Dear Hedgeye Nation,

We just hosted nine of the sharpest investing minds on HedgeyeTV for a 3-day bonanza of world-class interviews. During our semiannual Hedgeye Investing Summit, Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough was joined by Kyle Bass, CIO of Hayman Capital Management.

Below is a brief excerpt and transcript from the interview. You can access the entire hour-long interview, as well as the 8 other financial market webcasts, by registering here.

ICYMI | Kyle Bass & Keith McCullough: “Wall Street Firms Are Too Entwined With The CCP" - HIS7 Bass 1PB

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In this clip from Hedgeye’s Investing Summit, Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough talks China with Kyle Bass (CIO of Hayman Capital Management). Kyle highlights not only his abhorrence towards the Chinese government’s malfeasances, but also Wall Street’s shameless financial entanglement with the CCP.

“The Chinese government is one of Bridgewater’s largest investors, in the multiples of billions. So if you’re charging a 2% fee on $6 billion, the Chinese government is paying you $120 million just to turn the lights on that year. So it’s really difficult to get a straight answer out of someone who is so deeply intertwined – at one point in time, we’re going to stop calling China a ‘Strategic Competitor’ and we’re going to start calling them what they are – the Enemy.

TRANSCRIPT 

Bass: It's of my opinion that and it, and it is kind of known in the institutional investment world second hand, that the Chinese government is one of Bridgewater's largest investors in the multiples of billions.

And so if you're charging a two percent fee on six billion dollars, the Chinese government's paying you $120 million just to turn the lights on that year. And so it's really difficult to get a straight answer out of someone that is so deeply intertwined. Look, at one point in time, we're going to stop calling China a strategic competitor and we're going to start calling them what they are.

They're the enemy, the enemy to the west- to our way of life, to our democracy. We've seen how they can snuff out democracy and human rights. They did it in Hong Kong. And so it's difficult to have this conversation with someone that has a China office that is allowed into PBOC meetings, that knows Chinese leadership and has China inked as one of their biggest investors.

How can you get a straight answer out of someone like that? So I just it's it's it's kind of a losing battle. You're never going to get truth out of them.

McCullough: Well, I mean, somebody who has principles, you know. I think that that at a bare minimum, what you just did was challenged him on on something that can be replayed and forwarded many times over. I challenge you, Ray Dalio.

I think you've been challenged this year. Why don't you step up and have a Real Conversation with Kyle Bass? I'll just sit in between the two of you, and I won't say anything at all. I mean, this is America. Like, why can't we have these conversations?

Bass: Agreed. Like give a straight answer. How much money has the Chinese government ever invested with you? How much do they have invested with you now? And how do you think personally, about the the squashing of human rights.

About the the ethnic and cultural genocide that's being committed against not only the Uighurs, not only the Mongolians, not all of them, that whether you're a Christian or a Jew, a Muslim, they are eradicating religion throughout China, because Xi is the religion. This is a very this we're going back to the Mao days, and he's the greatest genocidal killer in world's history of his own people. He takes Hitler and Stalin to task.

So why on earth are we funding the enemy? Why on earth are we getting in bed with the enemy? Is it only for money? Because if it is, that's a really ugly answer.

McCullough: Well, it's got to be part of the answer, and it needs to. I do think, again, like why can't this debate happen? Like, why can't Kyle Bass say what he just said and have somebody respond? I mean, there's there must be a response.

There has to be a response. I didn't I didn't write a book called Principles. You did, Ray. Like what are your principles on that?