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0 pointsnosianu6y ago0 comments

> nothing is particularly wrong with American business

I am in no position to argue and it is not my intention to do so. Instead, I have a question based on things I (causally) read.

For example, this piece from a conservative source: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/americas-mo...

Sample quote serving as TL;DR:

> In fact, the destruction of America’s once vibrant military and commercial industrial capacity in many sectors has become the single biggest unacknowledged threat to our national security. Because of public policies focused on finance instead of production, the United States increasingly cannot produce or maintain vital systems upon which our economy, our military, and our allies rely.

It is not really only about the military, but about a larger context. They seem to be quite concerned about the industrial base of the US, including in high-tech industries. In support of their point, when I look up chip manufacturing capacity worldwide - https://anysilicon.com/semiconductor-wafer-capacity-per-regi... - Asia is 75% and the US ~10%.

What is your opinion about the point made by the article? In the larger context, not necessarily the military focus.

0 comments

coliveira6y ago

The US has since the 80s adopted an economic strategy that favors financial investments instead of industrial production - for example, very low taxes are charged for financial investments. The advantage of this is that financial investments give higher returns. The disadvantage is that such investments are detrimental to industrial production, as capital will try to relocate industry to places where production is cheaper and concentrate only on the financial engineering of the business. This is effectively what happened, since there is no advantage for American capital to start producing things when investors can just put their money in other places for higher returns. This affects even companies such as Apple, which is not at all concerned with finance. As a result of such policies there will be with very little industry left in the US (other than the essencial that cannot be relocated) and production will continue going to other places -- and those places are in Asia.

cc4396y ago

I'm glad to see that article is slowly making the rounds through circles such as this. The implications of the facts presented by that author should terrify anyone concerned about the future of the US and yet the clearly detrimental practices of a company like TransDigm are virtually unreported despite investigations conducted against them at the highest level. The picture painted by Stroller and Kunce is very bleak, so bleak in fact, that I'd say part of the reason issues like this go unreported is because there would be mass panic should the public at-large ever become aware of just how broken everything is.

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