America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by s1artibartfast » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 9:29 PM UTC

MichaelZuo wrote: post #22

s1artibartfast wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investment follows returns, or at least the speculative possibility of returns. Unfortunately, semiconductors, automation and manufacturing tech doesn't have the same upside capability. If you want 10-100X returns, you look elsewhere.

Well the return on investment is in fact greater than it appears for critical industries. It’s just that the upside is not entirely captured in dollars or RMB, or any other monetary currency for that matter. So when people, who have been habituated to looking at numbers denominated in dollars, think about it they effectively have blinders on.

Fair point. I explained why financial investors are not interested in those technologies.

The advantage of financial returns is that they are measurable and currency broadly accepted.

People have subjective opinions on what constitutes non-financial returns and you can't buy a house with happiness.

If the proposal is that more people should invest time in non-monetary pursuits, then what alternative incentive motivate them. Presumably people working in ad-tech could leave retrain for another career if they wanted.

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

#72

Post by ALittleLight » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

WillPostForFood wrote: post #54

Kranar wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not believe this to be true, but after researching it turns out that your figure is accurate for 2016 and that it's likely only gotten worse since then. Page 19 of this document produced by the NBER states that indeed, the wealthiest 10% own 84% of all publicly traded stocks, mutual funds, trusts, or various pension account assets: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w24085/w240... It has many othe…

67.4% of Americans own a home. You don't need to be in the be in the top 10% to benefit. https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf

That's not exactly what "home ownership rate" means. Home ownership rate is the proportion of occupied homes which are owned by their occupants. If your town has one hundred occupied homes, then 67 of those occupied homes would be owned (or being paid for on mortgagee) by the people living inside.

Adult children living at home, adults living in homes with roommates, people underwater on their mortgage, etc would all count towards a higher home ownership rate.

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

#73

Post by gregkerzhner » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

iphorde wrote: post #60

adamnemecek wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The elites have been in power since idk when.

Right, the one guy trying to knock it all down, you decide to vote out of office, because the Elites said he was racist. Bravo! Typical stupid Americans doing exactlt what the Elites want.

I would say that Trump's ability to convince people he is knocking down the elites, and instead using the office to benefit both his elite self and his elite inner circle is his greatest hustle, but actually, its quiet an ordinary move that elites have been pulling since the start of time.

I feel like to really knock down the elites, you need someone who is not elite. However, anyone who rises to this kind of status by definition becomes elite even if they weren't before, so it's kind of a self fulfilling failure. True revolution can probably only come from many non elite people seeking the same goal. This kind of revolution would most likely be squashed by someone elite.

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

#74

Post by krapp » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

iphorde wrote: post #60

adamnemecek wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The elites have been in power since idk when.

Right, the one guy trying to knock it all down, you decide to vote out of office, because the Elites said he was racist. Bravo! Typical stupid Americans doing exactlt what the Elites want.

Right... because Trump was the one billionaire who was actually not an elite, and not on the side of the elites, and really for real interested in destroying the elite power structure. The guy who wouldn't even pay his own employees or contractors was a hero of the common man. The guy just caught on tape trying to shake down Georgia's Secretary of State to "find" votes ... he's the only honest man in a den of vipers.

I assume you're trolling but the sad thing is, it's impossible to tell anymore.

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

#75

Post by blackrock » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

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.

SpaceX rockets are still made in the US. Go work for them.

Seriously, you do not want to be assembling iPhones. Build a robot to do that tedious work instead.

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

#76

Post by Tycho » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

blululu wrote: post #37

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 ridiculo…

But without the need for cheap labour, it becomes much easier for governments to impose tariffs on imports (or provide subsidiaries, etc), to even the scales, no?

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

#77

Post by deeeeplearning » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 9:31 PM UTC

iphorde wrote: post #60

adamnemecek wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The elites have been in power since idk when.

Right, the one guy trying to knock it all down, you decide to vote out of office, because the Elites said he was racist. Bravo! Typical stupid Americans doing exactlt what the Elites want.

Can you a name a single member of his cabinet that isn't in fact one of these "Elites"? It's full of Harvard MBAs, Wall Street bankers and Swamp Creatures. You are delusional.

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

#78

Post by l3v3ll » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

WillPostForFood wrote: post #54

Kranar wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not believe this to be true, but after researching it turns out that your figure is accurate for 2016 and that it's likely only gotten worse since then. Page 19 of this document produced by the NBER states that indeed, the wealthiest 10% own 84% of all publicly traded stocks, mutual funds, trusts, or various pension account assets: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w24085/w240... It has many othe…

67.4% of Americans own a home. You don't need to be in the be in the top 10% to benefit. https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf

I wouldn’t call ownership a benefit for the 71% of home owners with a mortgage.

> Zillow’s Negative Equity 2012 Q3 data; we find 29% (20.6 million) of homeowners own their home outright

https://www.zillow.com/research/free-and-clear-american-mort...

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

#79

Post by adventured » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

earthboundkid wrote: post #49

liminal wrote: post #13

"Made in America" is a nice slogan, but "Not Made by an Enemy" would be more apt. Made in an Ally would be fine too (Canada, Mexico, Western Europe...)

I felt like we should have done that with Saudi oil after 9/11. Why did we let them have no consequences when their policies were most directly responsible for it, out of all countries in the world? We should have put a tariff on their oil and used Canadian crude until they stopped promoting extreme Wahabiism.

Because it would have crashed the US economy. The US was highly dependent on Saudi oil back then, and Canada could not have come close to filling that gap (their output was 2m barrels per day circa 1999/2000, the US needed both all of that supply and OPEC supply).

Over time the US has removed its dependency on Saudi oil, courtesy of fracking. OPEC oil is no longer necessary for the US economy.

The most interesting thing about Saudi Arabia going forward is that the US will eventually benefit from destroy them as China is the primary beneficiary of Saudi oil (which will also make US oil that much more valuable, we'll send it to Saudi's #2 and #3 customers, Japan & South Korea). I'd expect the hawks in DC to eventually consider turning Saudi Arabia into another Syria.

The second most interesting thing about Saudi Arabia, is their population to barrels of production ratio. It keeps plunging as the Saudi population soars and oil production can't keep up. A revolution is inevitable; that ratio plunging represents a ticking timebomb of the non-elite population's future wealth rapidly declining (while they perpetually fail to develop an alternative economy).

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

#80

Post by jonkho » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #26

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.

I won't dispute that retirement portfolios and people with real estate have done quite well. But I personally think that many of these people are only doing well on-paper. This is only speculation, and you may rightfully call me a doomer, but I feel like most of this wealth is virtual.

Hard assets such as real estate and buildings are hardly considered virtual. More real than printed up dollars I’d say.