Friday, March 29, 2024

Dave Portnoy Needs to Divest from the Chinese Communist Party

Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy – usually famous for his pizza reviews and his sports commentary – has newfound relevance during the coronavirus pandemic. As a day trader.

Portnoy’s learning curve tomfoolery in the area has gained him a truckload of new fans and supporters, given his “no nonsense” schtick and concurrent livestreams of his trading days.

But there’s at least some nonsense left in Portnoy’s repertoire: investing in Communist China.

On Wednesday morning, “El Presidente” tweeted:

Earlier this week he told CNBC he was invested in AliBaba – the Chinese Communist Party-linked ecommerce giant.

Now the Trump administration is moving to tackle CCP-directed corporates, Portnoy’s “so mad”. Because he didn’t practice “caveat emptor” before throwing his cash in.

I don’t think there’s a soul on planet Earth that doesn’t respect Portnoy’s hustle. He’s entertaining, off-beat, and charming in his straight-forwardness. But throwing a tantrum at the U.S. President for trying to assail Communist China is just not it.

China’s malign influence on the entire world – America as a key contingent part – has left everyone reeling from the coronavirus in recent months. But over the long term the CCP is responsible for mass job losses in the West, oppression of political opposition, the mass arrest of Hong Kong protesters, and a new colonialism spanning Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Maybe Portnoy was joking?

Perhaps – but with great power comes great responsibility. And the Barstool mogul ostensibly putting his personal profits before his nation is precisely the opposite of the message we need out there right now. Especially when ordinary Americans are on the ropes. Which we know Portnoy cares about given his recent, epic rant on reopening the economy:

Dave, if you’re reading this and need a few reasons why you shouldn’t be in AliBaba in the first place, I’m here to help:

  1. Remember that China is at war with the United States right now. Just because we don’t realize it, doesn’t mean it’s not happening;
  2. AliBaba founder Jack Ma is a member of the Communist Party of China which is waging this war;
  3. The New York Times reported in 2014 the “deep political connections of the investment firms, Boyu Capital, Citic Capital Holdings and CDB Capital, the China Development Bank’s private investment arm” and revealed: “Their senior executive ranks included sons or grandsons of the most powerful members of the ruling Communist Party… Documents reviewed by The Times also show that a fourth investor bought Alibaba shares that month: New Horizon Capital, a private equity firm co-founded by the son of China’s prime minister at the time, Wen Jiabao“;
  4. Ma said at a Wall Street Journal event: “be in love with them” about the Chinese Communist Party government;
  5. In 2015 Forbes reported the “Chinese Government Has A Huge “Stake” In Alibaba”;
  6. House Foreign Affairs Committee reports show the level of influence the CCP has over American companies;
  7. China rips off American companies and steals their intellectual property;
  8. In 2018, Beijing honored Ma and others.

And these things are just a taster, which will hopefully set Mr. Portnoy off on a course to research a lot of this for himself.

My recommendations are that he reads The Hundred Year Marathon; Unrestricted Warfare; and Deceiving the Sky.

Oh, and listen to our daily podcast, War Room: Pandemic.

Or just keep doing funny pizza reviews and pissing off politically correct liberals.

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