4 ms·

Have you ever heard about the Jones Act? The US tried to specifically keep shipmaking capabilities, but implementing such protectionism arguably backfired. The

by pitaj 2y ago

Have you ever heard about the Jones Act? The US tried to specifically keep shipmaking capabilities, but implementing such protectionism arguably backfired. The point is, what policies would you have implemented to keep that manufacturing capacity?

cjbgkagh 2y ago
Financialization is eating the rest of the economy. That is the beast that must be slain if we wish to survive. Since that is not going to happen I think it is wise to instead prepare for the worst.
- eru 2y ago
  The question is, how would you do that preparation?
  - cjbgkagh 2y ago
    Some countries will fair better than others, so perhaps move to a country that maintains cordial relationships with both China and the US. I'm preparing by learning how to design and make things so I can do my own manufacturing in-house to minimize dependency on supply lines that could be disrupted. Manufacturing technology is has improved in leaps and bounds. It's much easier that it used to be. And I can do all this from a self sufficient homestead deep in the forest.
    - eru 2y ago
      > Some countries will fair better than others, so perhaps move to a country that maintains cordial relationships with both China and the US. I moved to Singapore a while ago. Not for those reasons, but being on good terms with almost anyone certainly is a nice bonus. Though my question was rather, what policies would a country want to adopt? > Manufacturing technology is has improved in leaps and bounds. It's much easier that it used to be. And I can do all this from a self sufficient homestead deep in the forest. Yes, but that's essentially just a hobby or at most craft production. So that is neither competitive as mass production in peace time, nor of much use for mass production in wartime. (It definitely sounds like a great hobby, though!)
      - Teever 2y ago
        A mostly self-sufficient homestead isn't a hobby, it's a way of life. And the user you're replying to is advocating for that way of life because they are predicting a severe downfall in the quality of life for those who stay in the global system. I have a sneaking suspicion that they're going to be right.
        eru 2y ago
        > I have a sneaking suspicion that they're going to be right. Over what time horizon? The market consensus is definitely not giving this a big probability any time soon.
        Teever 2y ago
        I'm skeptical that market consensus (whatever that really means anyways) is good at predicting events like ecological collapse and deranged authoritarians launching senseless wars of aggression.
        eru 2y ago
        > [...] market consensus (whatever that really means anyways) [...] If we had proper prediction markets for arbitrary events, I would just directly talk about what those prices are. In the real world, we have to look at the prices of existing financial instruments and see which of these can be used as proxies for the events we are interested in. For some events that fairly easy: if Russian government bonds trade at high prices in 2021, it's unlikely that Russia's dictator will start a senseless war of aggression soon. (In reality, the price of Russia's bonds went down in the runup to the war.) For other events you have to be more clever: if you want to get a sense of the market estimate for the probability that an asteroid impact (or similar) will erase all life on earth, you can't just look at the price of a straightforward bet that pays out one dollar, if the asteroid hits: most of us would be dead, and the dollar would likely be worthless. However you can create a bet that has the right structure: Alice gives Bob 100 dollar now, and in five years, Bob gives Alice 500 dollars (but obviously only if the asteroid hasn't killed Alice and Bob). The market price of such a contract can tell you something about the market consensus estimate of a collapse. My argument wouldn't be that the market consensus is particularly good at prediction, just that it's better than any other prediction mechanism we have; because it can and will incorporate those other prediction mechanisms, and people have a financial incentive to do so. Btw, why do you think markets would be particularly bad at forecasting ecological collapse? Is there any ecology you are particularly worried about?
  - logicchains 2y ago
    Bring back something like Bretton Woods. When it ended in the 70s and the dollar was no longer tethered to anything physical, is when the financial system started eating up more and more of the economy. Using the financial system as the middleman for money creation (as opposed to e.g. directly depositing helicopter money into people's accounts, or having a non-inflationary currency) necessarily entailed a continuous transfer of wealth from main street to wall street.
    - eru 2y ago
      Haha, Bretton Woods wasn't magical. The dollar had long been unmoored in practice, that's why the Bretton Woods agreement collapsed. So if you see any trends that only show up after Bretton Woods was _formally_ abandoned, then those trends can't have been kicked off by the unmooring. What trends are you worried about anyway?
yardstick 2y ago
Probably a policy that directs funds, every year, to building ships and other critical things. Possibly to state owned construction conglomerates. Essentially what already happens with Boeing, Lockheed etc for military aircraft.
- pjc50 2y ago
  > Essentially what already happens with Boeing You want to subsidize a failing company? The deeper problem is that, while the war isn't happening, the war products are not critical. It doesn't matter whether they work or are delivered. Even the medium scale wars the US did maintain over the past couple of decades to keep the machine going showed that various areas were just fleecing them for inadequate products or regular grift (like the vanishing Afghan government). Much of the Pacific fleet's maintenance budget was being stolen by one guy named "Fat Leonard". This sort of thing doesn't go away until the war is actually critical rather than something you can escape by turning off the news.
  - salawat 2y ago
    You're doing that either way by not having competitors to Boeing.
  - lupire 2y ago
    Yes that's what "subsidize" means. Fat Leaonard fleeced the Navy, but did provide services.
- bluGill 2y ago
  The US Navy builds a lot of ships and submarines in the US.

by pitaj 2y ago

cjbgkagh 2y ago

Financialization is eating the rest of the economy. That is the beast that must be slain if we wish to survive. Since that is not going to happen I think it is wise to instead prepare for the worst.

eru 2y ago
The question is, how would you do that preparation?
- cjbgkagh 2y ago
  Some countries will fair better than others, so perhaps move to a country that maintains cordial relationships with both China and the US. I'm preparing by learning how to design and make things so I can do my own manufacturing in-house to minimize dependency on supply lines that could be disrupted. Manufacturing technology is has improved in leaps and bounds. It's much easier that it used to be. And I can do all this from a self sufficient homestead deep in the forest.
  - eru 2y ago
    > Some countries will fair better than others, so perhaps move to a country that maintains cordial relationships with both China and the US. I moved to Singapore a while ago. Not for those reasons, but being on good terms with almost anyone certainly is a nice bonus. Though my question was rather, what policies would a country want to adopt? > Manufacturing technology is has improved in leaps and bounds. It's much easier that it used to be. And I can do all this from a self sufficient homestead deep in the forest. Yes, but that's essentially just a hobby or at most craft production. So that is neither competitive as mass production in peace time, nor of much use for mass production in wartime. (It definitely sounds like a great hobby, though!)
    - Teever 2y ago
      A mostly self-sufficient homestead isn't a hobby, it's a way of life. And the user you're replying to is advocating for that way of life because they are predicting a severe downfall in the quality of life for those who stay in the global system. I have a sneaking suspicion that they're going to be right.
      - eru 2y ago
        > I have a sneaking suspicion that they're going to be right. Over what time horizon? The market consensus is definitely not giving this a big probability any time soon.
        Teever 2y ago
        I'm skeptical that market consensus (whatever that really means anyways) is good at predicting events like ecological collapse and deranged authoritarians launching senseless wars of aggression.
        eru 2y ago
        > [...] market consensus (whatever that really means anyways) [...] If we had proper prediction markets for arbitrary events, I would just directly talk about what those prices are. In the real world, we have to look at the prices of existing financial instruments and see which of these can be used as proxies for the events we are interested in. For some events that fairly easy: if Russian government bonds trade at high prices in 2021, it's unlikely that Russia's dictator will start a senseless war of aggression soon. (In reality, the price of Russia's bonds went down in the runup to the war.) For other events you have to be more clever: if you want to get a sense of the market estimate for the probability that an asteroid impact (or similar) will erase all life on earth, you can't just look at the price of a straightforward bet that pays out one dollar, if the asteroid hits: most of us would be dead, and the dollar would likely be worthless. However you can create a bet that has the right structure: Alice gives Bob 100 dollar now, and in five years, Bob gives Alice 500 dollars (but obviously only if the asteroid hasn't killed Alice and Bob). The market price of such a contract can tell you something about the market consensus estimate of a collapse. My argument wouldn't be that the market consensus is particularly good at prediction, just that it's better than any other prediction mechanism we have; because it can and will incorporate those other prediction mechanisms, and people have a financial incentive to do so. Btw, why do you think markets would be particularly bad at forecasting ecological collapse? Is there any ecology you are particularly worried about?
- logicchains 2y ago
  Bring back something like Bretton Woods. When it ended in the 70s and the dollar was no longer tethered to anything physical, is when the financial system started eating up more and more of the economy. Using the financial system as the middleman for money creation (as opposed to e.g. directly depositing helicopter money into people's accounts, or having a non-inflationary currency) necessarily entailed a continuous transfer of wealth from main street to wall street.
  - eru 2y ago
    Haha, Bretton Woods wasn't magical. The dollar had long been unmoored in practice, that's why the Bretton Woods agreement collapsed. So if you see any trends that only show up after Bretton Woods was _formally_ abandoned, then those trends can't have been kicked off by the unmooring. What trends are you worried about anyway?

yardstick 2y ago

Probably a policy that directs funds, every year, to building ships and other critical things. Possibly to state owned construction conglomerates. Essentially what already happens with Boeing, Lockheed etc for military aircraft.

pjc50 2y ago
> Essentially what already happens with Boeing You want to subsidize a failing company? The deeper problem is that, while the war isn't happening, the war products are not critical. It doesn't matter whether they work or are delivered. Even the medium scale wars the US did maintain over the past couple of decades to keep the machine going showed that various areas were just fleecing them for inadequate products or regular grift (like the vanishing Afghan government). Much of the Pacific fleet's maintenance budget was being stolen by one guy named "Fat Leonard". This sort of thing doesn't go away until the war is actually critical rather than something you can escape by turning off the news.
- salawat 2y ago
  You're doing that either way by not having competitors to Boeing.
- lupire 2y ago
  Yes that's what "subsidize" means. Fat Leaonard fleeced the Navy, but did provide services.
bluGill 2y ago
The US Navy builds a lot of ships and submarines in the US.