Comments by "shazmosushi" (@shazmosushi) on "The Rise and Fall of China's Evergrande Group" video.

You got to admire Evergrande's ambition though. If the tide didn't turn it could be a Hengchi, not a Volkswagon. I'm still in complete awe that a debt-fueled apartment builder can enter the electric car industry. China really is something else.
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21:06 I am still in awe that a company that builds apartments also makes *electric cars*
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To be fair, Evergrande's cash crunch is only for the interest payments. The $300 billion principle of the loan doesn't really matter that much: what matters is their ability to always pay the monthly repayments or refinance, and have a pathway to deleveraging overtime. The immediate cash crunch is only a few hundred million dollars (pocket change) for their monthly interest payment to bond holders. It's just that if they miss that, then the entire $300 billion in debt probably won't be paid back, and the company would collapse (along with potentially other players in China's property sector) causing a big slowdown in the China and the world's economy.
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14:21 Here's a direct link to the Asianometry history video on Heaven Lake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4_glr9BofI
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There are some India semiconductor content coming up (Patreon Early Access), and some older videos on the Galwan Valley and the Sino-Soviet Split (which is India related). On the Discord server Jon mentioned that the recent India video (the Reliance Jio video) didn't do very well compared to how much research it took to make. Please share videos you like to people who may not be aware of the channel!
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@testla3383 You're right. Hyundai makes cargo ships and their ports (including the elevators in the buildings), as well as cars. And Sony sells personal insurance. Any company that can successfully diversify into such distant markets is definitely very impressive.
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Currently the United States can comfortably pay its debt servicing obligations (interest on the bonds) due to record low interest rates. But rates won't stay low forever. The bet is that the US will keep growing (making debt a smaller share of GDP), and the deficit will drop. Then the most amazing thing is the US doesn't actually need to pay back the $28 trillion dollar principle. It can keep refinancing it indefinitely with fresh bonds. And the bond interest rates are lower than inflation, so after a few hundred years the value of the $28 trillion dollars in debt will be virtually nothing. The "wait and inflate" strategy has worked before (European war bonds from hundreds of years ago). It's a very dangerous strategy though. I hope the US cuts the budget deficit to slow the growth of new debt.
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@nochance3914 Lookup the US National Debt Clock. Countries (and companies) can stay in huge debt forever as long as they are able to manage the cost of servicing the debt. As long as the country or company grows at least at the same pace as debt is accumulating this is completely sustainable. In the case of the United States, if they had a balanced budget then inflation would slowly eat away at value of the debt until in 300 years time it could be paid for with pocket change. There were big European war bonds from hundreds of years ago that were "paid" in the same way. When the cost of servicing a loan is so cheap, paying off the principle of a loan is usually not the right strategy. But I agree: for individuals, unfortunately interest payments are high enough that the "wait and inflate" strategy probably won't work.
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