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The government interferes with many commodities. Food, oil, rare-earth elements, sugar, airplane frames, etc
by 0cf8612b2e1e 2mo ago
The government interferes with many commodities. Food, oil, rare-earth elements, sugar, airplane frames, etc
- ethbr1 2mo agoAll of these have the feature that you can produce them more economically-efficiently at scale AND that boom-bust cycles can be catastrophic for producers. Memory absolutely fits both these criteria. As for the net public good weighing, at the end of the day the question would be if it would be more economically efficient to mass produce memory with a managed price structure (i.e. US agrees to buy X amount at $Y regularly). Which turns into whether having an anchor buyer allows the producer to economically create (and continually run) more production capacity than they would otherwise. It feels like for semiconductors, the planet as a whole would benefit from maximizing production to floor cost. Granted, AI infra mania current times is an anomaly, as was internet build-out.
- nixon_why69 2mo agoSet aside the mania, OP said: Food, oil, rare-earth elements, sugar, airplane frames, etc I put "food" and "airplane frames" in the "worth it for state intervention" category personally. Memory is obviously not food, the question is whether it is airplane frames at this point in time. Maybe? I'd give it a solid 55/45 maybe. But we shouldn't sponsor korean/taiwanese companies, so what's the plan for an American memory company?