My question is what is the point of the trade war. What does trump get from initiating/escalating it, or who is directing him to do it. Seems to be a net negative for all sectors of the economy.
7,613 karma · joined September 20, 2013
Getting to level 5 will require "V2X" technology - vehicles communicating with other vehicles and the road/traffic infrastructure itself.
We will need a forward-thinking government to start building sensors and communication tech into roads, stop lights, parking spots, and a secure/interoperable internet for all these sensors to communicate autonomously.
Currently the cost of implementing such a system is way higher than the return to drivers who can...what, work on more powerpoints or facetime while they're in the car instead of driving? Not to mention the huge security and safety and liability risks this would open up.
That's why we solved this problem with public transportation in the past - hire one person to be the "V2X sensor" AKA bus driver.
Plus it's pretty clear they know how to do layoffs and that knowledge may be applied to RH soon to boost profitability.
I recently went with the new Sony's after trying on a bunch of high end noise cancelling speakers in store. very happy with them so far: https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/sony/wh-1000xm3-wi...
unfortunately productivity is pretty stagnant across developed economies, including japan
if capital and business owners have no need for new/enhanced labor as is the case in many developed economies where offshoring/new hire cycling is rampant, then a housing affordability crisis definitely builds up, unless:
(1) the municipal/federal government steps in to regulate rent as it has done in Berlin
(2) there is a good architectural/geological/tax incentive that prevents NIMBYISM
(3) cultural/work factors allow the younger gen to live at home/work remotely
I'll check out the reports you've linked, and Gates' blog post.
No powerful US entities have a vested interest in keeping foreign Chinese money out of US real estate, especially if it's due to wealthy individuals investing abroad. The real estate owners win, the developers win, construction companies win, the mortgage-underwriting banks win, the losers are the young/renters/non-capital owners seeking jobs in these hotspot areas because their rent just goes up and up per square meter. This segment of the population has no political power, they can only hope to make enough to put a down payment on a house and join the vested interests as capital owners - hopefully the bubble doesn't burst taking their job and leaving their mortgage underwater. The exception here would be if a Chinese government-owned investment vehicle tried to purchase large swathes of real estate, it could potentially use this large investment as a weapon to control cost of living/tank real estate values in that area if the government wanted to.
The real reason is because US technology (networking, telecom, A&D, automotive) companies have a huge vested interest in keeping their competitive advantage over Chinese technology companies which are on the cusp of transforming from cheaper/lower quality alternatives to preferred suppliers in building out information technology infrastructure globally, including in the US. The US government also has a huge vested interest in controlling this infrastructure, especially in the US, or at least being on good terms with the companies that build and manage it. It doesn't want partially government-owned and directed companies like Huawei supplying complicated and sometimes unvettable hardware and software over which Americans send each other vital information.
[1] China's central bank uses a modified version of a traditional fixed exchange rate. That's different from the floating exchange rate the United States and many other countries use. The People's Bank of China manages the yuan's value. It keeps it fixed to a basket of currencies reflecting its trading partners. The basket is weighted toward the dollar since the United States is China's largest trading partner. It keeps the yuan's value within a 2 percent range against that currency basket.
Why does China fix the yuan's value to the dollar? It manages its currency to control the prices of its exports. It wants to make sure its exports are reasonably priced when sold in the United States. Every country would like to do this, but few have China's ability to manage it so well. China's command economy allows it to control the central bank and many businesses. As a result, the Communist Party directs China's economy. The U.S. government regulates exchange rates instead of managing them.
https://www.thebalance.com/how-does-china-influence-the-u-s-...
Also really pleased to see The Road to Serfdom by Hayek on the list. Eager to check out the book on Climate vs. Capitalism as I haven't seen this topic given full treatment in a book yet beyond questioning the sustainability of growth economics and efficacy of carbon taxes in broad terms.
The Mankiw textbook is used in intro undergrad classes everywhere.
I would also love to read a book by a contemporary Chinese economists on their thoughts of the Chinese market, although something tells me a good academic/unbiased book on this topic is impossible to find.
Only two books I would add would be:
The Age of Diminished Expectations (Krugman)
Dune (Herbert)
young people go to the cities for high status, high paying jobs to pay off student loans and/or save up for the future in an increasingly uncertain world
competition is extremely high for these jobs, compounded 1000x due to the rise and use of social media among my generation, which always suggests that next thing to buy or that next vacation to go on, either from corporations or your "friends" (it's hard to tell which is which after a while) - get that raise so you can unlock the next tier of stuff you see wealthy people doing
gone are the days of getting an intellectually stimulating and well paying job with IBM/Ford/GE and building your career off it while having a family young, people my age usually stay in a job for 2/3 years then on to the next startup/job/"adventure" (if they have the right degree to get a job in the first place)
then there's a completely separate cohort of people my age who have settled outside the city, gotten married, looking to have kids in low cost of living areas and figure out job stuff as they go (very risky unless you own your own biz or work for a family biz)
dating is a similarly competitive game in the big cities, one that warrants its own 10 page essay per city based on the conversations i've had with single friends in LA/NY/London/SF
the gap between generations is growing more and more pronounced/quicker due to technology grouping similar people together and amplifying their cultures...it takes effort but you need to continuously bridge this gap with those younger than you, otherwise their needs, desires, motivations will be completely alien to you - i almost don't understand the fortnite meme generation, but i make efforts to
most young people are acutely aware of life outside work and money (especially asians/immigrants due to pressure from conservative parents), but it's getting harder and harder to find the middle class/balance between earning enough to have a family comfortably and affording a place to live while keeping your job options healthy/open for whatever BS is coming next down the economic chain
So productivity growth is definitely happening globally, but generally by bringing existing tech to new geographies (usually combined with cheaper labor input and less regulation), or adapting existing technology to legacy processes in industrialized economies
Investors are not returning to scifi of the 60s, just take a look at the latest YC demo day: loan due diligence, direct to consumer B2B platform, "AirBNB for electric chargers", online sales academy, contractor onboarding software - tech is truly focused on picking some huge TAM market and taking x% of that market from legacy competitors by having a narrow focus and adding "tech" to the offering [1]
The lucrative place to be right now is private equity - there's so much money floating around for buying and selling companies right now ($2TN in uninvested "dry powder" at end of 2018). Why invent new products and companies when you could simply buy an existing business and cut costs to attain or boost profitability
What remains to be seen is the second claim - "the fantasy that AI and machine learning will generate trillions in profits"
While I tend to agree that ML/AI are generally deployed to save costs rather than increase revenue and create totally new categories of products, there are definitely still a lot of brownfield opportunities in legacy tech for data scientists to tackle and automate
This also ignores the huge opportunity for cloud service providers to take compute-as-a-service business from legacy on-prem/datacenter biz as well
But I would challenge you to think outside the sarcastic box and propose what you see as a few of the main technological drivers of productivity growth that are currently popping up in tech
Until he can say when and how the debt collection chain will break down and spiral out of control, what types of non performing loans will spark a recession, and how he's going to hedge and make money off that recession, not interested
Just product placement for his new book
(Facilities dropped, same cost per student on dorms + maintenance, building capex dropped)
You really need to do a per-student cost analysis - e.g. if there are 500 STEM graduates and 2000 liberal arts, the costs are not evenly spread across the non-academic staff, and you need to account for the separate facility costs (e.g. a computer/science lab is much more expensive to maintain and stock than an english classroom)
And There are also lots of intangibles to factor in -
-How many of the alumni contributing to the endowment and paying for academic buildings are STEM vs. liberal arts graduates
-How do graduation rates and job outcomes differ between STEM vs. liberal arts, and affect the college's KPIs (e.g. 95% graduate on time and 80% get a job within 6 months making a median $70k, for marketing)
Also presumably your school has an endowment and investment managers, which is the largest source of revenue for top tier schools (Yale's endowment of $27.2B returned 12.3% in 2018, the school spent $1.4B of that return on operating costs making up 34% of the university's net revenues [0])
So really in the grand scheme of things, most major universities are safe investment vehicles that are (1) extremely marketable to wealthy alumni (2) have great information networks and (3) generally enjoy major appreciation on their real estate value, making the comparison of STEM vs. liberal arts salaries pretty negligible
[0] https://news.yale.edu/2018/10/01/investment-return-123-bring...
Sounds like 2019 is the year of China exerting full control over the Tibet-side approach:
"In my mind climbing in Tibet has just become more expensive and more controlled. While the intent of some of this is good (trash, centralized rescue) others are onerous in nature and can result in unexpected expenses. Climbing Everest from the North or Tibet side was historically seen as cheaper, wilder, freer and more independent than the Nepal side. Well, that ship has sailed. If you want a more independent 8,000-meter climb, Everest is no longer on the table. Take a look at Makalu or Dhaulagiri."
It used to be one team was allowed a permit per year, but has since evolved to be a tourist mecca:
http://www.alanarnette.com/blog/2018/12/17/how-much-does-it-...
Facial recognition tech is a device of surveillance owned by governments and large corporations that do not enable greater individual freedom, at best a few convenience benefits at worst total restriction
"Critics charge that the program undermines the concept of European citizenship, potentially poses security risks and provides a possible backdoor for Russians seeking to escape sanctions against their own country."
From personal observation: Benefits are tangible and immediate to the city and its politicians from increased taxes and whatever bribes are paid, downsides are intangible and long-term to the city residents who get priced out of their homes, lose business because these "residents" don't actually live in the city, and have to live with sometimes-unpleasant citizenship tourists that are often involved in fraud of one sort or another.
https://www.politico.eu/article/malta-cash-for-passports-pro...