在張五常「The Economic Structure of China」一書闡述的中國曾有的1990年代末到2010年間之縣競爭制度下,中國借此享受人類近代少有的超低制度費用與間接生產成本,佐以原本享有的人口紅利帶來的在中低階工廠流水線上較低直接生產成本,中國製造橫掃全世界九成以上的中低階工業領域。
c. Super Micro 間諜晶片事件,2018年10月美國知名商業性雜誌Bloomberg刊登新聞「The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies」聲稱Super Micro這家公司利用一顆米粒大小的間諜晶片替中國政府竊取資訊。
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Ray Dalio, 「The Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail」 (2021)
Irving Fisher, 「The Money Illusion」 (1928)
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Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz, 「A Monetary History of the US, 1867-1960」 (1963)
Milton Friedman, 「Money and the Stock Market」 The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 96, No. 2 (Apr., 1988), pp. 221-245 「
Allan Meltzer, 「Learning about Policy from Federal Reserve History」 (Spring 2010)
Armen A. Alchian, 「Effects of Inflation Upon Stock Prices" (1965)
張五常, 「Will China Go Capitalist?」 (1982)
張五常, 「The Economic Structure of China」 (2007)
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Alfred Marshall, 「Principles of Economics (8th ed.)」 (1920)
new March quarter records for both revenue and earnings, besting our year ago revenue performance by 54%.
iPhone, which grew 66% year- over-year driven by the strong popularity of the iPhone 12 family.
iPad grow very strong double digits to its highest March quarter revenue in nearly a decade.
In fact, the last three quarters for Mac have been its three best quarters ever
Wearables, Home and Accessories, which grew by 25% year-over-year.
Services. We achieved growth of 27% year-over-year and set new records for services in each of our geographic segments.
Over the next five years, we will invest $430 billion, creating 20,000 jobs in the process.
Luca Maestri
Our revenue reached a March quarter record of $89.6 billion, an increase of over $31 billion or 54% from a year ago.
Products revenue was a March quarter record of $72.7 billion, up 62% over a year ago.
Our services set an all-time record of $16.9 billion, growing 27% over a year ago. ( App Store, cloud services, music, video, advertising and payment services. Our new service offerings, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Apple News Fitness+)
Company gross margin was 42.5%, up 270 basis points from last quarter driven by cost savings, a strong mix and favorable foreign exchange. Products gross margin was 36.1%, growing 100 basis points sequentially also thanks to cost savings and FX, partially offset by seasonal loss of leverage. Services gross margin was 70.1%, up 170 basis points sequentially and mainly due to a different mix. Net income of $23.6 billion, diluted earnings per share of $1.40 and operating cash flow of $24 billion were all March quarter records by a wide margin.
During the March quarter, we added more than 40 million paid subs sequentially, and we have now reached more than 660 million paid subscriptions across the services on our platform. This is up $145 million from just a year ago and twice the number of paid subscriptions we are only 2.5 years ago.
Apple Watch continues to extend its reach, with nearly 75% of the customers purchasing Apple Watch during the quarter being new to the product.
Mac. We set an all-time revenue record of $9.1 billion, up 70% over last year, and grew very strongly in each geographic segment with all-time revenue records in Europe and rest of Asia Pacific and March quarter records in the Americas, Greater China and Japan. This amazing performance was driven by the very enthusiastic customer response to our new Macs powered by the M1 chip.
iPad performance was also outstanding with revenue of $7.8 billion up 79%.
And UCHealth, a large health care provider in Colorado, was able to reduce per patient vaccination time from 3 minutes to only 30 seconds largely by moving from PC stations to iPhones
We ended the quarter with over $204 billion in cash plus marketable securities. We issued $14 billion of new term debt and retired $3.5 billion of term debt leaving us with total debt of almost $122 billion. As a result, net cash was $83 billion at the end of the quarter.
we were also able to return nearly $23 billion to shareholders during the March quarter. This included $3.4 billion in dividends and equivalents and $19 billion through open market repurchases of 147 million Apple shares.
This will cause a steeper sequential decline than usual. Second, we believe supply constraints will have a revenue impact of $3 billion to $4 billion in the June quarter.
「Personal savings soared as high as 33.7% in April following the Cares Act and were still a healthy 13.7% in December before Congress passed another $900 billion in Covid aid. This means that, unlike during the 2009 recession, households aren’t weighed down by debt.
Personal bankruptcies, home foreclosures and loan delinquencies last fall were the lowest since at least 2003. The mortgage delinquency rate was 0.7% in the third quarter of 2020 compared to 7% in the first quarter of 2009. …」
高資產或高負債的公司在嚴重通膨時期的股價表現優於高現金部位的公司。在經濟學大師Armen A. Alchian 1965年的論文 “Effects of Inflation Upon Stock Prices “中,特別指出傳統經濟學如凱因斯、費雪等著名學者之見認為銀行身為典型債務人,在通貨膨脹環境下應該有較好的股價表現。而Alchian則點出這些學者大老忽略銀行雖然集債務於一身(大眾存款之於銀行就是債務),然而銀行受限於法規與現實,其資產多是「現金資產(money-type assets)」,故在嚴重通貨膨脹影響下,銀行實際經濟損失大過通膨泡沫所得,股價表現當然好不到哪去。
「…JPMorgan, said the size of the bitcoin market had grown to equal about a fifth of gold held for investment and trading purposes, with a market capitalisation for the cryptocurrency of $750bn at its peak earlier this year, meaning it “is far from a niche asset class”. 」
「…Analysts at Canadian insurance company Manulife said in late January that the expansion in central banks’ balance sheets and rising public debt would push investors further into alternative asset classes …」
「…Xangle showing that investors have lost more than $16bn to fraud since 2012 …」
b. 近日美國美國前25大銀行對私人之貸款佔總資產比例從去年54.1%下降之45.7%,且放在Fed reserve account總金額達$3.15兆美元。
(The 25 largest U.S. banks currently hold 45.7% of their assets in loans and leases, according to Fed data released Friday, down from 54.1% this time last year. .. reserve balances in their Federal Reserve depository accounts at sky-high levels, $3.15 trillion at present
)
通膨現象將會更嚴重,因為「…According to a recent House Budget Committee estimate, $1 trillion from last year’s bills hasn’t been spent—including $59 billion for schools, $239 billion for health care and $452 billion in small business loans. State and local governments added 67,000 jobs in January. They don’t need more federal cash. …」
d. 中國脈學又傳入印度,並輾轉傳入阿拉伯國家,對西歐脈學的發展也有所影響。如:古波斯(伊朗)由拉﹒阿﹒阿爾哈姆丹(1247~1318)編寫的一部波斯文的醫學百科全書《伊兒汗的中國科學寶藏》(十三世紀~十四世紀初)一書中,就有王叔和的名字,其中脈學方面的內容也與《脈經》相似。中世紀阿拉伯醫聖阿維森納(980~1037)的《醫典》中有關脈學的內容,也多大同小異,可見《脈經》在國內外醫學發展史上影響之深遠。
Electric vehicle battery packs and motors currently cost about $4,000 more to manufacture than a comparable fossil fuel-burning midsize sedan engine. By 2022, the difference will be $1,900—and will disappear by mid-decade, according to investment bank UBS Group AG .
2010年1月時鋰離子成本約 $1,000 and $1,200 per kilowatt-hour. ,十年後為 $125 per kilowatt-hour
如今SONY試圖以動漫為主力進攻影音串流產業,但考量其內容IP歸Sony Pictures Television管理,但串流服務又屬Sony Music Entertainment,因組織破碎、整合低落的障礙似乎還會繼續困擾SONY的執行。在攘外之前,能否搞定內部山頭林立,恐怕是第一大問題。
我補充一些英國金融時報沒報導的現狀。
a. 日本動漫其實是個高度勞力密集的血汗行業,近年的蓬勃相當部分是靠中國廉宜勞動力代工才可能。我們知道的諸多知名動漫如「火影忍者」、「犬夜叉」、「死亡筆記」、「全職獵人」、「名偵探柯南」…等都是由「杭州飛龍」這家公司代工製作。
b. 2020年上半新冠肺炎在中國疫情較為嚴重時,日本許多動畫如《A3!》、《科學超電磁砲T》、《Re:從零開始的異世界生活》因受新冠肺炎影響延後播出。
已經有日本業內人士提出的擔憂:第一線畫工收入過低的狀況已經可能引發日本動漫人才斷層的風險。
c. 美國商人其實過去30年一直以某些神奇的方式引入日本動漫或特攝影片。例如大名鼎鼎的Power Ranger就是美國猶太商人Haim Saban向日本東映買下五色戰士系列的版權,然後留下戴著頭盔的畫面重新配音,至於演員露臉的部分則在美國找年輕小演員重拍,二者結合後推出市場大受歡迎的二次加工品。這是說,這些美國演員往往不知道自己在拍什麼,而變身戰士後的畫面其實是直接拿日本原片使用。