4 ms·

You have a very charitable view of Palantir, Anduril, and SpaceX. There's nothing private industry can't do better than the government...........right after the

by zcw100 6y ago

You have a very charitable view of Palantir, Anduril, and SpaceX. There's nothing private industry can't do better than the government...........right after the government bears the burden of years of basic research.

Craighead 6y ago
That's a fairly unnuanced position.
CamTin 6y ago
Agreed. Palantir in particular is a bizarre example. It's a private company specifically engineered to vacuum up government money. Anything it makes in nominally-private transactions just window dressing.
robomartin 6y ago
> There's nothing private industry can't do better than the government...........right after the government bears the burden of years of basic research. I read this kind of stuff all the time and it always rubs me the wrong way, because it is as wrong as can be. Ever heard the phrase "Practice makes perfect"? Well, it's bullshit. Practicing correctly makes perfect. Just practicing random crap or practicing in the wrong manner make a mess and nothing even close to "perfect". So, applying that simple principle: What do you think would have happened if Elon Musk did not start SpaceX and decide scrapping every rocket was a dumb idea? I can tell you exactly what would have happened. Our government would have continued to invest in "basic research" for years and buying billion dollar rockets that got scrapped every flight. NOBODY told Musk to make reusable rockets. Nobody from government came over and said "Do this for us because we want to save money". One has to wonder where some areas of industry would be if government funding had not caused the typical level of stagnation we see time and time again. I remember visiting a company years ago that made hydraulic valves used in navy ships. The valves were as unremarkable as could be. This company has survived decades without innovating one millimeter of these valves. The place was so depressing I would have to take out my eyeballs with a spoon if I had to work there. It is remarkable to see just how much of that is common to government programs across a range of industries. Compare that to the dynamic world of consumer and industrial products that elevated China to the second largest economy in the world. We, in the US, can't even make iPhones. Heck, we can't even make N95 masks. We don't have the supply chain. We don't have the materials. We don't have the educated workforce. We don't even make the equipment needed to make such products here. But we make great government-funded valves that cost 10x to 100x what they should cost.
- echelon 6y ago
  This is what we have to fix, or the American economy will be doomed in 20-40 years, when even the carcass of our "service economy" has been gutted by more nimble players.
  - robomartin 6y ago
    I think the rate of change of the decline will likely accelerate (the second derivative). We have done nothing but waste valuable time for, I don't know, somewhere between 25 and 50 years. And 100% of it is in the hands of our "leaders" in government. They are so incredibly incompetent and partisan its sad. I don't want to blame any one party in particular because this mismanagement goes back decades. Oddly enough, as much of an asshole as he was, Trump was, in fact, doing the right things. And now things are derailing again. Two simple examples: Spend billions on infrastructure. This is 100% bullshit. We have plenty of roads. Good ones. We have everything we need. What we don't have is a legislative, regulatory, tax and educational framework that pushes innovation, entrepreneurship and business to the level we need to survive and grow. Anyone who thinks this can be solved by building more roads and bridges has to answer very simple questions: 1- How long will that take? 2- If this is a precondition for success, what will you do to encourage companies --in massive numbers-- to come to the US? 3- How long will that take? My prediction, if we don't get off the bullshit train, the "infrastructure" bullshit bill will consume twenty years (that might be a low estimate) and nobody is going to have any interest in moving or starting businesses here at scale because during that time the action will most definitely be in China. It already is. Second example: The Border. Yeah. Controversial subject. Last month they detained somewhere in the order of 150K people at the border, of whom 25% are from countries other than Latin America. The run rate, at the moment, is in the order of about TWO MILLION people coming in this year, if it doesn't get worse. Answer this very simple question: What industry is creating TWO MILLION new jobs for these people to land without affecting current employment? If policies don't change we will add somewhere around 8 to 10 MILLION people in four years. More if this administration manages to gain another four years. 20 MILLION? We are losing jobs to China and other locales by the millions. Where are these people going to work? Who is going to employ them? And, at $15 per hour, what kind of job will support them when our economic outlook doesn't look so great? Border states are clamoring for the completion of the border wall and control of the border. What is currently happening is abominable. Kids piled into cages. They have 4,000 people in a venue that is only allowed to have 250. This is demented. We have gone insane. And our leadership is failing us at a massive scale.

by zcw100 6y ago

Craighead 6y ago

That's a fairly unnuanced position.

CamTin 6y ago

Agreed. Palantir in particular is a bizarre example. It's a private company specifically engineered to vacuum up government money. Anything it makes in nominally-private transactions just window dressing.

robomartin 6y ago

> There's nothing private industry can't do better than the government...........right after the government bears the burden of years of basic research. I read this kind of stuff all the time and it always rubs me the wrong way, because it is as wrong as can be. Ever heard the phrase "Practice makes perfect"? Well, it's bullshit. Practicing correctly makes perfect. Just practicing random crap or practicing in the wrong manner make a mess and nothing even close to "perfect". So, applying that simple principle: What do you think would have happened if Elon Musk did not start SpaceX and decide scrapping every rocket was a dumb idea? I can tell you exactly what would have happened. Our government would have continued to invest in "basic research" for years and buying billion dollar rockets that got scrapped every flight. NOBODY told Musk to make reusable rockets. Nobody from government came over and said "Do this for us because we want to save money". One has to wonder where some areas of industry would be if government funding had not caused the typical level of stagnation we see time and time again. I remember visiting a company years ago that made hydraulic valves used in navy ships. The valves were as unremarkable as could be. This company has survived decades without innovating one millimeter of these valves. The place was so depressing I would have to take out my eyeballs with a spoon if I had to work there. It is remarkable to see just how much of that is common to government programs across a range of industries. Compare that to the dynamic world of consumer and industrial products that elevated China to the second largest economy in the world. We, in the US, can't even make iPhones. Heck, we can't even make N95 masks. We don't have the supply chain. We don't have the materials. We don't have the educated workforce. We don't even make the equipment needed to make such products here. But we make great government-funded valves that cost 10x to 100x what they should cost.

echelon 6y ago
This is what we have to fix, or the American economy will be doomed in 20-40 years, when even the carcass of our "service economy" has been gutted by more nimble players.
- robomartin 6y ago
  I think the rate of change of the decline will likely accelerate (the second derivative). We have done nothing but waste valuable time for, I don't know, somewhere between 25 and 50 years. And 100% of it is in the hands of our "leaders" in government. They are so incredibly incompetent and partisan its sad. I don't want to blame any one party in particular because this mismanagement goes back decades. Oddly enough, as much of an asshole as he was, Trump was, in fact, doing the right things. And now things are derailing again. Two simple examples: Spend billions on infrastructure. This is 100% bullshit. We have plenty of roads. Good ones. We have everything we need. What we don't have is a legislative, regulatory, tax and educational framework that pushes innovation, entrepreneurship and business to the level we need to survive and grow. Anyone who thinks this can be solved by building more roads and bridges has to answer very simple questions: 1- How long will that take? 2- If this is a precondition for success, what will you do to encourage companies --in massive numbers-- to come to the US? 3- How long will that take? My prediction, if we don't get off the bullshit train, the "infrastructure" bullshit bill will consume twenty years (that might be a low estimate) and nobody is going to have any interest in moving or starting businesses here at scale because during that time the action will most definitely be in China. It already is. Second example: The Border. Yeah. Controversial subject. Last month they detained somewhere in the order of 150K people at the border, of whom 25% are from countries other than Latin America. The run rate, at the moment, is in the order of about TWO MILLION people coming in this year, if it doesn't get worse. Answer this very simple question: What industry is creating TWO MILLION new jobs for these people to land without affecting current employment? If policies don't change we will add somewhere around 8 to 10 MILLION people in four years. More if this administration manages to gain another four years. 20 MILLION? We are losing jobs to China and other locales by the millions. Where are these people going to work? Who is going to employ them? And, at $15 per hour, what kind of job will support them when our economic outlook doesn't look so great? Border states are clamoring for the completion of the border wall and control of the border. What is currently happening is abominable. Kids piled into cages. They have 4,000 people in a venue that is only allowed to have 250. This is demented. We have gone insane. And our leadership is failing us at a massive scale.