Lunch

Buenos dias, strange beasts

Place is crawling with these raccoon-ant eater hybrid things.

👋👋👋👋

As I wrote earlier this week👇, Trump's confused approach to the dollar and FX is BACK!

omfif.org/2024/05/trumps…

I'm so good at easy predictions.

This was lunch.

Honestly, if I had to, I could live on ceviche. Or even if I didn't have to, I might want to, if it were an option. Fresh seafood. Acid. Spices. What's not to like? Ceviche today. Ceviche tomorrow. Ceviche forever.

Back in Mexico. I don't know... I might need to upgrade Mexican food in my global ranking. Consistently impressive, even if this isn't the traditional style.

US intelligence officials assess that Russia and China are working more closely together on military issues, including a potential invasion of Taiwan. bloomberg.com/news/articles/… via Bloomberg Politics

Really interesting argument from Elina Ribakova 🇺🇦 on the material incentives for continued Russian aggression:

ft.com/content/3fd6b6…

(presumably those incentives could change if Russia's losses ramped up significantly)

Uh oh!

East Asian management culture doesn't really have a big advantage over its Western counterpart when input costs are similar. Yes, even in manufacturing!

So don't believe the folks who think Americans can't build chips.

noahpinion.blog/p/whos-afraid-…

NEW: Huawei, the Chinese telecom blacklisted by the US, is secretly funding cutting-edge research at American universities including Harvard through an independent Washington DC-based foundation.

Proud to share my first article for Bloomberg:
bloomberg.com/news/articles/… Bloomberg

It was pricey and a bit outdated. But it's a sad loss. DC continues to slide backwards. I'll be surprised if something better replaces it.

It looks like chipmakers could get a US environmental permitting exemption after all, Michael McCaul tells me, after a key Republican dropped her opposition to a measure designed to speed up construction at sites that win Chips Act $$ — like those from Intel, TSMC, Samsung & Micron

foreignpolicy.com/2024/04/30/chi…

My latest piece for Foreign Policy, written with Nancy Yu:

Elbridge Colby In terms of spending, something like the SIPRI estimate. People want to use USD values to make a capabilities point. You can inflate the estimates to make that point indirectly and muddle the economics. Or you can speak about the capabilities directly.
twitter.com/JohnCulver689/…

Gerard DiPippo As someone who prepared estimates of PLA spending for 30 years, and also contributed to Soviet defense $ estimates as a contractor....

If the customer (USG, Congress) wants the biggest possible number, you can apply sketchy PPP magic, or do cost replacement, which is what was…

Congratulations to this immensely talented group of fellows who will add significantly through this project to our understanding of the future of US-China relations.