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It’s Time to Build

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Re: It’s Time to Build

#211

Post by BurningFrog »

mikedilger wrote: post #192

I'm in favor of building things. But we build in response to demand. Once people need more of something (e.g. PPE), production ramps up. That effect has been in place and has worked quite well for thousands of years. It doesn't require any policy or government, or even a new social movement, it's just an emergent property of humans being free. You might argue that we could be smarter, and that we should build excess…

If you get rid of price gouging laws, private stockpiling and ramped up production both become worth doing.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#212

Post by Barrin92 »

oxymoron wrote: post #70

I'm in the process of reading _Why Nation Fails_. The central thesis is that the rich and poor countries are separated by inclusive vs extractive institutions. The extractive institutions are characterised by elites that attempt to defend their own wealth and status by maintaining the status quo and resisting the creative destruction that may threaten that position. It seems to resonate a bit here, when Marc speaks o…

The inclusive vs extractive institutions mentality makes sense but I think in the exact reverse way then you suggest.

It's precisely because of the Wests (and like Marc says it really is the West) failure to respond to this crisis. It's the excess of inclusivity that leads to short term, ballot box decision making in response to crises, and it is the short term, market logic that leads to loss of autonomy and neglect of long term goals that Marc talks about in the piece.

It's the politication of a healhcare / virological crisis that renders responses ineffective. When the American president gins up armed protesters during a pandemic that is the direct result of the inclusivity praised in the book. It's crisis response turned into a media spectacle and an election campaign.

Efffective resopnse to the crisis was visible in East Asian countries in which 'elites' can govern without constant interference, and that's not a glorification of China, but also of democratic countries like Taiwan, or so-so democratic countries like Singapore. What they all have in common is that decisions are made by leadership which can act with the necessary degree of autonomy.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#213

Post by khuey »

wbl wrote: post #74
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #63

> The problem is desire. We need to want these things. The problem is inertia. I agreed with most of the essay until I got to this point, at which point I rolled my eyes and briefly skimmed the rest. It's akin to people who say that the reason there are so many overweight people is that they lack willpower and motivation. Look at pictures from middle-America in the late 1940s - virtually everyone is thin, whereas tod…

Germany also faced the China shock and Japan. They didn't deindustrialize. Policy choices matter. Leadership matters. And the social factors that lead to devaluing competence and doing things matter.

The US didn't actually deindustrialize. US manufacturing by value added is larger than Germany and Japan put together. What we did do is get rid of a bunch of low value manufacturing. We're finding out the hard way that some of that low value manufacturing is actually useful though when you need a hundred million facemasks or ten million test swabs or whatever.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#214

Post by adventured »

neilparikh wrote: post #180
adventured wrote: post #125

> Why aren’t we building Elon Musk’s “alien dreadnoughts” — giant, gleaming, state of the art factories producing every conceivable kind of product, at the highest possible quality and lowest possible cost — all throughout our country? Because we have few of the industrial titans which are required to spearhead that and round up (or possess) the necessary capital. This sort of outcome does not magically self-assemble…

Minor nit: > Tax individual income at a higher rate. We should instead move the tax burden to land, since holding land is completely unproductive, and as opposed to working for an income, which is productive.

Holding land isn't unproductive. Existing is a pre-requisite to working for an income. Having shelter is a pre-requisite to existing. Shelter is extremely productive in fact and is necessary. That's like pretending that the factory roof isn't productive because all it does is provide shelter from the elements, so it's unnecessary. It can make a lot of sense to be a land owner, which is why people seek it out so strongly. Being able to say: this is mine, this is not yours, this is not the tribe's land, this is where I shall raise my family for the next 20 years, this is my private space to do as I please; that's extremely enticing (for most non-robots).

Eating food at home is productive. Raising children under a safe roof is productive. Learning in the comfort of your home is productive. Resting is productive. A good night's sleep is productive. And so on.

Further, factories exist on directly productive land. It often makes sense to own that land for all sorts of good reasons.

There's a fair argument for land tax adjustments, however it should go with increased income taxes on the top 1/3 regardless. Although it has to be very technical. Taxing people that own $10m houses in SF at the same elevated rate as a homeowner in a poor rural region would be economic assassination.

Of course this all needs to go hand-in-hand with demolishing our healthcare system and remaking it into a system with per capita costs 50% lower than they are today (which gets us close to the rest of the developed world). Doing that is how we finally get universal coverage, until then all properly universal systems will remain blindingly expensive. The economic benefit to the new system having a lower cost, universal healthcare system would be very far reaching.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#215

Post by nerfhammer »

mkl wrote: post #177
nerfhammer wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is remarkable how uniformly lethargic the entire political spectrum of the West has been with respect to this crisis until it was too late, while we're seemingly also universally unwilling to build housing or infrastructure across the West, while many Asian countries seem to actually be doing a much better job of all of these things. Instead we sit around and bicker about everything and wait.

Many Asian countries have recent experience with SARS, which led them to get their pandemic game together in advance of this one.

The West had 2+ months extra lead time during which it mostly didn't even try to do anything, across the political spectrum.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#216

Post by sanderjd »

kick wrote: post #159
cactus2093 wrote: post #78

Ok, assume I'm bought into this idea - where would I even begin? What are some companies working on these kind of fundamental building things problems? I know of the Boring Company, though haven't really heard anything from them since the flamethrowers a few years back. Sidewalk labs was doing some cool things in Toronto, but I think they've been running into big regulatory issues too and it one point it sounded like…

If you're actually set on the ideas laid out there, don't join a pre-existing company . Find a domain you're passionate about advancing, learn what you need to validate your hypothesis on improvement, then do what you need to do to advance it. If you don't have any passion about whatever you'd be doing, there's not really any point; the world doesn't advance because of people who don't care about what they're doing.…

This answer is a shame though. It would be more efficient for a lot of passionate people to join companies with an existing head start instead of starting a bunch of small efforts. More wood behind fewer arrows. A big part of this problem is that our society glorifies entrepreneurship more so than coming together in large cohesive groups to collectively do something big. For example, much of what this article discusses are political problems. Those problems need large political movements and institutions, not startups.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#217

Post by oxymoron »

KirinDave wrote: post #179
oxymoron wrote: post #70

I'm in the process of reading _Why Nation Fails_. The central thesis is that the rich and poor countries are separated by inclusive vs extractive institutions. The extractive institutions are characterised by elites that attempt to defend their own wealth and status by maintaining the status quo and resisting the creative destruction that may threaten that position. It seems to resonate a bit here, when Marc speaks o…

> It seems to resonate a bit here, when Marc speaks of things like regulatory capture. I heard a few years back that a US health insurance startup had to provide on the order of 6000 pages of documentation to be approved. No wonder that there hadn't been another provider for twenty years or so. It seems like some things are hard to build mostly because some people want it that way. Sure, but is this actually a high o…

We’re not necessarily talking about litigation here. Like another commenter pointed out, other legal system allows you to ask the courts for decisions without an opposing party.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#218

Post by pazimzadeh »

kortilla wrote: post #59
covidacct wrote: post #46

> I expect this essay to be the target of criticism. Here’s a modest proposal to my critics. Instead of attacking my ideas of what to build, conceive your own! What do you think we should build? There’s an excellent chance I’ll agree with you. What we need to build is the capacity to make investments in building backstops against low-prob, high-risk, collective risks. For almost all of those risks, the problem isn't…

That’s not an idea for building, that’s just an idea for the government getting more money. The government clearly doesn’t actually need the money when it cares to do something (based on the stimulus bill and the last decades of deficits).

The people should have a share of the proceeds if their tax dollars funded the work.

I don't think printing money is the answer, if I'm understanding you correctly.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#219

Post by csomar »

> Why do we not have these things? Medical equipment and financial conduits involve no rocket science whatsoever. At least therapies and vaccines are hard! Making masks and transferring money are not hard.

Maybe because investors think that every company will be a fintech company in the future? (https://a16z.com/2020/01/21/every-company-will-be-a-fintech-...).

> The problem is desire. We need to want these things.

> What’s the American dream? The opportunity to have a home of your own, and a family you can provide for.

The top tier in the U.S. is enjoying a rather good living. They have houses, cars, cheap imported stuff, groceries delivered, accountants and good health insurance. They will also travel to some place in Europe or Asia for a nice vacation to avoid the bad and expensive service in the U.S.

The bottom tier (which is getting larger) surely wants these things. But they are hopeless and both the top tier and the government has given up on them. On other countries (i.e.: Singapore) the government think about the larger population. So they build some public transportation. In the U.S., there is a strong police force, so these things are under control.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#220

Post by epicureanideal »

kitotik wrote: post #198

Somewhat related, but The New Deal basically invested 40% of the GDP into ‘building’ and paying Americans to do it. The US in 2020 just invested roughly 10% of the GDP to prop up some corporations, and more or less called it a day.

I think a New Deal style fund for infrastructure and human capital investment projects would be fantastic.

Some ideas...

Government will pay your former salary if you attend a Masters or PhD program and are succeeding there.

Delay recent bachelors grads entering the workforce by heavily subsidizing Masters degrees and PhDs in STEM. (Only others if we must, personally I think social sciences are currently acting as a destructive force in our society and are not behaving as academics but as ideological advocates.)

Massively increase STEM research and development funding.

Free technical and trade schools.

More ideas:

Subsidize universities putting their courses online for accredited degrees.

Subsidize private tutors for all subjects for K-12 kids, creating a large demand for private tutors. Require a bachelors degree that includes the subject to be tutored.

Provide funding to rebuild any manufacturing infrastructure that has been lost in the last 50 years, or just to build more. Especially designed in ways that manufacturing plants can operate safely for their workers in pandemic conditions.

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