Trade War Has Damaged U.S. Chip Industry • Hacker News Board

Re: Trade War Has Damaged U.S. Chip Industry

#161

Post by tynpeddler » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 3:54 PM UTC

sangnoir wrote: post #84

tekkk wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well sure American and other companies have tried to gain market share in China, but China has effectively stifled a lot of foreign competitors from entering. So it's not very symmetric free trade with China, therefore giving some justification for this silly trade war. It's understandable though from China's perspective, that they aren't willing to give up important strategic sectors like social media or internet se…

> Well sure American and other companies have tried to gain market share in China, but China has effectively stifled a lot of foreign competitors from entering. "National Interest" is the key phrase, and the US has similar protective barriers in key industries. Food security is one such area that the US protects, and to that end, it provides a lot of agricultural subsidies preventing a lot of foreign farmers from ent…

As always, context matters. The shear scope and scale of China's protectionism, coupled with their flagrant disregard of international norms and aggressive, state sponsored campaign of industrial espionage is simply breathtaking. China has been waging a trade war for 20 years, it's time for everyone else to respond.

Re: Trade War Has Damaged U.S. Chip Industry

#162

Post by HillaryBriss » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 3:55 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #133

danharaj wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Call a spade a spade. It's a concentration camp because it's a camp where undesirable people are concentrated . The fact that you think it's justified to employ concentration camps is a separate argument.

"Concentration camp" has a specific connotation. Calling this a concentration camp is like calling a terminal cancer ward a "death camp" because people go there to die. Fault Trump with everything that's his fault, but suggesting that this is a precursor to mass graves and genocide is just hyperbole.

> "Concentration camp" has a specific connotation.

In my personal experience, "concentration camp" has been applied specifically to mean the camps operated by the German government in the 1930's and 40's, camps which intentionally tortured and murdered millions of innocent Jews, and certain other "undesirables" and enemies of the Nazi regime.

When I hear that term, I personally think of emaciated prisoners wearing striped uniforms, packed into cramped wooden shelves. I think of hopeless people peering out from behind barbed wire fences suffering under a regime of forced labor and starvation. I think of horrific death chambers filled with poison gas and choking, dying human beings and towering piles of dead bodies.

I personally can't get those images out of my head when I hear the term "concentration camp" and I would guess most other people in the US conjure up the same images specifically tied to Nazi Germany when they hear that term.

But NPR has an interesting article about the meaning and historical usage of "concentration camp." The subject arose when someone used the term to describe the sites where Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated during WWII.

https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2012/02/10/1466917...

Re: Trade War Has Damaged U.S. Chip Industry

#163

Post by LMYahooTFY » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 3:57 PM UTC

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #116

ThomPete wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you mean. The situation defacto is that china and the chinese has free access to our markets while we don't have free access to theirs. The situation is that defacto china is benefitting from their developing nation status outcompeting western companies just on shipping prices. Very few US products enter the chinese market plus those who do are forced to give over their IP.

American companies have access to the Chinese market. If you go to any major Chinese city, that will be obvious to you pretty quickly. American brands are everywhere. US companies do very well for themselves in the Chinese market. The reason for the trade imbalance is not Chinese protectionism, but rather structural issues in the United States and the Dollar's role as global reserve currency.

> American brands are everywhere.

Some American brands are everywhere....

Obviously some have been heavily restricted, most prominently internet media companies.

Re: Trade War Has Damaged U.S. Chip Industry

#164

Post by marcosdumay » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 4:04 PM UTC

jjoonathan wrote: post #59

marcosdumay wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We allowed China access to our markets, they didnt return the gesture. How is that so? The US people brought all those products in exchange of what exactly?

Paying Oracle to use their database software makes Oracle stronger. Paying China to use their manufacturing makes China stronger. That's the meta-game. China strongly discouraged their citizens and companies from buying US products and making the US stronger, but the US encouraged their citizens to buy from China, making China stronger. This worked out well for China.

Commerce is a two way game. Paying China to use their manufacturing makes the US stronger too.

Re: Trade War Has Damaged U.S. Chip Industry

#165

Post by LMYahooTFY » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 4:06 PM UTC

adinobro wrote: post #126

gambiting wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'm curious what might happen if China gets to a level where they have the best tech, but are not interested in sharing it.

You don't have to wonder. It has already happened. They are currently the best at refining rare earth metals and they are not interested in sharing it. Have a look at the patent graph: https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2019/3/21/v...

That is not "the best tech", that's the best materials to make tech.

Re: Trade War Has Damaged U.S. Chip Industry

#166

Post by ilikehurdles » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #87

ohlookabird wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not so sure about that. These are graphs for steel production in the US: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/steel-production Looking at 5 years or more there doesn't seem to be such big increase in steel production. And coal is in decline: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/industrial-produc... Also I read quite a few articles over the last year about closing down of coal mines, mainly in PA and…

The US steel industry is in better economic shape now than it has been in decades. Nucor is nearly worth more than ArcelorMittal and earned more last quarter than ArcelorMittal did. Unthinkable just a few years ago. Nucor's sales jumped from $16b to $25b in two years up through fiscal 2018. Net income jumped from $80m in 2015, to $2.3 billion in 2018 (operating income went from $654m to $3.3b). US Steel Corporation s…

>Nucor is nearly worth more than ArcelorMittal.

No, it isn't. One share of Nucor costs more than one share of MT. This comparison isn't even in the ballpark of the correct way to compare two companies' worths. Nucor has 1/4th of the revenue and 1/5th of the production.

> We can either have a healthy, strong domestic steel industry, or we can do nothing and watch China put it into the ground through dumping and massive state subsidies

Steel is an intermediate product. No one buys steel as the final product. Changes in price of steel ripple across other industries for this reason. Steel makes up 2% of world trade and steel manufacturers provide the US with 81000 jobs, while our total manufacturers employ 12 million. On the chip manufacturing side, Intel alone employees over 100 thousand. It's more important to consider what the effects of tarriffs are on other parts of the economy than jerking around a little bit of revenue or job growth in a small specific US industry.

Also, China produces 10x more steel than the US, and is the largest consumer of steel. It makes sense - they're building out infrastructure at a really fast pace.

How many other industries will be hurt in exchange for a "healthy, strong" (whatever hard numbers, if any, those words are actually meant to convey) domestic steel industry? That is all that matters.

Re: Trade War Has Damaged U.S. Chip Industry

#167

Post by fatbird » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 4:16 PM UTC

danaris wrote: post #160

fatbird wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most here at HN think of the left as wanting more censorship in order to avoid hurtful speech, but that's not generally how the left thinks of it. On the left, the view is that the practice of maximizing freedom of speech by tolerating extreme speech, has the effect of reducing the freedom of expression of the non-extreme, non-powerful constituencies. In other words, protecting freedom of expression by politely toler…

This is exactly correct, but unfortunately, because your first sentence is true, you're getting significantly downvoted. It is an example of the paradox of tolerance: If a group believes in tolerance, absolutely, to the point that they tolerate intolerance , then over time, those who are intolerant will tend to gain power within the group and the tolerance will be eroded (except, of course, the tolerance of those int…

The argument I made was originally formulated by Andrea Dworkin, testifying to Congress about pornography, and formulating it that way--what metric are you measuring freedom by--has done a lot to expand my thinking.

Another is the saying "tolerance isn't a virtue, it's a peace treaty", which I think really cuts through the apparent dilemma you highlight.

Re: Trade War Has Damaged U.S. Chip Industry

#168

Post by root_axis » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 4:24 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #100

olefoo wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is balanced by the strictly superior American rule of law The rule of law is looking pretty tattered and worn in the US of A right now. What with the President committing obstruction of justice in plain view and his AG declaring that a sitting President may not be indicted for any crime. Not to mention the grotesque violations of human rights that are happening at the network of concentration camps the current…

The US is not running a network of concentration camps. A hundred thousand illegal immigrants per month are being caught crossing into the US through the southern border. No other liberal democracy - from Canada to Finland to Japan to Australia - would tolerate such a flood of illegal immigration. Not even remotely close. Canada freaks out when a couple thousand illegal immigrants cross into its territory from the US…

Separating kids from their parents and allowing them to die in cages is not necessary no matter one' stance on immigration.

Re: Trade War Has Damaged U.S. Chip Industry

#169

Post by fspeech » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 4:29 PM UTC

wbl wrote: post #68

tekkk wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well sure American and other companies have tried to gain market share in China, but China has effectively stifled a lot of foreign competitors from entering. So it's not very symmetric free trade with China, therefore giving some justification for this silly trade war. It's understandable though from China's perspective, that they aren't willing to give up important strategic sectors like social media or internet se…

And the right way to out pressure on China would be to get a bunch of countries to update WTO and GATT to include these kinds of services. Instead Trump went it alone after alienating everyone else. How is that supposed to work?

The US would never allow Chinese companies to operate similar services in the US to any scale for national security reasons. So it is better to keep these issues as talking points than actually resolving them.

Re: Trade War Has Damaged U.S. Chip Industry

#170

Post by cinquemb » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 4:30 PM UTC

benj111 wrote: post #130

cinquemb wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Creative destruction is both a weakness and a strength though. I agree with this statement. >You seem to be complaining about essential features of capitalism, on one level you may be correct, just like observing that eating too much pizza will make you fat, but just like the fat, it's an inherent 'feature' that you can't really fix. I may seem that way, but I think this situation does provide benefits for those who…

"I don't think what we call capitalism as it exists today (on the national/international) level is an upper bound optimal level of resource allocation, just the local maxima/cleanest dirty shirt/etc" Maybe? Probably. I don't see how you could 'fix' it though. Sure you could find a better local maxima. As i say, it seems to me to be an inherent feature.

Yeah, well I guess in my mind the thing to be fixed would be resource allocation, not what people may consider to be capitalism today (the present day king-of-the-kill towards those ends). Will some of the (social/political/economic) infrasurture of present day capitalism still exist? Probably, just as some religious institutions from thousands years past still exist today, but the role it plays towards some ends that drive society forward would be made obsolete. But in saying that, these things change on time frames beyond our own lives, with few having enough foresight to see what may be up ahead based on some kind of understanding of where we're going now, and fewer acting as agents of such change.