4 ms·

Are you adjusting for inflation?

by mnx 8y ago

dogma1138 8y ago
Considering the latter half of his sentence he clearly did, Israel might be small but it has a GDP greater that of the smaller developed EU countries like Denmark or Ireland, in fact it's not that far off from the likes of Norway and while Israel has been developing some LPG fields they don't have nearly as much petroleum export as Norway. Israel might be small but it has the money and more importantly the knowhow to run a proper space program and develop a real launcher rather than the 3/4 stage "we promise it's not an ICBM" they use to launch their military satellites, if their situation would've been different and they could cut down on defence spending they likely could've been on the same level as India, keep in mind that India only spends about $1bln. a year on theirs, Israel spends nearly $20bln on defence.
- davidf18 8y ago
  For its size, Israel has a huge hitech infrastructure. David ben Gurion, the father of Israel, while himself a lawyer was a huge believer in the importance of technology. Intel employs 11,000 in Israel including a 22 nm fab being upgraded to 10 nm. Intel has two design centers in Israel. Apple has a major engineering presence there with much of the chip design done in Israel (the Face ID tech is from an Apple purchased startup in Israel called PrimeSense). The VP of computer chip design is an Israeli Arab trained as an engineering in Israel.
- joelbluminator 8y ago
  Per capita Ireland, Norway and Denmark all have a signifcantly higher GDP than Israel. Ireland's is through the roof nowadays but that might be due to it being a tax haven. GDP has been gaining a lot of controversy lately but we're going off topi.
  - dogma1138 8y ago
    Per capita GDP doesn’t mean much for national programs, India has a very low per capita GDP compared to the west so does China. Per capita Israel still has higher GDP than Portugal or Poland not to mention Russia. With a GDP of $350 billion an an advanced aerospace industry they can easily have a bigger space program than they do now its only a question of if they need it and would want to pay for it. Israel has a basic space launch vehicle and has experience in developing and manufacturing satellites and launching them if they could or wanted to spend a few billion dollars a year they could easily be on the same footing as India today if not further.
    - joelbluminator 8y ago
      So maybe GDP is somewhat irrelevant to this discussion, Russia is a good example - they don't have that high a GDP but they are very advanced in missile and space programs. While GDP may have a weak correlation, it's more about the quality of science, engineering etc.
      - dogma1138 8y ago
        GDP is a good baseline but it’s not all and be all. Russia has a space program because historically they did had a high GDP they were the 2nd upto the fall of the Soviet Union, GDP per capita was still pretty bad but not as bad as it is today, the per capita GDP of the US was only about double that of the USSR in the 1980’s but it’s 6 time that of Russia today. The reason why many people in Russia romanticize the days of the USSR today isn’t just Kermlin propaganda in 1989 their GDP per capita was ~$8700 today it’s only $2000 higher than what it was before the wall fell, adjusted for infalation they are considerably poorer today than they were in the past at the same time period the US went form $18,000 to $60,000 per capita.
        joelbluminator 8y ago
        OK I think I managed to find a good example for this: South Korea and Spain have comparable GDP's and population sizes (about 1.5T/60 million to 1.3T/56 million), yet South Korea is WAAAY more advanced technologically than Spain.
        dogma1138 8y ago
        Yes that’s because they invested in high technology while Spain mainly banked in their legacy production and service sector, that said if South Korea and Spain would embark on a space program now I’m not sure if one has any advantage over the other both have pretty compareble aerospace sectors. Israel already has a space program and an orbital launch platform it’s just very small because of lack of funding which according to some reports is between 50 and 200M a year that’s not enough to do anything substantial. With 1-2 bln a year their program would likely be very different.
- blisterpeanuts 8y ago
  Just on the topic of energy, interestingly enough, Israel has an estimated 300 billion barrels of shale oil, or approximately the same reserves as Saudi Arabia. They haven't been able to get it out because of its proximity to the water table and environmental concerns prevent drilling. But if they can figure out this problem, they might emerge as a major oil exporter.
  - dogma1138 8y ago
    It’s tonnes not barrels and you can’t extract anywhere near that amount: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale_in_Israel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale_in_Israel Their LPG fields might be quite large but at this point they likely would run the clock on shale oil before we move off carbon based fuels. We might still power jets in 2050 with oil (and even then biofuel makes more sense) but not cars and likely not homes.
    - blisterpeanuts 8y ago
      No, it's barrels[1] (reference quotes other sources that estimate 250bbl). To argue that we'll "move off carbon based fuels" before the shale oil can be exploited is a baseless prediction. People have been forecasting peak oil and the death of fossil fuels for decades now, and have been wrong time and again. If oil indeed is to be replaced (and I am not opposed at all to clean energy) then what will replace it, when, and how? What happens to the billion existing cars in the world? The trillions of dollars of infrastructure? For some reason, there's a lot of fact-free wishful thinking surrounding the whole topic of energy. In fact, if the Israelis find a way to tap the shale oil deposits without damaging the aquifer in the next 10-15 years, they will emerge as a major oil producer. 1. https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Israel-May-Hold-The-Worlds-Third-Largest-Reserve-Of-Shale-Oil.html https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Israel-May-Hold-The-Wo...
      - dogma1138 8y ago
        Wikipedia cites the Israeli geological survey http://www.ceri-mines.org/documents/27symposium/presentations/av02-4minster.pdf http://www.ceri-mines.org/documents/27symposium/presentation... 300> bln tonnes of shale with only a fraction of it practically extractable. > • Out of the enormous geological reserves only a fraction (2-4%) may be defined as mineable, possibly around 1-2 X 10^9 tons. 10^9 tons is about 6.5 million barrels of oil if they have perfect extraction. There is a good reason why Israel hasn’t been exploiting shale oil on a large scale it’s not feasible nor economical at this point, and there is a huge question mark if it would ever be.
- vezycash 8y ago
  I'd argue that Israel's current GDP is because of its high defense spending - rather than in spite of it. Israeli companies use knowledge / leadership skills gained from working for IDF.
  - dogma1138 8y ago
    It’s not about the historical reasons to why it became this high but I don’t think that if the situation would change to the point at which Israel only needs to spend $10 bln a year on defense instead of 20 their economy would suffer. I also think that the defense industry is a red herring to some extent at least as far as it being the secret sauce behind their high technology industry. I would argue that the large immigration from Russia after the collapse of the USSR helped them more than their compulsory military service, as the joke goes when GLONASS goes down Russia dials +972.

Are you adjusting for inflation?

by mnx 8y ago

Are you adjusting for inflation?

Considering the latter half of his sentence he clearly did, Israel might be small but it has a GDP greater that of the smaller developed EU countries like Denmark or Ireland, in fact it's not that far off from the likes of Norway and while Israel has been developing some LPG fields they don't have nearly as much petroleum export as Norway. Israel might be small but it has the money and more importantly the knowhow to run a proper space program and develop a real launcher rather than the 3/4 stage "we promise it's not an ICBM" they use to launch their military satellites, if their situation would've been different and they could cut down on defence spending they likely could've been on the same level as India, keep in mind that India only spends about $1bln. a year on theirs, Israel spends nearly $20bln on defence.

davidf18 8y ago
For its size, Israel has a huge hitech infrastructure. David ben Gurion, the father of Israel, while himself a lawyer was a huge believer in the importance of technology. Intel employs 11,000 in Israel including a 22 nm fab being upgraded to 10 nm. Intel has two design centers in Israel. Apple has a major engineering presence there with much of the chip design done in Israel (the Face ID tech is from an Apple purchased startup in Israel called PrimeSense). The VP of computer chip design is an Israeli Arab trained as an engineering in Israel.
joelbluminator 8y ago
Per capita Ireland, Norway and Denmark all have a signifcantly higher GDP than Israel. Ireland's is through the roof nowadays but that might be due to it being a tax haven. GDP has been gaining a lot of controversy lately but we're going off topi.
- dogma1138 8y ago
  Per capita GDP doesn’t mean much for national programs, India has a very low per capita GDP compared to the west so does China. Per capita Israel still has higher GDP than Portugal or Poland not to mention Russia. With a GDP of $350 billion an an advanced aerospace industry they can easily have a bigger space program than they do now its only a question of if they need it and would want to pay for it. Israel has a basic space launch vehicle and has experience in developing and manufacturing satellites and launching them if they could or wanted to spend a few billion dollars a year they could easily be on the same footing as India today if not further.
  - joelbluminator 8y ago
    So maybe GDP is somewhat irrelevant to this discussion, Russia is a good example - they don't have that high a GDP but they are very advanced in missile and space programs. While GDP may have a weak correlation, it's more about the quality of science, engineering etc.
    - dogma1138 8y ago
      GDP is a good baseline but it’s not all and be all. Russia has a space program because historically they did had a high GDP they were the 2nd upto the fall of the Soviet Union, GDP per capita was still pretty bad but not as bad as it is today, the per capita GDP of the US was only about double that of the USSR in the 1980’s but it’s 6 time that of Russia today. The reason why many people in Russia romanticize the days of the USSR today isn’t just Kermlin propaganda in 1989 their GDP per capita was ~$8700 today it’s only $2000 higher than what it was before the wall fell, adjusted for infalation they are considerably poorer today than they were in the past at the same time period the US went form $18,000 to $60,000 per capita.
      - joelbluminator 8y ago
        OK I think I managed to find a good example for this: South Korea and Spain have comparable GDP's and population sizes (about 1.5T/60 million to 1.3T/56 million), yet South Korea is WAAAY more advanced technologically than Spain.
        dogma1138 8y ago
        Yes that’s because they invested in high technology while Spain mainly banked in their legacy production and service sector, that said if South Korea and Spain would embark on a space program now I’m not sure if one has any advantage over the other both have pretty compareble aerospace sectors. Israel already has a space program and an orbital launch platform it’s just very small because of lack of funding which according to some reports is between 50 and 200M a year that’s not enough to do anything substantial. With 1-2 bln a year their program would likely be very different.
blisterpeanuts 8y ago
Just on the topic of energy, interestingly enough, Israel has an estimated 300 billion barrels of shale oil, or approximately the same reserves as Saudi Arabia. They haven't been able to get it out because of its proximity to the water table and environmental concerns prevent drilling. But if they can figure out this problem, they might emerge as a major oil exporter.
- dogma1138 8y ago
  It’s tonnes not barrels and you can’t extract anywhere near that amount: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale_in_Israel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale_in_Israel Their LPG fields might be quite large but at this point they likely would run the clock on shale oil before we move off carbon based fuels. We might still power jets in 2050 with oil (and even then biofuel makes more sense) but not cars and likely not homes.
  - blisterpeanuts 8y ago
    No, it's barrels[1] (reference quotes other sources that estimate 250bbl). To argue that we'll "move off carbon based fuels" before the shale oil can be exploited is a baseless prediction. People have been forecasting peak oil and the death of fossil fuels for decades now, and have been wrong time and again. If oil indeed is to be replaced (and I am not opposed at all to clean energy) then what will replace it, when, and how? What happens to the billion existing cars in the world? The trillions of dollars of infrastructure? For some reason, there's a lot of fact-free wishful thinking surrounding the whole topic of energy. In fact, if the Israelis find a way to tap the shale oil deposits without damaging the aquifer in the next 10-15 years, they will emerge as a major oil producer. 1. https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Israel-May-Hold-The-Worlds-Third-Largest-Reserve-Of-Shale-Oil.html https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Israel-May-Hold-The-Wo...
    - dogma1138 8y ago
      Wikipedia cites the Israeli geological survey http://www.ceri-mines.org/documents/27symposium/presentations/av02-4minster.pdf http://www.ceri-mines.org/documents/27symposium/presentation... 300> bln tonnes of shale with only a fraction of it practically extractable. > • Out of the enormous geological reserves only a fraction (2-4%) may be defined as mineable, possibly around 1-2 X 10^9 tons. 10^9 tons is about 6.5 million barrels of oil if they have perfect extraction. There is a good reason why Israel hasn’t been exploiting shale oil on a large scale it’s not feasible nor economical at this point, and there is a huge question mark if it would ever be.
vezycash 8y ago
I'd argue that Israel's current GDP is because of its high defense spending - rather than in spite of it. Israeli companies use knowledge / leadership skills gained from working for IDF.
- dogma1138 8y ago
  It’s not about the historical reasons to why it became this high but I don’t think that if the situation would change to the point at which Israel only needs to spend $10 bln a year on defense instead of 20 their economy would suffer. I also think that the defense industry is a red herring to some extent at least as far as it being the secret sauce behind their high technology industry. I would argue that the large immigration from Russia after the collapse of the USSR helped them more than their compulsory military service, as the joke goes when GLONASS goes down Russia dials +972.