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America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

nytimes.com

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Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#31

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

fermienrico wrote: post #2

I wish Silicon Valley wasn’t just about software, particularly adtech. Some of the most brilliant minds are working on optimizing click ratios. There is some hardware tech (Apple, nVidia, Intel, Tesla), but vast majority of the engineers are working on cushy jobs paying $400k to serve ads. SV should be leading investments in Semiconductors, automation and manufacturing tech. It doesn’t even live up to its name. If yo…

Hardware manufacturers have a ton of additional labor needed to produce things. The engineers can't all be paid 200k+ or they'll bleed the company dry. The highest margins are realized in markets with the lowest overhead. That's where everybody shifted to.

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#32

Post by godelski »

haram_masala wrote: post #16
fermienrico wrote: post #2

I wish Silicon Valley wasn’t just about software, particularly adtech. Some of the most brilliant minds are working on optimizing click ratios. There is some hardware tech (Apple, nVidia, Intel, Tesla), but vast majority of the engineers are working on cushy jobs paying $400k to serve ads. SV should be leading investments in Semiconductors, automation and manufacturing tech. It doesn’t even live up to its name. If yo…

Let’s not ignore biotech. It’s experiencing a tremendous boom in SV (and in the Berkeley-Emeryville area). It gets way less attention than Tesla and Facebook, for some reason... probably because its products and innovations are much harder to explain to the public. (Though that may be an overly cynical answer with regards to the media.)

I thought these technologies are still early and in the research phase. That would make sense for them to operate in stealth mode. Tesla sells vehicles to the public (and let's be real, Elon is a big PR department). Are these companies producing useful products currently? It seems that you're implying that they are and that we (me) aren't aware of them, so I'm curious if you could expand on this and enlighten us. I do know investors are dumping a ton of money into bio-tech, just not aware of products that are being sold.

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#33

Post by jefurii »

nikanj wrote: post #15
recursivedoubts wrote: post #6

We were sold down the river by our own elites, particularly on Wall Street and with the full complicity of the Economics Departments of the west. "Comparative Advantage", something something about corn and wool, meanwhile the whole supply chain was moved to China, our middle class was decimated and we went into tremendous amounts of debt to pretend everything was fine... Left, right... whatever. The elites have faile…

The stock market and housing prices are higher than ever, so a large part of the population is doing good. Not just the elites have benefited from the spoils, people with retirement portfolios and paid-off houses are sitting nice and flush.

> people with retirement portfolios and paid-off houses

That's definitely not everyone.

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#34

Post by boringg »

tomjen3 wrote: post #23
fermienrico wrote: post #2

I wish Silicon Valley wasn’t just about software, particularly adtech. Some of the most brilliant minds are working on optimizing click ratios. There is some hardware tech (Apple, nVidia, Intel, Tesla), but vast majority of the engineers are working on cushy jobs paying $400k to serve ads. SV should be leading investments in Semiconductors, automation and manufacturing tech. It doesn’t even live up to its name. If yo…

It took 2 days for the Moderna vaccine to be created, and it still hasn't been approved in the EU. We could be doing amazing things in bio with mRNA, Crisper and deep learning but the entire thing is so wrapped up in regulation in order to protect the incumbents that it is not a space worth working in.

2 days to determine what the Moderna vaccine should be from a computer. Building the vaccine, bio-reacting it to scale and testing across appropriate populations took a considerable amount of time. Health regulations are in place for a reason, to protect the public not to protect incumbents. Sometimes I am sure it does, other times it makes sure poor products don't go into the public market.

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#35

Post by nicoburns »

nikanj wrote: post #15
recursivedoubts wrote: post #6

We were sold down the river by our own elites, particularly on Wall Street and with the full complicity of the Economics Departments of the west. "Comparative Advantage", something something about corn and wool, meanwhile the whole supply chain was moved to China, our middle class was decimated and we went into tremendous amounts of debt to pretend everything was fine... Left, right... whatever. The elites have faile…

The stock market and housing prices are higher than ever, so a large part of the population is doing good. Not just the elites have benefited from the spoils, people with retirement portfolios and paid-off houses are sitting nice and flush.

So there's also a generational divide. This isn't a good thing.

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#36

Post by xyzzyz »

habosa wrote: post #25
nikanj wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stock market and housing prices are higher than ever, so a large part of the population is doing good. Not just the elites have benefited from the spoils, people with retirement portfolios and paid-off houses are sitting nice and flush.

84% of wealth in the stock market is in the hands of the top 10% Not sure about housing.

Can you provide source for these numbers?

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#37

Post by blululu »

Tycho wrote: post #4

At a certain point, does automation/robotics swing the manufacturing base back towards the west?

It depends, but probably not. The main benefit would be transportation/logistics, but intercontinental freight shipping is pretty cheap and fast (especially China -> USA). Assuming equivalent machine costs (Chinese firms can potentially get government backed deals from to local & international vendors), equivalent financing (subsidized loans are common in China), equivalent operating costs (rent in the US is ridiculously expensive), equivalent labor costs (you still need skilled technicians to operate, maintain & repair the machines, and China has a much larger pool of labor), and equivalent access to input materials (the supply chain is mostly in China/East Asia, so it is often cheaper and faster to source components in Asia than in North America), then yes it would make sense from a cost perspective to reshore operations to the USA. Given that none of these conditions are met, and given that American firms are ideologically committed to their balance sheet it seems unlikely that there is much will to make any changes here.

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#38

Post by l3v3ll »

habosa wrote: post #25
nikanj wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stock market and housing prices are higher than ever, so a large part of the population is doing good. Not just the elites have benefited from the spoils, people with retirement portfolios and paid-off houses are sitting nice and flush.

84% of wealth in the stock market is in the hands of the top 10% Not sure about housing.

I was about to comment the same. The parent saying “not just the elites have benefited” is ignorant.

https://money.com/stock-ownership-10-percent-richest/

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#39

Post by nicoburns »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #31
fermienrico wrote: post #2

I wish Silicon Valley wasn’t just about software, particularly adtech. Some of the most brilliant minds are working on optimizing click ratios. There is some hardware tech (Apple, nVidia, Intel, Tesla), but vast majority of the engineers are working on cushy jobs paying $400k to serve ads. SV should be leading investments in Semiconductors, automation and manufacturing tech. It doesn’t even live up to its name. If yo…

Hardware manufacturers have a ton of additional labor needed to produce things. The engineers can't all be paid 200k+ or they'll bleed the company dry. The highest margins are realized in markets with the lowest overhead. That's where everybody shifted to.

I share the lament of the GP comment. It seems like it would better if there was hardware engineering and engineers weren't paid 200k+. That the market has shifted seems like a failure of the economic system.

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#40

Post by jfim »

nikanj wrote: post #18
fermienrico wrote: post #2

I wish Silicon Valley wasn’t just about software, particularly adtech. Some of the most brilliant minds are working on optimizing click ratios. There is some hardware tech (Apple, nVidia, Intel, Tesla), but vast majority of the engineers are working on cushy jobs paying $400k to serve ads. SV should be leading investments in Semiconductors, automation and manufacturing tech. It doesn’t even live up to its name. If yo…

Apple: Made by Foxconn, not in the US. nVidia: Made by TSMC, not in the US. Intel and Tesla are made in the US afaik, but even the hardware startups we do have still tend to manufacture abroad.

How much of the electronics in Teslas are made in the USA though?
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