American Economics Thread

FairAndUnbiased

Brigadier
Registered Member
I think fed has enough tools to deal with it: hike fed fund rate to 3%; sell down its massive balance.

how much damage will it do? interest up by 3% will push down the value of 10 year treasury by 30%. assume the average duration of outstanding mortgage at 10 years, then the real estate will drop by 30% as well.
average mortgage is 30 years in the US I believe. so its even worse.
 

bajingan

Senior Member
SpaceX and Tesla has a dynamism that you don't really see in the US anymore, at least in engineering. If you look back to Lockheed Martin or Boeing back in the 50's and 60's (or China today, really) you see the same sort of enthusiasm and ambition that the corporate culture of SpaceX and Tesla have. The US really was once great (in terms of STEM, not human rights) but they've lost it except in a few places. American power engineers, for example, all have this defeated look to them after like, a year in industry. You talk to them and (especially after the Texas power crisis where hundreds of people died while the power companies made massive profits) and there's this resignation and defeatism. While Chinese power engineers are excited to work in their field. You ask them about their job and their eyes light up.

This is the same with the SpaceX engineers. You get them going about their job and they won't shut up. This is important, excited, motivated people do good work. If the US can make that attitude contagious across the rest of the country, they'll be back on top. If they can't, then you see what's happening now continue onwards: China keeps rising (because the Chinese engineers are so fucking excited to be going to work, seriously) and the US keeps sliding.
In my opinion it takes a lot more than a few tech unicorns to have national rejunevation
First you have to transform american economy from financialized economy into manufacturing economy
Second you need to have national unity, with political polarization and overall leadership incompetence in the us is so severe, its unlikely a leader who got the full support of both conservatives and liberals emerge
Third you need to have actual americans to study STEM again, i read somewhere, russia with population two times smaller than u.s produces almost exact number of STEM graduates as the u.s 561k vs 568k moreover vast majority of russia STEM graduates are russians, in other words the majority stays in russia, this is not the case with the u.s where more than a third are not u.s citizens but international students and on top of that with u.s hostility against China, you will see u.s losing more STEM graduates, in fact reverse brain drain will happen
 

Fedupwithlies

Junior Member
Registered Member
In my opinion it takes a lot more than a few tech unicorns to have national rejuvenation
In a way, I agree, but its really helpful to have a paragon to follow. Like, the leader, the example, the national hero for everyone to follow. So, no, if all you have is the few companies and few individuals, nothing will happen. But the singular hero (the company, the personality) can act as a rallying point for other things to coalesce around.

First you have to transform American economy from financialized economy into manufacturing economy
Yep, and I think this is a critical step which the US will have a lot of trouble with. This is what Biden's Build Back Better program is all about, and what all the "slave labor in China!" thing is all about, and so much more. But having a company that's popular and dynamic like Tesla and a company that's doing big things like SpaceX will drive manufacturing in-house (in terms of nation) as well. Historically, Boeing being in Washington drove a lot of smaller companies to be in Washington as well, bringing the industry there. A single large company will feed a lot more mouths than just their employees. Tesla building cars in China for the Chinese market was a huge win for China. I don't know which bureaucrat came up with that but man, that was a hit right in the fundamentals for the US.

Second you need to have national unity, with political polarization and overall leadership incompetence in the us is so severe, its unlikely a leader who got the full support of both conservatives and liberals emerge
Yea, I don't know enough about the national unity to give an opinion. I just want to say, I do think its partly the Russians throwing a wrench into the US political discourse and for that I say, job fucking well done Ruskies.
Third you need to have actual Americans to study STEM again,
These things can change pretty quickly. This COVID-19 thing drove a lot of interest in the health-care sciences, and the bitcoin thing drove a lot of interest into the computer sciences. And again, having a company like SpaceX can be exciting and drive interest. These things can change on a dime. Remember when "Top Gun" the movie came out and it drove a recruiting surge for the Navy. These things are fickle. And while a new "Top Gun" might not drive military recruiting today because people are more cognizant of what the US military is for, there's no stigma attached to being an Astronaut or Engineer or Scientist for the US MIC, all they need is a Top Gun moment of their own.

If Elon Musk does get his dream and SpaceX and the US puts the first person on Mars, there will guaranteed be a massive jump in US STEM enrollment.

That said, things are good right now, for China. The trends are in China's favor.
(article from 2018)

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What I'm saying is, things are trending in China's favor, but the race isn't done. And if the US does experience a renaissance, it'll come from SpaceX, and I think the Chinese strategists would be a lot happier if SpaceX didn't exist.

As an aside, here's an article on the Boeing Bust of the 1970's, and a small look at how a single company can affect an entire region.

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Its just a fun read, I think.
 

hashtagpls

Senior Member
Registered Member
What I'm saying is, things are trending in China's favor, but the race isn't done. And if the US does experience a renaissance, it'll come from SpaceX, and I think the Chinese strategists would be a lot happier if SpaceX didn't exist.
SpaceX is simply a CIA/DoD shell company to militarise space consistent with Anglo american philosophy of privatising government, much like the NED became the CIA's NGO outsourcer.
 

BlackWindMnt

Captain
Registered Member
SpaceX is simply a CIA/DoD shell company to militarise space consistent with Anglo american philosophy of privatising government, much like the NED became the CIA's NGO outsourcer.
Elon is just the front man, pushed by mainstream media and Hollywood(marvel movies).
Tesla became big because they sucked up all NEV subsidies in the west.
SpaceX can skim off some money from the fat pentagon and NASA budget.

Both of those are just state run companies being marketed as private entrepreneurship, so congress will stay hands off.
 

pmc

Major
Registered Member
SpaceX and Tesla has a dynamism that you don't really see in the US anymore, at least in engineering. If you look back to Lockheed Martin or Boeing back in the 50's and 60's (or China today, really) you see the same sort of enthusiasm and ambition that the corporate culture of SpaceX and Tesla have. The US really was once great (in terms of STEM, not human rights) but they've lost it except in a few places. American power engineers, for example, all have this defeated look to them after like, a year in industry. You talk to them and (especially after the Texas power crisis where hundreds of people died while the power companies made massive profits) and there's this resignation and defeatism. While Chinese power engineers are excited to work in their field. You ask them about their job and their eyes light up.

This is the same with the SpaceX engineers. You get them going about their job and they won't shut up. This is important, excited, motivated people do good work. If the US can make that attitude contagious across the rest of the country, they'll be back on top. If they can't, then you see what's happening now continue onwards: China keeps rising (because the Chinese engineers are so fucking excited to be going to work, seriously) and the US keeps sliding.
Musk will never try to built a Civil Airliner like Boeing as it need reliability for continuous takeoffs and landings over 30 years. one off rockets with alot of preparation is not at same level.
Musk made cars cool by adding alot of software and semiconductors to vehicles. if you are born playing with digital gadgets than you will also want work with digital products. but this is unbalanced society where all the brightest are only in few fields.
Putin didnot respond positively to Musk tweets now Putin is standard on earth and Musk is moving to Mars.


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Elon Musk Leaves Vladimir Putin Stranded on Earth​

 
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