Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Financial Times Tells CalPERS Not to Go Further Into the Private Equity Haunted House

 Instead of wind turbines: company generates wind energy with a parachute NDR via machine 


ASIC brings first action against a director for failing to have a director identification number


‘Traumatising experience’: ATO under fire for denying debt relief to at-risk taxpayer in robotax fallout


Financial Times Tells CalPERS Not to Go Further Into the Private Equity Haunted House

The Financial Times debunks private equity flim-flammery even as CalPERS and others sign up for more


Putin seeks to tie concert hall attack to Ukraine despite ISIS claim Axios


3 suspects in Moscow concert hall attack plead guilty in court India Today


The World Is in for Another China Shock.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the U.S. and the global economy experienced a “China shock,” a boom in imports of cheap Chinese-made goods that helped keep inflation low but at the cost of local manufacturing jobs. 

A sequel might be in the making as Beijing doubles down on exports to revive the country’s growth. Its factories are churning out more cars, machinery and consumer electronics than its domestic economy can absorb. Propped up by cheap, state-directed loans, Chinese companies are glutting foreign markets with products they can’t sell at home.

Some economists see this China shock pushing inflation down even more than the first. China’s economy is now slowing, whereas, in the previous era, it was booming. As a result, the disinflationary effect of cheap Chinese-manufactured goods won’t be offset by Chinese demand for iron ore, coal and other commodities. 

China is also a much larger economy than it was, accounting for more of the world’s manufacturing. It had 31% of global manufacturing output in 2022, and 14% of all goods exports, according to World Bank data. Two decades earlier China’s share of manufacturing was less than 10% and of exports less than 5%. 

Plus: “Unlike in the early 2000s, however, the Western world now sees China as its chief economic rival and geopolitical adversary. The EU is considering whether Chinese-made electric vehicles are unfairly subsidized and should be subject to tariffs or other import restrictions. Former President Donald Trump, who is seeking the Republican nomination for November’s presidential election, has floated the idea of hitting imports from China with tariffs of 60% or higher.”



Global Population Set To Fall For First Time In 700 Years Modernity. Not that I am a fan of growth as defined by economists, but one of the two drivers of growth is population increases (the other is productivity increases). Will this development finally get the super rich to decide to improve the material conditions of ordinary people so they can afford to have more children?


Whistleblower: The CIA Allegedly Told the DOJ to Stay Away from Kevin Morris in the Hunter Biden Investigation Jonathan Turley



Vernor Vinge, Father of the Tech Singularity, Has Died At Age 79 ars technica :-(. I particularly liked A Deepness in the Sky


The bizarre world of people who see ‘demonic’ facesZMEScience 


The Multiplication of Monsters: From Gutenberg to QAnon Public Books 

Baltimore bridge collapse latest news: Rescue workers scramble to save dozens after colossal Baltimore Key Bridge collapsed in moments when container ship crashed into it sending cars into the river Daily Mail. Daily Mail is particularly good at this sort of story. 


Watch: Baltimore Bridge Collapses After Cargo Ship Collision WSJ News, YouTube