Sarah Paine: How Imperial Japan Crushed Tsarist Russia & Qing China

Bullish:

• $INSTIT - Institutions play a crucial role in shaping economic outcomes by channeling decision-making and determining how money can be made or lost.

  • “Institutions matter. They channel decision making. They channel how money can or can't be made. It's consequential.”

    Sarah·1:31:08
• $PREVENT - Investing in preventative measures, despite their upfront costs, can yield significant long-term savings by averting potential catastrophes.

  • “And what people aren't looking they're looking at the expense of doing these things and saying, if they're preventing disasters. And people it's the negative objectives. So you can't measure the things that fail to happen, but I assure you, averting a catastrophe, you're saving a lot. Probably a lot more than whatever you're spending on the budget.”

    Sarah·1:53:35

Bearish:

• $RUSSIA - Russia's economy is underperforming due to poor infrastructure, an inefficient transportation system, and a corrupt legal system that discourages individual investments.

  • “If Putin had taken all of his oil money and invested it in the transportation grid, because believe it now, Russia still just does things by train. Its road systems are appallingly bad. And if Russia actually cleaned up its legal system, which under the czars it hadn't done either, everything is always royal monopolies. If they had cleaned up these things to allow individuals to make their own investments and make money, it'd be a completely different story.”

    Sarah·1:11:24