Transcription:
Sree Iyer: Hello and welcome to PGurus channel. I’m your host Sree Iyer. Today is Thursday the 22nd. We have a lot of news to share with you, to start with something new in the Hunter Biden laptop controversy. To know all about this, let’s join Sri Sridhar Chityala. Sridharji, Namaskar and welcome to PGurus channel.
Sridhar Chityala: Namaskar and Good Morning Sir.
Sree Iyer: So, what are the latest things that have been happening in the Hunter Biden laptop case, sir?
Sridhar Chityala: I think that the latest theory, the latest satire in the Hunter Biden is that while the Trump family, as well as the Republicans partly, has been beavering away at the social media tech companies in terms of blocking, twatting and preventing the news from reaching the mainstream. The latest development is that the laptop appears, there’s a big kind of a big controversy, a big sensational development, the laptop seems to be have been featured, the one with the ID number seems to have been featured in some unrelated investigation on money laundering, anti-money laundering dating back to 2019 in the FBI investigation. So, many from the FBI ex-officials, the current officials had validated and indicated that to be the case. So, should that be the case then, it is this going to be a big blowout in terms of, how deep is the controversy and how deep is potentially a criminal offence in terms of entanglement and involvement. It takes a completely different turn. And I think, Trump right throughout, has been hammering home the same point which is to say would the mainstream media have let him go for anything even remotely close while they have been silent. Hunter is absent, Joe, we don’t know where he is. Obama enters the campaign scene, and Joe is silent. So it only means that there’s more to come.
Sree Iyer: Well, today is going to be the final debate between the two contestants. Be sure to tune into your televisions. This is going to be a really fiery one. Perhaps they are trying to keep him away from any kind of negative limelight that might be there in case Joe Biden is campaigning. Perhaps that’s why there are trying to shield him, who knows… But certainly, answering this question is actually hurting the Democrats and I hope that Joe Biden puts up a strong performance today because I know that Donald Trump is going to come swinging and might even land a few punches. So we’ll wait and see, sir.
The other is the ongoing saga of the stimulus. I have some new numbers from the Republican side, but also perhaps a new hardening of its stand. Where do you see the economy going sir? The stimulus package, that is?
Sridhar Chityala: Just a transition from the last point, which is namely to say that you know microphones are going to be mutated in the debate, I have a feeling as you rightly said he is going to be coming out of the podium and maybe swinging and punching as you kind of rightly indicated. So it’s going to be an interesting debate.
Now with regard to the stimulus package, it is quite astonishing that Steve Mnuchin, as well as Nancy Pelosi, are still discussing. We are moving into Thursday having gone past and having taken a start a strong stands at 1.6 – 2.2 trillion dollars, the gap between the Republicans and at the Democrats, it looks like they’ve moved up the curve. ‘They’, here is the President-Mnuchin team have moved up the curve and the gap is now almost less than 300 billion dollars 1.9 – 2.2 billion dollars. So it’s quite astonishing in terms of both sides wanting to kind of cut a deal and announce it to the market, but the magnitude, nobody seems to comprehend the magnitude of this transaction. If it succeeds it is 4.1 trillion dollars of capital, 4.1 trillion dollars of stimulus, unheard of, injected into the economy, which is roughly equal to somewhere close to 20%, it’s definitely greater than 20% of the 2019-2020 GDP numbers, 19.43 prediction, right? So it’s quite gigantic, 4.1 trillion. On the other hand, the Republican vote was defeated in the Senate, by which I mean that you need the majority for it to get through. You need a 60% or 60 seats to get through so they didn’t get enough numbers, so there to pass through. It’s not a simple majority; you have to exercise the nuclear option if they want to do that. But anyway, so to get back to the main question that he opposed, it is an astronomical number and Republicans in the Senate have taken a very strong stance, which is, they would not pass anything of this magnitude and they’re prepared to wait, leave alone the election, but even going into New Year so that they can have a full impact analysis of what it means for the future.
Sree Iyer: So lots of things going on there. And in the meantime, we shift our gaze to China. Now China is pressurizing a lot of Nations not to recognize Taiwan saying that India and the other members of the QUAD are certainly moving in a particular direction. Also, I hear that Brazil is also now stopping the purchase of vaccine, medication from China. So one by one, some of the biggest countries where the markets are huge, are beginning to move away from China. What do you make of it, sir?
Sridhar Chityala: Well, you know the Sinovac vaccine circumambulator has been rejected by Bolsonaro, president of Brazil and he said he would not be buying anything from China. Now to your question, which is around Taiwan, Japan, India, many of these South East and the South China Sea Nations have recognized Taiwan and it’s kind of independence without explicitly stating that the one-China policy is off, both in Tibet and Taiwan are moving towards, recognizing these two Nations more specifically Taiwan. Taiwan is also cut a big trade deal with India on where the Taiwanese manufacturers, be it on the pharmaceutical side, but more importantly, on the hardware and the semiconductor side are going to set up factories. That’s the scope of the discussion. This is after the United States endorsed China to come into Texas and set up a foundry for the TSMC, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation. So, all this is causing alarm in the minds of the Chinese, which is to say, there have conquered or checkmated in the Ladakh. In the South China Sea, they are facing a huge amount of threat whenever there have been attempts to mount a campaign against Taiwan, they have seen that not only the Taiwanese is defending themselves, Taiwan is a nation defending itself. Then, you have India deal with Taiwan; Japan deal Taiwan, US deal Taiwan, all this is pointing to the fact that China which remains unchallenged is being shaken. Now Sweden, you mentioned the point, yesterday, we talked about it, not toeing the line on 5G and China threatening them. Then, Brazil not accepting the vaccine and they’ve not yet issued a threat. So, effectively persona non Grata is the word, that’s the best to describe it because nobody wants to trust China any further.
Sree Iyer: And in continuation to that thought looks like China has really been surprised by the strength of the Indian response at the Line of Actual Control in the Ladakh and this has set aside some of its other Ambitions. We don’t know because if you look back from April onwards, China has been lashing at almost all of its neighbours and now it finds itself in a bit of a soup situation because their troops not used to fighting and that altitude and they have 60,000 a mass there. What are your thoughts on this? Now, how are Chinese going to save face?
Sridhar Chityala: Well, China is a gridlock; the latest reports emerging from India and the other external agencies is China miscalculated the tenacity of the Indian army and the Indian government. China also miscalculated the tenacity and the determination of the Indian army to build infrastructure at a pace and magnitude that would cause tremendous kind of deterrence for any type of Chinese action. So, India is not only Built infrastructure, but India is armed to the teeth with the Rafael’s being early delivery, the drones, the US Air Force landing about a week ago in a remote kind of border location. France and Israel, saying it would support India. So forget India’s tenacity in its own right which is to act as a deterrent and then, of course, the problem which is not being reported is that there is less motivation for the Chinese PLA Army to be in those heights and fining. So, yesterday’s reports indicate the Indian army went into the Chinese territory and put deterrent measures in place, whatever they are, to make sure that there are no further misadventures by the army. Therefore, I think it’s not only defensive but they have taken some offensive postures from a defensive point of view. So, all this implies China is in a no-win situation. They try to entice Nepal and occupied some territories in Nepal. The visit the head of the Indian army as an unusual protocol to meet with not only the Nepalese government but head of the Nepalese Army is also sending kind of Shivers through the spine of the Chinese government. So, in an unusual kind of press release yesterday, the Chinese foreign minister made two specific observations; One, around Taiwan and second, around India. In an unusual kind of press release yesterday, the Chinese foreign minister made two specific observations one around Taiwan and second around India. The reason is next week there will be both two plus two dialogue both Mark Esper and Michael Pompeo will both be in person in New Delhi just one week after the elections, for strategic dialogue. China seems conquered and checkmated in the region not just there in South China but more specifically in the Ladakh region
Sree Iyer: Certainly the signs are shifting rapidly in this election. I have not seen this kind of Swift momentum change. Viewers, I just want to tell you that on YouTube we’re having some difficulty streaming today. This is highly unusual. Unfortunately, we will not be able to live stream it today on YouTube. We will put it up on YouTube as soon as this program finishes.
So, the next question is looking at the markets Tesla posted its record fifth consecutive quarterly profits. What do you make of it? This stock has certainly been through going through stratosphere; I am not sure if it can really hit the numbers at the Wall Street thinks it can; what are your thoughts on that?
Sridhar Chityala: Okay. So, Tesla hit its fifth consecutive quarterly earnings buoyed by the number of cars sales. There was this magic number that was around 500,000 new car sales for 2020. It looks like that number is a little bit of a distant reach within the context of another 180,000 new cars to be sold in the fourth quarter. The positive buoyancy is about these successful scaling of the number of Brands within Tesla and globally pushing the sales. This is something that people didn’t expect that is the volume of sales. I am told until given a Shanghai Factory is in operation. They have a contemplated Hub in India both, you know, very highly dominating Auto markets. So, the revenue momentum is built around that and the stock growth is built around that. But also, people shouldn’t forget, you know, the SpaceX was a successful launch, right? So that demonstrated this company has the ability to execute so there is some kind of value attributed to what exactly they’re going to do on their space programs. We already got the first news around that SpaceX that Tesla and Microsoft desired to cooperate but we, but we don’t have much more news other than that. I think this is what is driving the momentum of Tesla stock.
Sree Iyer: On that note, we will bring this episode to an end. Namaskar and Thank you Very Much Sridhar Ji. We will be back tomorrow Same time, Same Channel.
Sridhar Chityala: Thank you! It was a pleasure.
- EP 223 | Daily Global Insights | Aug 12, 2021 | Global News | US News | India News | Markets - August 12, 2021
- EP 190 | Daily Global Insights | Jun 25, 2021 | US News | India News | Global News | Markets - June 25, 2021
- EP 179: Biden says stands by Ukraine & will convey this to Putin; Oli says misunderstanding resolved - June 9, 2021
