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In the recent WEF summit Trump walked into the globalist lion's den and gave a no-holds barred speech. Typically, Trump's speeches are scoffed at by the "Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati" crowd, if I may quote Suella Braverman, UK Home Secretary, who was referring to the out-of-touch Metropolitan elites. Not surprisingly, the well-educated class amongst Singaporeans follow suit -- it's a terrible speech, boring, bully, boorish etc. To me, that is disconcerting. Singapore's rose-tinted crowd is unable to see substance over style. The core of Trump's WEF speech: - US is the global engine of growth. It lifts all economies in a rising tide.  - His use of tariffs as a tool for better deals for US industries and trade deficit reduction is a direct critique of decades of trade liberalism favoured by most Western governments that have benefitted at the expense of US. - He criticised Western climate policy as economically inefficient and sacrificing compe...

Hollywood is a town that is predominantly liberal and Democrat. The folks think they hold the moral high ground that champions the rights of everybody .... except those that do not share their values and ideology. They hold the biggest megaphone that influences national culture, which are exported overseas through cinemas, TV, and youtube. Art reflects life and so the cultural ethos of the land is portrayed in the story lines. In the last couple of decades, liberal progressivism has led to Hollywood complex to become activists, no longer reflecting life, but promoting their culture of transgenderism, LGBTQ, socialism, anti-law and order, anti-Christianity, and the full wokeism combo including Trump-bashing.. So we see a non-white Snow White, gay Star Wars and so on. The attempt at normalising their nihilism is no longer subtle but in your face. If a theme is repeated all too often, the things you see on the screen becomes all too familiar. They become normalised. Over...

In the AI Race based on Authority (Intelligence) and Scale (Deployment), China wins, having reached Quadrant III defined as having achieved civilisational deployment (See AI Race - Part I) . China is challenged in frontier breakthrough models, but it beats the rest in coverage with "always on" systems and running everywhere. It has arrived at the stage for possible high payoffs that the rest are struggling to reach. Many point to China's trump card in the race - their massive power capacity. Even folks like hedge fund manager Michael Burry, CEO of Scion Asset Management point to the "one chart that beats them all" (chart showing China's energy capacity is twice that of EU and US combined). China did not plan power supremacy for AI dominance.  AI is an opportunistic beneficiary, not the cause. All countries build electricity to meet demand. China builds electricity to eliminate vulnerability. AI emerged inside a power system built for regime...

It's amazing to see herd thinking when almost all online commenters say "Trump wants Venezuelan oil". I responded to someone the fallacy of Trump wanting Venezuelan oil with an economy of words by simply saying "Brent crude is US$60 a barrel and Venezuelan crude is about US$15". The retort was "What's wrong with buying cheap oil?" - a brush-off without reference to any context.  I have been told contrarian thinking signals intelligence if there is independent analysis, pattern recognition and predictive insight. Before jumping into the bandwagon, one ought to ask around about the economics of oil production. KEY CONCEPTS IN OIL PRODUCTION Liftimg cost (production or operating cost) This is the cash cost to extract 1 bbl of crude oil - these are direct cost such as wages, power, maintenance, chemicals etc. Full-cycle breakeven (All-in cost) Includes lifting cost + capex + taxes + royalties + debt service Fiscal breakeven This i...

A Facebook troller of mine simply threw this 'one chart that beats them all" on his page, apeing Michael Bury's conviction of China's massive power generation capacity alone determines the eventual winner. There is no doubt AI is an electricity guzzler, but this is a black-and-white world view manifested in this black-and-white chart. Much of the debate about the AI Race is confused because it assumes a single finish line. In reality, AI development spans multiple dimensions - intelligence depth and deployment scale - each with different constraints, costs and political requirements. What does winning even mean? The answer is not forthcoming unless you have defined the parameters of the race. 100M, 100M HURDLES, 100M RELAY RACES An analogy of track races will make the point of this article clear. We do not decide the winner by inventorying resources, but by deciding who crosses the finishing line first under the rules of the events. ...

MERRY CHRISTMAS to all my friends Tis being the season, I like to write something about the special day that 31% of the world's population bow to a little Jewish baby. How great is it, that the day of the birth of the baby splits history into half? Pre-Christ is BC and post-Christ is AD (I refuse to use BCE and CE). So supposedly, Christ birthday would be 25 Dec 0000. We all know he was not born on 25 Dec. It's just the day we chose to commemorate his birth. But we got both the day and year wrong. (More on this below) The nativity of birth of Christ: Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth but had to make the trip to Bethlehem due to a Roman tax consensus. Everyone had to go to their place of ancestral home to register. Joseph's lineage came from Bethlehem, that's why they journeyed there. Bethlehem is a spiritual place. Its old name was Ephrathah. Rachel (mother of Joseph - the one who went to Egypt) was buried there. David was born there. Joseph and Mary r...