can replace factory workers in the future, is probably not what Trump wants. Trump wants blue-collar jobs in the US.
Plus, although Musk bought Twitter and lifted the ban on Trump’s account, Trump hasn’t been active on X.com besides a post in Aug 2023.
https://t.co/MlIKklPSJT pic.twitter.com/Mcbf2xozsY
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 25, 2023
On top of these, Musk might be too close to China, which would be frowned upon.
This could be controversial.
So basically Trump won’t be sending lots of money or other support to Ukraine.
Trump will focus on the US.
EU will need to spend more. Trump will keep talking about the 2% GDP spending for NATO countries.
Will Ukraine and Russia stop fighting?
It’s hard I think. How could Ukraine accept the loss the land?
Or, would EU need to send troops to help Ukraine? Why would EU risk an escalation with Russia? Even the EU politicians want to help, can they motivate the solders? Why would EU soldiers risk their lives for Ukraine? How much can they really help Ukraine in the end?
Maybe Ukraine will need to accept the fact that land is lost for now, but won’t officially recognize it.
EU will not want to see things escalate. Any ceasefire would be welcomed.
If people still remember what happened 4 years ago..
For the past 5 years,
Regeneron has outperformed its $IBB peers (except for Moderna, which is an outlier) by a wide margin.
Eli Lilly has outperformed its $PPH peers by a wide margin.
The two companies are now ranked the No.1 weight in $IBB and $PPH respectively.
Trump won’t be banning Tiktok in the US, if there is a divestment or other sorts of legal structure change, as he indicated earlier this year. And he has set up an official account on TikTok.
Trump’s main argument is to create competition for Meta, which could be bad for the company (people’s time spent, ads dollar, and tech talents).
Back in 2021, Trump accounts were banned on Facebook and Instagram; the ban was later lifted in 2023 after 2 years, but with “new guardrails”.
Meta said to removed those restriction last week.
On the other side, besides the support for TikTok US, Republican is trying to acquire the stake in TikTok US. Steven Mnuchin is leading a potential buyer group. He served as US Treasury Secretary from 2017 to 2021 for Trump.
Liberty Strategic Capital, is led by Steven Mnuchin, and is invested by SoftBank, which holds a stake in ByteDance.
In short, Meta could be getting a permanent and potent/aggressive competitor in the US.
Earlier this year, Biden has signed a law that would ban Chinese-owned TikTok unless it is sold within a year. The deadline would be January 19, 2025, 1 day before the next US presidential term.
Plus, read this..
Politics matters I guess.
also here: https://time.com/6317339/rooftop-solar-power-failure/
Solar panel for some = Financial products that don’t work
And this disappoints customers.
As a product, it fail too easy and too often.
Too sales driven and customers feel they got tricked.
Thinking about this question, here are five potential answers.
1/ For the older generations, shortages are deeply rooted in their memory, so they dislike the idea that anything might be in short supply.
2/ The required return is too low. Many experienced poverty in their youth, therefore lots of effort for little money is still attractive.
3/ The local governments want to create local jobs and boast about industrial upgrades, with banks being the main enablers. When every local government invest in a similar direction at the same time, it’s hard to control and estimate the entire capacity.
4/ For top party members, abundance of all sorts of goods is a sign of victory for socialism and communism.
5/ China is preparing for war. Many capacity will shut down if at war.
Uber Mobility had ~$70bn gross booking in 2023, and recorded $20bn revenue.
Drivers should earn ~70%, or $49bn, as Uber Mobility’s revenue margin is ~29%.
Based on drivers’ feedbacks, it seems that net earnings after expenses are roughly 2/3.
Then what self-driving can replace is 2/3 of that $49bn, or $32bn per year.
This doesn’t include UberEats (Delivery).
Uber had about $3.6bn operating cash flow in 2023; it made ~$2bn adj. EBITDA after SBC.
That $32bn net “savings” can lift Uber’s profitability by 10-fold.
What’s missing?
The additional insurance needed for self-driving as software can make mistakes?
The job losses around the world?
If can solve self-driving at night, it would be great! We human beings need to sleep.
It might not be that surprising, but many sponsors of major China local (provincial) soccer clubs in the Chinese Super League didn’t do well after naming the team.
Dalian Wanda and Dalian Shide were the names for Dalian’s soccer club. Dalian is only a city in Liaoning, but Dalian Shide was a strong team in the Chinese Super League. Dalian Aerbin is another club in Liaoning; the boss tried to acquire Dalian Shide.
More people might have heard about Evergrande. Evergrande purchased Guangzhou soccer club in 2010. Guangzhou Evergrande won seven consecutive Chinese Super League titles from 2011 to 2017.
Similar stories could be found for teams across cities/provinces, e.g. Jiangsu, Beijing, Shanghai, etc.
I am not sure if this is common globally. I can think about FTX, which sponsored the Mercedes F1 team and Golden State Warriors. But it’s not something consistently happening on the global stage.
Maybe it’s due to the business model. Property developers were very profitable and can benefit from broader audience with the clubs’ naming. Usually male watch those soccer matches more often, and those who have time and money to watch sports could be wealthier and thus homebuyers.
It’s hard to be top notch in every industry.
The best talents in a country will bring strength to one industry which is tech for the US. If tech gets the smartest minds, of course other industries may not be able to compete at their max potential.
Boeing pleads guilty for 737 Max crashes.
Boeing benefited from its market position and gov contracts, while GM needs to compete in the more fierce commercial world. However the drivers and outcome feel a bit similar to me.
It could be about global competition but that’s limited (Airbus and SpaceX), and Covid is just one-off. Blame China? Sure China is not buying many planes like before, but it’s very early in actually competing in airplane manufacturing. I assume Airbus is not breaking many rules to compete. SpaceX might have some technology breakthrough, but Boeing also has r&d and should have unparalleled industry expertise.
The harder question is what’s Boeing’s (and broadly US manufacturing) competitive advantage over the longer term? Why TSMC didn’t do well in the US?
From a previous post, I touched on this – how to recreate the manufacturing industry in US is a question about how to make this sector attractive compared with other industries for young people and for capital.
Fiscal spending and subsidy is not a permanent solution. Tech didn’t rely much on subsidy to grow.
Maybe there is a negative side effect of being very strong in the technology sector?
Maybe US has evolved over the years so that the nature of this industry didn’t deserve a lot of attention? Maybe Tesla robot is an answer to unleash the manufacturing potential.