This has been cooking for a while, like since the alarms started getting sounded about an AI bubble; but I had a dream recently where the AI bubble popped, and we were all happy, and the industry really did bottom out, but then peter goddamned thiel ends up basically owning the entire market share, then buys up artistic supplychains and stores and shuts them down entirely to force people on the slop machine.
and reflecting on it, that’s when i kinda came to the conclusion: that’s a real ass possibility.
I think of the 2000s dot com bubble, levelled the landscape, and the companies that survived and the ones that emerged in its wake had staying power, and dominate the technological social landscape to a frankly dangerous degree
the money behind this AI shit is immense, and some of these guys are deranged enough to just force the matter, like who could even contest this?
I’d love to get talked down from this position if it’s more unreasonable than i think but… yeah im kinda anxious about it now.
How do you bet on China? Is there an index fund? Betting on companies can be risky cuz they can be taken by CPC
I was reading about this yesterday.
TLDR yes there are ETFs for Chinese companies.
Chinese companies use a structure called Variable Interest Entities (VIEs) to list on foreign exchanges. The government in China regulates foreign ownership of Chinese business in a bunch of sectors and are considered (at least by the US) to be significantly owned or controlled by the Chinese government. I don’t think this use of VIEs necessarily implies government ownership, its more about the fact these companies have other entities invested and influencing decision making in ways that might otherwise make them inappropriate for listing on the market - unlike regular publicly listed companies, there are one or more additional interested parties other than a board of directors and shareholders. I think. I’m not an economist.
Rather than selling shares (of ownership) they offer contracts which promise a share of generated profit. They’re considered risky compared to stocks and bonds because, as you pointed out, the government can do anything with the company, the VIE structure makes the underlying company’s operations opaque and you don’t necessarily get transparency about who else might have a controlling interest in the company.
So yea you can buy VIE shares directly or an index fund can buy them and then you can buy the ETF.
I searched for “chinese vie etf” and found a bunch listed on US and other exchanges.
I wonder what would happen to them if China decided to completely ban VIEs, since they are fairly controversial apparently.