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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

#391

Post by eru »

otterley wrote: post #389
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.)

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.

What kind of market failures are you talking about?

Robust futures markets are perfectly capable of protecting producers and consumers from price fluctuations (and help stabilize prices as they do so). Similarly for long term contracts between consumers and suppliers.

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

#392

Post by Borrible »

eru wrote: post #373
Borrible wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but who will have the money to buy your 'overproduction', for what will he buy it and how will it be 'pretty easily' shipped? https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/20/food-price-spikes-and-s... https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/12/bread-prices-ri... https://www.skuld.com/topics/cargo/solid-bulk/agricultural-c... Filter the chart to 'All' to have a wider scope. On it and things as a whole: https://www.marketw…

Eh, if food really gets scarce, we can just eat less meat. Ie switch to more efficient means of producing food fairly quickly. People like eating meat, so there will be protests etc, but it's not threatening famine. > In the olden times some considered it a good measure to secure food production by subsidies. You know, hungry people get restless. If that is your intent or you don't have to face the consequences, it's…

A reply without any inclination of doing basic stuff like googling 'History of Agricultural subsidy' or at least skimming the links in my last post.

Sweet, a downvote trap.

Well go ahead.

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

#393

Post by alex_sf »

xracy wrote: post #349
Supermancho wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is neon extracted and why does one country have a 90% monopoly Monopoly is a misused term. Many monopolies around the world are market capture due to being sunk cost low price leaders. Replace "monopoly" with "cornered the market".

That's what a monopoly is... They've entirely cornered the market for a good...

Not quite. They don't have complete control of the market to where they can bring on the onerous things that come with what we'd traditionally define as a monopoly, price gouging, etc.

They can just make it cheaper.

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

#394

Post by dehrmann »

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.)

When companies often last less than 50 years, they have no interest in preparing for events that happen every 50 years. If they did, it only makes it more likely that a competitor would out-compete them.

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

#395

Post by otterley »

eru wrote: post #391
otterley wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What kind of market failures are you talking about? Robust futures markets are perfectly capable of protecting producers and consumers from price fluctuations (and help stabilize prices as they do so). Similarly for long term contracts between consumers and suppliers.

Futures markets and long term contracts don’t help people eat. You can’t eat food that doesn’t exist due to droughts, floods, freezes, fires, or pestilence.

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

#396

Post by deltaonefour »

yumraj wrote: post #354
deltaonefour wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You cannot deny that the rise of China has been unprecedented. The amount of people lifted out of poverty at such a velocity has never been seen before in the history of human civilization. That is benevolence. While of course what is happening in Xinjiang is not benevolence; blinding yourself to the good because of the bad is irrational. You must acknowledge both. Just copying what I wrote earlier. This is benevole…

Ask how the benevolence of CCP is turning out for Tibet, Xinjiang and perhaps other sections of Chinese minorities and even China's neighbors. You cannot pick and choose to define bullies and human rights' abusers as benevolent just because they benefited their preferred section of society.

>You cannot pick and choose to define bullies and human rights' abusers as benevolent just because they benefited their preferred section of society.

Right just like how the US enslaved black people and put the Japanese in internment camps, slaughtered millions of civilians with nuclear bombs in world war 2, displaced entire societies of pacific islanders because of the same testing of nuclear bombs, killed thousands of Chinese Americans building railroad tracks...

The US has it's fair share of atrocities. Many of them on par with China if not Worse. Do these atrocities define a nation? No. No they do not. However they remain a part of the nations identity permanently.

It is the same with China. The atrocities do not define a nation that is far more complex then the black and white characterization you seem so adamant about maintaining. The benevolence of lifting an entire civilization out of poverty into first world status isn't just a "preferred section" of society. China is the most populous country in the world with 18.47% of all humans living in that country. It is a major achievement and more people would be suffering in the world right now if China didn't exist.

What's the preferred section of society in the US? White people? Come on man. You may not want to call China Benevolent but looking at the US and other countries, China is no more and no less benevolent then the other places.

The main point here is that "dictatorship" doesn't necessarily automatically mean a horrible regime of hitler level evil. Just like how it's hard to call the US purely good or purely evil it is the same with China.

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

#397

Post by eru »

otterley wrote: post #395
eru wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of market failures are you talking about? Robust futures markets are perfectly capable of protecting producers and consumers from price fluctuations (and help stabilize prices as they do so). Similarly for long term contracts between consumers and suppliers.

Futures markets and long term contracts don’t help people eat. You can’t eat food that doesn’t exist due to droughts, floods, freezes, fires, or pestilence.

Neither can the government produce food out of a vacuum. So?

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

#398

Post by piva00 »

eru wrote: post #397
otterley wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Futures markets and long term contracts don’t help people eat. You can’t eat food that doesn’t exist due to droughts, floods, freezes, fires, or pestilence.

Neither can the government produce food out of a vacuum. So?

That's why... They stockpile.

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

#399

Post by piva00 »

eru wrote: post #390
thelittleone wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Security is not profitable until a crisis hit, why would a private company in the JIT business world care about the security of a society if it's not profitable until it is? That's exactly how you get price gouging...

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

#400

Post by paganel »

consumer451 wrote: post #341
immmmmm wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should be talking about human lives. My Ukrainian colleague was terrified for his family today.

> My Ukrainian colleague was terrified for his family today. I am willing to host up to 10 Ukrainians at my farm in the very south west corner of Poland until further decisions can be made. Only 2 takers so far. Please email my username at gmail if this is interesting to your colleague or to anyone else reading this. Poland has dropped visa requirements. I can provide some initial legal assistance via a generous fami…

For any Ukrainian HN-ers reading this or for people in here who have relatives/close persons in Ukraine who want to escape the incoming war, for Romania there is this Facebook group [1] where there's a "matching" between what the people in here (in Romania) can offer, like accommodation or transport, and what the people escaping the war in Ukraine might need. The discussions in there are generally in Romanian and/or English, but as far as I could tell there was a decent amount of (Romanian) people offering accommodation to Ukrainian refugees. Sorry for the FB link but that's one of the few such things available right now.

Also, I can personally offer transport with my personal car (meaning 3 extra adults or 2 adults and 2 kids) from anywhere on the Ukrainian-Romanian border to anywhere else in Romania, if any of the HN-ers in here has someone close/a relative who needs that kind of transport inside Romania then leave a reply to this comment and we'll see about making contact/getting in touch.

[1] https://www.facebook.com/groups/unitipentruucraina

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