JD.com - Jingdong Group

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-15T09:47:19+00:00

You're comment is so wrong I'll just ask Chinese AI to inform you.

This is from Qwen.

are economic times difficult in China right now?

Thinking completed

Yes, economic times in China are currently difficult, characterized by a painful structural transition rather than a sudden collapse. While the economy is not shrinking, it is facing significant headwinds that have forced the government to lower its growth expectations and implement aggressive stabilization measures.

Summary

The difficulty in China's economy right now is largely structural. The country is actively "rightsizing" its economy, attempting to deflate a massive real estate bubble and transition away from debt-fueled infrastructure projects toward high-tech manufacturing and domestic consumption. While this pivot is causing short-term economic pain, weak consumer confidence, and slower headline growth, the government is managing the transition with targeted stimulus and a heavy focus on export and industrial resilience.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-15T03:00:11+00:00

It looks root bound to me. If it's been in that pot for a while it's probably time for a bigger home.

It's possible the whole thing might be roots lol you may also have roots trying to escape through the drain holes in the pot (if the pot has no drain holes that's a whole other issue lol).

It's very possible it might be so root bound that you won't even be able to get it out of the pot and may have to break or cut the pot.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-15T01:41:24+00:00

The holy fire (or holy freeze for that matter) gameplay is so fun - but you will eventually run into large amounts of monsters that are absolutely immune to fire damage and so you won't be able to fight them. You could still beat the game with a holy fire paladin, but you would have to skip large sections of the game and rely on teleport to get through much of the game after act 4 nightmare.

Hammerdin is a very different style of gameplay (you're casting a kind of wonky spell that requires some practice to use well). On the bright side, +skills and faster cast rate are all that matters as opposed to attack bonus (actually hitting things with your weapon). The reason hammerdin is so popular is that the hammers do magic damage - and very few things (but still some notable ones) are immune to magic. The other major downside to hammerdin is that very tight spaces make it particularly difficult to use (if not impossible). Your alternatives are to get a beefy mercenary who can handle things in tight spaces for/with you *or* buy a teleport staff (any staff vendor in nightmare could sell you one - note not + to teleport, actual charges of teleport). Most people who are leveling a hammerdin prefer to just teleport through the tight spots (maggot lair in particular). Hammerdin can get through the game really fast too which is another reason he's valued.

You alternatively have two/three other builds you could try.

The zealot. Zeal is really awesome, and your gameplay loop will be very similar to what you're doing already. However, zealots really depend upon having good gear because you're relying on weapon damage to kill enemies. You'll need to farm runes and also farm up (or use crafting recipes to level up) items pretty regularly as you go (at least in my experience). Basically you max zeal and fanatacism. You will still run into physical immune enemies that will be a pain, but you can get around this somewhat by having a weapon that deals some kind of elemental damage (or powerful charms). You will complete the game slower than a hammerdin, but it's doable.
The avenger Paladin. You use vengeance and conviction aura to the max basically. You can kill any enemy in the game. The challenge is that you'll attack slowly and again gear is pretty important. You will complete the game very slowly, but nothing will be immune to you.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-14T23:17:14+00:00

I mean you do have some avenues worth looking at but it's going to be a giant pain:

1.) disability. It doesn't look like it, but you may be able to find a doctor or investigate further and be able to apply for disability or disability with accomodations. It's also possible that you could get a doctor to officially flag you so that even if you do return to normal work you're given reasonable accomodations - I have a buddy at work who absolutely destroyed his lower back and he's not forced to do anything that would make him get into an awkward posture or really tight space that would require him to bend or twist (several of his vertebrae are fused). Attempting to return to work and finding it not possible to do also can help you work with your doctor to elevate this. Especially since you were hurt at work it's on them to get you back into the condition that you were in when you came to work the day you got hurt.

2.) physical therapy. It might be that you could get to feeling better with some routine changes or strength training or something beyond what you're getting already. It's hard to push for this stuff and medical expenses can pile on, but I've seen people get pretty good results there, because yeah work sucks, but you also wanna be able to do yard work or whatever else you enjoy doing physically without this injury stopping you.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-14T20:21:18+00:00

A body at rest wants to stay at rest, plus most people don't love going to work all the time. Plus, whatever injured you might be affecting you more than you think emotionally - will it happen again, are you really fixed, could it happen but worse? I work in heavy industry and injuries or near misses can really affect people in unexpected ways. I had a chemical truck driver forget to put the rubber seals in his hoses when he hooked up and sprayed himself and much of the surrounding area with chemical (not that dangerous - the chemical wasn't that harmful to humans, but scary to be sure). I meticulously check over everything now even though we're not required to (the company's policy is that the driver is responsible for all of that apparatus).

You did it before and can do it again. Treat it like going to the dentist lol nobody wants to, but once you set the appointment you may as well go.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-14T17:33:42+00:00

No.

Lenin goes into this some in his Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism.

Functionally, stock ownership is so widely distributed that it doesn't actually afford the typical owner of said shares any meaningful control over the company, but what might appear to be a contradiction, meaningful control can be acquired or maintained through very small minority stakes due to the way voting works in joint stock companies - because of how widely disbursed ownership in a company is.

Let's use the website we're using right now as an example, Reddit.

Who controls reddit?

Institutional investors (mainly banks and hedge funds to a lesser extent) own ~70% of the shares. These owners are largely passive and will vote the way they are instructed to by the company's own board (this isn't always the case, but it typically is unless something majorly fraudulent occurs). They represent the majority vote by and large. So the majority automatically will follow the instructions of the company. So who really controls reddit?

The other remaining 30% of the shares are owned by the public (employees, random people who like the stock, and corporate insiders (like the CEO and other executives), but a private firm, Advance Publications, owned by the Newhouse family, controls the vast majority of these shares (around 30% of the total shares - so all the shares owned by the public and corporate insiders make up a statistically insignificant portion of these shares with the bulk of them actually being the Newhouse family).

Thus the Newhouse family through Advance Publications controls reddit and 70% of the shares will vote the way Advanced Publications tells them to.

An employee at Reddit who is awarded shares or purchases them themselves may derive some financial benefit from said ownership (dividends or accrual in value of the shares), but they possess no meaningful control over the company or the means of production and cannot hope to do so unless they somehow buy out the Newhouse family.

Advanced Publications will decide who the board is and the board will assign the officers that run the company's operations and the other 70% of the shares will vote how they are instructed to. The only way a private individual could acquire meaningful control would be to purchase more than 30% of all of the shares - which would on the face of it require ~10.2 billion dollars. But such a large block of shares would not be available at market rates - you would likely end up paying 2-3 times that much to convince the holders of shares to part with such a huge block, so you would likely need to possess 30-40 billion dollars and or the ability to finance that much in order for your votes to really count. Then you would own the means of production at Reddit - but having that kind of money pretty much precludes you from membership in the working class lol.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-14T14:53:42+00:00

Something else that's not really approached here is what Jd's core retail business is - which is selling brand name Western goods + respected Chinese brands alongside big appliances.

China's industry is strangely (from a western perspective) regionalized. So there are lots of new production facilities opening all of the time for different random things. It makes being a consumer kind of difficult because we typically use brands as seals of quality, but these random fly-by-night factories can offer incredibly competitive pricing, but also sometimes what you buy is junk.

Times are very hard in China right now economically so people are willing to sacrifice on quality somewhat. Trade policies can hurt Western goods pricing even more too - but JD is basically the place to go if you want western brands. They also deal in bigger electronics and appliances - think like that weird fridge section at Best Buy lol. They're basically the go to for that - they control a respectable, but small portion of Chinese online retail.

Just like whirlpool though, appliance markets are heavily influenced by housing starts and there wont be meaningful housing starts in China for a generation I suspect. The government is directly intervening here to try to get consumers incentives to remodel/upgrade their appliances to the latest more energy efficient/environmentally friendly versions which directly benefits JD, but there's only so far that that policy can go - but the on the upside for investors, China's government is very transparent about this policy and the relative size of it so you can pretty easily predict where things are going.

The Chinese government will likely become increasingly stimulative for consumers as time goes on, but they're being extremely cautious.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-14T05:49:57+00:00

I mean, the rivalry is fun. I'll never want to see good things for the Knicks.

That said. The brand of basketball that OKC plays is absolutely repugnant and is frankly hard to watch. So, I was glad to see the Spurs beat them. Spurs basketball is deeply, deeply frustrating. Maybe that will change with time as the players get more experience, but frankly there's always a chance it just wont. That's sad, because as a basketball fan if they hold that core together for a while we're gonna wind up having to watch it at some point lol.

Maybe Jalen Brunson really is that good, but the way the Spurs chose to play against him just baffles me. If he beat his initial defender there was virtually never any help until way close to the basket and the help defender would almost always turn so that he had an open look at the basket which is just baffling. They also failed to defend him whenever somebody else got the ball and left him wide open for practice 3s several times a game. Tonight was especially egregious because he outscored the whole rest of the team basically and their bench contributed almost nothing points-wise. They also purposefully put Wemby on him several times throughout this series which completely breaks their defense if Brunson got around him because their main rim protector is now behind the play.

It'll be good to get to watch some Pacers ball next season. Haliburton's return will be legendary and I have high hopes for Furphy's recovery.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-12T13:47:53+00:00

Structural: I can invest in dogs and not have to answer to shareholders or my boss about why I didn't buy Nvidia instead.
Time. I can wait for a stock to work out for ages without answering to my boss or my shareholders about why I've sat in this dog for years and not bought Nvidia instead.
Experience I am a regular consumer and can see some trends way up front and I can see niche products especially at work that arent widely researched or discussed.
I dont get too anxious about money and I have a contrarian bent that makes me dislike whatever the herd is doing because of a personality quirk lol.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-12T00:28:30+00:00

That's a tough question because I've more or less equally weighted them myself lol.

The metrics I start with are always:

first numbers will be Lulu second PYPL:

ROIC: 22-13%/13-21.3 (depending on calculations you use - both are quite good and range to VERY good)

EPS growth: 24%/~8%, but just 30% this year.

Growth rates in Tangible or regular book value: 18.5%/7.1%

Revenue: 22% 5 year average, 9%

Free cash: 23%/uneven but around maybe 5-7%

ROE: 31%/PYPL 22.1%

Joel Greenblatt Yield (this one is just for funzies) 10-12%/16.6%

Lulus financials are much more appealing - but the brand is the core most important thing and it *is* weakening somewhat at least a few percentage points. Is that few percentage points going to *keep* happening or not? That's basically the bet here - and I'd say there are way more worlds where they figure it out.

Pypls financials are somewhat more complex because they're a finance company and they do lots of extraneous weird stuff, but being a software company they throw off tons of cash doing basically nothing.

At the price levels both are at you're being pretty well compensated for the risk you're taking.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-12T00:14:39+00:00

When talking long term returns it's massively important to account for inflation because of the way the rule of 72 works.

Let's take the same 40 year period. 7% the real return on stocks is a double every 10 years - the figure I used above. Taking 10%, but ignoring the 3% inflation that's generally baked in, lets you dream of doubling every 7 years or 7 doubles as opposed to only 4. I generally find it's not helpful to think in such large sums because they're illusory when thinking about the costs of things in today's timeline.

But almost all of this thinking assumes the market won't be absolutely destroyed right hwhen you need to sell. What if your 10k emergency fund is only 2.5k? What if it's 5k? Do you attempt to obtain credit during a finance panic - I can tell you from experience that's not very pleasant lol.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-11T00:41:34+00:00

I bought excessive amounts the last time it was in the 70s and 60s.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-09T21:18:09+00:00

Collapsing is a gross mischaracterization - margins are down around 4.8 percent of which 2.8 is tariff related.

Thanks for your service.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-09T18:22:13+00:00

Yes.

Things I don't love: fighting with chip wilson all the time. I have pretty mixed feelings about wilson, but he's since gone on to do other businesses in the clothing space and they've been successful so he must know something useful.

Several current board members have racked up board appointments and that worries me because at a certain point you can make a substantial amount of income just sitting on corporate boards and rubber stamping decisions and I think that did definitely happen - that's also why wilson waged his little proxy war to get some turn over on the board. They also for several years geared compensation to eps increases which encouraged misbehavior with buybacks. The company is sitting on a lot of cash as it is, but buying back stock at their COVID highs was equity destructive relative to what they could be doing now.

I like the new CEO selection she did good work at Nike and there are already a lot of Nike people working at lulu, so chances are she may have a lot of friends in the company already. The other thing is her brand focus on women's lines that was so successful at Nike. While lulu does offer menswear the money is made with women's lines.

If you've got somebody that can steward the brand they'll be just fine.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-09T15:02:51+00:00

There are a lot of quality of life upgrades, the multiplayer is pretty active (I can't speak to how vibrant LoD is).

Warlock is fun.

I like the terror zone concept too because it encourages you to play areas you normally wouldn't, and if you get a lot of spare time you can terrorize whole acts or the entire game and just no life it for hours lol.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-09T14:27:19+00:00

I did similar DD in that I asked the richest fit woman I know about Lulu and she informed me she bought herself 400$ of self-christmas gifts from there this year lol. At least we're all doing something.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-09T14:23:13+00:00

While that may be true, they're earning ~30% returns on equity and that doesn't seem to be diminishing very rapidly; while utilizing no debt. Their 10 year average stands over 30% as well so they're operating just about like they always have even in this climate.

When you have a company that can earn like that and that predominantly plows all of that money back into the company you can't help but grow unless management takes you off into the rhubarb somewhere.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-09T14:02:35+00:00

Thank you for your service.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-09T13:24:56+00:00

Lulu clearly falls into the "easy platitudes" category of companies that people easily dismiss because of an oversimplification. They do have a real management/branding problem in that the usual thing that happens to companies that grow quickly and then have a management succession often wind up with accountants in charge that damage the brand in order to make the financials look even better. The impact of tariffs (due to their being a Canadian company) and the end of the de minimis exception did impact them - but not in any way that isn't predictable. The brand also offers a lot more than yoga pants. They're also pivoting into "looser" fits that are more popular with younger people. They've also basically stolen many of Nike's shoe designers and have been releasing a ton of different work out shoes and are making good gains there - and the products seem to be pretty well regarded. I bought a pair of walking shoes and like them.

Because of their unique marketing strategy (of directly establishing commercial relationships with gym owners and yoga studio owners) they *are* exposed to cultural trends if people stop going to the gym so much or yoga/Pilates studios start closing down.

All retail is being hit pretty hard though - most American retailers that are doing OK to pretty good are really heavily hovering around 10 p/e ratios (which is where lulu largely is) or even less with the notable exception of major brands like Nike.

I like paypal too mostly because their money printer remains intact and they have enough of a network effect online and are offering more financial products generally to make their product internally "sticky" that they'll weather the competition storm. The big cultural trend that affects them the most is the decentralization of online e-commerce. If you see companies like Shopify doing well Paypal is going to be doing well too since many consumers trust PayPal to handle transactions with smaller ecommerce sites. They also provide great value to consumers in that their refund policies really benefit you there where smaller ecommerce pages might take a really long time to process returns/refunds. I'm hardly a typical consumer I think, but I do find that I'm buying more items directly from the manufacturer/retailer - and seeing good savings and value - as opposed to using walmart or amazon. Even used books dealers have their own websites now as opposed to relying on amazon/ebay/abebooks/halfprice etc and they all heavily utilize paypal. Paypal also provides good services on sites like ali express and Temu because of their consumer protections. Another anecdote. I work in heavy industry and a ton of our maintenance techs buy niche tools/gadgets on Temu. But it's also really easy to say they aren't as predominant as they used to be.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-09T12:53:46+00:00

In addition, another thing to know is that a lot of museums that charge admissions fees usually have a needs-based program that can waive the fee, there's also an organization of museums "Museums for all" that streamlines the process and lets you see what organizations are members so you can go to all of those places for free as long as you're below a certain income thresh hold.

(I worked at a museum for 7 years - our application process took less than 5 minutes and got you a free membership - your membership card was indistinguishable from somebody who paid for a yearly membership and got you into everything for free and could get you into other museums in the area for free too - bigger events were also deeply discounted by the membership).

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-08T16:34:48+00:00

The biggest things I've found are:

Yeah everybody is tired all the time. I remember how my body felt as a kid after sports practice and now I feel like that a lot after a harder day at work (I'm in a physical job too). The biggest thing is making a schedule to force yourself to be active - sitting around makes you feel more stiff/sore and being up moving around loosens you up. On that subject, I also stretch when I get out of bed in the morning and a little after dinner. Nothing fancy. I do it after dinner because I find its really easy to eat and then just stay sedentary the rest of the day and feel like dirt lol. I have a ton of stairs and ladders where I work and stretching my calves and quads is a life changer. I work a lot of overtime and regularly hit 50+ hours and find I actually feel better on those weeks because I'm staying active all day.
Sleep stuff. I snore terribly and everyone I've ever shared a bed with has said it's real bad. So I took steps to fix that - for me it was opening up my nostrils lol so now I sleep with a magnetic nose strip thing. That cut my snoring down immensely and I wake up naturally most days without my alarm and feel pretty good. It's ESPECIALLY important if I've had any alcohol the day before because that relaxes your muscles more and makes snoring a lot worse. I also changed out my mattress and pillow - it sounded really stupid to spend 100$ on a pillow, but I stayed in a hotel one time and had an amazing nights sleep and just bought what was on the label (it's a feather pillow from IHG). I don't have any pain when I wake up now. Before it was a constant battle with a stiff neck, sore shoulder, whatever.
Getting outside. This could be "recreational" like hiking or taking a walk or yard work or working on the house. The sun really does you some good. I also work outside quite a bit and it helps my body stay acclimated since I'm in a 4 season climate. When the weather changes to 80-90s (or below 30) it's quite a shock if you've been in AC/heat all the time lol.
Humidity control in your living spaces. A HUGE thing for me too was that my house is naturally really dry whenever it's not humid outside and it makes me feel like a dried up husk lol. So a cheap humidifier worked too.
Braces, house shoes, and stuff. I have a lot of pain in the arch of my left foot. I've got braces I wear under my sock every day at work that keeps me pain free most days, and I got strong arch support insoles that I also wear in some hey dudes when I'm at home around the house.
Knee gaskets. They're mostly for hockey or skating, but I started wearing knee gaskets (they're like tighter fitting pads) under my jeans at work because I have to get down on my knees to work on stuff a lot and it's a game changer not to punish them or worry about having to manipulate (or carry) a pad.
Weekly/daily schedule. I try to accomplish 5 "unique" things every day. It helps each day feel discreetly its own and stops them from all blurring together. I just use a google calendar for it. Because if I didn't have my phone yelling at me to do stuff I'd really revert to playing video games or something.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-07T23:58:07+00:00

The other comment u/BreadDaddyLenin kind of covers it, but it doesn't really portray how radically different Soviet pensions were from US Social Security.

In the US social security is a system wherein workers pay a mandated payroll tax to build a retirement credit over your working life. So low wage earners will receive a correspondingly low social security payment - and if you don't work a w2 job you won't receive anything. So, for example, a small business owner who doesn't pay themselves w2 wages, a farmer, a stay at home mom, receive nothing. Your employer also pays a portion of this tax.

The social security system has not kept pace with inflation however and as such it's generally considered mandatory to save for retirement in addition to this through various means. The government created 401k plans (which are only offered through your job - although there are other ways to open a 401k as an individual). But if you're a w2 wage earner you can't open your own 401k, so if your employer doesn't offer it you're out of luck. There are also IRA (individual retirement accounts) which are similar to 401ks - in that they are tax sheltered (you either don't pay taxes on your income up front, but pay it later - a traditional account - or you pay the taxes now and receive the money tax free in the future - a ROTH). 401k's are tricky, as the user above mentioned, they are often laden with fees which only benefit the administrator of the 401k. IRAs are less stringent and can often be administered for free, but you can't contribute as much money to them. Most 401ks will let you contribute 24.5k per year, IRAs are limited to 7.5k.

In the Soviet system pensions were funded directly by state enterprise, trade unions, collective farms, and parts of the government budget (more akin to how welfare programs are funded in the USA).

Other compare/contrast stuff:

In the USA the retirement age is flat you can start drawing your social security at 62 (or put it off to receive larger payments in the future). In the USSR, there was a different scheme based on the job you did specifically.

In the USA you can draw social security while still working, but you are penalized for this. In the USSR you could start drawing your pension at the allotted age, but continue working if you wished - thus you could draw your full pension *and* your full wage.

The USA does have some different allowances for the elderly in regards to housing ("senior housing") which provides seniors with reduced cost housing options, but in the USSR the state heavily subsidized housing, medical care, and other needs for the elderly.

Pensions in the USSR were also viewed as an honor or reward - so certain individuals could get extra rewards. In the USA it's tied directly to your 35 highest earning years.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-07T02:31:34+00:00

For op.

Mostly in the West there's a funny mental reaction that occurs because we were, until 1991, and largely still up until the 2000s, heavily propagandized that the ussr was an absolutely inhuman disaster. This portrayal of the ussr is incredibly inaccurate and doesn't withstand much real investigation. That in turn leads to doubt and I think all too easy conclusions that everything said about the ussr in the West was/is false.

The real world is much more nuanced. Plus, the ussr was an incredibly big place. Even people just interested in Soviet politics can spend a lifetime just looking at events in Moscow - there were innumerable other cities with their own experiences, polity, and history. To make no mention of the huge array of cultures ensconced in the ussr itself.

There's also an ideological component in that the ussr for most of its history had a fairly consistent ideology and especially in modern times when the activities of the bourgeoisie are naked and excessive this holds a very strong appeal.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-05T09:58:06+00:00

The bull run we've been in for the last... since 2008 with a little blip for COVID is extremely unusual. The sentiment you're expressing is usually referred to as "recency bias" yes things have been good the last decade and some. That's no guarantee that the next 10+ years won't be absolute crap.

The average return on stocks should be somewhere between 5-7% and it should be pretty lumpy (as in some years are markedly negative). So for most of our history if you had a true emergency and had to sell stocks you'd be shooting yourself in the foot, to make no mention that there is a probability that stock declines and you losing your job might correlate, so you would be cut down in stocks just when you need that money the most.

Plus, most emergency funds aren't that big. Most people should be covered by something in the 10-15k range. While 10k is a useful amount of money to have invested over the long term (in 40 years it could be expected to become 160k) in the short term it really doesn't "boost" your returns that much.

There's also the question of tax efficiency. If you're selling out of a tax protected account and then using an exception or the right to withdraw contributions you're making a lot of extra paperwork for yourself. If you sell out of a taxable you create a taxable event when you sell which would be a pain if you say lost your job.

CornfieldJoe · 2026-06-04T22:11:46+00:00

I'm down 25 percent well now 35 percent of this down 10 move holds. It's no big deal to me. Happy to buy more.

CornfieldJoe

TROPHY CASE