🇺🇸🇯🇵🇰🇷⚔️🇨🇳🇰🇵🧵 HOW THE UNITED STATES TURNED JAPAN AND SOUTH KOREA INTO IMPERIAL COLONIES AS PART OF ITS COLD WAR AGAINST CHINA AND THE DPRK
American policy in the Asia-Pacific has always been centered in building up Japan’s industry and leveraging Tokyo’s power at the expense of the economic independence of other country’s in the region. This doctrine goes all the way back to the early 20th century as Theodore Roosevelt committed the United States to the establishment of a global empire and JP Morgan created a monopoly over large sectors of the American economy in the aftermath of the Panic of 1907.
The Meiji Restoration, which established the Empire of Japan, brought industrialization and modernization to the Japanese economy. However, this was mostly done on the backs of foreign loans and had been a continuation of work already theorized in China under Sun Yat Sen, whose Three Principles (Nationalism, Democracy, People’s Livelihood) inspire Chinese socialism today and were based on the state-led economic frameworks of Alexander Hamilton and Abraham Lincoln. Sun himself was educated in Hawaii by protégés of Lincoln.
And it ultimately led to this notion among leaders in Tokyo that Japan is now becoming a partner of the Anglo-American Empire. A major reason why this was is because Theodore Roosevelt agreed in the Taft-Katsura Agreement that the United States would give Japan control over the Korean Peninsula if they did not interfere with Washington’s violent seizure of the Philippines. However, what Tokyo didn’t notice at first is that they were not becoming a regional empire but a proxy of American imperialism.
From there, the groundwork was set for Japan’s wars of mass genocide against the people of China, Korea, Russia and across the Asian continent. After its war with Russia in 1905, Tokyo fully annexed Korea in 1910, which would then be used as a launching pad for their wars against China. The Japanese previously launched a failed war against China in 1894, after which European colonial empires set up spheres of influence as part of the Century of Humiliation.
And then in 1931 and 1937, as a result of false flag incidents staged by the Japanese Kwantung Army along the South Manchuria Railway in Mukden and the Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing, Japan launched the Asia-Pacific Theatre of World War II waging mass genocide and engaging in sexual exploitation against the people of China, Korea and across Asia. Unit 731 was established in Manchuria under the command of Dr. Shiro Ishii and with the approval of the puppet dictatorship in Japanese-occupied Manchuria led by former Emperor of the Qing Dynasty Puyi.
731 carried out some of the most cruel and tortuous human experimentations against civilian victims, including infecting prisoners with deadly diseases and amputating their limbs, conducting vivisection and organ harvesting, suffocating victims and hypobaric chambers and exposing prisoners to chemical, explosive and biological weapons. Even more outrageous is the fact that Ishii escaped prosecution after the US granted him immunity in exchange for research from Unit 731. And some of that research was used by the CIA for Project MKUltra.
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I asked Claude to apply a capital cycle analysis to $MU. Here's what it came up with:
Net reading: 11 of 14 capital cycle signals are bearish or strongly bearish. The framework reads this as late-cycle, not early/mid-cycle. The two unambiguously bullish signals (equipment lead times, industry concentration) are eroding rather than strengthening.
Insights Yielded by Capital Cycle Analysis:
1) "Structural change" rhetoric is itself diagnostic. The capital cycle framework treats coordinated industry-wide CEO claims of regime change as evidence of late-cycle euphoria. The same language was deployed by the same CEOs (Mehrotra at Micron specifically) in 2017–2018 and was wrong. Bayesian base rates argue against accepting the current claims at face value. The previous analysis under-weighted this base-rate evidence.
2) Look at total capital flowing into the supply curve, not just incumbent capex. The structural-change analysis focused on Big Three capex. The capital cycle lens forces aggregation of all capital flowing into memory output:
a) Incumbent capex: ~$104B in 2026 across DRAM + NAND;
b) CXMT IPO proceeds: ~$4.2B (with state-aligned co-financing many multiples larger);
c) YMTC capacity additions (privately financed)
d) Substitute technology capital (Cerebras, photonic startups, CXL controller designers) — billions of dollars of equity raised to reduce HBM intensity per dollar of AI compute deployed.
When aggregated, total effective supply-side capital formation in 2026 is materially higher than the Big Three capex alone suggests. The supply response is being underestimated.
3) The customer base is doing exactly what late-cycle customers do. Hyperscalers locking in 3–5 year LTAs, pre-ordering 2027 NAND, building strategic inventory — these are not signs of confident long-cycle visibility, they are signs of late-cycle scarcity panic. Historically (DRAM 2017–2018, oil 2008, shipping 2007), customer pre-buying at peak prices is followed by sharp inventory destocking when prices roll over. The structural-change narrative frames LTA penetration as a benefit; the capital cycle frames it as a peak signal.
4) Multiple expansion + earnings expansion = asymmetric downside. The previous analysis flagged the 15x NTM P/E multiple as aggressive (referring to UBS PT raise). The capital cycle framework sharpens this: when both earnings and multiple are at peak, the compound drawdown when either reverts is severe. Memory historically goes from 60% gross margin to negative gross margin and from 10x P/E to <5x P/E. Even a modest reversion to 35% gross margin and 8x P/E from current levels implies a 60–75% equity drawdown for the memory primaries — without any disorderly cycle.
5) Supply lag is real but not unique. The bullish point about EUV/TSV/hybrid bonding lead times is correct but mis-weighted. The capital cycle history of other capital-intensive industries (oil refining, shipbuilding, semiconductor wafer fab) shows that long lead times increase the eventual amplitude of the down-cycle: capital decisions made at peak are not reversible when conditions soften, leading to capacity overhang. Long lead times delay the down-cycle; they do not abolish it.
6) China is the textbook capital-cycle disruptor. In Chancellor's historical case studies (steel, shipbuilding, solar, panels, batteries), state-backed Chinese entrants repeatedly compressed margins of consolidated Western/Korean/Japanese oligopolies once technology gaps narrowed. The U.S. equipment restrictions on China have created the illusion that this dynamic is paused, but the data shows CXMT doubled DRAM share in 18 months and is targeting domestic HBM3. The structural-change analysis appropriately flagged this; the capital cycle framework would weight it heavier as the single most important multi-year risk.
7) Substitute capital formation is its own supply curve. The capital cycle framework treats financing flows into substitutes as a parallel supply expansion. Cerebras' $5.5B IPO, Marvell's $5B Celestial acquisition, the Sandisk/SK hynix HBF JV, and the CXL ecosystem (ALAB, MRVL, MCHP) are collectively financing "HBM intensity reduction." Even if HBM unit demand is met, the value capture per dollar of AI compute is diluted. Capital is flowing in adjacent to the memory primaries to reduce the share of AI spend that ends up in their P&L.
8) The bull case relies disproportionately on demand visibility. The capital cycle warns against demand-anchored theses. The bull case requires AI capex to continue at current levels or accelerate, hyperscaler ROI economics to remain favorable, sovereign AI to scale, and inference workloads not to migrate to non-HBM architectures. Each of these is plausible; the joint probability that all hold through 2028 is materially lower than the headline narrative suggests.
9) Sell-side estimate trajectory is itself a signal. UBS's PT trajectory ($535 → $1,625, a 3x increase in one revision) is historically associated with peak euphoria. Estimate revisions of this magnitude have a poor forward record. The framework would treat the velocity of estimate revisions as a contra-signal.
10) Where the asymmetry sits. The capital cycle framework reframes the risk/reward calculation. Even if the bull thesis is right and earnings hold through 2028, the upside from current levels is modest (multiple expansion has already happened). If the bull thesis is partially wrong — say, 2028 brings 25% peak-to-trough EPS decline rather than 50% — the equity drawdown is still material because multiples will compress simultaneously. The asymmetry is not favourable at current valuations.
Bottom line: The structural change thesis was directionally correct but materially overweighted by the original analysis. The capital cycle framework appropriately reweights toward supply-side caution and treats current peak conditions, peak valuations, peak management confidence, and accelerating capital inflows as a coherent set of late-cycle signals. The memory industry has undergone real and beneficial structural change in shape, but the empirical base rate against the "cycle has been abolished" claim is overwhelming. The economic characteristics of memory businesses have improved but have not been transformed into stable, compounding, low-volatility ones — and the next 18–30 months are statistically more likely to mark the end of this up-cycle than a transition to a new regime.
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I've been on a wild travel journey in China for several weeks, with only a backpack, making new friends and meeting & getting to know people from all walks of life. I've been truly humbled and inspired by everyone's kindness.
Next, I'm hopping over to Taiwan (first time for me) to hang out with Jensen, attend Computex, eat a bunch of street food, and just have fun talking to all kinds of folks around the city & beyond. After that, no plans, anything goes.
As always, please give travel suggestions or fill out coffee form if you want to hang out in Taiwain or anywhere else in the world. Love you all! ❤️
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