🌍 China's crackdown spirals its own economy down
By throttling entrepreneurs and killing the Deng bargain, Beijing has shot itself in both feet: talent and capital stop showing up, innovation stalls, and China's economy declines relative to the US rather than compounding. This is the axis the besties actually fought over.
0
CONVICTION
peaked 42.0 EMBER
EMBER
band · contested
▼ SHORT FXI
expression · bearish macro
RIGHT
result · return +23.9% · vs SPY +28.6%
2022-07-30
born 2021-07-30 (E42) → window closed
⚠ CONFLICTING IDEA ON THE SAME TICKER
— the board is arguing with itself; net it out (ticker view →)
⚖ Why this result
fully deterministic — computed from daily closes on the scoring date; nothing below is editable or hand-set
- Window: 2021-07-30 → 2022-07-30 — first mention + 12-month horizon, then the window locks.
- The call: ▼ SHORT FXI (primary play). FXI fell 23.9% over the window → return (sign flipped for a SHORT) = +23.9% (the call made money).
- Benchmark: holding SPY over the same window returned -4.7%
→ vs SPY = +23.9 − (-4.7) = +28.6%
— what this call made or lost against just owning the index. This is the number the result uses.
Direction-only read: +19.2% — did FXI move the predicted way relative to the market. The two only differ on a SHORT: this call beat the index outright.
- Rule fired:
▶ RIGHT — return ≥ +10% AND beat SPY by 5+ ✓ (return 23.9, vs SPY 28.6)· HALF — return ≥ +5% OR beat SPY at all· WRONG — everything else
- Credit: supporters of a RIGHT earn 1.0 each, opposers the opposite — this feeds the scoreboard. supported: Jason, Sacks | opposed: Chamath, Friedberg
Conviction timeline
bands: green ≥ 65 · watch ≥ 45 · ember ≥ 15
Plays vs SPY · % since first mention (2021-07-30)
Plays
Mention log newest first
Friedberg
macro 46% · n=40
· E88 (2022-07-22) · sentiment · strength 2
▶ 1:08:04
OPPOSE
“They can take a five- ten- and thirty-year outlook and make a plan and invest against it. It's what they did from the beginning. I wouldn't count them out, but there's certainly a lot of challenges they're facing right now.”
Sacks
macro 56% · n=40
· E88 (2022-07-22) · sentiment · strength 3
▶ 1:02:01
SUPPORT
“It's really a self-own. I mean, they've moved away from the policies that have made them so successful economically over the last 40 years. And then on top of that, you got this debt crisis and this housing crisis.”
Chamath
macro 53% · n=47
· E84 (2022-06-24) · explicit_prediction · strength 3
▶ 1:26:50
OPPOSE
“China's input cost has been capped. And so they don't suffer the same rate of inflation that the rest of us do. ... we allowed our largest competitive frenemy, if you will, to basically be able to, you know, drive their entire economy at 30 to 40% of the discount to what we have to pay to do the same.”
Sacks
macro 56% · n=40
· E82 (2022-05-24) · sentiment · strength 2
▶ 29:27
SUPPORT
“China is on the precipice of this because of this one China policy. I think the stat that I saw, which is stunning, is there's 1.2 billion people in China? 1.4? By 2100, it's going to be around 600 million. If that's true, the point is just that there's a real issue.”
CL
Claire Cormier Thielke
(guest ×0.5)
no macro track record
· E82 (2022-05-24) · explicit_prediction · strength 3
▶ 25:29
OPPOSE
“I think there was a concern that there would be an entire meltdown of the full Chinese economy, which is not what we feel on the ground. I think, if anything, it's created a set of opportunities to really level set, especially on the living sector. It's really accelerated some policies to make it easier to build and to create rental housing ... China is only as urbanized as the US was in about 1950”
Chamath
macro 53% · n=47
· E72 (2022-03-19) · explicit_prediction · strength 2
▶ 37:44
SUPPORT
“China is still a fundamentally export driven economy, of which 35% just alone goes to the United States. When you add in Europe and other OECD countries, it's almost 60%. ... I think the idea that all of a sudden, Russia will be able to backdoor all of these things through China into the rest of the world, I think is not really realistic.”
Chamath
macro 53% · n=47
· E64 (2022-01-22) · sentiment · strength 2
▶ 44:31
SUPPORT
“So this weekend, China cut interest rates. ... Well, if you are cutting rates, it is because you are worried about the other problem, which is that the economy is basically turned over and you need to become more accommodating.”
Jason
macro 63% · n=30
· E42 (2021-07-30) · explicit_prediction · strength 3
▶ 35:22
SUPPORT
“I think this is going to be like a spiraling down of their economy. I don't think it's going to spiral up. ... I think they just throttled innovation and they just shot themselves in both feet. I think they're going to regret this decision.”
Chamath
macro 53% · n=47
· E42 (2021-07-30) · explicit_prediction · strength 2
▶ 33:17
OPPOSE
“I disagree with you. No, I disagree with you. And the reason I disagree with you is... ... Because you know what, if you're coming from China, and you can only make a billion versus 45 billion, I think you still take the shot. ... Everybody, guess what? Because if you want a shred of fucking lithium, if you want a battery, if you want nickel, if you want anything to happen, you need to work with China.”
Who built this conviction
each voice's total push on the score, in conviction points across every mention — supports and opposes · share = % of all mention-driven movement
⏳ decay drained -28.9 over the idea's life — that's time passing, attributed to no one
Score events
| episode | kind | Δ | after | note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| E42 2021-07-30 | init | +42.0 | 42.0 | E42 born by Jason (explicit_prediction x3) |
| E42 2021-07-30 | oppose | -12.0 | 30.0 | E42 Chamath opposes x2 |
| E42 2021-07-30 | oppose | -12.0 | 18.0 | E42 Sacks opposes x2 |
| E43 2021-08-06 | decay | -0.7 | 17.3 | E43 silent |
| E44 2021-08-28 | decay | -0.7 | 16.6 | E44 silent |
| E45 2021-09-04 | decay | -0.7 | 15.9 | E45 silent |
| E46 2021-09-14 | decay | -0.6 | 15.3 | E46 silent |
| E47 2021-09-18 | decay | -0.6 | 14.7 | E47 silent |
| E49 2021-10-02 | reinforce | +10.2 | 24.9 | E49 Sacks support x1 (flipped from oppose) |
| E50 2021-10-09 | decay | -1.0 | 23.9 | E50 silent |
| E51 2021-10-16 | decay | -1.0 | 23.0 | E51 silent |
| E52 2021-10-23 | decay | -0.9 | 22.0 | E52 silent |
| E53 2021-10-30 | decay | -0.9 | 21.2 | E53 silent |
| E54 2021-11-06 | decay | -0.8 | 20.3 | E54 silent |
| E55 2021-11-13 | decay | -0.8 | 19.5 | E55 silent |
| E56 2021-11-20 | decay | -0.8 | 18.7 | E56 silent |
| E57 2021-12-04 | decay | -0.7 | 18.0 | E57 silent |
| E58 2021-12-11 | decay | -0.7 | 17.3 | E58 silent |
| E59 2021-12-17 | decay | -0.7 | 16.6 | E59 silent |
| E60 2021-12-23 | decay | -0.7 | 15.9 | E60 silent |
| E61 2021-12-29 | decay | -0.6 | 15.3 | E61 silent |
| E62 2022-01-08 | decay | -0.6 | 14.7 | E62 silent |
| E63 2022-01-15 | decay | -0.6 | 14.1 | E63 silent |
| E64 2022-01-22 | reinforce | +12.9 | 27.0 | E64 Chamath support x2 (flipped from oppose) |
| E65 2022-01-29 | decay | -1.1 | 25.9 | E65 silent |
| E66 2022-02-05 | decay | -1.0 | 24.8 | E66 silent |
| E67 2022-02-12 | decay | -1.0 | 23.9 | E67 silent |
| E68 2022-02-19 | decay | -1.0 | 22.9 | E68 silent |
| E70 2022-02-24 | decay | -0.9 | 22.0 | E70 silent |
| E71 2022-03-05 | decay | -0.9 | 21.1 | E71 silent |
| E72 2022-03-19 | oppose | -12.0 | 9.1 | E72 Sacks opposes x2 |
| E72 2022-03-19 | reinforce | +13.6 | 22.7 | E72 Chamath support x2 |
| E73 2022-03-26 | decay | -0.9 | 21.8 | E73 silent |
| E74 2022-04-01 | decay | -0.9 | 21.0 | E74 silent |
| E75 2022-04-09 | decay | -0.8 | 20.1 | E75 silent |
| E76 2022-04-16 | decay | -0.8 | 19.3 | E76 silent |
| E77 2022-04-23 | decay | -0.8 | 18.5 | E77 silent |
| E78 2022-04-30 | decay | -0.7 | 17.8 | E78 silent |
| E79 2022-05-07 | decay | -0.7 | 17.1 | E79 silent |
| E80 2022-05-13 | decay | -0.7 | 16.4 | E80 silent |
| E81 2022-05-23 | decay | -0.7 | 15.7 | E81 silent |
| E82 2022-05-24 | oppose | -7.2 | 8.5 | E82 Claire Cormier Thielke opposes x3 [w=0.50] |
| E82 2022-05-24 | reinforce | +13.7 | 22.3 | E82 Sacks support x2 (flipped from oppose) |
| E84 2022-06-24 | oppose | -14.4 | 7.9 | E84 Chamath opposes x3 |
| E85 2022-06-30 | decay | -0.3 | 7.5 | E85 silent |
| E86 2022-07-08 | decay | -0.3 | 7.2 | E86 silent |
| E87 2022-07-14 | decay | -0.3 | 7.0 | E87 silent |
| E88 2022-07-22 | reinforce | +16.7 | 23.7 | E88 Jason support x3 |
| E88 2022-07-22 | reinforce | +13.7 | 37.4 | E88 Sacks support x3 |
| E88 2022-07-22 | oppose | -12.0 | 25.4 | E88 Friedberg opposes x2 |
| E89 2022-07-29 | decay | -1.0 | 24.4 | E89 silent |