1/Here is a thread about climate change that's going to make a lot of people mad.

Basically, America, on its own, has a LOT power to stop climate change than almost anyone admits.

2/China now emits far more CO2 than the U.S. It emits almost as much as Europe and the U.S. combined.
3/In fact, even this huge disparity dramatically understates the degree to which China is in the driver's seat of climate change.

China, being still much poorer than us, has much more room to grow its economy. Hence, the emissions gap will only grow larger.
4/This leads to an uncomfortable but unavoidable fact: The battle to halt climate change will be won or lost in China.

America's power - and thus, the power of American politicians, activists, businesses, etc. - to save the planet from climate catastrophe is very marginal.
5/This is just a fact. But it's an uncomfortable one for a people like Americans who are used to thinking that the world lives or dies at their command.

Thus, I see many Americans desperately trying to preserve the illusion of control with respect to climate change.
6/The first way we Americans try to preserve the illusion of control is by bringing up moral arguments.

We note that we emitted more carbon than China throughout history, and that our per capita emissions are higher.

But of course the climate cares nothing for morality.
7/Another way we Americans try to preserve the illusion of control is by claiming that China is doing their part, China is reducing emissions, China has the problem under control, so we just need to focus on ourselves.

This is, sadly, bullshit.
https://t.co/yObzAQ3KWu
8/A third way we Americans try to preserve the illusion of control is by claiming that America exports its emissions to China (by offshoring carbon-intensive industries).

But in fact, this accounts for only a small piece of the rise in China's CO2 emissions.
9/Of course, I screwed this whole thread up with a typo in the first tweet, which should have read "a LOT less power" instead of "a LOT power", but let's go on.
10/Another way we Americans try to preserve the illusion of control is by claiming that China will follow our lead on emissions - that if we cut emissions unilaterally, they'd follow suit.

Of course, we've ALREADY cut emissions. Nobody followed our lead.
11/Nor did China start slashing emissions after Kyoto, or after Paris.

The idea that we Americans rule the world via our moral leadership is just another illusion of control.
12/Yet another way we try to preserve the illusion of control is by making the false claim that "degrowth" in rich countries will solve the problem.

In fact, China already contributes far more to global growth than we do.
https://t.co/MhuMG8DI2W
13/And finally, the biggest and most important way we Americans try to preserve the illusion of control is by simple denialism.

Many Americans pretend that climate science is more uncertain than it really is, or that climate scientists are dishonest, etc.
https://t.co/k06dJgzP4H
14/It's all just an illusion.

America is NOT in the driver's seat when it comes to climate change, and it's time for us to acknowledge that horrible, gut-wrenching fact. Because it is a fact.
15/Does this mean America should abandon our efforts to fight climate change?

Of course not!!!

We should be taxing carbon, building green infrastructure, researching green energy technology, etc.!
16/BUT, on our own, this won't be nearly enough.

We need to do all we can to encourage China to decarbonize.

This includes sharing all of our green energy tech with China, and even trying to pay them to decarbonize.
17/It probably also includes other, less friendly and positive incentives.
18/But the horrible truth is, even all of these incentives probably have only a marginal ability to sway China's decisions.

Like it or not, the future of our planet is in the hands of some folks in Beijing.

(end)

More from Noah Smith

Time for panel #3: Big Tech and regulation!

I will be live-tweeting again, and you can also watch video at either the Twitter or Facebook links below!


Kaissar: Every industry gets regulated when it gets big. The question is what kind of regulation Big Tech will get,and whether the companies will be proactive in shaping it.

Kaissar: More profitable companies have higher returns. Why? Maybe it's a risk factor, because more profit = higher risk of getting regulated.

Bershidskyis showing a diagram of GDPR complaince pop-ups. What a massive ill-conceived bureaucratic mess.

Ritholtz: It's 2018 and we're still talking about Facebook privacy settings?! If you're still giving your personal data to Facebook, you just don't care about privacy!
Today's @bopinion post is about how poor countries started catching up to rich ones.

It looks like decolonization just took a few decades to start

Basic econ theory says poor countries should grow faster than rich ones.

But for much of the Industrial Revolution, the opposite happened.
https://t.co/JjjVtWzz5c

Why? Probably because the first countries to discover industrial technologies used them to conquer the others!

But then colonial empires went away. And yet still, for the next 30 years or so, poor countries fell further behind rich ones.
https://t.co/hilDvv0IQV

Why??

Possible reasons:
1. Bad institutions (dictators, communism, autarkic trade regimes)
2. Civil wars
3. Lack of education

But then, starting in the 80s (for China) and the 90s (for India and Indonesia), some of the biggest poor countries got their acts together and started to catch up!


Global inequality began to fall.

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MASTER THREAD on Short Strangles.

Curated the best tweets from the best traders who are exceptional at managing strangles.

• Positional Strangles
• Intraday Strangles
• Position Sizing
• How to do Adjustments
• Plenty of Examples
• When to avoid
• Exit Criteria

How to sell Strangles in weekly expiry as explained by boss himself. @Mitesh_Engr

• When to sell
• How to do Adjustments
• Exit


Beautiful explanation on positional option selling by @Mitesh_Engr
Sir on how to sell low premium strangles yourself without paying anyone. This is a free mini course in


1st Live example of managing a strangle by Mitesh Sir. @Mitesh_Engr

• Sold Strangles 20% cap used
• Added 20% cap more when in profit
• Booked profitable leg and rolled up
• Kept rolling up profitable leg
• Booked loss in calls
• Sold only


2nd example by @Mitesh_Engr Sir on converting a directional trade into strangles. Option Sellers can use this for consistent profit.

• Identified a reversal and sold puts

• Puts decayed a lot

• When achieved 2% profit through puts then sold

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Decoded his way of analysis/logics for everyone to easily understand.

Have covered:
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2. Workbook
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4. Diff category of days
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1. Keeps following volatility super closely.

Makes 7-8 different strategies to give him a sense of what's going on.

Whichever gives highest profit he trades in.


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He believes in a market operator, if market mover sells volatility Sarang Sir joins him.


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Sell when Vega is falling rather than for theta decay. You won't be trapped and higher probability of making profit.