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2025 Letter

danwang.co

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Re: 2025 Letter

#121

Post by jemmyw »

dzonga wrote: post #49

London has the house prices of California and the income levels of Mississippi. the UK is seriously broken, I always reflect on the energy generation statistics of the UK per capita while in the US you see automated car washes, in the uk most car washes are Albanians n other immigrants etc

> while in the US you see automated car washes, in the uk most car washes are Albanians n other immigrants etc

Er what? I moved away from the UK in 2007 but even then the only place I or my parents washed a car was the ubiquitous petrol station automated car wash.

Re: 2025 Letter

#122

Post by drcongo »

jemmyw wrote: post #121
dzonga wrote: post #49

London has the house prices of California and the income levels of Mississippi. the UK is seriously broken, I always reflect on the energy generation statistics of the UK per capita while in the US you see automated car washes, in the uk most car washes are Albanians n other immigrants etc

> while in the US you see automated car washes, in the uk most car washes are Albanians n other immigrants etc Er what? I moved away from the UK in 2007 but even then the only place I or my parents washed a car was the ubiquitous petrol station automated car wash.

I can only think of one automated wash in my UK town, and well over 10 "Albanian" hand washes. Personally I go to the Albanians every time - they take pride in what they're doing, handle the vehicle with care and do a far, far better job than an auto wash.

Re: 2025 Letter

#123

Post by kortilla »

verbify wrote: post #96
dzonga wrote: post #49

London has the house prices of California and the income levels of Mississippi. the UK is seriously broken, I always reflect on the energy generation statistics of the UK per capita while in the US you see automated car washes, in the uk most car washes are Albanians n other immigrants etc

I spot checked some of this and from what I can find, the median salary in London is about $12k more than Mississippi, and the median house price in London is about $100k less than California. Bear in mind that obviously the mean salary in London is going to be far higher than the median (the finance industry will skew it), while I'm not sure that's as extreme as Mississippi. Additionally median salaries reflect a lo…

If this was meant to be a rebuttal, it wasn’t.

Compare the housing costs of London to the housing costs of San Francisco and then swap out those Bay Area salaries with your “slightly above Mississippi” wages and you’ll see why London looks so broken to people used to LA/SF/NY.

Re: 2025 Letter

#124

Post by DustinEchoes »

152334H wrote: post #5

> Beijing has been preparing for Cold War without eagerness for waging it, while the US wants to wage a Cold War without preparing for it. great line

Too bad it’s not true. China has wanted this for a long long time. They view their relative weakness vs the West as humiliating and temporary, and want to correct that by any means available.

Re: 2025 Letter

#125

Post by socalgal2 »

bix6 wrote: post #55
dzonga wrote: post #49

London has the house prices of California and the income levels of Mississippi. the UK is seriously broken, I always reflect on the energy generation statistics of the UK per capita while in the US you see automated car washes, in the uk most car washes are Albanians n other immigrants etc

House prices are out of wack anywhere desirable because the local income is irrelevant when non-locals are allowed to scoop up the local supply.

This is a common opinion that never actually matches the facts.

The issue is all the things blocking supply. As long as supply is blocked, prices will go up, Period

Re: 2025 Letter

#126

Post by Uhhrrr »

siavosh wrote: post #76

I read the whole post. Really revealing - so much analysis but not a single mention of a global system that is reaching a singularity in wealth concentration, and maybe how that might be an important dimension to reflect on. Its like using so many words to deeply analyze the speed differentials in a car race, but not looking up to see that all the drivers are racing towards a brick wall.

A wealth singularity is not obvious at all to me, perhaps you should write an essay about it.

Re: 2025 Letter

#127

Post by ralph84 »

The Europe of today is the result of 400 years of brain drain. It would take generations to reverse the effects, if anyone even wanted to.

Re: 2025 Letter

#128

Post by riku_iki »

ksec wrote: post #58

In the thread "Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges" [1], I wrote about China'a hardware capability now going far beyond what US can imagine. In Dan's article; >A rule of thumb is that it takes five years from an American, German, or Japanese automaker to dream up a new car design and launch that model on the roads; in China, it’s closer to 18 months. Not only is China 3 - 5 times faster in terms of prod…

that's obvious that some country with 1.5B working people will have edge in some niches, and will demonstrate tremendous growth from the bottom where they were 20 years ago.

But for global picture, if we are comparing Western World: US+Canada+EU vs China in technological domination, the picture is likely not super-clear and more complex analysis is required. Even if we consider manufacturing output, where China is supposedly global leader, we see it is 5.5T for Western world vs 4.6T for China (according to my brief google searching).

Re: 2025 Letter

#129

Post by financetechbro »

verbify wrote: post #96
dzonga wrote: post #49

London has the house prices of California and the income levels of Mississippi. the UK is seriously broken, I always reflect on the energy generation statistics of the UK per capita while in the US you see automated car washes, in the uk most car washes are Albanians n other immigrants etc

I spot checked some of this and from what I can find, the median salary in London is about $12k more than Mississippi, and the median house price in London is about $100k less than California. Bear in mind that obviously the mean salary in London is going to be far higher than the median (the finance industry will skew it), while I'm not sure that's as extreme as Mississippi. Additionally median salaries reflect a lo…

Dubai is absolutely economically broken lol. The city was built on cheap foreign slave labor. And the luxurious amenities of the city are only for the wealthy royal and foreigners. Their main export besides oil is the illusion of a thriving metropolis

Re: 2025 Letter

#130

Post by macintux »

brokencode wrote: post #85
typeofhuman wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly _how_ should society deal with it, and exactly _when_ should society deal with it?

Opinions vary. There are those who think massive concentration of wealth is not a problem at all and is just a product of healthy capitalism. Tax is theft, and individual property rights are above all else. There are others who want some kind of communist revolution, where the entire structure of society and property ownership is changed. The workers should benefit from their work as much as the managers. Personally,…

> trust busting, the New Deal, and the Great Society.

I don't know what sea change it would take for today's GOP to even tepidly support any of these.

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