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I'm familiar with those firms, but I wouldn't call them Mittelstand enterprises, unless we're calling Siemens and Thyssen Krupp small-to-medium sized. What do t

I'm familiar with those firms, but I wouldn't call them Mittelstand enterprises, unless we're calling Siemens and Thyssen Krupp small-to-medium sized. What do they make that lasts centuries that say, General Electric(such as it was) or Halliburton / Bechtel et al don't make? I guess what I'm getting at is that massive generalizations really aren't helpful.

ggm 8y ago
I certainly wouldn't put siemens in mittelstand. But I would put them as worldwide competitive in a range of engineering spaces. You don't buy the story? fair enough. GE trades worldwide, has local affiliates in Europe. They work in the same way inside the european union, but expatriate profit to the US. Halliburton and Bechtel do amazing things, but they also do a bunch of things I personally think are significantly less amazing, like grab serious asset and business from the post iraq war teardown, where the US forces basically said "fuck you" to european companies and awarded contracts directly to the beltway. Thats what "no blood for oil" stories are usually about. Schlumberger might be a european company (ok, now incorperated in curacau) to consider in that light. Massive generalisations are the root topic here. Somebody said "why can't europe do what america does" and the answer is "USA is number 1" is not really a helpful conversation, its silly. Europe doesn't "envy" the US, its competing. Sometimes things like GDPR serve multiple purposes. btw to be fair, Thyssen Krupp has a pretty dirty past too. The Thyssen museum in Spain is a bit of whitewashing on a company which was in the "schindlers list" bad set, and Krupp had assets siezed for reparations in the wars in Europe so if I am a bit nasty about Halliburton or Bechtel its not like there isn't a lot of dirt to fling around. Packard Merlin engines were Rolls-Royce exports. Rolls-Royce jet engines powered the world and were being made under licence in the USA, as part of the magic box export in WWII which got radar and the proximity fuze into the war from the USA side. Penicillin production depended on US smart but UK science did the basic work. DNA was Crick and Watson in a context of UK funded science research and Rosemary Franklin got robbed of the Nobel. Du Pont was founded by a frenchman with French capital...
- Chlorus 8y ago
  Listen, I just want to know what machinery someone makes that could possibly last centuries. This was engineering curiosity. Hundreds of billions were spent to develop nuclear reactors & spacecraft, and you're lucky if you make it 50 years on any of that, under ideal operating conditions. None of that text answers that. > Halliburton and Bechtel do amazing things, but they also >do a bunch of things I personally think are significantly less amazing, like grab serious asset and business from the post iraq war teardown, where the US forces basically said "fuck you" to european companies and awarded contracts directly to the beltway. Wait, you think it's less than amazing that Halliburton & Bechtel profited from the war and didn't give a chance to the Europeans to also profit off the war? This is a new one.
  - ggm 8y ago
    I did make the centuries claim. Its Hyperbole. So, I don't feel I can answer. because its unprovable. I'd edit the centuries out, but thats sort of cheating so I acknowledge that was hyperbole. I am also skeptical, since nobody makes engineering product that differently: we're all conforming to DIN and ANSI standards which tend to converge. The concrete problems in reactor a in country b wind up reflecting concrete issues in countries c, d, e and don't actually reflect US vs EU much. I don't think its amazing in a trade war, people leveraged war to achieve trade profit. I think its naieve to think there is any systemic "better" here between nation A and nation B and company Aa and company Bb: there is war, and there is trade war, and morals don't come into it. But thanks for validating my underlying theory: the key thing is profit. "Just war" didn't enter into it. Nobody really believes it was about liberation. It was geopolitics and money. GDPR is beneficial to european citizens, but also beneficial to european companies facing offshore data warehousing, and facing US corporates like google who do embrace-extend of US law as google see it, to apply to anyone worldwide. If american corporates wind up opposing GDPR because it disfavours them in business terms, we're net losers not net gainers from some competition outcome. What would be better would be for the FTC (who regulate data privacy) and the DoC to agree we need higher norms here, and some recognition the SCOTUS has arms which reach to the US border but no further.

ggm 8y ago

I certainly wouldn't put siemens in mittelstand. But I would put them as worldwide competitive in a range of engineering spaces. You don't buy the story? fair enough. GE trades worldwide, has local affiliates in Europe. They work in the same way inside the european union, but expatriate profit to the US. Halliburton and Bechtel do amazing things, but they also do a bunch of things I personally think are significantly less amazing, like grab serious asset and business from the post iraq war teardown, where the US forces basically said "fuck you" to european companies and awarded contracts directly to the beltway. Thats what "no blood for oil" stories are usually about. Schlumberger might be a european company (ok, now incorperated in curacau) to consider in that light. Massive generalisations are the root topic here. Somebody said "why can't europe do what america does" and the answer is "USA is number 1" is not really a helpful conversation, its silly. Europe doesn't "envy" the US, its competing. Sometimes things like GDPR serve multiple purposes. btw to be fair, Thyssen Krupp has a pretty dirty past too. The Thyssen museum in Spain is a bit of whitewashing on a company which was in the "schindlers list" bad set, and Krupp had assets siezed for reparations in the wars in Europe so if I am a bit nasty about Halliburton or Bechtel its not like there isn't a lot of dirt to fling around. Packard Merlin engines were Rolls-Royce exports. Rolls-Royce jet engines powered the world and were being made under licence in the USA, as part of the magic box export in WWII which got radar and the proximity fuze into the war from the USA side. Penicillin production depended on US smart but UK science did the basic work. DNA was Crick and Watson in a context of UK funded science research and Rosemary Franklin got robbed of the Nobel. Du Pont was founded by a frenchman with French capital...

Chlorus 8y ago
Listen, I just want to know what machinery someone makes that could possibly last centuries. This was engineering curiosity. Hundreds of billions were spent to develop nuclear reactors & spacecraft, and you're lucky if you make it 50 years on any of that, under ideal operating conditions. None of that text answers that. > Halliburton and Bechtel do amazing things, but they also >do a bunch of things I personally think are significantly less amazing, like grab serious asset and business from the post iraq war teardown, where the US forces basically said "fuck you" to european companies and awarded contracts directly to the beltway. Wait, you think it's less than amazing that Halliburton & Bechtel profited from the war and didn't give a chance to the Europeans to also profit off the war? This is a new one.
- ggm 8y ago
  I did make the centuries claim. Its Hyperbole. So, I don't feel I can answer. because its unprovable. I'd edit the centuries out, but thats sort of cheating so I acknowledge that was hyperbole. I am also skeptical, since nobody makes engineering product that differently: we're all conforming to DIN and ANSI standards which tend to converge. The concrete problems in reactor a in country b wind up reflecting concrete issues in countries c, d, e and don't actually reflect US vs EU much. I don't think its amazing in a trade war, people leveraged war to achieve trade profit. I think its naieve to think there is any systemic "better" here between nation A and nation B and company Aa and company Bb: there is war, and there is trade war, and morals don't come into it. But thanks for validating my underlying theory: the key thing is profit. "Just war" didn't enter into it. Nobody really believes it was about liberation. It was geopolitics and money. GDPR is beneficial to european citizens, but also beneficial to european companies facing offshore data warehousing, and facing US corporates like google who do embrace-extend of US law as google see it, to apply to anyone worldwide. If american corporates wind up opposing GDPR because it disfavours them in business terms, we're net losers not net gainers from some competition outcome. What would be better would be for the FTC (who regulate data privacy) and the DoC to agree we need higher norms here, and some recognition the SCOTUS has arms which reach to the US border but no further.