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Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

reuters.com

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Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#381

Post by eru »

vanviegen wrote: post #228
vkou wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But why is this bad policy? That's not the right question to ask. The right question to ask is 'Who is this bad for?' The Jones act, for instance, is good for US shipworkers, and for enforcement of US shipping laws, but moderately bad for Hawai'i, and really, really bad for Puerto Rico. Who do you care more about? Preserving the comfort of the continental American middle class employed in maritime transportation, o…

Left unchecked, globalization will likely lead to just a single huge shipworking company, or maybe two or three. Does that benefit shipworkers in either the US or Puerto Rico?

What makes you think so?

There's plenty of approximately unchecked sectors of the economy. Eg software or computer hardware.

There's plenty of companies in these sectors.

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#382

Post by eru »

vkou wrote: post #213
vanviegen wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good info. But why is this bad policy? Is globalization really just better? Because "the consumer" (whom is usually also an employee/business owner and a citizen) may be able to buy stuff for a bit less?

> But why is this bad policy? That's not the right question to ask. The right question to ask is 'Who is this bad for?' The Jones act, for instance, is good for US shipworkers, and for enforcement of US shipping laws, but moderately bad for Hawai'i, and really, really bad for Puerto Rico. Who do you care more about? Preserving the comfort of the continental American middle class employed in maritime transportation, o…

> The Jones act, for instance, is good for US shipworkers, and for enforcement of US shipping laws, but moderately bad for Hawai'i, and really, really bad for Puerto Rico.

Alas, the Jones Act isn't actually good for US shipworkers in general. The Jones Act makes it so that there are nearly no US shipworkers in the first place.

(However, the few US shipworkers that do exist are to a certain extent protected by the Jones act.)

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#383

Post by eru »

car_analogy wrote: post #59
mym1990 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We saved some money" is how economics works in price competitive markets. This is a result of many players doing what keeps each one competitive, but without collaborating on what the large scale effects are down the road.

Until running into an agent that does exhibit collaboration on large-scale, long-term effects, that uses these economic principles against countries foolish enough to hold on to them.

Who are you talking about? So far the free world has trumped everything and keeps going from strength to strength.

Russia has a tiny and impoverished economy.

China is still rather poor. (And only started to grow richer when they reformed in the direction of economic freedom starting in 1978-ish.)

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#384

Post by eru »

Terry_Roll wrote: post #254
Dracophoenix wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Glycerine, used as a cosmetic can also be used for bombmaking. I only found this out when I purchased a litre and then some internet forum started going on about how it can be used for bomb making. It's the chief component in dynamite. >Kind of explains why I also wasnt allowed an export licence for an app but also highlights who was behind it! When do you need an export license for an app?

This was like 5-10years ago, I developed a bug reporting app and developed a form of encryption which was uncrackable. Now I'm not qualified in anything, never even went to Uni, but what should have taken 6weeks with the UK Dept BIS, took like more than that and then got denied so I shut the business down I'd set up for it. Dont have the source code anymore or anything and its not ever going to happen now. When I say…

> [...] developed a form of encryption which was uncrackable.

No, you didn't.

> When I say it was uncrackable, it was based loosely on code books which were used in ww2, which is something I subsequently read about later on in the news.

Could you please elaborate? Code books only work when both parties have a copy. Obviously for an app, you need to assume that the attackers have access to the app.

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#385

Post by eru »

rob74 wrote: post #61
mym1990 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We saved some money" is how economics works in price competitive markets. This is a result of many players doing what keeps each one competitive, but without collaborating on what the large scale effects are down the road.

Yup... and another result of that is climate change.

The Soviet Union managed to contribute to economic disasters even without much capitalism. See eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#386

Post by eru »

stingraycharles wrote: post #42
mym1990 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We saved some money" is how economics works in price competitive markets. This is a result of many players doing what keeps each one competitive, but without collaborating on what the large scale effects are down the road.

And most importantly, economics assumes that the market is perfect, which it most certainly is not in practice. What we didn’t do enough is take the geopolitical landscape into this equation (or a potential pandemic, for that matter), which I hope changes after recent developments. I blame the governments mostly for this, I completely understand the businesses needing to do what’s best for business.

> And most importantly, economics assumes that the market is perfect, which it most certainly is not in practice.

What makes you think economics makes that assumption? The economics literature is full of papers investigating various kinds of market imperfections. (Mostly because all the papers involving perfect markets have already been written. It's publish or perish in academia after all.)

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#387

Post by [deleted] »

eru wrote: post #362
samstave wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we have national strategic reserves of such resources? I know we have a lot, here is a short list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Strategic_reserves_of...

Those government-run reserves always seem a bit silly to me. There's nothing special about the reserving business that normal private sector companies can't do. (Especially if you abolish anti price gouging laws.)

[deleted]

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#388

Post by eru »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #92
netizen-936824 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Business are still run by people. Nobody was forced to see someone else doing something shitty and then say "well I just need to be a bigger asshole than that guy! Must be okay 'cause it's not illegal" People have far too simplistic models of how things work, this is the consequence of a lack of understanding and shortsightedness

Businesses also need to have customers. No clothes maker was forced to manufacture in poor countries, but the alternative was to simply stop existing since insufficient customers are willing to pay the price premium for purely American made clothes. Hence the only solution would have been legislation forcing domestic manufacturing.

You say it like it's a bad thing that textiles are manufactured in poor countries?

As an example: Bangladesh has been on a multi-decade long streak of excellent economic growth. Mostly thanks to the textile industry. Regular people are better off.

> In last decade, poverty dropped by around one third with significant improvement in human development index, literacy, life expectancy and per capita food consumption. With economy growing close to 6% per year, more than 15 million people have moved out of poverty since 1992.[64]

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Bangladesh#Modern_B...

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#389

Post by otterley »

eru wrote: post #362
samstave wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we have national strategic reserves of such resources? I know we have a lot, here is a short list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Strategic_reserves_of...

Those government-run reserves always seem a bit silly to me. There's nothing special about the reserving business that normal private sector companies can't do. (Especially if you abolish anti price gouging laws.)

If they could do it, we would have let them. But due to market failures throughout the course of history, we have learned to apply hysteresis to markets by stockpiling reserves and offering price supports in times of oversupply. The alternative is boom and bust cycles, which is fine for some markets like cryptocurrency and tulips, but bad for food and other necessities.

Re: Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking

#390

Post by eru »

thelittleone wrote: post #375
eru wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those government-run reserves always seem a bit silly to me. There's nothing special about the reserving business that normal private sector companies can't do. (Especially if you abolish anti price gouging laws.)

wouldn't strategic reserves (government controlled) provide security and control assurances that the private sector could not provide?

The private sector is perfectly capable of providing security? Private sector entities store and handle valuable stuff all the time.

(Government) control is another issue. Obviously, a government run scheme would be under more government control. Though laws are perfectly capable of controlling private sector entities, too.

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