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I'd hesitate to presume that what worked for Warp Speed would work in a non-crisis situation. With our early-pandemic PPE-relief efforts, we had endless advant

by ISL 5y ago

I'd hesitate to presume that what worked for Warp Speed would work in a non-crisis situation. With our early-pandemic PPE-relief efforts, we had endless advantages that most projects don't have: almost-unlimited supply of high-skill and high-motivation labor, almost-unlimited support from any tech-partner we contacted with free service credits, almost-unlimited demand from "customers", and a sense of mission that was as strong as I've ever encountered. Warp Speed must have been similar -- "If we don't make this work on the first try, hundreds of thousands of people will die. If we don't make it work quickly, hundreds of thousands of people will die. The Federal Government will give us anything we need. Let's do this right." That's real different from bog-standard decadal industrial policy.

echelon 5y ago
> we had endless advantages that most projects don't have: almost-unlimited supply of high-skill and high-motivation labor, almost-unlimited support from any tech-partner we contacted with free service credits, almost-unlimited demand from "customers", and a sense of mission that was as strong as I've ever encountered. You know what would create an even greater sense of urgency? For the US government to offer fifty years of tax free profits to companies and entrepreneurs that industrialize in the US. Subsidize the factories, bring in immigrants to help. Let companies repatriate international profits for free to further assist. I've brought this up on HN before, but have been cautioned this might run afoul of the WTO. The more I think about it, though, would it really? And as net importers, do we care?
- pjc50 5y ago
  Bezos doesn't need another hundred billion tax free dollars.
- ben_w 5y ago
  Free money “solves” the exact one problem that American industry doesn’t have, and likely nothing else.
- roenxi 5y ago
  It isn't so much that it runs afoul of the WTO (if the States are serious about they just ignore the UN) as that it is bad policy. Picking on China as the major competitor... the reasons China has gained an industrial advantage over the US is because: 1. Lots of industrial activity is illegal/extremely risky in the US. If you want to open a steelworks, for example, it seems reasonable to guess that the US will be much more hostile to the business on environmental grounds than China would. 2. US labour conditions are extremely generous compared to China. Median wage in the US is something like 5-6x times China and the gap was larger when the investment decisions were being made. Neither of those will be solved by tax breaks. General tax breaks may well spur good results, but the real killer of industry is those two factors. The US already has a much better general business climate than China legally (eg, people can be confident that they own their business without risks like corruption or nationalisation taking it off them).
  - dontcare007 5y ago
    And rampant theft of IP.
  - lithos 5y ago
    The US does not always have stricter environmental policies than China. There are occasionally looser regulations like live stock cesspools not being required to be covered and installed with energy capture systems. Or cases where China is cracking down on crypto energy use, while the US just stares at new sites getting built in the already overburdened Texas grid.
  - echelon 5y ago
    Thank you for your comment. This is a lot more to consider than simple dismissals. > Lots of industrial activity is illegal/extremely risky in the US. If you want to open a steelworks, for example, I see your point. OSHA and regulations probably make this more expensive domestically, but I wonder if it'd only be marginally more expensive? We still have plenty of dangerous industries at scale: forestry, oil, mining, machining, rail, our remaining steel industry, etc. I agree with you that this probably plays a big role in the dangerous manufacturing jobs. I'm not sure it would have any bearing on "safe" jobs such as electronics manufacture, though. > the US will be much more hostile to the business on environmental grounds than China would. A sibling comment questioned this, and I share that sentiment. We have shale fracking, offshore drilling, mining, coal, and plenty of other environmentally dirty industries. Negative press hasn't put a stop to it. > Median wage in the US is something like 5-6x times China and the gap was larger when the investment decisions were being made. This is historical and it's starting to level out. Following this rationale, I assume we'd push manufacturing to countries where labor is even cheaper than China. But another issue is fragility. Though infrequent, the supply chain situation we're in now is something we should avoid. We're making the decision to onshore for semiconductors, which are high value, critical, strategic components. It seems like we'd want to do the same for steel, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, and other key domestic functions and high value industries. Even if we don't face another pandemic for a long time, Covid has surfaced problems in our existing strategy. It would be good to be in a place of security and negotiating power.
- justin66 5y ago
  > US government to offer fifty years of tax free profits Not even Communist states attempt to plan spending fifty years ahead of time.
jimmont 5y ago
Nonsense. Government and related policy and procedure has a wide range of successful outcomes in non-crisis situations. If the circumstances provide clarity of focus toward a desirable outcome and the gamble is won, and that's obvious to everyone generally, that doesn't mean anything per-se about government, policy or the mix. Including the general populace, hesitations and presumptions included.
specialist 5y ago
The exciting part of OWS is "expediting". The mandate and power to just get things done. What HBR might call a "policy tiger team". We currently have multiple crises that would benefit tremendously from the OWS strategy. Rebuilding our electrical grid for one. It has to be done. Every rational person knows this and agrees. And yet we. just. can't. budge. More than capital (investment), we need some bulldozers to push thru all the jurisdictional bullshit. Make us some omelets. The challenges of building transmission in the US, and how to overcome them, with Liza Reed https://www.volts.wtf/p/volts-podcast-the-challenges-of-building https://www.volts.wtf/p/volts-podcast-the-challenges-of-buil... How Are We Going to Build All That Clean Energy Infrastructure? https://www.niskanencenter.org/report-how-are-we-going-to-build-all-that-clean-energy-infrastructure/ https://www.niskanencenter.org/report-how-are-we-going-to-bu... There are perhaps dozens, maybe 100s, of such sticky wicket policy traps which would benefit from some Operation Warp Speed style mojo.

by ISL 5y ago

echelon 5y ago

> we had endless advantages that most projects don't have: almost-unlimited supply of high-skill and high-motivation labor, almost-unlimited support from any tech-partner we contacted with free service credits, almost-unlimited demand from "customers", and a sense of mission that was as strong as I've ever encountered. You know what would create an even greater sense of urgency? For the US government to offer fifty years of tax free profits to companies and entrepreneurs that industrialize in the US. Subsidize the factories, bring in immigrants to help. Let companies repatriate international profits for free to further assist. I've brought this up on HN before, but have been cautioned this might run afoul of the WTO. The more I think about it, though, would it really? And as net importers, do we care?

pjc50 5y ago
Bezos doesn't need another hundred billion tax free dollars.
ben_w 5y ago
Free money “solves” the exact one problem that American industry doesn’t have, and likely nothing else.
roenxi 5y ago
It isn't so much that it runs afoul of the WTO (if the States are serious about they just ignore the UN) as that it is bad policy. Picking on China as the major competitor... the reasons China has gained an industrial advantage over the US is because: 1. Lots of industrial activity is illegal/extremely risky in the US. If you want to open a steelworks, for example, it seems reasonable to guess that the US will be much more hostile to the business on environmental grounds than China would. 2. US labour conditions are extremely generous compared to China. Median wage in the US is something like 5-6x times China and the gap was larger when the investment decisions were being made. Neither of those will be solved by tax breaks. General tax breaks may well spur good results, but the real killer of industry is those two factors. The US already has a much better general business climate than China legally (eg, people can be confident that they own their business without risks like corruption or nationalisation taking it off them).
- dontcare007 5y ago
  And rampant theft of IP.
- lithos 5y ago
  The US does not always have stricter environmental policies than China. There are occasionally looser regulations like live stock cesspools not being required to be covered and installed with energy capture systems. Or cases where China is cracking down on crypto energy use, while the US just stares at new sites getting built in the already overburdened Texas grid.
- echelon 5y ago
  Thank you for your comment. This is a lot more to consider than simple dismissals. > Lots of industrial activity is illegal/extremely risky in the US. If you want to open a steelworks, for example, I see your point. OSHA and regulations probably make this more expensive domestically, but I wonder if it'd only be marginally more expensive? We still have plenty of dangerous industries at scale: forestry, oil, mining, machining, rail, our remaining steel industry, etc. I agree with you that this probably plays a big role in the dangerous manufacturing jobs. I'm not sure it would have any bearing on "safe" jobs such as electronics manufacture, though. > the US will be much more hostile to the business on environmental grounds than China would. A sibling comment questioned this, and I share that sentiment. We have shale fracking, offshore drilling, mining, coal, and plenty of other environmentally dirty industries. Negative press hasn't put a stop to it. > Median wage in the US is something like 5-6x times China and the gap was larger when the investment decisions were being made. This is historical and it's starting to level out. Following this rationale, I assume we'd push manufacturing to countries where labor is even cheaper than China. But another issue is fragility. Though infrequent, the supply chain situation we're in now is something we should avoid. We're making the decision to onshore for semiconductors, which are high value, critical, strategic components. It seems like we'd want to do the same for steel, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, and other key domestic functions and high value industries. Even if we don't face another pandemic for a long time, Covid has surfaced problems in our existing strategy. It would be good to be in a place of security and negotiating power.
justin66 5y ago
> US government to offer fifty years of tax free profits Not even Communist states attempt to plan spending fifty years ahead of time.

jimmont 5y ago

Nonsense. Government and related policy and procedure has a wide range of successful outcomes in non-crisis situations. If the circumstances provide clarity of focus toward a desirable outcome and the gamble is won, and that's obvious to everyone generally, that doesn't mean anything per-se about government, policy or the mix. Including the general populace, hesitations and presumptions included.

specialist 5y ago

The exciting part of OWS is "expediting". The mandate and power to just get things done. What HBR might call a "policy tiger team". We currently have multiple crises that would benefit tremendously from the OWS strategy. Rebuilding our electrical grid for one. It has to be done. Every rational person knows this and agrees. And yet we. just. can't. budge. More than capital (investment), we need some bulldozers to push thru all the jurisdictional bullshit. Make us some omelets. The challenges of building transmission in the US, and how to overcome them, with Liza Reed https://www.volts.wtf/p/volts-podcast-the-challenges-of-building https://www.volts.wtf/p/volts-podcast-the-challenges-of-buil... How Are We Going to Build All That Clean Energy Infrastructure? https://www.niskanencenter.org/report-how-are-we-going-to-build-all-that-clean-energy-infrastructure/ https://www.niskanencenter.org/report-how-are-we-going-to-bu... There are perhaps dozens, maybe 100s, of such sticky wicket policy traps which would benefit from some Operation Warp Speed style mojo.