Tag: Random Thoughts

Some people will be priced out if tariff significantly increases drug price.

That to some extent is like “killing” those people.

Of course, prices on drugs shall increase over time for different reasons.

Would you argue that if a drugmaker raises price, it’s “killing” people?

It will be interesting then.. as pharmaceutical companies are saving and killing people at the same time. They are still saving people net net.

For investors in pharma, if they expect higher profits, are they also killing people as companies need to raise price? But if you invest in drugs, you should be saving people right?

What a humanitarian cap on the industry!

For many in the US, tariff discussion should be very educational.

For one thing, people now know more about where things are produced and where different parts are coming from.

It asks people to debate what’s really needed to happen in the US and what’s not. And the feasibility of any changes.

Also, without all those analysis and breakdowns, many people probably just complain, but rarely value the importance of global collaborations – that it’s hard to have everything happen in the US.

The entire debate and the prospect of an iPhone city (the whole Boston population is needed) let people understand why those decisions were made in the first place.

The debate is magnified by the financial market. All participants globally need to think about this.

For wealthy people, a more expensive iPhone means nothing. They might see the impact of deglobalization as limited if it’s just things are just getting expensive. But the upheaval and collapse of the financial market will let the wealthy know it’s more than the living cost.

Is this only for Ukraine?

Probably the conversation was made publicly intentionally as the words were for other parties as well.

Those who would count on the US to defense themselves shall be shocked to realize how much compromises they need to give to Trump.

DeepSeek provides unparalleled cost-efficiency – cheap and good.

DS is a typical “China” thing, propelled by limited resources – in this case, limited advanced chips.

This is just not the way that US companies usually pursue – US shall go for the best performance, with unlimited resources ideally.

How wonderful the world balances itself.

Back in 2016, I saw this day coming – AI is creating music that is really good.

However, I like natural “things”.

How to have more human elements?

I would argue live concerts are more “human”.

The unique performance, the friends and family who join you, the broader audience, even the historical background, could make a concert a more meaningful experience than any song.

That piece of memory is unique – it’s hard to replicate the exact same “experience”. Even if the singer may perform similarly across concerts, the audience is different. And audience is part of the whole performance.

I think tariffs is just another form of tax.

It’s shared by buyers and sellers and is a tax on consumption, especially lower-end consumption – as the outsourced/imported products should proportionally be more lower-end.

It’s actually a more onerous “tax” on low to mid income US people, assuming that high-end consumers care more about high-end products which are not produced in China etc.

And it does increase gov income. Instead of higher taxes on wealthier people, this form of “tax” is more shared across average consumers.

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Separately, tariff will increase US mfg jobs.

However, who will do these jobs? With the current wave of AI, you could imagine more average “white collar” workers will be replaced by AI and maybe they shall go to manufacturing.

I think we should say all jobs are created equal – however, if you look back, when those manufacturers jobs were transferred out of the US, US was in the dominating position in the world. No one could force the US to get rid of “good jobs” and keep “bad jobs” back then – I could only imagine that those outsourced jobs were considered “worse”.

So now more people in the US will pick up those “bad jobs”. That’s not a very comforting vision for many average people in the US – probably more dangerous, more exposed to health issues, more repetitive (well white collar jobs can be repetitive). However, this should do good for US overall.

If talents are born randomly, each year he or she could be anyone that is born anywhere in the world.

Even if China has 1/6 of global population, its newborn is less than that. In 2024, 132mn babies were born. In 2023, China has 9mn newborns.

That makes ~7% of global new born, less than half of the 17% population weight.

 

Historically, China was a big buyer and still a big holder of US gov debt, which to some extent led to the ultra-low interest rate environment.

Nowadays, China is still helping keep the US interest rate low, indirectly. I think by not providing good return opportunities, China is forcing money to go to other places, indirectly providing more money (with low return alternative) in the global market for the US gov.

It’s not just impacting foreign capital interested in China, but Chinese money as well.

Alternatively, if China has attractive opportunities all over the place, it will compete for global money one way or another.