I just finished Jim's book advernture capitalist. Extremely boring, IMO, I have no idea how the guy became a best selling author. I didn't read his first book though, maybe it was better. I have heard a few of his speeches and agreed with most of his insights but his book put me to sleep. About the most interesting thing in the book to me was how there are Mercedes repair shops in almost every big city in every country in the world. Initially I thought the guy was nuts to drive around in a bright yellow modified mercedes, but he got it donated to him for free and sure enough I guess it did make sense after all. Easy repairs and it got him in the door so to speak wherever he went. Agree with others....it does get annoying with regard to the book as on some level it is bascially about a really rich guy just traveling around the world. In one paragraph he makes it sounds like they almost died, then a paragraph later it like, "not wanting to spend another day there I gave the man 500 USD to have the ferry/cargo plane (whatever) lift us out of there. Yeah that must be nice. Or the occassional, "finding that the currency was no longer depreciating there I found a broker and purchased shares of the leading companies, before moving on to the next country. " Its like he fancies (sp?) himself as the Peter Lynch of macro investing. Instead of visiting the companies and kicking the tires and stuff he just visits countries and looks at how they are doing.
Funny to see how people easily fall to the China is the next boom propaganda. In such great and entrepreneurial land, it's strange that anything worth value is not owned by the Chinese people.
The cynical approach to speculation is to simply always be on the lookout for the really good stories, the ones that are big and becoming more and more widely believed. It doesn't matter if they work out in the end as expected. Real boom or bubble, your aim is to just try to milk each as it comes along and get out earlier than most.
You and Mecro are funny. I was talking about a multi-decade economic boom and as soon as some Chinese internet stocks show weakness in the premarket the two of you are out with this vacuous cynicism. Best of luck to you!
I haven't fallen for anything - been living and working in Greater China for the better part of a decade and have been bullish on China for a very long time. I'd educate you further but ... your just not worth my time. Have a nice day.
I wasn't thinking of anything short term specifically. Very generally, the point is that you don't need to believe the story. It's probably safest for you if you don't. Trying to remain sceptical and wary, your goal is only to determine where lots of money may continue to flow, and then take a position here too. Nothing more than that.
mecro whether your are correct or not that was one of the most impressive "I know what I am talking abouts" I have seen on this site.
It's kinda late, dont you think? Now is when the masses are being taught that China is the great next boom, while the institutions have already bought whatever they could. When is the last time the masses made money on the information provided by the big houses? Of course there is money to be made, but most of the information about China is not correct. The country is not getting really rich. Almost anything worth real money is not owned by the Chinese. The average education level is not high. Do not mistake the smart Chinese here to the mass population. There are a lot of discrepancies between old government and new government which will take time to work out. Just learn what happened with their stock market. What China really provides is artifically low cost labor. It's not like it's booming with new technology, energy or natural resources. Eventually it will be, but nowhere to the level it's being exaggerated to.
Yes my intellect is nowhere near yours, as we all can see from your very constructive criticism that does not attempt to put the other down. These are the skills of a great debator.
Well ... the railroad boom made landowners rich (value of real estate is a strong function of connectivity to other population centers) and the automobile boom made the oilmen rich. A lot about China is smoke and mirros, but one thing is true : China is about rapid industrialisation, just like what Korea went through in the 70s and 80s and what Japan went through in the 60s and 70s. They are going to have to build a lot of roads, buy a lot of trucks, ship of a lot of goods and erect a lot of buildings. The safer bet on China I think it through companies that sell the diesel engines, the shipping, the oil etc that China will need to purchase. Even if everything ends up being a hoax, and the gold rush is illusory - all the pickaxes would have been paid for.