A second down day. Not to worry. Pullbacks happen regularly. Too early to go bottom fishing.
All about Alibaba. In the beginning all the talk was about exploding growth and the brilliance of the business model. Then the talk changed to disappointing earnings, fights with the Chinese government, problems in Taiwan, and counterfeit/fake goods being peddled on Alibaba.
None of this was predictable, though it once again highlighted the problems owning shares in Chinese companies, with their dubious reporting requirements.
Meantime, my inviolate stop loss order kicked me out at $103.195.
My retired friend Lucky Marr writes,
I just bought 1000 seat belts through Alibaba (on behalf of RCA) to be given away to Golf Cart drivers here in Sun City and Sun City West, AZ where we drive our golf carts to the golf course plus grocery shopping, the bank, doctor appointments and etc. We have had some serious accidents involving golf carts and cars, including fatalities. Our Retirement Community Association gave away 450 a few years back. Cost $3.00 each including all shipping and customs fees.
Seat belts for golf carts. What will they think of next?
Good news: Saudi Arabia is now allowing women to drive.
Sadly, it’s not funny.
Meanwhile The Guardian, a leading English newspaper, reports:
Saudi Arabia gives top prize to cleric who blames George Bush for 9/11
An Indian television preacher who has called the 9/11 attacks an “inside job” received one of Saudi Arabia’s most prestigious prizes on Sunday, for “service to Islam”.
Zakir Naik, president of the Islamic Research Foundation in India, was one of five recipients of the King Faisal international prize from Saudi Arabia’s King Salman during a ceremony at a luxury Riyadh hotel.
The annual prizes are a project of the King Faisal Foundation, established in 1976 by the children of King Faisal bin Abdul Aziz who died in 1975.
Naik was honoured for being one of the most renowned non-Arabic speaking promoters of Islam. He founded the Peace TV channel, billed as the world’s only channel specialising in comparative religion.
It has an estimated English-language audience exceeding 100 million, according to his award citation.
“Islam is the only religion that can bring peace to the whole of humanity,” he said in a video biography aired at the ceremony.
In a July 2008 Peace TV broadcast, Naik suggested that al-Qaida was not responsible for flying hijacked airliners into New York’s World Trade Center on 11 September 2001, killing almost 3,000 people.
“Even a fool will know that this was an inside job,” he said in the video, claiming then-president George W Bush was behind the attacks.
In 2010 Naik was reportedly barred from entering Britain for “numerous comments” which showed his “unacceptable behaviour”.
Harry Newton who watched Netanyahu’s speech to Congress yesterday and listened to sundry commentators on it, including Thomas Friedman. This whole thing rings very close to my heart. My parents ran away from the holocaust on one of the last boats to Australia. Father tried to convince everyone in their Romanian home town of 100,000 that the Nazis would kill all the Jews. They said they would. And in fact, 95% of the inhabitants of his hometown were later killed. Iran has said very clearly, and very often, that it intends to kill all the world’s Jews, beginning with Israel. Half a dozen nukes lobbed into Israel would do the job, and destroy that country. I understand Netanyahu’s fear. It’s my fear.
But it’s even bigger. There are global consequences. Friedman wrote in today’s New York Times:
What both the United States and Israel agree on, and I certainly do, is that Iran must be prevented from building a nuclear bomb, because it could be used to threaten the Jewish state and, once loaded onto a missile, Europe and the Arab states as well. Moreover, if Iran gets a bomb, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt would surely be tempted to do so as well, and, suddenly, you’d have a Middle East that is already full of sectarian proxy wars also full of nuclear weapons – with few of the deterrent safeguards you had during the Cold War between Washington and Moscow. There are actors in the Middle East for whom “mutual assured destruction” is an invitation to a party – not a system of mutual deterrence. Also, if Iran gets a bomb, there’s a good chance the whole global nuclear nonproliferation regime, already frayed, would totally unravel, which would be very destabilizing.
Friedman ends his piece today:
Alas, Bibi (Netanyahu) is Churchill when it comes to isolating Iran, but he is AWOL when it comes to risking his own political future to make it happen. I have a problem with that. I still don’t know if I will support this Iran deal, but I also have a problem with my own Congress howling in support of a flawed foreign leader trying to scuttle the negotiations by my own government before they’re done. Rubs me the wrong way.
You can read Friedman’s piece here.
I am alive today because my father believed what the Nazis said. I believe what the Iranian regime says. I eye their strategy so far — Hizbollah, Hamas, Iraq, Syria, Yemen. It’s impressive, and frightening (to all of us).
On August 19, 1953, the United States, in collaboration with Britain, successfully staged a coup in Iran to overthrow democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh that a newly (2013) declassified CIA document reveals was designed to preserve the control of Western companies over Iran’s rich oil fields.
The proliferation of nukes to Iran, Israel, Russia, Pakistan, India, the U.S., and others is a threat to all of us. So are the policies and short-sighted actions that in the past and present create regimes and conditions that perpetuate the threat.
Thank you for printing my comments, Harry. Our golf carts travel up to 30 mph and hitting a curb at even 5 mph can throw an unrestrained driver out on to the pavement, on their head…not good for a 70-90 year old. We use our carts as second cars for all kinds of shopping and social errands…they are licensed and insured. For many it is their only car. Our last fatality was this past January.
Working with Alibaba was easy and fun. I received far more responses from different manufactures than I needed. Our previous supplier had quoted $13.35 each set. If anyone is interested in such a project…send me your email address through Harry.