3.5 Reasons Why Not to Short the World, China, or Apple

I was feeling negative about everything. I wanted to tell Copernicus's ghost that I subscribed to the geocentric view and was placing a bet that the center of the universe was about to implode. I was even preparing to short Apple AAPL. Then I had drinks with The Renewable Man Tuesday evening. At the bar in the Westend of Frankfurt I was underdressed and thought I didn't have enough buff on my fingernails to publicly lift my martini glass . . . "Fuggedaboutit." "What are you, an idiot?" said The Renewable Man. "We're only at the beginning of our story. Society is changing so quickly that it's too difficult to grasp what's happening." I took a sip of my martini. "People are even bearish about China and fearful of Chinese companies because Paulson got his ass handed to him by the fraudulent Sino-Forest-whatever," said The Renewable Man. "But here's the news everybody should have noticed: the Chinese were the first to sequence the genome of the E. coli strain that was killing people over here." Of course he said he was a big fan of solar, especially some of the Chinese solar companies such as Jinko JKS, and LDK LDK and JA Solar JASO, companies on the receiving end of billions of dollars from the Chinese government. But he said he didn't want to talk about them because amateurs and even pros get killed trying to trade them. He told me that he left the so-called sustainable fund he was working at because the fund manager kept trying to time the Chinese solar companies by using his emotions and The Renewable Man couldn't stand seeing O.P.M. being lost for no reason. And he asked me if I knew what the U.S. was doing about China taking the lead in solar manufacturing. "What do you mean, what the U.S. is doing about it?" I asked. "Not a thing," he said, "and that's why I'm not even close to betting against the world or the U.S. Everybody's looking to China and so-called developing countries to lead the way and I shake my head at such commentary." He laughed when I told him I wanted to short Apple because I was an android guy. He said I should have been buying it back in the early 90s and then I wouldn't have to worry about money. "And didn't you hear about the kid in China that sold his kidney for an iPad 2?" I hadn't but I said I had and I took another sip of my martini. "I got into the green sector only a couple of years ago," he said, "because I saw that it potentially freed and empowered people. I also saw that almost everybody involved in the 'sustainable' sector was thinking in terms of outdated, static models, and I've been using that knowledge to my advantage. There is a fundamental shift happening in how we use and view energy and there's no way I'm ever going to count out American ingenuity. When I was at a cleantech conference in New York in February I saw a presentation by the CEO of Solaria and it was just great what he was doing. He was basically saying, 'Yeah, come on, China, give me even cheaper and more efficient cells to work with.'" And I finished my martini and maybe a couple more, but the 3 reasons for not shorting the world, besides The Renewable Man being so positive about solar and energy and innovation, is not 3 but rather 3 billion: 3 billion people on the planet are under the age of 25. That is a big future indeed. And the point-five reason, as I've said before, is a bit of advice from this old cat: If you love somebody, make sure he or she knows. Peace, as my brother always says.