TSMC is not a Taiwanese company

 Superficially many think TSMC is a Taiwan company just like Alibaba is a Chinese company. Tsingtao Beer is also not a wholly owned Chinese company. Asahi Brewery is a major shareholder. The Chinese govt only owns about 30% of the Brewery. In the case of Alibaba, Jack Ma only owns 5% of the company, literally a minority shareholder. SoftBank owns at least 30% of Alibaba, the biggest shareholder. Alibaba is as good as a Japanese company.

What about TSMC, the pride of all Taiwanese? Taiwan's national treasure! The total Taiwanese ownership is about 20%. TSMC is mainly owned by American banks and associate companies, basically an American company. This speaks for why Morris Chang, the Taiwanese founder, has really very little say against its move to the USA. The Americans are plucking TSMC from Taiwanese soil, roots and all, and what can Taiwan do? Nothing. The pride of Taiwan, or the false pride of Taiwan, is returning to the USA. The Taiwanese chip industry is going to be hollowed out and many Taiwanese would be jobless. The Taiwanese economy would be affected and so were the supporting industries. Taiwan as the top chip manufacturer, the biggest chip foundry in the world, is history.

Howewer, the warning by Morris Chang is not empty noise. TSMC is profitable because of the cheap cost of production, cheap labour, efficient and discipline work ethics of Chinese workers and engineers from both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Transplanting TSMC into the barren and hot desert of Arizona would ensure its certain death.

The American labour and engineers are not like theTaiwanese and did not have the work ethics and discipline and conviction of the Taiwanese. Already the first few batches of engineers flown to the USA are feeling the discrimination and some have already packed up and return to China. Yes, there are Chinese engineers, plenty of them in TSMC. 

Why are they leaving the Big Apple, once the American dream and also a Chinese dream? Discrimination and being treated like second class citizens and second class workers are instantly prevalent. The Americans would not do shift, would not give up smoking in the workplace. Smoking was banned in Taiwan TSMC and in all chip foundries, but not in the new American TSMC.  Many of the Americans are less qualified and less experienced than the Taiwanese/Chinese engineers but are paid higher and even appointed as department heads of the Taiwanese/Chinese coming from Taiwan. Feeling cheated, discriminated and unfairly treated, the next option is to quit.

No way is the American TSMC, oops, should become ASMC, going to be able to compete against SMIC, Samsung or Japanese chips foundries. And there are Qualcomm, Nvidia, Intel, AMD, all with homeground advantage and govt subsidies to undercut the ASMC, and all waiting like sharks, ever ready to take over or buy over the ASMC.

TSMC/ASMC would not last a couple of years and be history. Morris Chang's baby would not grow up unless he has plans for China to adopt it and grow in China. It is unfair to think that Morris Chang would be so stupid to chop off the legs of his child, TSMC, to die in the hot and barren Arizona desert. He has little choice in this decision. 

But die it must be for TSMC/ASMC. It would become another American dinosaur like Texas Instrument and the likes. Whatever is left of TSMC would have to reorganise and reinvent itself into another independent foundry, a real and genuine Taiwan company that cannot be uprooted at the command of the Americans. It may be absorbed as part of SMIC, like those factories in China, and survive the execution by the Americans.

Taiwan would no longer hold the prestigious and enviable title of the biggest chip foundry in the world. The fairy tale is over. Taiwan would have to start to find a new niche for itself. Unfortunately, there is nothing in the horizon except selling more pineapples and local produces.

Rationale for managing national reserves and pension funds

NEW YORK: It’s been a lousy month for the reputation of professional investing.

The collapse of FTX revealed that everyone from racy hedge funds to staid pension and sovereign wealth funds had been throwing money at a cryptocurrency exchange with weaker financial controls than Enron.

Above is quoted from CNA.

The explosion of FTX did not come as a surprise. The only surprise is the embarrassment caused to many so called professional investors, paid in the millions, to gamble in something they did not know much, and as quoted above, did not do due diligence or inadequate due diligence. The loss is confounding though many brushed it off as small change as they have big coffers, especially other people's money, OPM, not their own money. Caveat, doing due diligence is not the cure all and is no guarantee that the investment is safe.

The failure of FTX is only the beginning and not the only one. How many of the professional investors still have a lot of money sunk into other cryptocurrencies and hoping for the best, praying that all is well? How many have money sunk in derivatives? This is the mother of all financial crashes waiting to happen. It would be like a nuclear bomb exploding when everything standing would be flattened. And, believe me, no one cares a hoot. Everyone praying, hoping and wishing that it would not happen. This is the stupidity of it all. Murphy's Law would not fail. Whatever can happen would happen. All it needs is a tiny slip and the house of cards would come crashing down. There would be no where to hide or to run.

How irresponsible can people in authority in the financial industry allow this to happen, to be built to such an enormous sum that would be the end of the world, figuratively, should it crash? This is the biggest Ponzi scheme awaiting to explode. FTX is chicken feat compares to the collapse of the derivative scam.

Professional investors hired to invest are just gamblers in suits. Big funds, funds with excessive other people's money, are desperate to invest with all the money they have. It is not a matter of finding good opportunities to invest. They are compelled to invest for not investing is a losing proposition. Die die they must invest. The professional investors love this kind of animals, devoid of rational thinking, totally lack of wisdom in the handling wealth and other people's money. It is a senseless occupation or preoccupation to want to dump the money in their hands into someone's hands, and hoping to make money.

There is this wise saying, when you have enough of money, there is no need to risk losing it. It takes a lot of effort, time and good fortune to acquire wealth. When wealth is acquired, it is time to protect the wealth, not taking high risk to lose the wealth, especially when it is acquired by the blood, sweat and tears of a generation, other's people wealth. Most fund managers are not wise enough to know this. Or perhaps they know but it is not their mission, as not investing means not performing, and not performing means no big bonuses. 

The concept of fund management is to 'invest' or gamble with other people's hard earned money, hoping to make more money and never mind losing all, after all it is OPM. They send the best man or woman, with glib tongues to tell the owners of the wealth that they are the best to make more money for them. Once they are in, it is casino time. Just invest and invest, even when there is nothing good to invest. Gamblers are gamblers. They take high risk. If they don't risk, don't take high risk, there is no hope of high returns.

In short, the wisdom of managing big funds, other people's money, is to protect the funds. When you have it, don't lose it. Dump the professional investors instead of dumping the money in the funds. Save the money from paying exorbitant fees to professional gamblers. Rethink about the role of managing national wealth, national reserves. If money is so easy to be made, it is likely to be a scam. The so called professional fund managers have different mindset and objectives. They are hired employees paid to perform. This is in conflict with the management of national wealth and reserves that cannot afford to be wiped out by mistakes or reckless gambling...or should not be wiped out by taking unnecessary risk.

Managing national wealth and reserves is about protecting the wealth, slow but secure growth is better than high growth that comes with high risk.  It is a crime to lose national wealth and reserves by unscrupulous gambling, called investing recklessly but disguised as after due diligence.

What do you think?

PS. Can you imagine hiring a very careful and diligent fund manager, paid him in the millions and he did not invest a single cent for a year or more, because he could not find something worthy to invest in? On the other hand, a professional fund manager, by hook or crook, must find something to invest in to justify his hiring and pay.

What American values and behaviour? More dictatorial and destructive than the Nazis

 U.S. Reveals Intention To Contain China By Sheer Military Superiority

The U.S. will need military strength to ensure that American values, not Beijing’s, set global norms in the 21st century, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Saturday.

Austin’s speech at the Reagan National Defense Forum capped a week in which the Pentagon was squarely focused on China’s rise and what that might mean for America’s position in the world.

On Friday in a dramatic nighttime rollout, Austin was on hand as the public got its first glimpse of the military’s newest, highly classified nuclear stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider, which is being designed to best the quickly growing cyber, space and nuclear capabilities of Beijing.  Posted by Anonymous.

Reading the above statement by Lloyd Austin, supposedly must be a smart and wise man to have risen to the top of his career path, did not look good on the future of the American Empire. What he said is a revelation that the Americans are still stuck in their old mindset of might is right and unable to look into the mirror to see the evils they have done and their atrocious behavour and values as an international terrorist, an international gangster to control, dominate and oppress the world with might. The Americans are the most dictatorial Empire that he world has to live with. Sure, the Americans keep trumpeting and blaring about freedom of choice, freedom of speech, democracy etc etc. But these are nothing but hogwash in practice.

Look at what is happening in Europe, in the Ukraine War. What democracy or freedom of choice did the European countries have against the coercion of the Americans? The Europeans were forced to oppose and sanction their most important trading partner, actually their benefactor in providing them with cheap oil, gas and many essentials. And they have no choice, it is with the US or against the US. And the US even bullied them into buying extraordinary expensive oil and gas that would break their banks and destroy their economies and the good life of their citizens. The Americans are taking full advantage of the weaken Europeans to impose their wills on them, even offering unfair incentives to lure away European manufacturers to the US. 

The sanctions is not confined just to Russia but also China. Many of the European states have to severe trades with China, notably the Dutch, forced not to sell their lucrative chip making machines to China. Others were told not to sell their chips and related products to China resulting in many chip companies turning turtles. The Americans are willing to sacrifice the interests of their European allies in their wars with China and Russia. The Europeans are expendable to protect the interests of the American hegemony.

These kinds of oppressive and obsessive behaviours of the Americans, these kind of selfish behaviours of the Americans are definitely unacceptable even to their hardcore European allies. They are bad international norms, bad examples of good behaviour. More like the behaviour of savages. If only the American plan could bring down the Russians quickly, a temporary upset and sacrifice by the European countries may be acceptable. Now the truth is out there, that this war is not going to end tomorrow and Europe would be thrown under the bus. The good life of the Europeans would be no more as long as the war continues, as long as the Americans are in charge and in control over the Europeans. The Europeans has had enough of it and not wanting to bear with it anymore. Why should they suffer in a war that they did not want, did not care? It is American expansionism for the benefit of the evil American Empire.

The rest of the world are watching how the Americans treat their closest allies, how these allies are coerced to become cannon fodder. How would the rest of the world, the stooges and marginal stooges be thinking of the so called American values and freedom of choice or democracy? If the Americans can sacrifice their European allies, white men, how would the Americans treat the rest of the world, the coloured and despised people by the white men?

Thankfully the rest of the world has awakened. Everyone is making their own plans and many are joining the Russian and China camp. The Russians and the Chinese did not claim or brag about their values. But everyone can see who would be the better and more reliable friends and would be beneficial to their national interests.

Duds like Lloyd Austins and all those hillbillies in Washington can continue to be deluded in their fantasies, in their fake values and oppressive and dictatorial behaviour against their allies and countries of the world. Who in their right mind would believe in the American lies and evilness and their warmongering, to continue to agitate for wars, sanctions, oppression of countries around the world? Many have been victims of American dictatorial behaviour savagery and have lived in poverty for decades under abusive and unjust American sanctions and invasion. It is not that the rest of the world agree and support the American oppression and bullying. It is because they have no alternative and too weak to fight back.

China and Russia are standing up for the rest of the world to remove this evil and obnoxious bully and international terrorist from the world system. A new fairer and just system, a peaceful system, is in the process of being worked up for the betterment of the rest of the world, minus the evil American Empire and the white savages from Europe.

The rest of the world does not have to wait too long for this to happen. The evil Americans are basically alone now, and bankrupt of ideas and everything. Even the 5 eyes AngloSaxon tribes are having second thought except for a black man that thinks he is more white than the white AngloSaxon, and another silly boy in Canada that they called a PM.

What B21! The days of might is right, when everything is to be settled in the battle field is over. China too will bring out its H20 to compete with the B21. The more meaningful attack vehicle is the hypersonic nuclear armed missiles travelling at several Mach, no need to be stealth. China has been preparing to take on the Americans in an area that was dominated by the Americans since WW2, and is now on par with the Americans and superior in many areas. American military might is no longer unassailable and invincible. Together with Russia, both are now ready to meet the Americans in the battle field, blow for blow. Are the Americans up to it after decades of hypes about how superior were their military hardware?

Talk is cheap. Propaganda is expensive but no longer effective. When China could defeat the mighty war machine of the Americans in Korea with primitive weapons, how is America going to face up to them when the Chinese have everything the Americans have and even better today?

China and Russia will set new norms for decent and respectable behaviour for the world. Definitely not wars, bullying, sanctions, threats, everyday trying to demonise and smear other countries, everyday wanting to start a war, supporting terrorists and terrorism to destabilise countries and regions.

China is only interested in development, trade and cooperation to better every country and people. China does not want wars, have been avoiding wars, stayed away from wars despite all the provocations and agitations by the savages in the AngloSaxon countries. China values peace as the international norm, international behaviour, not thuggery, not gangsterism, not bullying, not savagery, not wars and destruction of lives and properties.

The world would be a better and peaceful place without the nasty Americans and the West starting wars everywhere.

The steady and continuous decline of US$

 

Meanwhile the USD could possibly go to zero..

'Debt explosion leading to the currency becoming worthless has happened in history for as long as there has been some form of money whether we talk about 3rd century Rome, 18th century France or 20th century Weimar Republic and many many more.

So here we are again, another monetary era and another guaranteed collapse as von Mises said:

“There is no means of avoiding the final collapse
of a boom brought about by credit expansion”

This disastrous borrowed prosperity, with ZERO ability to repay the surging debt, will lead to one of the three consequences below:

1. THE US$ GOES TO ZERO

2. A US DEFAULT

3. BOTH OF THE ABOVE

The most likely outcome is number 3 in my view. The dollar will go to ZERO and the US will default. The same will happen to most countries.

Many people say that the US can never default. That is of course absolute nonsense.

If a country prints worthless debt that nobody will buy in a currency that no one wants to hold, the country has definitely defaulted whatever spin they put on it.

In the next few years, not just US but all sovereign debt will only have one buyer which is the country that issues the debt. And every time a sovereign state buys its own debt, it has to issue more worthless debt that nobody will touch with a barge pole.

Printing more money to pay for previous sins has never worked and never will.

And this is how money dies, just like it has throughout history.

How can any sane person believe that with debt going up 4.5X faster than tax revenue that the debt can ever be repaid.

Even worse, with US interest payments on the debt surging from around 0% to probably 5% by 2025 the interest on the debt will climb to $2 trillion or circa 30% of the annual budget.

So with higher interest rates, higher deficits and rising inflation the scene is set for a high or hyper-inflationary period in the next few years.

So virtually every observer believes that the Fed (and ECB) will not just stop raising interest rates but pivot and lower them again.

In my view this will not happen except for possibly very short term. The 40 year interest rate downtrend finished in 2020 and the world is unlikely to see low or negative rates for many years or decades. High inflation and high rates will continue for years. But as we see in the 40 year chart of the 10 year US treasury below, there will be many corrections in the coming uptrend.

Central banks are always wrong and always behind the curve. They kept short term rates at zero or negative for over a decade. From 2009 to 2019 the balance sheets of major central banks increased by $13t. But then from Aug 2019 to 2022 an explosion in central bank debt took place, expanding their balance sheets $23t from $13t to $36t.

As with all Ponzi schemes, the current financial system will collapse too as the holders of the fake paper money realise that the money is worthless and that the emperor is totally naked.

That will be the final phase of the current monetary system with unlimited money printing as the $2.3 quadrillion debt pyramid collapses

Link to article:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/von-greyerz-end-dollar-goes-zero-us-defaults 

 

 Anonymous

Anwar Ibrahim - Augustine Paul's letter - real or fiction?

Below letter supposed to be written by Judge Augustine, is circulating in What'sApp and also available in the internet. Is this real or another fake letter?

 The parting words of Augustine Paul, the judge who convicted Anwar

A very good and MUST READ article by former Judge Augustine Paul who was known for handing down the guilty verdict on Anwar’s sodomy case. Now you can read his regrets and confession over the case as he pointed the fingers at, who else – MM himself! _Yes I respected him at one time but I look upon him with pity. It is the year 2010, Augustine Paul is a broken old man living alone. Close to death, he spends much time mulling over the past.

One more day nearly over. I sit in my usual spot on the verandah, gazing over the weedy patch of garden and into the trees where the noisy sparrows come home to roost. There are great flocks of them, chattering nineteen to the dozen, happily playing tag before bedtime. Do they ever notice me sitting here, so still, so alone, always envious of their querulous companionship? Twilight, the saddest, bleakest part of the day, with the light bleeding rapidly away; twilight brings back memories and regrets. Oh, where is everyone? My wife, dead for many years, taken away by cruel cancer; my children dying one by one before their time as though the sins of the father must be visited upon his offspring in accidents and disease and murder, all except one, the estranged one who is living far away across the seas. I write him letters nearly every day: “Son, I am only an old man. How can you not forgive me after twenty years? Son, you must understand, I was only an obedient slave to the powers that were. They used me like an appliance in the trial that shook the nation.” Letters that I write and then tear up because we have been through this so many times before. Yet, each time I hold the pen in my hand, I think I can write an explanation so striking, so convincing as to deliver him the lightning flash of insight. But I know I cannot. So I sit and watch the sparrows fly.

Strange that I can barely remember last week, but the events of twenty years ago have sharpened to the polish of knives. That packed courtroom, the public gallery all eye and ears, the reporters, the gesticulating lawyer, the scared witness in the box with his downcast eyes and low voice because we all knew that he was lying, and Anwar himself, so calm, so collected as though he was already past caring. I think of him and the light of my memory is as glaring as the noonday sun, not so much memory as shards of glass to pierce the innards of my soul. At the market, I ran into Ramasamy a few days ago. He is the only one who will not turn his eyes away from mine. He was kind enough to take me to a coffee-shop where we chatted the afternoon away as old men are wont to. We talked of the most mundane matters but, just before we parted, he made a most curious remark. He said: “Augustine, whatever they say, I will always believe that you made the right decision about Anwar.” I
shook his hand but said nothing. Oh, What could I have said?

Ramasamy, you can’t not have known. Of course it was a travesty of justice. The whole purpose of that show trial was to convince the nation of Anwar’s imaginary crimes. Ramasamy, you were only being kind. The prosecution dragged in the most ugly evidences, but their witnesses were discredited one by one despite the fact that I gave the defence so little room until, finally, there was no case at all. Even the man in the street could tell, but I was the all powerful judge; I did not throw it out. I still pronounced him guilty on eight of the ten charges. That was what Mahathir wanted. It was necessary to let him off on a couple so the world would think it an independent judicial decision. But I was never free to act on my own. And then I sentenced him to twenty years. It was also what Mahathir wanted. Oh, what else could I have done? That cruel man, that dictator: he was always invisibly there all the time, pulling my strings. He stopped at nothing to satisfy his cruelty. It was nothing to him to use all the apparatus of government to achieve his end, nothing to him to sacrifice innocent lives like Anwar, Sukma, Munawar and Datuk Nalla.

And, after Anwar’s conviction, with the nation torn apart in the most horrible manner, I began to have my doubts. But in those days, I could sweep them all aside; I was part and parcel of the corruption in the judiciary, the government, the ruling party, and I shared in the tainted rewards. I was decorated with titles and promoted to the Bench of the Federal Court. Rumours were circulating of my nomination for the ultimate prize – the post of Chief Justice – when the broom came. Like many, I chose to resign rather than face removal.

I sometimes dream that I acted very differently from the expectations of the powers that were. I dreamt that I acquitted Anwar of all charges in one blazing moment of truth and justice: the jubilation in the streets, the worldwide applause, the consternation of the government who had thought it could not lose. And Mahathir would have found some airy-fairy charge to throw me into prison and possible torture, but I would have become a hero. Mahathir would have fallen quickly after, and the nation would have escaped great distress. But these are only thin, insubstantial dreams. It’s easy to be brave in hindsight but you cannot turn back time and tide. Now, for me, there is only the blackness and the sleepless nights. What happens after death? An old man at death’s door thinks too much of these things: God’s justice, lost souls, eternal torment in lakes of burning fire. I pray
every day and the Reverend Peters visits me once a week to assure me of God’s forgiveness. But can I ever forgive myself?

It’s all dark now, the sparrows are quiet but the mosquitoes are biting. I must go inside, turn on every lamp to dispel the shadows – I have become like a child once more, afraid of the dark, but a child without a mother – and perhaps try once more to write that letter. I hope God will take me tonight in a small, quiet hour of sleep but, if not, I’ll be here again tomorrow to watch the sparrows fly.

AUGUSTINE PAUL PASSED AWAY IN 2010 AT THE AGE OF 66.