Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Apr 17th, 2022
“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”― Marcus Aurelius
I fully agree, we need to bring in more immigrants to America.
"As Japan and many other countries have discovered, a rapidly aging, declining population saps much of the dynamism from an economy, reducing productivity and increasing the number of retirees that each working person has to support. And population shrinkage creates half-abandoned, hollowed-out towns full of despair. To reduce that burden and minimize that despair, we need to keep population growth going at a steady, moderate pace if we can. Refugees, with their proven track record of hard work, are a great way to help do that.
We don’t just owe it to the world to take in refugees — we owe it to ourselves."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/give-us-all-the-refugees-dammit
2. "Honchar describes these technological battles, and Aerorozvidka’s way of fighting, as the future of warfare, in which swarms of small teams networked together by mutual trust and advanced communications can overwhelm a bigger and more heavily armed adversary."
3. Massive implications of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on energy prices and food shortages across the globe.
https://time.com/6160948/global-fallout-russias-invasion-ukraine
4. “However, part of this is not just catching up with demand. Part of it is rebalancing manufacturing. I raised this point five years ago; I said, ‘Think about the fact that we have over 50 percent of our semiconductor manufacturing capacity in regions that are threatened by communist regimes.’ That’s a scary thought, and it’s even scarier today than it was five years ago.
Part of this is also rebalancing because geopolitics has gone nuts in the last couple years, and we don’t know what’s going to happen. Even if we overshoot demand, it’s still going to be important that we have more manufacturing capacity in other regions, especially Europe and North America.”
https://www.eetimes.com/asml-warns-chip-shortages-to-continue-over-next-two-years
5. This is pretty scary stuff. Food prices going way up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URwmGeVuztU
6. "History is not a perfect guide for the future, but the bull run of 2020-2021 is indicative of what can happen when the demand shock overwhelms the available amount of bitcoin. If you’re not paying attention to market dynamics, now would be a good time to start watching closely."
https://pomp.substack.com/p/there-is-not-enough-bitcoin-available
7. "The writing is on the wall. Prices have gone up due to massive money printing. Your income is being drained on a relative basis as asset inflation only helps people who are already rich. You can’t afford *not* to take risk.
This flies against conventional wisdom of “just save 10% of take home pay and buy homes/stocks” since that’s not going to be all that easy with high inflation and automation. Better to pivot now and put the pain up front."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/understanding-relative-wealth-and
8. "At the end of each of the three big wars that the US waged in the past 100 years and which it all won, its power peaked, but never so much as at the end of the First War.
That this power was in the subsequent twenty years dissipated and wasted because of many domestic and foreign policy mistakes is a part of the book with which I cannot deal here but is also a part that today’s US policy-makers (if any of them have the intellectual stamina to read Tooze’s book) may well be advised to reflect on."
https://branko2f7.substack.com/p/the-war-for-democracy-and-peace
9. "Putin’s invasion has united the Ukrainian nation as never before. Opinion poll showed 90% plus opposition to the invasion. And it is simply incomprehensible here why the Russian military would bombard Eastern and Southern arrears of Ukraine, mostly Russian speaking, and historically more favourably inclined towards Moscow as reflected in their voting intensions overture past 30 years. Never again.
His intervention has served exactly the opposite of his over-riding purpose which was to bring the Russian and Ukrainian people “back” together, and stopping the constant move West since 1991 and the collapse of the USSR. He has now inevitably accelerated that process. Ukraine will likely become more Western, and will be helped in this process by likely huge Western financial inflows. He has increased the chances of Ukraine’s successful economic and political development and being thereby a model for Russia and Russians - again, exactly the opposite of what he intended.
f) Ukraine might not be a NATO member, but it will continue to re-arm, and now at an accelerated pace. It will increase its ability to resist Russian attacks. And if Russia failed in this invasion it is even less likely to be successful in that regard in the future."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/is-putin-on-the-brink-of-a-catastrophic
10. "So, if you are an overseas buyer of oil, a tremendous arb opportunity has opened itself up here. If Russia prices its oil at 1bbl=1g gold, a foreign buyer could buy physical gold today at $1915 and send it to Russia for a bbl of oil at $61.57/bbl cost. They could think re-sell this barrel of oil immediately at $103, locking in a $40/bbl arb profit (before shipping, fees, taxes, etc).
What do you suppose would happen as this arb is realize by more and more potential buyers? It is very likely that there will be a run on physical gold in order to continue to buy the discounted barrels of Russia oil either to use internally or to resell for a profit. As the gold price continues to rise, this will further harden the RUB value in FX markets, allowing Russia to use its stronger currency to buy goods that it needs for its domestic economy."
https://3circleinvestments.substack.com/p/quick-oil-to-gold-ratio-math
11. I am so seeing this movie in May!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giXco2jaZ_4
12. "On their side, Ukrainians have thus far shown an unbroken spirit of resistance, even in the face of a total catastrophe that has displaced a quarter of the country’s population. Moreover, it is not clear where Russia will find reinforcements. The troops already deployed have been living under field conditions for two to three months, and have long since realized that this war is no walk in the park.
Polish military expert Konrad Muzyka notes that the Russians’ troop strength is far too low. According to one widely used military rule of thumb, invaders should have at least three times the military strength of defenders. However, the attackers have compensated for this weakness by escalating the brutality of their tactics in a way that specifically targets the civilian population."
https://www.nzz.ch/english/the-ukraine-wars-first-month-insights-surprises-and-questions-ld.1676210
13. "Now is the time to architect the peace. Take the war in Ukraine. It looks unlikely to go on for much longer given that Russia’s economy cannot support itself let alone this highly disorganized military effort. Even if Russia “wins” in a certain territory, they’ll face an insurgency from hell. Ukrainians have already shown that farm tractors and toy drones can beat tanks and convoys."
"The world should think about the time it will take to rebuild both Ukraine and Russia using traditional banking and finance versus using new technologies. A modern Digital Marshall Plan could work much faster, more cheaply, and with greater effectiveness than the old version, which still remains a masterpiece of policymaking. It would not have to be launched by the United States though."
https://drpippa.substack.com/p/architecting-the-peace-a-digital
14. "So what does the battlefield of the future look like? Perhaps less of a static front, and more like a game of cat-and-mouse, with slow-moving infantry and stealthy drones hunting each other down across a battlefield the size of the whole country. Already, maps of the Ukraine war are starting to look a little bit like this"
"So what lessons can we draw from the weirdness of modern IT-powered warfare, besides simply to marvel at the way technology continues to reshape the nature of human conflict? I think if there’s one lesson here, it’s that we need to be prepared for the surprises that modern warfare will bring.
Instead of continuing to pour money into legacy combat systems treasured by vested interests, our defense department needs to focus on the technologies that are most likely not to prove to be expensive obsolete liabilities in the event of a real war. The Marines, who gave up their tanks, might be showing the way here."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/war-got-weird
15. "So long as Putin stays in power the alienation of Ukraine from Russia is complete and it will integrate more with the West. So long as Ukrainian territory is occupied severe sanctions will stay in place and the Ukrainians will keep up the pressure on any new cease-fire line that leaves their territory under Russian control. Their army is no longer one that Russia dare underestimate. The problems of governing and controlling this territory will be immense. They have destroyed those they were going to save. Their prize from the war will be shattered and depopulated town and cities, with those still in residence sullen and hostile, ready to resist and support insurgencies.
This is why taking Donbas is not a satisfactory consolation prize for Putin, let alone for those hardliners demanding that he stick to his maximalist objectives. It is simply a recipe for continued instability, turning Putin’s folly of 2014 into an even greater catastrophe, serving as a continuing drain on Russia’s dwindling economic and military resources.
In all the searches for a peace settlement it is hard to avoid the conclusion that there are no good outcomes for Russia from this war. It has inflicted massive human, political, and economic costs on itself, as well as on Ukraine. Nothing that Moscow can now achieve can outweigh those costs. If he is unable to muster a final offensive to achieve his original aims there is no formula that will enable Putin to pretend that this has all been worthwhile and he has achieved exactly what was intended. As Igor Girkin has observed, he will have lost as completely as he once hoped to win."
https://samf.substack.com/p/the-problem-with-the-donbas
16. "Beyond the potentially long-lasting loss of its traditional export customers, Russia’s oil industry has also been severed from much of the global capital market and lost access to many of the key sources of oilfield expertise, from ties cut with former joint-ventures (Shell, Exxon, etc.) and equity stakes (BP) to the withdrawal of major oilfield services companies. It’s going to be immensely difficult, if not impossible, for Russian petroleum engineers to prevent a collapse in crude production, let alone grow output anytime soon.
All of the above considerations are specifically about Russian oil supply—this is without even beginning to factor for everything else going on in the 2022 oil market. The prospect of demand destruction stemming from China’s increasingly severe COVID lockdowns, the US shale patch’s short-circuiting economic response function, OPEC+ coming to the end of its COVID-era deal, the potential easing of sanctions on Iran and Venezuela, and Russia’s months-long throttling back of Kazakh oil exports on the CPC pipeline to repair “storm damage”: these will all have considerable, and still-yet-unknown, impacts to global oil balances, too."
https://commoditycontext.substack.com/p/oils-russia-sized-hole-pt1
17. "The entertainment value of Masa Son’s antics aside, we flag these events because of their potentially systemic nature, and as a warning for what the consequences might be if he is ever forced to play this game in reverse.
As anyone with experience in the VC sector can attest, Masa Son threw around so much money to so many startups at such eye-watering valuations that most other VC firms were forced to follow suit, creating a self-reinforcing pattern of ever-higher valuation comparisons as the basis for the pricing of the next hot deal. We suspect the bubble in the private sector is even bigger than the one transpiring in the public markets."
https://doomberg.substack.com/p/crouching-tiger-hidden-problems
18. Super impressive hustle here. This is a good dude.
"He often uses the analogy of a jet plane to explain the work he put in on Twitter. When a jet plane takes off, it uses 70% of its fuel to get off the ground. Once it’s off the ground and going, it’s just coasting.
“Eleven hundred meetings, that was that 70%,” Conwell said. “All that initial energy to get up off the ground.”
https://technical.ly/startups/rarebreed-ventures-mac-conwell-twitter
19. "Overall, China is much more comfortable talking about physical and economic reconstruction, as it did when it offered to build roads for the Taliban regime last year. But cash alone is not going to settle the Ukraine situation. As its relative distance from the current talks in Istanbul have shown, China is not yet ready to step up as a prominent mediator with a democratic state, just as Western actors have sometimes struggled in the past to deal with hybrid or semi-authoritarian states."
https://unherd.com/2022/04/will-china-rebuild-ukraine
20. Good synopsis on the new, critical & probably more brutal phase of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
21. Yikes.....Still early days so you can't write these guys off yet but lesson is hype is good but you gotta deliver on it in the long run. (Actually they are toast now as of posting)
"The San Francisco–based Fast, which launched its one-click service in 2020, tried to win by signing up small merchants. Its main startup rival, Bolt, launched its service in 2018 with a different strategy: landing large customers including Lucky Jeans and Nautica. The startups’ financial results have diverged: Last year, Fast generated around $600,000 in revenue, three people with knowledge of the numbers said, while The Information previously reported that Bolt generated roughly 50 times that figure.
And when Fast late last year tried to raise a $100 million Series C financing at a valuation north of $1 billion, it didn’t find any takers at the time, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said."
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/why-stripes-fast-horse-is-losing-the-one-click-checkout-race
22. Another great episode here. Well worth listening to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZOeRDO1Z8s
23. Incredibly good analysis on the Russian army invading Ukraine. Debunks the myth that Russia is holding back their best units: net net Russia is losing & losing badly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lem3enNkbV0
24. "One thing this attack has done is strengthen the identity and pride of the Ukrainian people – at home and the diaspora abroad. Myself included.
The beauty of the land and cities, the richness of the culture, the amazing food, the artistic pursuits, the technical and engineering caliber of the people … it cannot be broken.
Ukraine is a land with a tumultuous past of being ruled by others, with identity being suffocated. But it continued quietly – through art, through whispers, and the privacy of peoples homes."
https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/slava-ukrayini
25. An excellent sales guide I wish I had when I first started.
“You start selling when the prospect meets ALL these criteria:
There is a clear Emotional Pain and you (and the prospect) know
HOW MUCH it is costing them. We call this Quantifiable Pain and there can be many of them happening simultaneously in the business.
They WANT to and are MOTIVATED to resolve their Pain. No point in selling to someone who doesn’t WANT to fix their problems!
They can AFFORD to resolve their Pain. We’re not running a soup kitchen here. They must have money or we leave. Simple!
If the prospect is missing any one of these key criteria then they are not qualified."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/the-chronicles-of-a-chad-salesman