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The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

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Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#551

Post by shimman »

Schlagbohrer wrote: post #300
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #46

It's impressive that somehow, as if by coincidence, we're seeing the biggest inflationary drivers for decades, perhaps for centuries, all happening simultaneously. The Iran war is spiking the price of oil and will likely cause shortages of pretty much everything if it isn't ended. The Ukraine war is helping with that by destroying Russian refining capacity. The memory shortage is set to do the same to consumer electr…

William Gibson coined the term "The Jackpot" to describe an apocalypse made up of many different disasters all happening near in time, overwhelming civilization. Pandemic, war, mismanagement, corruption, resource scarcity, climate breakdown, ...

The more academic term is polycrisis.

Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#552

Post by samiv »

WalterBright wrote: post #482
samiv wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that some countries (mostly the political west) developed a wealthy middle class post WW2 was not due to capitalism but due to social democracy. Capitalism by itself does not produce egalitarian wealthy society. The system divides the populace into "capital owners" and "workers" who are in direct conflict. There are plenty of capitalistic countries where most people are poor. In fact many of the as said West…

The middle class emerged in colonial America. During the 1800s, scores of millions of people came to the US with little more than a suitcase. They went into the middle class, and some into the wealthy. We know this because: 1. Average height increased throughout the 1800s 2. Life expectancy increased throughout the 1800s 3. Plenty of photos and paintings of towns that consist of middle class housing > The system divi…

Most employees have absolutely Zero leverage. Ask any Amazon warehouse worker how much liberties they have and how much in practice they can negotiate. Just because some employees have had some leverage doesn't change the underlying power dynamics between employers and employees. In fact we're now seeing this play out in software as well with the AI hype train and I expect a reality check to hit many people previously in their cushy office jobs.

Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#553

Post by WalterBright »

hackyhacky wrote: post #512
WalterBright wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is at stake us that all value is created by labor That's the communist "Labor Theory of Value" which is nonsense. For example, spend the day digging a hole in your backyard. Did you create any value? Nope.

> That's the communist "Labor Theory of Value" which is nonsense. Can you explain how it's nonsense? Can you think of a valuable product or service that you consume that is not produced by labor? > For example, spend the day digging a hole in your backyard. Did you create any value? Nope. I didn't say that all labor produces value; I said that all value is produced by labor. As a Smart Guy who Created His Own Softwar…

I recommend you start a commune. Or a business. It's a free country, there are no laws against it.

> all value is produced by labor

But you deny that the labor of the CEO produces value.

Consider Microsoft. The company's stock was flat for 10 years. Then Nadella took over as CEO. The stock went up by a factor of 10. Same company, same employees, same intellectual property. The difference was Nadella. A similar story with Steve Jobs' second coming at Apple. And Steve Jobs at Pixar. There are innumerable such stories.

It's similar to military generals. An army's victory or defeat is pretty much entirely due to the general.

Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#554

Post by WalterBright »

hackyhacky wrote: post #518
WalterBright wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In capitalist countries, accumulation of wealth comes alongside the prosperity of the rest of the country.

Ah yes, the famous "trickle down" economy of Reaganomics. If only we had more billionaires, then I'm sure I'd be able to afford to get my car fixed. Unfortunately, this economic model has been proven to be wrong. If it were true, then we would have seen a decreasing gap between the rich and the poor. We didn't. https://www.statista.com/chart/35953/inequality-wealth-gap-u... https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2…

> Unfortunately, this economic model has been proven to be wrong.

As I've mentioned several times now, the growth of the wealthy in the 19th century corresponded with the movement of the poor into the middle class.

> If it were true, then we would have seen a decreasing gap between the rich and the poor.

What matters is the state of the poor, not the gap between rich and poor. Musk's wealth, for example, has no effect on my standard of living. Or yours.

Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#555

Post by WalterBright »

hackyhacky wrote: post #516
WalterBright wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name one CEO of a large company who fits your profile.

Elon Musk is a great example. These days, he mostly writes racist tweets, pretends to play video games, consolidates his own businesses to increase his own apparent net worth, and undermines the federal government.

May I remind you of your post I was replying to:

> He provides literally no service to anyone at all, but makes more money than any employee. He then uses his profits to buy homes in the area, so his employees can pay back half of their paycheck to him in the form of rent.

Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#556

Post by array_key_first »

mr_toad wrote: post #66
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #46

It's impressive that somehow, as if by coincidence, we're seeing the biggest inflationary drivers for decades, perhaps for centuries, all happening simultaneously. The Iran war is spiking the price of oil and will likely cause shortages of pretty much everything if it isn't ended. The Ukraine war is helping with that by destroying Russian refining capacity. The memory shortage is set to do the same to consumer electr…

> Meanwhile the AI fad is seeing huge layoffs. This is really the only point I disagree with. Layoffs are being blamed on AI, but they are really a hangover of the covid hiring boom, and subsequent bust. All the tech money is going into building data centres (and the gas turbines that power data centres), and it turns out that programmers don’t have the relevant skills to build gas turbines.

Most companies are showing high revenue and profit and still laying off huge segments of their workforce. Largely due to the stock market - a lot of non-AI players are facing lowering stock price.

Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#558

Post by array_key_first »

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #137
rationalist wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's a possibility, do you believe it is likely enough in the very near future to the point where you are betting on it? Perhaps shorting TSMC? If I did so when I first thought about it, I would be broke by now.

The point to short will be when the Chinese army forms up. With Ukraine we saw it. It was incredibly obvious. Hilariously the Ukrainians themselves saw the huge army on their border and told everyone it wasn’t going to happen and refused to build any defences. Taiwan will be the same. But the satellites will give everyone enough warning.

I'm sure leadership in Ukraine was aware of an impeding war, but naturally that's not the type of thing you're gonna tell your citizens. It doesn't help anything; it would only cause panic, migration, and resource hoarding.

Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#559

Post by array_key_first »

crazygringo wrote: post #436
pjdesno wrote: post #427

Jatin Malek on Twitter had perhaps the best explanation of the DRAM crunch: "The reason why RAM has become four times more expensive is that a huge amount of RAM that has not yet been produced was purchased with non-existent money to be installed in GPUs that also have not yet been produced, in order to place them in data centers that have not yet been built, powered by infrastructure that may never appear, to satisf…

That's just a snarky way to describe all business investment that requires purchasing things made in the future. It's entirely normal. You could literally rewrite the quote to be about iron and about building railroads for trains and passengers that don't exist yet. See how silly that would be? Except the "profit that is mathematically impossible" part. That's just made up and false. It's entirely possible that we ar…

Didn't that actually happen with railroads? Like, there was a railroad bubble and lots of people lost a lot of money?

It happened with the Internet, too, and the Internet is pretty useful I think.

Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#560

Post by inglor_cz »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #546
inglor_cz wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When comparing average Americans and their health to average, say, Spaniards, we should not ignore the 400 lb gorilla in the room named "obesity". Even Europeans are getting bigger, but America is way, way worse. Seeing those extreme landwhale-type people who cannot even walk around the mall and navigate it using a motorized cart, throwing bulk packages of horrible shitty ultraprocessed food and drinks into said cart…

Uhuh, That's why we're #1 in the world in conditions uncorrelated with obesity like infant mortality right?

Does this concern an average American, or mostly the poorest quintile of the population?

We're not discussing whether your healthcare system is friendly to the poor; everyone knows that the US is not particularly kind to its poor, in any aspect.

The original topic was if its overall quality declined in the last decade for the average American, who is not poor.

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