Official Shiny Things thread Episode V, The Empire Strikes Back

[DevilPlate]

Raise price by having import tax to curb "overspending"

American importers are the ones who have to pay the tax so what bullying and coersion is there to China?

Very funny to hear non-economic logic to solve overspending ("scold Americans to stop living in borrowed money")

China is well known to treat foreigners very badly, that's why in this war, no other country is willing to open up for China export. EU even warn about trade diversion from China to EU.

The reason is simple. China breaks WTO rules, disrespect IP, force tech transfer then manufacture at below cost because they copy without having to pay for R&D. You go to their court for IP infringement, you get dismissed without justice. Next, circumvent spirit of WTO rules such as giving subsidise electricity, finance terms, massive state own enterprise and say they didn't break any WTO rules.

The legal production of fentanyl precursors on China soils also show China's intentions despite promise by XJP to make it eligible for death penalty. Chinese experience opium war themselves and understand how devastating it is and yet, allow this to happen. Drugs require multi nation cooperation and SEA have its own golden triangle problem as well.

Lastly, allowing China to WTO and trade with the world is the only reason why China is growing at this rate. It breaks rules meant to safeguard negative effects of trade while enjoying the benefits.

If China wasn't allowed to join WTO, we won't have this problem

Hmm why u focus on China?

im more concern about US bullying other weak nations rn.

 

[DevilPlate]

I honestly don't see bullying because Americans importers are the one paying the tax.

putting politics aside, I think 10% import tax is valid to reflect USD overvalued status as reserve currency and VAT/GST barriers in other countries

until now u are still looking at tariffs alone
Look at Warlord demands!

Yes one can argue that it is fair for weaker nations to pay Warlord for their protection

even our PM Wong had voiced out


We are being tax 10% on what basis?

 

[leoch037]

We are being tax 10% on what basis?

Uncle Sam need money to reduce the debts, so everyone must contribute some haha

 

[BBCWatcher]

@Shiny Things : What do you think of this?

 

[Shiny Things]

@Shiny Things : What do you think of this?

Look, on the one hand, I absolutely wouldn't be surprised if someone just got lucky - buying same-day gamma isn't the craziest bet in the current market if you think there's about to be a tape bomb. It happens occasionally!

On the other hand...

 

[singaporean11]

My responses to your points (numbered):

1) Yes, USA is free to raise price by having import tax to curb "overspending", but NOT using "import tariffs" imposed on specific country because this violates WTO rules! (Yes, US violates WTO rules here and not China)!
USA can learn from Singapore how to "raise price by having import tax to curb "overspending"" the right way without violating WTO rules, e.g. by imposing internal taxes like "ARF" of 200% on cars from every country (no biases against any single country)! But no, USA chose bullying and coersion targeted at different countries with different rates.

2) Very funny to hear a country's stupid/moron leaders blaming other countries for their own debts because of over-spending by its own Americans and by its own US Gov (on its own military, weapons, and thousands of military bases all around the world, and also spend on spying, hacking, and stealing from the whole world via CIA, FBI, NSA as exposed by Edward Snowden and Julian Assange etc)!

3) Regarding your claim "China is well known to treat foreigners very badly, that's why in this war, no other country is willing to open up for China export", this is clearly baseless claim against China, pure propaganda that we always hear from VOA, RFA, ASPI etc funded by USAID (which is a waste of Americans' tax-payers money and 1 of the reasons why US is now heavily in debt!). But no, US Gov will never blame themselves for their own mismanagement of USA, but only know how to blame others, and spending Billions USD on spreading false propaganda and fake news and smearing!

On the other hand, the factual truth is, USA (not China) is well known to treat foreigners very badly, that is why China's trade with many other countries is so much higher than USA! All these other countries are telling us that USA is the bully and the problem in this world!

4) Regarding "China breaks WTO rules, disrespect IP, force tech transfer then manufacture at below cost because they copy without having to pay for R&D", again this is baseless claim against China, pure propaganda that we always hear from VOA, RFA, ASPI etc funded by USAID!
Instead, the factual truth is USA broke many WTO rules (see (1) above and also including illegally subsidized Boeing that broke WTO rules as ruled by WTO court), USA illegally detain Huawei's Meng Wanzhou with hook-wink excuses because of Huawei's 5G techologies, USA Gov's NSA hacked into Huawei's servers and try to steal Huawei's 5G IP and technologies that USA don't have, and yet USA claiming China steal USA IP and technologies, and USA Gov's NSA also hacked into Germany's ex-PM Angel Merkel's phone to spy, hack, and steal confidential information from her!

5) Regarding your claim "The legal production of fentanyl precursors on China soils ... Chinese experience opium war themselves and understand how devastating it is and yet, allow this to happen.", Only ignorant people would not know that "fentanyl" is an indispensable ingredient for making painkillers and "Fentanyl" is a US legalized drug approved by US FDA! Why you claim China illegally growing "Fentanyl"?

Even US Gov's website said this: https://www.dea.gov/factsheets/fentanyl#:~:text=What is Fentanyl?,than heroin as an analgesic.

Fentanyl is a potent synthetic opioid drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use as an analgesic (pain relief) and anesthetic.

Fact is, USA Gov has legalized marijuana and cannabis that is causing so many druggies and drug problems in USA, and now you claiming all these are China's fault?! That really tells us very much about your own integrity and honesty isn't it?

6) Regarding your claim "allowing China to WTO and trade with the world is the only reason why China is growing at this rate", up to you if you prefer to keep looking into the rear mirror.

6) Regarding your claim "If China wasn't allowed to join WTO, we won't have this problem", well, may be we can say if USA has NOT been so EVIL to had GENOCIDED native Americans to rob them of their land, there will not be this big bully country called "USA" in this world and this world would be a much more peaceful place with little to no war (since all the wars in the past 50 years on this earth is either initiated or participated by USA), including the current ones in Palestine supporting Israel to genocide Palestinians!

My above comments are based on FACTS. I hope nobody is trying to hide these facts from other readers!

 

[Shiny Things]

Been an interesting week, hasn't it?

Firstly, jinsatkilife and Singaporean11, stop fighting in the thread, take it to EDMW.

Hi ST, would like to know your recommendations of ETFs for the following markets

1. World
2. S&P500
3. China
4. India

IWDA, CSPX, nope, nope.

I'm sitting on my hands about whether China or India are investible right now—if this new tariff regime stays, and if China is genuinely willing and able to pivot to consumption-led growth pace Pettis & Klein, then maybe China becomes investible? but you don't want to bet your life on it right now when we don't even know what the next 24 hours is going to look like.

the americans have been living on borrowed money for decades, machiam one who only pay minimum sum or interest of credit card bills
at least now trump is trying to do something to tackle the issue, b4 the debts ballooned to another credit crisis similar to the 2007 subprime

I see where you're coming from, but this is not correct. The administration isn't putting these tariffs on to try to cut the national debt. I mentioned this upthread, but we don't really have any idea why they're doing it - if they were doing it to try to cut the debt, they wouldn't have rolled it out in such a slapdash way.

Talking abt BTC, anyone using trading platform [...] to "buy and hold"?

I'm using it to invest / "buy" in very small amt of gold and BTC with very little capital, since it offers 500x interest free leverage

I'm not sure how long i can hold onto the trade but somehow i feel I'm not doing it the right way

Y I K E S

Most people don't need to invest in bitcoin.
Even if they do, you don't "buy and hold" with 500x leverage, because you'll get zeroed in a heartbeat
And even if they did need 500x leverage, you don't do it through an unregulated bucket-shop based in Mauritius.

so... you don't need bitcoin or gold in your portfolio. But if you decide you want to own it, there are better ways to buy it than through a dodgy broker in a jurisdiction where you can't stop them if they decide to take an extended vacation with your money.

Any change in play on the way to deploy funds? Are you guys continuing the DCA method at your fixed intervals or gonna hold out a while more to see how this tariff thing plays out?

Gold bad because China has alot to sell
USD bad because if China sell their bonds, fed have to step in and monetise, effectively devaluing and causing inflation worldwide.
SGD bad? Because SGD is somehow linked to USD which means SGD will be too strong when usd devalue or SGD will be too weak if we intervene

I'm absolutely continuing.

The entire point of dollar-cost averaging is that you buy stuff (more stuff!) when it's cheap. Stuff is cheap right now, because short-term punters are panicking; this feels like '08, '11, or 2020.

You can certainly ask "is the US going to continue its outperformance", and I think that's a valid question - but even if you think it isn't, you should still be DCA-ing into Singaporean stocks, global stocks, and global bonds.

I've been using SCB online trading to purchase ES3/MBH/VWRA.

I've just opened a IBKR account. For local ETFs like ES3/MBH, is it recommended to use IBKR to buy? Or stay with SCB, and use IBKR for VWRA only?

IBKR's fine for both. Some people like to use Stanchart for local stocks and IBKR for global stocks, but I think that's overkill - it's easier to keep everything in one place.

 

[BBCWatcher]

IBKR's fine for both. Some people like to use Stanchart for local stocks and IBKR for global stocks, but I think that's overkill - it's easier to keep everything in one place.

Interactive Brokers can’t help you buy ES3, G3B, MBH, or the Amundi global stock index fund (as examples) using CPF Ordinary Account or Supplementary Retirement Scheme account dollars. So that‘s a good reason for another broker, but it’ll probably be POEMS or FSMOne.

 

[revhappy]

I'm sitting on my hands about whether China or India are investible right now—if this new tariff regime stays, and if China is genuinely willing and able to pivot to consumption-led growth pace Pettis & Klein, then maybe China becomes investible? but you don't want to bet your life on it right now when we don't even know what the next 24 hours is going to look like.

Indian markets are just fine There are no cutting edge Semi Con or FAANG type stocks but the market is more diversified than most other markets which are either commodity driven, export driven or very specific sector driven and there is very long term history as well, where investors at a broad level have not be short changed.

But yeah, if you are not from India, I wouldnt recommend overweighting this market.

 

[leoch037]

not optimistic one day china becoming on par with US?
or India becoming the next china?
maybe i look too much into the population size haha

is that also why IWDA is preferred over VWRA? the emerging mkt like dragging down the performance

 

[revhappy]

not optimistic one day china becoming on par with US?
or India becoming the next china?
maybe i look too much into the population size haha

is that also why IWDA is preferred over VWRA? the emerging mkt like dragging down the performance

You must separate out capitalist economies and communist economies.

Incase it capitalist economies, there is a strong correlation between GDP and the stocks markets MCap.

 

[DevilPlate]

You must separate out capitalist economies and communist economies.

Incase it capitalist economies, there is a strong correlation between GDP and the stocks markets MCap.

Now US stock market way overshoot GDP liao according to Buffet indicator

 

[BBCWatcher]

Incase it capitalist economies, there is a strong correlation between GDP and the stocks markets MCap.

It’s obviously not that strong. And you might be dead before any loose correlation yields any higher returns (if even then) versus a simple global stock index-based approach which will figure out any such drifts.

 

[singaporean11]

It’s obviously not that strong. And you might be dead before any loose correlation yields any higher returns (if even then) versus a simple global stock index-based approach which will figure out any such drifts.

Doubt your "simple global stock index-based approach" can figure out any such drifts because the proportions of stocks from each geographical region, how much weightage to allocate to each stock is still a very much human decision and this decision may be wrong or biased, like your favorite IWDA ETF with 71.63% of stocks allocated to US region but US only accounts for 26.1% of world nominal GDP and 15.5% of world PPP GDP.

 

[revhappy]

It’s obviously not that strong. And you might be dead before any loose correlation yields any higher returns (if even then) versus a simple global stock index-based approach which will figure out any such drifts.

My retirement will be in India, so for me it is more aligned. I have a 50% allocation to India equities and another 50% to global equities within my equity allocation. And my AA is 50:50. My fixed income allocation is entirely Indian rupee denominated.

My SWR is likely to be lower than 2%.

 

[BBCWatcher]

My retirement will be in India, so for me it is more aligned. I have a 50% allocation to India equities and another 50% to global equities within my equity allocation. And my AA is 50:50. My fixed income allocation is entirely Indian rupee denominated.
My SWR is likely to be lower than 2%.

If you're looking for free advice, I wouldn't bet 50+% of a retirement portfolio on nominal Indian rupees even when retiring in India. I don't do that with Singapore dollars or U.S. dollars, and they're better currencies.

 

[revhappy]

If you're looking for free advice, I wouldn't bet 50+% of a retirement portfolio on nominal Indian rupees even when retiring in India. I don't do that with Singapore dollars or U.S. dollars, and they're better currencies.

In India it is not easy or straightforward to hold fixed income in foreign currency. I can increase my allocation to equities but that increases volatility.

 

[BBCWatcher]

In India it is not easy or straightforward to hold fixed income in foreign currency.

Would you elaborate?

 

[revhappy]

Would you elaborate?

Indian rupee is not a fully convertible currency and India used to be a dollar starved economy, so the RBI( India's central bank) doesnt allow ordinary citizens from holding FX and there are no foreign currency denominated assets in India.

RBI allows about 200K USD to be remitted outside India every year under liberalized Remittance scheme, but this invites scrutiny from Income tax authorities, so I am reluctant to keep any funds offshore.

My idea of going back and retiring in India is to live like other ordinary Indians, I will face the same problems they face and I am okay with it. I dont want any complex financial structures. India has a long history and has never defaulted on its debt and manages it fiscal and current account pretty well.

 

[BBCWatcher]

Indian rupee is not a fully convertible currency and India used to be a dollar starved economy, so the RBI( India's central bank) doesnt allow ordinary citizens from holding FX and there are no foreign currency denominated assets in India.

OK, but are you barred from holding (as examples) CRPA or IGIL?

RBI allows about 200K USD to be remitted outside India every year under liberalized Remittance scheme, but this invites scrutiny from Income tax authorities, so I am reluctant to keep any funds offshore.

Aren't the proceeds coming into India over time? Is that direction of fund movement restricted?