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2025 Letter

danwang.co

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Re: 2025 Letter

#181

Post by ineedaj0b »

Cyph0n wrote: post #135
financetechbro wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The example I like to use to demonstrate how broken labor vs. service costs are in the UAE is to compare the price of a Big Mac meal to the price of a standard manual car wash (closer to detailing tbh). In the UAE, a Big Mac meal costs approximately 35 AED ($10). On the other hand, a manual car wash - approx. 1-2 hours of labor - can cost you around 20 AED. In other words, you could get almost two manual car washes f…

You can probably get that here in the US near a high school during team sports donation times.

Not a great car wash but probably $5-10 on the low end.

One should be uncomfortable the Arab States are doing so well. They have no democracy but seem to be thriving. Not expected post 9/11 imo.

Re: 2025 Letter

#182

Post by Barrin92 »

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.

>but not a single mention of a global system that is reaching a singularity in wealth concentration

that's not the case though and Dan is implicitly addressing this given that China is the subject of a decent chunk of the letter. Wealth in the global system is much more evenly distributed these days. We're much closer to a multi-polar world than we used to be in a long time. A lot of the emerging economies are building middle classes of serious size, it's a whole other world compared to 20 to 30 years ago. The developed world's been mostly stable inequality wise, the only outlier being tech oligarchs in the US but that's hardly a defining feature of the global system.

But globally we're likely living now in the first time in human history when the median human is going to see a drastic increase in their fortunes.

https://ourworldindata.org/the-history-of-global-economic-in...

Re: 2025 Letter

#183

Post by j7ake »

ceuk wrote: post #70

As a Brit, I struggled to get much interesting out of this considering how many times he mentions "Europe" (in that condescendingly general way that only US folks seem to manage). He talks about "European" prospects and his trip to Denmark but then cites London as a representative example? This almost broke my brain it felt so incoherent. Never mind that (despite my personal wishes) we're not even part of the EU (whi…

I found it the right granularity. He talks about USA, China, and Europe: within each have considerable diversity in culture, history, and identity.

He mentions Europe without more nuance for the same reason he mentions China without more nuance: he’s talking big picture.

Re: 2025 Letter

#184

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

nradov wrote: post #71
nullorempty wrote: post #35

>Lack of action due to the expectation of long timelines is one of the sins of the lawyerly society. >But American problems seem more fixable to me than Chinese problems. China has stayed on trajectory of improving life of its society for a long time. USA has been in decline all that time and decent accelerated after Cold War with Russia ended. All of China's growth comes from its internal resource. Growth in the USA…

China has very limited internal natural resources. Much of their growth has been enabled by massive imports of raw materials including soybeans, fertilizer, fossil fuels, iron ore, copper ore, etc. Their prosperity and even their survival is heavily dependent on the post-WWII global free trade system. Ironically, China's expansionist foreign policy is one of several factors now causing that system to fray. In another…

> China has very limited internal natural resources.

this kinda ignores the whole "Asia unification" that is happening right about now

Russia created connection from Iran to North Korea. SCO coordinates economy of the internalities. India-Russia-China are cooperating in BRICS. China stabilized Afghanistan and builds trade routes in the Pakistan. Even US' efforts of supporting Turkey-centered Pan-Turk organizations in the Middle Asia turn un-american as Israel-Turkey tensions are on the rise

China may have resources limited. Whole Asia tho? Don't really think so

Re: 2025 Letter

#185

Post by gen220 »

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.

Sometimes I wonder if our system evolved the discipline of economics as an incredibly expensive intellectual distraction to pacify the petit bourgeois.

We can read Dan Wang and Tyler Cowen and whoever else to educate ourselves on the idea that {interests aligned with the further concentration of capital} are the real reason why we the people of the middle class can’t afford to buy a home, and actually you should be grateful you have antibiotics and shelf-stable, flavorless tomatoes and Instagram Reels. Your forebears were not so lucky!

Re: 2025 Letter

#186

Post by fastball »

NooneAtAll3 wrote: post #176
fastball wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging you based on the work you've done seems... very meritocratic to me?

meritocratic means "judgement on merit (aka skill)" and the story told is "no judgement on skill, only on being in-group. It's just the in-group is caused by previous employment and not birth-right/nationality/etc"

Previous employment isn't an "in-group", it's an endorsement of your skill (assuming your references pass muster).

Re: 2025 Letter

#187

Post by SamDc73 »

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 has a lower median wage than either London or Mississippi, but people don't think of it as economically broken.

Dubai isn’t sold as a place to belong long-term. Most people move there knowing it’s temporary. The Bay Area is drifting in the same direction too with the increased cost of living around here. (but the same could be said about most big cities, maybe?)

Re: 2025 Letter

#188

Post by jjcc »

NooneAtAll3 wrote: post #160

> For tragedies too widely experienced in modern times to be censored — the Cultural Revolution, the one-child policy, Zero Covid ... this part has me confused can someone explain to me why Zero Covid - the most successful program that minimized Covid deaths - is a tragedy? imo it was better than whatever clusterfuck was happening pretty much everywhere else

There are two parts of the Zero Covid policy which actually is a continuous one :

1.At the beginning of the pandemic. It was successful in terms of reducing the death count of population but at the cost of freedom that also widely criticized in Western countries.

2.Because of the early success, the government continued the policy even it was not necessary till close to the end of the Covid. This is one of the biggest policy failure in recent Chinese history. It caused resentment and was exploited by anti-government parties, even partially caused the illegal emigrant wave to the States through south border during 2023, which was reported on mainstream media. Finally it ended due to protests.

Dan Wang's observation about China in his book is mostly accurate, except this part that he has some twisted view on CPP, which is not his fault but CPP's fault.

Re: 2025 Letter

#189

Post by dworks »

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…

Whenever the topic of "China Speed" comes up, I feel the need to add that speed is not a strategy but an outcome of the previous four decades of relentless hard work: https://dilemmaworks.com/on-china-speed

Re: 2025 Letter

#190

Post by jjcc »

whoevercares wrote: post #177
NooneAtAll3 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

again, how is it a disaster if nobody else managed to do better? and it's kinda stupid to say "even deaths" on the background of Italy, India and even million dead in the US

many people especially those with chronic illnesses died because Zero-COVID blocked access to basic medical care and food. Those deaths were policy-driven and avoidable.

You watch too much anti government media and mixed narratives with solid facts. You need to read both sides of stories
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