Oh thank God for a moment there I thought we might actually do the right thing. Thank God for our global leaders assuring the universe will be safe from the disease that is humanity. /s

This is true, China doesn’t care. I’m actually confused about the narrative around China wanting to take TSMC. Even the most cursory glace at the situation should make it obvious this isn’t one of China’s goals. This is because these EUV machines don’t work on magic. They work on knowledge and spare parts. Even in the unlikely scenario that China somehow invades and these machines aren’t destroyed by either China or the retreating Taiwanese, they aren’t going to be able to operate them and more importantly get spare parts to keep them running. They’d at best be used to disassemble and review.

All of this ignores the fact that China is already at 5nm using their own equipment anyway. For the extra 2nm of difference between TSMC’s 3nm to SMIC’s 5nm isn’t large enough to rationalize anything close to what they’re talking about. It’d be cheaper to just keep subsidizing the Chinese industry rather than invading.

All of this is to say, that China may or may not invade, but TSMC isn’t on the list of reasons. If anything, it’s on the opposite end. China has a LOT of motivation to bomb TSMC to prevent the west from getting chips as if TSMC is gone, then suddenly Chinese 5nm are pretty much the most advanced chips in the world (besides Samsung). Thus, the real conclusion is we need to invest in Samsung, which surprisingly isn’t happening for whatever reason is beyond me.

This is just it getting doled out. You agree to 60 Billion and then you slowly release it as they are doing now. It would be impossible to actually just ship 60 billion worth of weapons, there are logistical issues as well as supply issues. The 60 billion is also partially going to making the missiles and weapons that Ukraine will need in the future.

On the other hand, it would be super cool if humanity figured out teleportation and we could just beam 60 billion dollars worth of goods, but until then, this is what you should expect.

Actually it exactly resembles stagflation. It’s one of the reasons I said underemployment and not unemployment. During the 90s, Japan’s inflation rate was around 3% and they couldn’t get it under 2%. Sound familiar?

https://www.in2013dollars.com/japan/inflation/1990#:~:text=The yen had an average inflation rate of,82.953%25 of what it could buy back then.

The other part was low unemployment, but mostly government jobs that didn’t do anything. But it did create historically low unemployment and higher than average labor force participation.

https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/14332/#:~:text=The ‘lost decade’ in Japan was a period,when it reached a historical maximum of 5.5%25.

What you are seeing is USA doing exactly what Japan did in the 90s, which is have a target inflation rate of 2% that they can’t reach and hiding the high unemployment numbers with underemployment in crappy jobs.

Edit: just look at this rocketing government employment.

https://usafacts.org/reports/2021/government-10-k/part-i/item-1-purpose-and-function-of-our-government-general/employees/#:~:text=As of the dates shown below%2C there were,local government employees%2C of whom 23%25 work part-time.

More than doubled in a decade.

It’s not a bubble, it’s much much worse. You only hear of it in whispers among the financial world. It’s stagflation. Japan seen this story before, they call it their lost decade that has been going on for nearly half a century. It’s when you deficit spend like crazy to prop up the economy and that leads to high inflation and stubbornly high costs (IE: Housing). It’s coupled with basically no wage growth and high underemployment. Does any of this sound familiar? It buried Japan, it might bury USA.

This makes me question what it takes to be a super power. Between this and the leading cause of US bankruptcies being medical related, it’s almost as if super powers can only be super powers if they don’t give any of their citizens healthcare. It’s as if working their citizens to death is the only way for them to maintain their hedgemony.

Well we can only speculate, which is why I said IF I WERE TO SPECULATE. However, Algeria also vetoed, a primarily Muslim nation and Washington is calling them out as representing Arab nations.

https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/algeria-takes-seat-un-security-council#:~:text=Twenty years after its last,term that begins this month.

So there is evidence towards but I’m not seeing anything definitive. But again, that’s the definition of speculation.

No, I’m only stating their formal argument to the best of my ability to explain it and ignoring speculation. Now, if I WERE to speculate, I’d say what you’re saying is probably closer to the truth. For Russia at least I’m almost 100% certain that’s the reason. China is very different. I’d argue that China’s stance has nothing to do with Russia, USA or Taiwan. There’s this weird myopia when it comes to China and their interests. China’s interests span far greater than those three little pieces of land.

No, for China I’d argue we’d first need to ask who is their audience for this. That answer is the other nations in the middle east. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE, etc… China has been trying to formulate a narrative that they are friends to Muslims regardless of the accusations of what they are doing in XinJiang. So, it’s almost certain China’s stance comes from conversations with those nations. So technically they are telling the truth in the sense that their saying what others are telling them. Reality is it’s just to win favor over the oil producing nations so they have stable supplies of energy.

*Edit. Essentially what I think China is saying to the middle eastern world is you have a veto with me, the same way India has with Russia.

So I want to be upfront and say I don’t really agree with their argument, but I do understand it. What Russia and China are saying is by tying the ceasefire to the release of hostages is unfair to the Palestinian side. This is because they lose all leverage and then would be easy targets for Israel who doesn’t seem to mind bombing Palestinian civilians.

My issue is that technically the only reason their bombing is because of the hostages and perhaps if they release the hostages peace talks can begin. The opposite of that argument is it will allow Israel to be even more aggressive after the temporary cease fire is ended.

I don’t know, but that’s the argument.

Yes, but this is happening in the states too yet we don’t have this kind of insanity. For example, onlyfans is basically a website dedicated to monetizing incels. But there’s an implicit understanding that those actresses have their own lives. For some reason, in S.Korea they’re not allowed to have their own lives. It’s bizarre no matter how you look at it.

No, an inflation index only measures necessities. Ironically that’s a reason inflation always goes up as small electronics and other non-necessities actually have gone down significantly. But as I said the inflation index only counts things like groceries, housing, cars, oil and stuff like that.

That all said, it’d be fascinating to know what is the price limit that would stop hotdog throwing and the other question that needs answered is if this increase would make them more or less money.

I agree. I just get really angry when people hide uncomfortable facts because they’re “our team”. Uncritically supporting anyone is what leads to things like the current Gaza genocide. Yes, Jewish people massively suffered historically and in the recent attack, no that does not justify non-discriminatory bombing of civilians.

Oh I’m completely against Russia’s invasion. I’m just pointing out the propaganda. Russia is absolutely full of Nazis. That doesn’t change the fact that western propaganda covers up the Ukraine Nazi problem. Which they literally reported on prior to the war.

*Edit I’ll also add I absolutely started with that one because I knew it would be super controversial.

Not the OP but let’s fish for down votes.

The Azov battalion are Nazis in Ukraine and Russia is actively trying to exterminate them.

The Russian military brought peace to Syria while the US funded Syrian terrorists.

We call Iran terrorists while the US actively terrorized Iran by murdering their generals without provocation.

The US actively pirates Iranian shipments.

The US changes the definition of words to fit their needs. US isn’t in a recession because the government changed how we define recessions.

China is actively committing a deathless genocide because like institutionalized racism we are generalizing the concept of cultural genocide to cover all definitions of genocide.

The Chinese economy is bad because they only grew 5%.

The fentanyl issue is blamed on everyone except the US own incompetence. Whether it be Purdue, or Mexico or China but definitely not a US enforcement issue.

And that’s just off the top of my head.

*Edit. I see my votes have turned positive now that I’ve clarified my personal position on the Ukraine conflict. But let me point out that my facts didn’t change only that I’ve pointed out I’m against Russia.

But this is my point. We should stop down voting facts simply because they’re uncomfortable. That’s how we get presidents like Trump.

While that’s true, I would argue the total human cost is similar. Your estimates do not count stolen and killed Ukrainian civilians. Adding those would make the numbers far closer, especially since no Russian civilians are caught in this conflict so far.

Not saying any of this is OK. Just unfortunately the numbers are very similar. War is miserable.

*And yes, the fact that Ukraine is suffering more losses due to the fact that it’s Russia invading absolutely makes Russia the bad guy here. I’m just pointing out that the losses are unfortunately very close.

And the TPP has stated they want to find a middle ground with China and got about 20% of the votes. Tallying up the votes that’s 40% for independence and 60% for status quo or working with China. So a minority against working with China wins the presidential elections.

But their congress equivalent is now 60% of the parties that favor working with China.

This is western media bias. They’re not reporting that in reality the majority of Taiwanese wants peace and status quo, not independence. So of course China will do nothing since they see this vote in their favor as the Yuan determines if there’s a vote for independence, not the president. Western media however will 100% be beating the drums of war. Just watch

This part:

the sudden huge change in competitive landscape that did it in

IS caused by industrial policy. That’s the whole point. They can’t keep up with competitive landscapes because the policy made it good enough then they just stopped and since it’s protected there’s no reason to improve.

Yes, the initial version was popular, but industrial policy preventing it from advancing was it’s death.

You literally explained how industrial policy killed it and then said it wasn’t industrial policy.

I responded to the post above. I hope you take a moment to read it.

But as to Huawei, they’re not a government controlled organization nor were they chosen to be the winner by the government as much as the US would try to claim otherwise. Instead the Chinese government shotgunned hundreds of billions of dollars to the entirety of the chip industry. And here’s the most important part, thousands of chip companies collapsed last year in China. Those that could compete in the free market survived, those that didn’t went under. Huawei was one that survived, but stands upon the corpses of thousands of companies.

Even with outcomes as positive as they have been for the whole of the Chinese chip market, there was incredible equity loss to accomplish this. That said, for China, better to have done this and lost hundreds of billions and catch up, than it was to languish against the US.

So, it’s in my opinion that 1. the 50 billion the US is putting into this is way too small and 2. it’s clear now that Biden is picking winners and losers. If you read my previous post you’ll understand why this is incredibly bad and concerning.

I’m glad you asked. The Soviet Union was famous for industrial policy. Or the government controlling what gets created and produced. It’s basically the reason why we say free markets are better and that we can’t use industrial policy to catch up.

The original Lada was famous for being the prime example of this. While western nations were driving highly advanced cars, the Lada was incredibly primitive. It didn’t have airbags, or anti-lock breaking or any safety features. Basically they were rolling death traps. Btw, Iranian cars are basically at this state and are also created with government control. The reason is, industrial policy doesn’t focus on what’s good for the market, but the demands of politicians. They saw the Lada could drive and that’s good enough and didn’t invest more into it since there were too many other demands. This happened to basically all soviet industries causing them to fall far far behind.

But the Lada is just an example. There are many other examples like the Russian Aerospace industry, or the Japanese Aerospace industry, or India’s chip fabs.

Now, that isn’t to say I disagreed with the chip act initially. China’s proven you can stimulate markets as long as you don’t get involved in the actual production. Basically China had a big chip fund and spread it across both large and small organizations, but most importantly allowing those who couldn’t compete to go bankrupt. That’s why there were so many reports about over 1,000 chip companies bankrupting in China last year. But it also produced Huawei’s new chip. You can’t pick winners and losers, you need to let the market decide. Which I thought initially what Biden would do. I also knew 50 billion wouldn’t be enough, but I thought it would be a start. Instead, we’re seeing Biden pick winners and losers. This will lead to bad outcomes.

Yeah, I can’t wait till American chips are the chip version of the Russian Lada. Industrial policy has no negatives and totally doesn’t create dead end jobs. Never happened in the Soviet Union, or Japan, or countless other attempts at industrial policy in the past. Let’s not learn from our past mistakes. 'Muria, fuck yeah!