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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

#431

Post by eru »

car_analogy wrote: post #402
eru wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

As to who, see my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30458506 And "direction" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your statement about China. They were, and still are, very protectionist of their internal market, using official and unofficial means. Not to imply western countries are exempt - they also made (and make) use of protectionism in growing their industries. Only after industries matured, wou…

> Not to imply western countries are exempt - they also made (and make) use of protectionism in growing their industries. Only after industries matured, would the market be opened, and economic propaganda launched how unrestricted trade was the only way to prosperity (and, by pure chance, this would give the now globally-competitive industries new export markets).

Yes, western countries have often shot themselves in the foot with protectionism. They aren't perfect.

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

#432

Post by eru »

ksec wrote: post #411
eru wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially since the US wastes so much agricultural land on maize that they force onto drivers as mandatory ethanol. (While keeping cheaper ethanol from Brazil out of the country with tariffs and regulation.) If push came to shove, they could drop this silly policy, and alleviate supply shortages.

>that they force onto drivers as mandatory ethanol. Is that because of some clean energy policy?

Supposedly. But then you wouldn't block cheap ethanol from coming into country, would you?

And see protomyth's comment for more political reasons.

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

#433

Post by eru »

daniel-cussen wrote: post #419
eru wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, apparently the reason neon comes from Ukraine is some pretty smart Ukrainians wanted it that way, for the good of Ukraine, and specifically for Ukrainian sovereignty to matter to the rest of the world. Nope. See the other comments here, that explain that the Soviet Union overinvested in this technology because they wanted to build weapons with it. It would probably have been better for the people of the Soviet…

You seem to be right, it was a military-industrial move by the Soviet Union to counter the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars). Having read a briefing describing the rocket involved, it Star Wars was cutting-edge 2060's technology that happened to be possible in the 80's due to a long list of edge cases. Well in the end, those neon producers harmed capitalism as intended.

How did they harm capitalism?

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

#434

Post by eru »

OJFord wrote: post #405
eru wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Semiconductor industry is extremely fragile. Not sure that's true. After all, it doesn't break down all the time, does it?

Glass only breaks once; most would call it fragile.

We've had plenty of various shocks to the semiconductor industry. So we know it's relatively resilient.

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

#435

Post by eru »

piva00 wrote: post #398
eru wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's why... They stockpile.

Stockpiling is a rather straightforward operation. In addition, the benefits of stockpiling are both rivalrous and excludable. Ie stockpiles are not a 'public good'.

So the private sector is perfectly capable of stockpiling, too.

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

#436

Post by eru »

dehrmann wrote: post #394
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.)

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.

You might remember Warren Buffett offering a billion USD to people who could perfectly predict something called 'March Madness'.

I don't know the details, but it seems to be some kind of American sporting event, and getting everything right was exceedingly unlikely.

You can buy bespoke insurance for this kind of thing. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prize_indemnity_insurance

By your logic, Warren Buffett should have been able to buy spend just a dollar or so to buy insurance against someone getting everything right, shouldn't he? After all, the chances were exceedingly small and competition would have driven down the insurance premium?

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

#437

Post by eru »

piva00 wrote: post #399
eru wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Price gouging is exactly what makes security profitable!

That's very similar to how peaker plants work. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant

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

#438

Post by coolso »

xadhominemx wrote: post #350
coolso wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s… unequivocally false.

Manufacturing job growth showed zero change in trajectory during his presidency up to COVID

You still failed to prove that he "did nothing"; choosing one particular metric that shows there was zero change does not mean Trump did nothing. It just means the trajectory didn't change, by this one metric.

You also don't account for the fact that there may have been a negative change in trajectory of that particular metric if not for Trump's policies and executive actions.

But, again, he absolutely did do things about it, these are all well documented. (As is the change in trajectory of public opinion towards offshoring thanks to Trump promoting them heavily.)

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

#439

Post by marmarama »

eru wrote: post #435
piva00 wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why... They stockpile.

Stockpiling is a rather straightforward operation. In addition, the benefits of stockpiling are both rivalrous and excludable. Ie stockpiles are not a 'public good'. So the private sector is perfectly capable of stockpiling, too.

But the private sector generally doesn't stockpile, because the cost of maintaining a stockpile exceeds any immediate economic benefit of doing so. It is economically inefficient almost all of the time. Very occasionally it becomes useful, but current accounting practice, corporation law and shareholder demands do not have mechanisms for incentivising it.

One of the key roles of government is to provide services that are economically inefficient but are a public good.

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

#440

Post by netizen-936824 »

eru wrote: post #428
netizen-936824 wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be making the assumption that their working conditions are better than what they were doing before. When considering working hours along with stress and working environment, I'd say probably not Some argue that industrialization under these conditions is not good for the countries and people being exploited for their labor

Well, you can check on the working conditions. There's lots of stuff online. Life is better in Bangladesh now than it used to be. By a lot.

Only if you judge things from your own biased perspective
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