Has Silicon Valley Gone Maga?
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Its also the case that the Republican party is trending overwhelmingly in an anti big-tech direction recently, whereas the Democrats mostly seem to be treading water at about the same overall position.
Someone calling Biden the worst president in his life?
Such a disconnect from reality
The problem is the outrage machines. They have to be curtailed. That no two people experience the internet the same way any more thanks to the various big tech algorithms has to stop. Most sensible people have abandoned Facebook/X by this stage but that still leaves a lot of people in thrall to curated garbage.
What's the point in having your tax burden reduced if it means realizing greater interest? Have they forgotten that Trump had the largest increase in US deficits in history? Have they forgotten that those deficits, along with wrecking the global supply chain before the pandemic due to a trade war with China created the inflation that we're just now getting under control? What's the point in expanding your business when your customer is unable to buy any more product?
The Big Tech Billionaires may know a thing or two about business, but it's becoming clear they don't know much about economics - and ultimately, that ignorance is going to hurt their business.
Well, which candidate is more likely to push back on those rules? The US has plenty of ways to put pressure on foreign law; the current admin just hasn’t been doing it.
Chaos is not good for business.
1. How a few people translate to the entire SV... (well, I do because hyperbole is what media does now, they stopped being journalists)
2. What the GOP platform is for prices & inflation. Tax cuts, 10% tariffs, forcing interest rate cuts, and mass deportation would all seem to lead to more money in the economy or direct price increases
I hate to be this cynical because I think policymakers and economists who lean in different ideological differences all have contributions to make, and in some way probably value right wing economic ideas slightly more than left wing ones
But It seems pretty clear to me that the goal of the Republican platform is just to be as self serving as possible and there is no actual plan for a healthy economy, and at best they might engineer temporary economic outcomes that benefit certain groups, I wouldn’t be surprised it there’s some kind of big economic crash aka 2008 in the next 10 years.
I would be genuinely interested to hear how I’m wrong.
No matter what stimulus hack you do for the next quarter, you need to be educating the next generation in a way that leaves us competitive with other industrial powers. They don't even talk about outcomes and scores anymore-- they just stoke social warfare. You know, if the kids are reading because there's an "OMG OBSCENE" book in the library, AT LEAST THEY'RE MOTIVATED TO READ.
America is not doing a good job of presenting a voice for the future. China has "we're cheap and we've moved fast on greentech." Many Western European countries have gone the boutique/artisan/high quality route. Where does American manufacturing fit into the story?
If Americans are trapped by tarrifs and have to buy whatever domestic-made rubbish is available, and you're not getting a high-quality workforce, why bother investing anything in new designs and manufacturing; hell, break out the old tooling and start cranking out Chrysler LeBarons again!
It's like we're determined to emulate the rapid economic miracles of Japan, South Korea, and the PRC but in reverse. And it's not even out of some principled stand like "we need degrowth to save the environment", but because rich people don't want to pay taxes for schools and infrastructure.
I don’t see why this would equate to low quality. Domestic companies are free to compete. Many countries have historically boot strapped industry through heavy use of tariffs. Japan is a great example, their auto industry likely wouldn’t exist without heavy tariffs in the beginning and China has extremely protectionist economic policy to this day.
You can get away with selling domestic rubbish to local consumers when you're a poor country with few options. For an established industrial power:
1. Consumers will not change their behaviour unless you apply punitive levels of tarrifs. A 10% tax probably won't make the customers who have bought a Lexus for their last five cars switch to Lincoln. That's probably why Washington felt they could get away with the huge levies on Chinese EVs (a new market with no established consumer behaviour being disrupted), but didn't breathe a word about Made-in-China Buicks (an established market full of old people who vote).
2. It doesn't grow the total pie very much. When you're Outer Slobavia and just getting your first industrial plants off the ground, there's a lot of growth to be had just reclaiming the domestic market from foreign competitors. But the US is a mature player in most of these markets already. Removing foreign competitors will only buy a few percent market share.
Admittedly, tarriffs don't cause low quality by themselves. It's more that the package deal being presented is "we won't bother making American industry more competitive, since we can just go insular and high-tarriff to create a captive market to keep American factories alive." Even if you win at that captive market, that's a far smaller upside than if they had instead said "we're going to get back on the leading edge of manufacturing and make American products globally aspirational."
If one factory has to operate clean and one doesn’t, who is going to make the cheaper product? If one factory has access to borderline slave labor and one doesn’t, who is etc.
Putting aside competition and focusing on morality, I don’t really understand how people put their head in the sand about the environmental and human damage they support abroad that they would never tolerate at home. The air we breathe is the same air that factories anywhere in the world pollute into, and people in Asia are just as human as we are.
I think a good approach would be to apply tariffs that offset the cost of environmental and labor regulations in America, which would be removed if the foreign countries adopt equivalent regulations and prove that they are in compliances. The state of affairs we have had for many decades now is insanity.
The people who say "I'm buying brand X because they have a reputation for quality/good design/better total experience" can help finance any difference in labour and environmental remediation costs.
You can't win a "I want the cheapest generic 330-ohm resistor" market wither higher cost structures, but you can come up with a lot of ways to avoid having to enter that market.
Like my understanding of risk in financial markets is that (though of course a security could go bust) a high risk security is one that has bigger swings, but that those bigger swings lead to bigger long term gains.
I guess even if things go bust if you’re let’s call it morally flexible, boom cycles give you a better chance of making your millions.
I would not use the stocks as an analogy, most people don't have them, which in itself say something about our economy. There will always be an amount of turnover in the economy, going out of business / layoffs, new companies and hiring. Having a steady rate, within some margin of error, is an aspirational goal for economists / fed, but there will always be shocks...
The current issue to me is big changes or swings in policy. Presidents come in and reverse everything, Congress is incapable of passing incremental change, with the current session seemingly unable to pass just about anything...
The Big Tech Billionaires are not supporting Trump. 80% of Internet company donations have gone to Democrats, and Big Tech veterans like Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn founder and Microsoft board member) and Michael Moritz (Sequoia Capital partner) are still firmly in the Democratic camp. VC billionaires (and in particular, the PayPal Mafia) are supporting Trump.
Interests are not aligned between VCs and large tech corporations. They compete for both employees and markets. Big Tech's loss is generally the startup ecosystem's gain; many of these VCs are supporting Trump because he will break up or otherwise hobble Big Tech.