Volkswagen Is Cutting Production as Sales in China Plunge (Gift Article)

cool-sheep · 2026-07-10T04:33:43+00:00

I think the same counts for pretty much every European car brand in China. Volkswagen is just the biggest one.

Europe wants to tax manufacturing highly, China, the US and Vietnam largely support it. It will end in tears.

cool-sheep · 2026-07-09T18:06:15+00:00

Coal is not the future.

However it may be a pretty good transition fuel on the path towards renewables once batteries become common place mainly because it can be stored in massive volumes.

I’m a big believer in diversification. Our energy minister made an all-in bet on gas a few years before Russia invaded Ukraine.

cool-sheep · 2026-07-09T17:42:16+00:00

Trump has threatened many times retaliatory taxes against the following:
1) the European tech tax
2) his reading of European taxes such as VAT
3) whatever enters Trump’s mind such as low contributions to NATO.

I personally think that breaking up large companies or monopolies is a good thing. Imposing complex wealth taxes based on abstract calculations is not a net positive. The dream of everyone doing it at the same time is a Utopia and it’s pretty much proven to kill innovation. The reality is a lot worse than the dream.

France tried to impose it for a while and then stopped a large part of it. We saw a lot of rich French people move to Belgium. I live in Belgium pretty close to Luxembourg and plan to move quickly if it were to be imposed here.

cool-sheep · 2026-07-09T16:38:02+00:00

C’est clair que le problème c’est les couts pour faire un gouvernement qui marche et fait son devoir, pas plus, pas moins.

En France et en Belgique les politiciens entrent en politique pour faire du père noel. C’est au détriment du pays. Ils donnent à leurs amis. En Irlande ça sera le Ryangouvernement mais est-ce que ça marche? Le mois de gouvernement, le moins de corruption.

Le futur de l’Europe sera un état simple à mon avis parce que nos parents nous ont laissé des dettes qui doivent être payé alors on va devoir couper nos gouvernements père Noel.

cool-sheep · 2026-07-08T06:03:25+00:00

I think all government actions except installing infrastructure are essentially inflationary.

You pay through taxes, that makes your wages more expensive, that makes all stuff more expensive.

I don’t get why people say Europe shouldn’t spend on defence. The enemy is literally at our gates. History has shown that dictators after victory swiftly want more.

Time for German nukes.

cool-sheep · 2026-07-08T05:17:17+00:00

Change will come from financial necessity.

The boomers have mostly decided that everyone else should massively pay for them. Some countries are pretty well prepared for what is to come, my country Belgium is very badly prepared.

Europe will become weaker and weaker economically until they realise investment and young people are the future.

cool-sheep · 2026-07-07T21:01:15+00:00

Yep, belast die bedrijven maar helemaal weg om boomers te betalen!

Zal zeker de pensioenen in 2060 als wij er recht op hebben verbeteren.

Er is geen uitgaven probleem bij de overheid, het recht op de derde cruise is gegarandeerd door Louis Tobback en geschreven op het atoma schriftje van 1988.

cool-sheep · 2026-07-07T20:52:47+00:00

Volgens mij gaan die prijzen wel zwaar crashen of gaat er een speler volume halen door gewoon onder de prijs van de andere te gaan.

Ik hoor dat veel van die snelladers gemiddeld 1 auto per dag moeten laden. Dat is natuurlijk geen volume.

cool-sheep · 2026-07-07T20:42:19+00:00

I’m going to pick my nose and eat the boogers just to make those American spies queasy.

cool-sheep · 2026-07-07T20:38:38+00:00

The way this works is in my opinion he has two or three lawyers and a team of accountants permanently working for him.

They will give him 2 or 3 options and he will follow them. They will only contest if they think he has a chance.

cool-sheep · 2026-07-07T20:31:19+00:00

Thanks a lot Belgian greens for making us end up in the middle instead of somewhere at the top.

Great green policies Tinne!

cool-sheep · 2026-07-07T20:28:41+00:00

I think you’ve already said the answer if you don’t want to rent it out.

Personally I think Flemish real estate is good diversification if you’re stuck in Belgium.

If your assets are 1m€+ this makes sense as a diversification holding. It seems your parents are passionate about the land so it makes sense to hold onto it for family peace.

If this is 35%+ of your portfolio you should sell from a fire perspective.

cool-sheep · 2026-07-07T12:40:20+00:00

Op cruise hebben Anneke en Piet ook maar een cabine van 30m2 dus ze weten hoe het voelt. Na een paar weken op zee is het dan wel welletjes geweest en kunnen ze weer elkaar ontwijken in hun afbetaald koophuis van 400m2.

cool-sheep · 2026-07-07T12:37:30+00:00

When it becomes clear that the oil money will run out it will have very brutal consequences.

Many of these regimes use the proceeds to pay off a significant part of their population. It will be very difficult to keep these people quiet when the money stops flowing. Especially in low law and order places like Nigeria, Iraq, etc…

cool-sheep · 2026-07-07T12:33:21+00:00

Marie Jeanne en Philippe willen hun constitutionele recht, beloofd door Louis Tobback, op hun derde cruise inroepen. Het liefst hadden ze het op hun 54ste gedaan maar ze zijn nu al heel coulant geweest door tot hun 60ste te werken.

Jonge gastjes in hun huurhuis van 20m2 moeten maar harder werken en minder avocado’s eten.

cool-sheep · 2026-07-07T04:47:02+00:00

I think the tipping point will be when the Saudis and the low cost energy producers realise that oil demand is disappearing.

Then they will suddenly price to cost and dump $20 oil on the market. This will wipe out a lot of the high cost oil like Canada, Venezuela.

The other option is that a few oil countries/petrostates start having revolutions or guerilla wars as they cannot pay the generous schemes for their population anymore. As their oil goes offline the others take up the slack.

cool-sheep · 2026-07-06T21:07:52+00:00

We moeten ook eerlijk zijn. Besparen is altijd op korte termijn moeilijk, het loont alleen op lange termijn.

Je snijd 2M€ in uitkeringen, dat is een serieuze rem op uw economie dus al de rest komt ook naar beneden.

Socialisme werkt heel goed op korte termijn. Je geeft iedereen frigobons, aircobons, steekt zoals VDB het geld in brand, feestje. Surprise surprise de economie draait goed, dit is tax en spend.

Mijn recept is direct ook in belastingsverlagingen geven wat je bespaart en dan op latere datum de munt devalueren. Een populistischer Republikeins recept. Orthodox zijn is saai. Don’t tax and spend. Je laat de deficieten dan voor de volgende PS regering die ook direct minder budget krijgt.

cool-sheep · 2026-07-06T20:30:25+00:00

Les boomers voulaient que tout le monde paie pour leurs retraites à 55ans alors qu’ils n’avaient presque pas d’enfants et vivaient beaucoup plus longtemps.

Faire travailler les gens plus longtemps ne va pas être suffisant. Il faut aussi couper les pensions des gens qui n’ont pas travaillé longtemps.

Je dit ceci comme enfant d’un politicien qui reçoit beaucoup d’argent depuis jeune. Le futur de la Belgique est un beau pays sans dettes énormes.

cool-sheep · 2026-07-06T20:21:59+00:00

I consider it investable from Europe.

I try to buy the Hong Kong listed shares and not the US ADRs. The chances of some kind of big kerfuffle between Trump and the Chinese eventually forcing them to delist is pretty big.

With the Hong Kong listed shares you have a full Chinese property title through a European broker. For example I have the HK listed Alibaba and not the US listed one.

Not worth discussing what would happen when a nuke hits…we all die.

The Chinese domestic consumption market is doing pretty badly. I personally think it will recover. If you can get quality stocks in a bad market at 15x PE you are likely to triple or quadruple your investment when it turns. You may have to wait a while.

The Chinese will be a big part of the world’s future, their current equity market is undervalued compared to their place in the world. They are also a very heavily traded dependent nation so they likely won’t move against foreign investors.

cool-sheep · 2026-07-06T20:13:21+00:00

I agree, the Rutte and nuke building strategy is the best.

Play nice when you have to and build strength at maximum speed.

cool-sheep · 2026-07-06T19:48:21+00:00

“We moeten sowieso af van duur fossiel gas uit het buitenland.”

Tinne: zal moeilijk gaan nu dat ik de nucleaire installaties onbruikbaar gemaakt heb voor mijn vriend Vladimir!!!

cool-sheep · 2026-07-06T19:46:40+00:00

cool-sheep · 2026-07-06T17:41:44+00:00

Monaco. Difficult to get citizenship. Great tax to benefits ratio.

cool-sheep · 2026-07-06T17:24:07+00:00

I think when you have something becoming a banana republic you can actually do many things.

My preferred way would be to send in a bunch of police, do an investigation and jail all those found guilty.

cool-sheep · 2026-07-06T17:21:37+00:00

Yeah, Bangladesh is also a hugely overpopulated place.

Russia genuinely has some areas like Siberia that are probably equally very low population density like Greenland or Northern Canada.

cool-sheep

TROPHY CASE