To The Moon

News and my thoughts from last week (17 Mar 2025)

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The closed OpenAI is asking the Trump administration to ban DeepSeek, the AI model which is open-source and truly innovative. Every time China has a successful product, Americans scream for censorship and sanctions. So much free-dumb. - X user Kanthan2030.

There is a limit to how much posturing is adequate. I am aware of reciprocal tariffs - tariffs or absence of tariffs being equal. Is the USA pushing Canada and Mexico into the arms of China and other alliances? Is the USA forcing the forming of a new alliance? What can happen if Canada, Mexico, China and Europe work together without the USA? President Trump has threatened these countries/regions with tariffs.

So far, there are no signs that tariff threats are driving inflation. A lot of the data suggests the opposite. The lack of clarity around tariffs appears to be causing businesses to pull back investment sharply. Watching the freight charts in recent days has me highly concerned. - X user Craig Fuller

President Donald Trump’s 25% tariff on all imports of steel and aluminium takes effect, ramping up tensions with America’s trading partners - BBC

With the affordable labor, infrastructure, supply chain and raw materials, sanctions can help China to be independent and other economies dependent. It would be interesting to see how things unfold.

Portugal has cancelled the order for F-35s from the US and will replace their F-16s with European fighters. “We have to be able to count on the predictability of our allies, which is no longer the case with the United States." - X user jdpoc

Chinese nationals banned from US student visas under new House GOP proposal - Fox

Over 5,000 youths in Malaysia have declared bankruptcy since 2020, mostly due to personal loans.

Correction is part of the normal business cycle. It is a matter of when and, with it a tremendous opportunity in wealth transfer. Buy in tranches after blood on the street

“By 2050, there could be more than 40 million metric tonnes of wind turbine blade waste piling up worldwide.” - X user James Melville

any concern for California

The credit card debt crosses $8b; delinquency rate about 1% to 3%: MAS and Credit Bureau Singapore data - Straits Times (Singapore)

@TigerStars

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