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Taiwan is well ahead of Japan and SK in terms of GDP PPP, which takes into account the cost of living in the country. In fact, Taiwan is closing in on the US as
by aurareturn 3y ago
Taiwan is well ahead of Japan and SK in terms of GDP PPP, which takes into account the cost of living in the country. In fact, Taiwan is closing in on the US as well.[0]
If we base it on GDP PPP, then Japan and SK are actually 10-20 years behind Taiwan.
The work moved from Japan to Taiwan simply because TSMC beat the competition out.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...
- alephnerd 3y agoPPP and anything Per Capita isn't a convincing metric. They are productivity metrics (aka how much shit a country can produce) GDP is just a measurement of how much shit a country produces a year. GDP per Capita is a measurement of how much shit is produced per entire population - from a 5 month old toddler to a 92 year old geriatric. GDP PPP is a lossy transformation of GDP into supposed "international dollars" that have varying calculations and are based on the (imo flawed) assumption that goods can be substituted. GDP PPP Per Capita is dividing that flawed transformation across the entire population. > because TSMC beat the competition out Because American and Japanese companies in the 2000s viewed the foundry model as commodified and a race to the bottom, like battery tech (eg. BYD), and as such decided to divest and let much poorer/less well compensated Koreans and Taiwanese work on it in the 2000s. This is why GlobalFoundries exists. AMD was falling drastically behind Intel in the 2000s because their foundries were a massive operational expense preventing them from investing in R&D. As such, AMD divested their fabs into a PE funded company called GlobalFoundaries in 2009 Japanese companies did the same thing, creating joint ventures or gaining controlling stakes in Chinese, Taiwanese, and Korean conglomerates while transferring commodified IP. This is how CATL was formed by Japanese TDK, BYD by Samsung's cellphone battery division (yes they're Korean but same story), and others
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago>GDP is just a measurement of how much shit a country produces a year. No, it's a measure of much money goes through the economy, regardless if any "shit" is produced there. Look at Ireland, Netherlands and Luxembourg or any other tax heaven.
- alephnerd 3y agoServices are production as well. Or are you saying that any dollars made selling software you wrote is useless?
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago>Services are production as well. In what fantasy universe? >Or are you saying that any dollars made selling software you wrote is useless? I never said anything about software. You're building your own strawmen at this point.
- alephnerd 3y ago> In what fantasy universe? By definition - https://data.oecd.org/gdp/gross-domestic-product-gdp.htm#:~:text=Gross%20domestic%20product%20(GDP)%20is,and%20services%20(less%20imports) https://data.oecd.org/gdp/gross-domestic-product-gdp.htm#:~:.... > I never said anything about software Software, Banking, Foreign shell companies holding all global profits, etc all fall under SERVICES.
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoYou're answering to claims I haven't made and not the questions I asked.
- alephnerd 3y agoI'm pointing out that the definition you are using is fundamentally flawed, which completely undermines your point.
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoYou're pointing out that tax heavens produce products which is flawed. They don't produce anything, they're just middlemen and their balooned GDP reflects that.
- adamisom 3y agomedian disposable income is another measure, on which the US leads the world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...
- alephnerd 3y agoAnd was why low margins high skill work left for ASEAN, EU, Mexico, China, Japan, South Korea, Israel, India, etc since the 1980s. You can see references to this even in early Simpsons (eg. Germans buying the nuclear plant or Japanese being viewed as god tier overworked manufacturers).
- aurareturn 3y agoUsing raw median income is pointless when comparing work life quality. GDP PPP is simply a better measure though imperfect. AMD sold their fabs for a variety of reasons including loss of design leadership to Intel Core designs, huge debt load from overpaying (at the time) for ATI, loss of node leadership, financial strain that almost led to full bankruptcy, trend towards fab cost needing multiple customers to profit, and a focus on chip design. Further more, your point about chip nodes racing towards the bottom does not support why Intel chose to keep its fabs and won until they got stuck on 14nm. It’s weird how you describe advanced chip manufacturing as a commodity when there is only one company in the world capable of producing 3nm chips at scale and make a profit. Furthermore, TSMC is worth more than AMD, Intel, and ARM combined. Up until recently, it was the most valuable company in the semiconductor industry before the Nvidia run. The logical conclusion is that advanced chip design takes a tremendous amount of skill and is not a commodity. Arguably, chip design is more of a commodity in 2024 since many vendors are capable of producing fast CPUs, GPUs, NPUs, SoCs, network chips, etc.
- Wytwwww 3y ago> in terms of GDP PPP, which takes into account the cost of living in the country You should be comparing PPP adjusted household income and not GDP if you want to make this argument.
- insane_dreamer 3y agoGDP per capita is not a very useful metric for determining quality of work life (the point being discussed)
- aurareturn 3y agoBut raw median income is?
- insane_dreamer 3y agobetter than GDP, absolutely; but has to be combined with PPP (though PPP itself can vary wildly depending on what you base on it)