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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

#661

Post by ivewonyoung »

hackyhacky wrote: post #651
ivewonyoung wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They had "central control of wages, construction, and capital" to a much higher degree before they started becoming capitalistic in 1976 and the poverty levels were much much worse and not going down. They only started going down once they embraced capitalism and started allowing private companies.

That is consistent with my earlier statement: capitalism creates wealth, but you need another system to distribute it fairly. It's crazy to think that capitalism alone will "raise all boats" when this has been shown to be untrue.

Capitalism creates wealth only when people are able to keep a decent amount of what they make. As a thought experiment, if you tax people at close to 100% under capitalism and "distribute" it to people that don't work, what do you think will happen?

Surely there is a disincentive to working hard as taxes approach high levels while resources are increasingly provided for free if one doesn't work. The Laffer curve and all that.

If you keep increasing taxes and reward people that don't work by giving them free and easy wealth, the tax revenue will actually go down at some point instead of going up, leaving less to redistribute. It's like killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

https://fee.org/articles/the-laffer-curve-its-time-to-stop-l...

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

#662

Post by ivewonyoung »

hackyhacky wrote: post #545
ivewonyoung wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes no sense because labor needs capital to take risks so they get salaries. For example new drug discoveries cost a lot of money and a huge percentage fail with big losses that go to paying labor but not eventually benefiting from it. Banning that model where capital is risked by passive investors would've meant far fewer life saving drugs being invented, literally making mankind worse off. If someone wants t…

> That makes no sense because labor needs capital to take risks so they get salaries. Total non sequitur. Labor (and salaries) predate the existence of money, as well as capital investment.

Before capital investment it was coercion, slavery or community building that made big projects possible. The first two were outlawed as they weren't needed under capitalism but were common in non capitalism like the gulags and Uyghur labor .

Even under capitalism you can still volunteer, donate and create community orgs to build things, there's nothing stopping anyone.

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

#663

Post by FireBeyond »

spunker540 wrote: post #605
joe_mamba wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google US semiconductor sanctions on China. Basically US (and allies pressed by US) aren't allowed to export their most cutting edge semiconductor tools and materials to China, so China can only make chips using older-gen tools on older process nodes than western-aligned competitors. The other part of the sabotage is that western companies then have restrictions on what chips they're allowed to buy from China. IDK if…

I dont know if trade sanctions counts as "sabotage" but point taken.

Well it kinda counts as self-sabotage now, at least in effect. We shot ourselves in the foot so China couldn't compete as easily.

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

#664

Post by jurgenburgen »

mft_ wrote: post #627
jurgenburgen wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not shorting TSMC, I’ve lost too much money shorting and it’s just too easy to lose because of timing even if you eventually are correct. I’ve overweighted EU weapons manufacturers because a Taiwan war will be coupled with an expansion of the war in Europe. With the US busy trying to fight China, Russia will for sure make a bigger move in Europe. European defense budgets will 10x.

Big picture, I think you're right that there will be continued and increased EU spending on weapons. But... Russia is basically at full capacity just standing still (or losing slowly) in Ukraine. Do they even have the ability (people, weapons, fuel, money, logistics) to significantly expand the war further?

I hope they don’t but also worry that China is willing to fight to the last Russian just to keep Europe busy.

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

#665

Post by hackyhacky »

WalterBright wrote: post #547
hackyhacky wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was created by the company you invested in. That's right: the value was created by other people, but yet you are benefiting. That makes you a parasite. > I took the risk of providing capital for the company to use to create wealth. So what? I can take a risk by jumping into a shallow pool. That's not the same as labor and does not entitle me, ethically, to profit. The profit should go to the people who do the wo…

> That's right: the value was created by other people, but yet you are benefiting. That makes you a parasite. This is classic Marxism. The employees were compensated commensurate with the value they produced. The value the investors create is the result of taking the risk by providing the capital and organization needed for the company to operate. If you don't believe that, you're free to organize with like-minded fe…

> This is classic Marxism.

Correct. Are you going to dispute it or is "this is Marxism" the extent of your argument?

> The employees were compensated commensurate with the value they produced.

If they were compensated commensurate with the value they produced, then there would be no profit for the company, and the CEO's compensation would not be 1000x that of a line worker.

> If you don't believe that, you're free to organize with like-minded fellow travelers, set up a commune, and split the rewards equally.

That is one approach supported by unions.

> Put another way, SpaceX would not exist without Musk.

Yes, and I would not exist without my parents. That does not mean that I give them 90% of my profit.

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

#666

Post by hackyhacky »

WalterBright wrote: post #553
hackyhacky wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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

So in your view, there are only two options: (a) unlimited astronomical compensation for CEOs while line workers get minimum wage or (b) hippie commune? You really can't see any other option? Even 50 to 60 years ago, CEO salaries were not as distorted as they are today and yet the world did not grind to a stop.

> Then Nadella took over as CEO. The stock went up by a factor of 10

The stock is not a measure of productivity. It's a measure of expectation. The problem with you and many capitalists is that you view the stock as the company's product. It isn't. Is the current version of Windows ten times better than the previous version? No? Then why did the stock go up?

> It's similar to military generals.

Great analogy. A general (O-10) in the US army serving since 1986 makes $19,000/mo. A private (E-1) makes $2,407/mo. That's a difference of ~8x. Now explain to me again why a CEO makes >1000x what his employees make?

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

#667

Post by hackyhacky »

sophrosyne42 wrote: post #587
hackyhacky wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument does not make any sense. I have no problem with the concept of money. Commerce always the exchange of good and services, including on a symbolic level: as you point out, affection, money, etc. "Money" is not the distinguishing factor between commerce and capitalism. At the risk of repeating myself: the distinction is how wealth is acquired. Capitalism allows one to acquire wealth merely by possessing ca…

Then capitalism cannot exist and never has, because there is no such thing as something which produces wealth merely by possession. Mere ownership (as in a legal title) does not and cannot yield an income. To have a yield, something must be put to use. Without a use, there is no yield. Capital (in the sense of the monetary value of assets) is merely an index for the utility of assets in producing a yield. There is no…

> Mere ownership (as in a legal title) does not and cannot yield an income. To have a yield, something must be put to use.

Money is used by loaning it out, which requires no effort and most importantly: the amount of money you can loan out (and make a profit from) is not limited by the number of hours in the day, and therefore owners can always out-compete laborers.

> The distinction between capitalism and earlier forms of production is that money provides a means to index the yield of assets by capitalizing the value of those assets.

Now you're getting it!

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

#668

Post by hackyhacky »

ivewonyoung wrote: post #660
hackyhacky wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is evidence. https://www.worldfinance.com/strategy/china-the-land-of-less...

State owned enterprises != private companies. Even in the US, govt salaries for higher ups are asymptotically low compared to private companies.

> As of 2013, two-thirds of Chinese graduates set their sights on a government position or a role at a major state-owned firm,

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

#669

Post by hackyhacky »

ivewonyoung wrote: post #661
hackyhacky wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is consistent with my earlier statement: capitalism creates wealth, but you need another system to distribute it fairly. It's crazy to think that capitalism alone will "raise all boats" when this has been shown to be untrue.

Capitalism creates wealth only when people are able to keep a decent amount of what they make. As a thought experiment, if you tax people at close to 100% under capitalism and "distribute" it to people that don't work, what do you think will happen? Surely there is a disincentive to working hard as taxes approach high levels while resources are increasingly provided for free if one doesn't work. The Laffer curve and…

> Capitalism creates wealth only when people are able to keep a decent amount of what they make. As a thought experiment, if you tax people at close to 100% under capitalism and "distribute" it to people that don't work, what do you think will happen?

That's one approach, but not the only one, to eliminating capitalism.

> Surely there is a disincentive to working hard as taxes approach high levels while resources are increasingly provided for free if one doesn't work. The Laffer curve and all that.

So in the US in the 1950s and 1960s, when the highest marginal tax rate was around 90%, did people suddenly stop working? Or did the US enter its highest period of productivity and income equality?

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

#670

Post by hackyhacky »

WalterBright wrote: post #538
hackyhacky wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're assuming the economy is zero sum, which it obviously is not. That assumption does not follow from my statement. What I do assume is that the easiest way to make money is to have money, which means that the rich and get richer and the poor get poorer. We've already seen that the rise of billionaires correlatives with an increase in wealth inequality and poverty.

Gambling is zero sum, so it does follow from your statement. > the rise of billionaires correlatives with an increase in wealth inequality and poverty The rise of the wealthy in the 19th century corresponded with scores of millions of people rising out of poverty into the middle class and beyond. > What I do assume is that the easiest way to make money is to have money, which means that the rich and get richer and th…

> Gambling is zero sum, so it does follow from your statement.

My statement was "long enough time line, all the money ends in very few hands." That has nothing to do with zero-sum. Even if we assume that your premise of "rich billionaires make everyone else richer too", it does nothing to contradict my statement.

> The rise of the wealthy in the 19th century corresponded with scores of millions of people rising out of poverty into the middle class and beyond.

The decrease in poverty in that time period stems principally from industrialized farming techniques, increasing available food resources. There is nothing in that process that requires super-billionaires.

> Creating value does not make the poor poorer.

That depends. If all the created value is in the hands of rich, it gives the rich the power to buy more things, including things that the poor people need, e.g. housing. That drives up prices for the poor, and effectively decreases their buying power. That's how supply and demand work.

> Consider the wealth in America today. Compare it with the wealth in America in 1800.

Now consider the wealth distribution in America now versus the wealth distribution in America 60 years ago. At that time, the difference between the rich and the poor was much smaller. It was also a time of great economic expansion, opportunity, and innovation. So clearly super-billioniares cannot be necessary for economic productivity.

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