Another article about another American leaving China. This one is a weird one though. But from 2023 — a time of widespread pressures on local government finances following three years of virus restrictions and a property slowdown — he was asked instead to pay closer to market rent. Given that his visa
I've always wondered why Chinese people living in mainland China seem so much less propagandized than Americans. I think I finally found a possible answer while listening to historian Darryl Cooper interviewed by Tucker Carlson. ...go back to the internal migrations in the 20th century after the Second
Adopted from a reply to Erik Voorhees and fluidvoice.btc's discussion on X re protectionism with regard to immigration: Nothing is ever fair in life or markets, but I respectfully submit that if a nation allows lots of immigration for one class of people or category of jobs
I just sat my 3 month old son down on my leg for his post midnight feed burping. Deep in milk food coma, I tilted him forward and gently patting him on the back with a cupped hand until I heard that satisfying sound of a baby's burp.
There's a lot of unspoken assumptions in societies about how things work. In democracies, at least the US one in which I was raised, there was a strongly held belief that somehow voting picks the best people for the job. Even as early as middle school, it was
The Coldcard hack shows how hard it can be to run a bitcoin-only business. While building the hardware wallet itself might not be that expensive, it is a one-off cost. The associated ongoing software updates, paying for the updates to be professionally audited and running a credible bug
A Chinese friend was telling me today that many of his friends felt that the economy today was very unfair. Today isn't like the 1990s in China where everyone was equally poor and "just" working really hard was a receipe for success they say. It sounds
After listening to The Knowledge Project's episode on John D. Rockefeller over the past few days, I started reading more about him online. I knew Rockefeller's Standard Oil was big, but didn't know that it was so big that it was selling kerosene in
Banning Chinese competition is a losing strategy.
Diesel and LPG fuel prices in Hong Kong have massively increased since the beginning of the Iran war. As of today, the diesel price is around US$4.6 per liter...that's approaching US$18 per gallon for the metrically challenged. To help cushion the fast change in
On a rainy day in China with visitors from abroad, one of the best forms of entertainment is free: test driving Chinese EVs. Today, I test drove China's largest EV SUV, the 5.4 meter long NIO ES9 "Executive" SUV. It has 697 hp and is
I didn't invest in the SpaceX IPO and even if I wanted to, couldn't easily do so since they blocked Hong Kong residents. It seems like Elon timed and priced it perfectly for the company. The thing is, it's not a very good business