I've found the reason (I think) 90% of the world's semiconductor-grade neon production is concentrated in one country. Per this German government whitepaper about the noble gas industry: the USSR massively overinvested in neon capacity in the 1980's, in order to build space-based excimer laser weapons. Ukraine's extant plants date (probably) to the 1980's; they're responsible for a global oversupply that's persisted since the Cold War.
- "Neon was regarded as a strategic resource in the former Soviet Union, because it was believed to be required for the intended production of laser weapons for missile and satellite defence purposes in the 1980s. Accordingly, all major air separation units in the Soviet Union were equipped with neon, but also krypton and xenon, enrichment facilities or, in some cases, purification plants (cf. Sections 5.4 and 5.5). The domestic Soviet supply of neon was extremely large but demand low."
- "Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, global crude neon production was approximately 500–600 million l/a (= 500,000–600,000 m3/a). It was dominated by far by large-scale air separation units associated with metallurgical combines in Russia and Ukraine. Simultaneously, demand was estimated at around 300 million l/a (cf. Section 4.2). In the years between 1990 and 2012, therefore, most crude neon was not purified, but released into the atmosphere, because there was no customer base."
Given this piece of information, it's hard to see how 500-600,000 m3/a could be used for the lasers used in chip manufacture. Even if the whole world production drops by 99.9%, there's probably going to be more than enough for those lasers to continue working.
Edit: it also appears that the current state of the art chip manufacturing does not use excimer lasers anymore [1], and the prior generations used them, but not with Neon, but rather with Kripton and Argon.
Those krypton fluoride and argon fluoride lasers are exactly the lasers that use neon, even though "neon" is not in their name and their respective Wikipedia pages do not currently mention it. See for example this 2016 announcement from laser supplier Gigaphoton:
"Gigaphoton to Begin Field Evaluations for Neon Gas Recycling System “hTGM”"
In KrF and ArF excimer lasers, which are used in advanced semiconductor manufacturing processes, neon accounts for over 96% of laser gases used as the buffer gas. However, the cost of neon gas has risen sharply, reaching 5 to 20 times previous prices due to difficulty in obtaining it, a situation brought about by a worldwide neon supply shortage that has continued since 2015. In response to the situation, in July of 2015 Gigaphoton launched the "Neon Gas Rescue Program" in order to provide support to customers in sustaining stable high-volume manufacturing environments.
Of the three program options Gigaphoton previously announced plans of launching in 2016, the company has now completed development of its neon gas recycling system "hTGM," and will begin field evaluations of the system this month. hTGM makes it possible to reuse laser gas by connecting directly to the conduit of lasers in operation at semiconductor plants, collecting the used gas, removing impurities, and then re-injecting it back into the laser. This system is both eco-friendly and provides the greatest possible recycling rate without impacting the operation of laser equipment. hTGM also features an extremely efficient design that allows up to five lasers to be connected to a single unit. At present, the company has decided to begin evaluations for KrF lasers at user facilities from the end of February, after which it plans to progressively apply the system to ArF lasers as well.
Did the US have a similar project? I'm aware of Project Excalibur, but I think that was significantly more ambitious (nuclear powered x-ray laser) and wasn't developed nearly as far.
Those government-run reserves always seem a bit silly to me. There's nothing special about the reserving business that normal private sector companies can't do.
(Especially if you abolish anti price gouging laws.)
If they could do it, we would have let them. But due to market failures throughout the course of history, we have learned to apply hysteresis to markets by stockpiling reserves and offering price supports in times of oversupply. The alternative is boom and bust cycles, which is fine for some markets like cryptocurrency and tulips, but bad for food and other necessities.
What kind of market failures are you talking about?
Robust futures markets are perfectly capable of protecting producers and consumers from price fluctuations (and help stabilize prices as they do so). Similarly for long term contracts between consumers and suppliers.
Futures markets and long term contracts don’t help people eat. You can’t eat food that doesn’t exist due to droughts, floods, freezes, fires, or pestilence.
Stockpiling is a rather straightforward operation. In addition, the benefits of stockpiling are both rivalrous and excludable. Ie stockpiles are not a 'public good'.
So the private sector is perfectly capable of stockpiling, too.
But the private sector generally doesn't stockpile, because the cost of maintaining a stockpile exceeds any immediate economic benefit of doing so. It is economically inefficient almost all of the time. Very occasionally it becomes useful, but current accounting practice, corporation law and shareholder demands do not have mechanisms for incentivising it.
One of the key roles of government is to provide services that are economically inefficient but are a public good.
When companies often last less than 50 years, they have no interest in preparing for events that happen every 50 years. If they did, it only makes it more likely that a competitor would out-compete them.
By your logic, Warren Buffett should have been able to buy spend just a dollar or so to buy insurance against someone getting everything right, shouldn't he? After all, the chances were exceedingly small and competition would have driven down the insurance premium?
The private sector is perfectly capable of providing security? Private sector entities store and handle valuable stuff all the time.
(Government) control is another issue. Obviously, a government run scheme would be under more government control. Though laws are perfectly capable of controlling private sector entities, too.
Security is not profitable until a crisis hit, why would a private company in the JIT business world care about the security of a society if it's not profitable until it is? That's exactly how you get price gouging...
How is neon extracted and why does one country have a 90% monopoly (in this specific grade)?
edit: Found this C&EN story from 2016 that adds context:
- "Chip makers, which account for more than 90% of global neon consumption, are already experiencing high prices and some shortages stemming from the Russian conflict with Ukraine, Shon-Roy says. The war, which started in 2014, interrupted global supplies of the gas, about 70% of which comes from Iceblick, a firm based in the Ukrainian city of Odessa."
- "Iceblick gathers and purifies neon from large cryogenic air separation units that supply oxygen and nitrogen to steelmakers. Most of the air separation units equipped to capture neon, which makes up only 18.2 ppm of the atmosphere by volume, are in Eastern Europe."
This is puzzling to me, because I don't get why air separation should naturally concentrate in exactly one place. It's not tied to a rare and localized geologic formation, like helium sort-of is.
Also there's cryogenic air separation plants all over the planet, why don't they do neon too? (Asking in the spirit of curiosity)
edit #2: I've just found something that offers a possible explanation and it's far more interesting than I expected:
- "Neon was regarded as a strategic resource in the former Soviet Union, because it was believed to be required for the intended production of laser weapons for missile and satellite defence purposes in the 1980s. Accordingly, all major air separation units in the Soviet Union were equipped with neon, but also krypton and xenon, enrichment facilities or, in some cases, purification plants (cf. Sections 5.4 and 5.5). The domestic Soviet supply of neon was extremely large but demand low."
Scale and geographic concentration tend to push prices lower, even if just fractionally, and relatively low costs of transport for basically anything in the world mean there's no penalty for buying from far away, so there aren't many factors pushing back from geographic concentration. Add to that concentration in other industries - a market with fewer larger buyers means larger average individual demand than otherwise, which pushes towards larger or more concentrated suppliers.
Loosely, there's a lot of economic push towards concentration, and not a lot pushing against it. Geopolitics usually operates on a slower scale than market pressures, which means we get weird things like a vested interest in Ukrainian national security due to it being the only country bothering to manufacture neon in the world.
> Scale and geographic concentration tend to push prices lower
Neon is extracted from the atmosphere. There is no geographic concentration to exploit (well, I guess technically Antarctica is coldest and so has a volumetric advantage). If Ukraine had the bulk of the supply it's simply because someone decided to invest in a bunch of manufacturing infrastructure there.
I didn't mean geographic concentration of the resource (although that can be a factor) - geographic concentration of firms can often have a knock-on effect on both infrastructure and other supporting resources (a dock that can support exporting neon, neon-extraction-machine repair & service companies nearby, concentrated local expertise, etc).
It not really a byproduct per say of oxygen and nitrogen, but the byproduct of that process has a higher amount of neon than air by about 99 times. Still, the gas that we got is about 93% argon, and then you got to remove the carbon dioxide, but then its mostly neon left I think.
> How is neon extracted and why does one country have a 90% monopoly
Monopoly is a misused term. Many monopolies around the world are market capture due to being sunk cost low price leaders. Replace "monopoly" with "cornered the market".
Not quite. They don't have complete control of the market to where they can bring on the onerous things that come with what we'd traditionally define as a monopoly, price gouging, etc.
Neon is not the main reason they are doing it. It's a byproduct that gives them a little extra profit once they've distilled the air anyway for other reasons. Distilling the air just to get neon wouldn't be profitable.
Only if the soviets hadn’t already spent until billions adding the capacity to overproduce it due to a perceived national security need that didn’t pan out.
It’s essentially free for the company to do this since the gov’t already sunk the cost decades ago.
No one has done that for Air liquide, at least not yet.
It's funny I was talking to precisely a steelmaker about imports and exporters some time ago: "The American is no patriot, if steel is 30% cheaper in Japan, he will buy it there rather than at home." It looks like, in fact, these Ukranians, also in the steel industry, might actually be doing something patriotic--like people all over the world, America too--and keep the surely very tricky and specific technology to themselves.
It's not unlike German "hidden champions", companies that figured out a niche safe from industrial espionage, usually something involving very precise know-how regarding something analog, and nobody can do it like they can. German hidden champions are generally family-owned, rather than public companies, and prefer it that way; they stay in Germany typically; and there are 300 of them by some reasonable reckoning. They make the critical thing that goes in the thing that goes in the thing.
Taiwan does something similar--they see their chip industry, which is also very dependent on human know-how and highly analog, high precision--as a patriotic endeavor that protects their sovereignty economically and geopolitically.
So, apparently the reason neon comes from Ukraine is some pretty smart Ukrainians wanted it that way, for the good of Ukraine, and specifically for Ukrainian sovereignty to matter to the rest of the world.
> So, apparently the reason neon comes from Ukraine is some pretty smart Ukrainians wanted it that way, for the good of Ukraine, and specifically for Ukrainian sovereignty to matter to the rest of the world.
Nope. See the other comments here, that explain that the Soviet Union overinvested in this technology because they wanted to build weapons with it.
It would probably have been better for the people of the Soviet Union (or Ukraine now) to have invested these billions into something else, or even just consumed them.
You seem to be right, it was a military-industrial move by the Soviet Union to counter the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars). Having read a briefing describing the rocket involved, it Star Wars was cutting-edge 2060's technology that happened to be possible in the 80's due to a long list of edge cases.
Well in the end, those neon producers harmed capitalism as intended.
As with chip making, it can be done anywhere but the tools and factories setup to mass produce are concentrated in certain areas. That's just how industry works sometimes.
It takes time to setup new supply chains for mass production.
Mining (and refining) especially tends to come with some nasty environmental effects that we've been quite happy to outsource to other parts of the world with less empowered citizenry (and often cheaper labor).
Rare-earth elements are the same way - they're relatively abundant, but China is enormously over-represented in the market because the west doesn't like mining and China doesn't care.
Not just lithium. This program aired on the Aussie ABC last night on the terrible way Cobalt mining is being done in Congo and the total dystopia that has been allowed to occur. https://youtu.be/_V3bIzNX4co
Lithium mining is not that nasty. And Tesla for one wants to make it even less toxic. Besides there's just not that much life on the salt flat, yeah flamingos great, and the brine shrimp they eat, but come on. That's one of the meaningful defenses for mining in the Atacama, there's very little life to harm. Much better than mining in the middle of the Amazon, making four species endemic to the orefield extinct, don't you think?
Lithium is a great example. Canada used to be one of the major lithium producers in the 1950s and still has huge deposits, but output has fallen dramatically over the years and actually declined to zero in 2020.
As I understand it, it could be that air separation occurs elsewhere, at different places, and that only purification to extract semiconductor-grade neon is done by Iceblick in Odessa.
It can be also tied to bespoke equipment, hard-to-transfer expertise and experience. If consumption grows relatively slow, it makes sense to expand single installation, rather than duplicate it with 'copy exactly (which might take too long to pay off).
Ninety per cent of neon production is in Russia and Ukraine.[43] As of 2020, the company Iceblick, with plants in Odessa and Moscow, supplies 65 per cent of the world's production of neon, as well as 15% of the krypton and xenon.[44][45]
Neon gas is extracted as a byproduct of iron smelting from neon rich iron ore.
Obviously the monopoly was due to the fact that they were able to sell it at the cheapest price for the required purity.
There should be no significant problems to create production capacities in other places, but then the price would become higher and, more importantly, a few months or even years might be needed until the neon production would be increased enough to compensate for a sudden loss of the source from Ukraine.
Hi, is Neon the reason Elon Musk is exploring Mars? Apparently it's meteors are rich in Neon, its atmosphere is rich in Neon and its mantle is possibly richher in Neon?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001910352...
Mars’ atmospheric neon suggests volatile-rich primitive mantle
> How is neon extracted and why does one country have a 90% monopoly (in this specific grade)?
"Specific grade" - you need very, very, very high purity gasses for lasers.
Noble gasses are very, very, very hard to purify because they are chemically inert.
Welding gas (argon) is dirt cheap, 99.99% pure argon is surprisingly expensive, and semiconductor grade Argon, or Neon at 99.99999%+ purity far more.
Ultrapure neon is a great example of a single source critical input for the semiconductor industry. There are hundreds of similar small companies around the world supplying something completely irreplaceable.
This conflict will affect 1/4 of the world's wheat which will affect food prices.
In 2010 Russia stopped exporting wheat due to wildfires burning their fields (most likely caused by climate change). This caused a hike in food prices which helped trigger the Arab revolutions in 2011.
The US or Canada or Australia will be more than able to cover the Russian share by switching out crops if Wheat is more profitable given any shortages.
Especially since the US wastes so much agricultural land on maize that they force onto drivers as mandatory ethanol. (While keeping cheaper ethanol from Brazil out of the country with tariffs and regulation.)
If push came to shove, they could drop this silly policy, and alleviate supply shortages.
> My Ukrainian colleague was terrified for his family today.
I am willing to host up to 10 Ukrainians at my farm in the very south west corner of Poland until further decisions can be made. Only 2 takers so far. Please email my username at gmail if this is interesting to your colleague or to anyone else reading this.
Poland has dropped visa requirements. I can provide some initial legal assistance via a generous family member's donation. I was once a refugee as well. We expect nothing in return.
edit: now at 60% occupancy (maybe) Good luck everyone!
For any Ukrainian HN-ers reading this or for people in here who have relatives/close persons in Ukraine who want to escape the incoming war, for Romania there is this Facebook group [1] where there's a "matching" between what the people in here (in Romania) can offer, like accommodation or transport, and what the people escaping the war in Ukraine might need. The discussions in there are generally in Romanian and/or English, but as far as I could tell there was a decent amount of (Romanian) people offering accommodation to Ukrainian refugees. Sorry for the FB link but that's one of the few such things available right now.
Also, I can personally offer transport with my personal car (meaning 3 extra adults or 2 adults and 2 kids) from anywhere on the Ukrainian-Romanian border to anywhere else in Romania, if any of the HN-ers in here has someone close/a relative who needs that kind of transport inside Romania then leave a reply to this comment and we'll see about making contact/getting in touch.
I left Poland with my mom and $500 right as tanks started rolling, that was 41 years ago. I currently live alone in a giant farm house I was about to renovate for rental. This is the least I could do and it's actually easy. So far it is older folks coming. I look forward to learning some nice Ukrainian recipes from these people!
> Irregular food, regardless of bombings = many millions might die or be severely impacted in the long-term
That's speculation that depends very much on the precise details. The ancestor comment said:
>>>>> In 2010 Russia stopped exporting wheat due to wildfires burning their fields (most likely caused by climate change). This caused a hike in food prices which helped trigger the Arab revolutions in 2011.
Did "many millions ... die" in 2011?
Also wheat is fungible, and Russia is still growing grain and will still be able to export it, just maybe not to the usual places. So maybe China buys more Russian wheat and less American, and the American wheat goes to Europe or Africa instead of China. There can be disruptions with things continuing to more or less balance out.
Russia messed with grain supply in Ukraine in the 30’s and kept exporting while many millions of Ukrainians starved. I’m not sure any part of your comment would be reassuring to Ukrainian.
I agree completely. I feel shocked, I can't quite yet comprehend, what has happened. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the same for most of my peers in my country, i.e. germany.
I think the "missiles on civilians" narrative has been exaggerated.
There are up to 10 civilian casualties so far, so it would have been easier to die of covid or even pollution than bombs in Ukraine in the past 2 days.
I was personally hit by this back in 2015 as a grad student. We called up our process gas supplier and asked for a k-cylinder of Neon and were laughed off the phone, so we ended up running our experiment on krypton for setup and used a lecture bottle of Neon that a partner lab had left over for the few minutes of data collection we needed to get our result[1].
At the time, we were cursing the semi industry for using up all of the remaining Neon with their billion dollar operating budgets...
While the trade implications of this war are being consider, let's think of the lives of our fellow hackers. These are people who along side us develop the software of the world.
They're not necessarily soldiers, they're just regular people and right now there are missiles flying at their homes, tanks in their streets.
Yeah, anyone an idea? There is outages of the internet and mobile communications in some areas? For example is there anything one can do forom here about that?
In general, if you want to help, have a look at https://www.givewell.org/ and just pick any one of their top charities.
(Yes, their top charities don't necessarily have anything to do with whatever cause is currently in the news. They go by 'greatest improvement in human lives per buck' regardless of where those people are.)
Well given the UN FAO already reported massive world food price growth driven by agricultural commodities, and the US, UK, Europe and China have all reported massive food price growth, this isn't going to help. The winners will be the large-scale agricultural commodities trading houses such as Cargill. They see this stuff coming and hedge appropriately before it happens.
Since it's extracted from the air, it shouldn't be too hard to start doing it here. I assume we do this for other gases already, so ramping it up for Neon may not be that difficult.
It's not a non-issue. You can't extract it from air with tweezers, you need to build a lot of equipment. It takes a long time to build a chemical plant, and if Intel is sitting idle until that plant is built... well, that's an enormous problem.
Cryogenic distillation of air is a solved problem. There are plenty of plants already in operation all over the globe meaning there only needs to be modification to existing plants to further collect and crack the remaining 0.1% of air. I'm sure this is not hard to do with existing cryoplants.
If we already have the capacity then why are we without Neon production is a good question. Neon isn't in high demand like the easily extracted major components of air: nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%), and argon (0.9%). Neon is something like 18ppm in air so a lot of energy has to go in to get very little out. So my guess is economics where the existing Ukrainian cryogenic plants have kept their prices low enough to discourage adding this capacity to new/existing plants elsewhere (maybe they get cheap energy, subsidies, etc). Now it might be profitable.
>Cryogenic distillation of air is a solved problem. There are plenty of plants already in operation all over the globe meaning there only needs to be modification to existing plants to further collect and crack the remaining 0.1% of air. I'm sure this is not hard to do with existing cryoplants.
It can take months or years to make additions to existing plants, there is an enormous amount of difference between a solved textbook problem and a real problem being solved.
People don't understand why semiconductor argon, and neon can't be substituted by argon, and neon used in welding.
It's very hard to purify noble gasses, as they are almost completely chemically inert, and chemistry needed to make, say, same argon, to form compounds with anything else is something needing very special equipment, and know how.
Welding grade argon is dirt cheap, 99.999% argon is very expensive, and 99.999999% argon is many times as expensive as welding gas.
I've worked in a specialty welding shop that did laser and electron beam and never saw or heard of neon used for welding. It is beyond prohibitivly expensive. Even helium is awesome for welding but so expensive that we only used it for specialty jobs that were very low volume and high margin and high risk (e.g. prototypes).
Although it is still an issue. While the resource is everywhere, the technology for extraction is still in a specific vulnerable position.
Once we have the extraction capabilities elsewhere - then is is a non-issue. The turn around time on that? I have no idea. It could be days, months or years.
I'm more concerned about the probable loss of wheat supplies to the near east, especially Turkey and Egypt.
But of course,they could just eat Revani or Basbousa instead.
Wheat is pretty easy to ship, and globally is usually 'overproduced' due to farm subsidies. People won't be going hungry just because one countries production stopped.
In the olden times some considered it a good measure to secure food production by subsidies.
You know, hungry people get restless.
If that is your intent or you don't have to face the consequences, it's fine.
But for the most part to keep the masses fed is a basic measure.
Of course with time, things get complicated for governments:
But you always have to consider the angry rabble will string you up at the next streetlight.In the aforementioned parts of the world gladly with an 'Allāhu akbar' on the lips.
Admitted, in many parts of the world they, the masses that is, are quite overfed by now and appropriate measures should be taken.
But that can change quite fast.
Eh, if food really gets scarce, we can just eat less meat. Ie switch to more efficient means of producing food fairly quickly.
People like eating meat, so there will be protests etc, but it's not threatening famine.
> In the olden times some considered it a good measure to secure food production by subsidies. You know, hungry people get restless. If that is your intent or you don't have to face the consequences, it's fine. But for the most part to keep the masses fed is a basic measure.
Which 'olden times' are you talking about? When and where?
Direct subsidies for growing food are probably one of the least efficient ways for that goal.
Just imagine what would happen without the subsidies: the agricultural land in question wouldn't just leave the country. Mostly people just grow different things with and without subsidies.
And risked an enormous escalation with a nuclear power? That would be reckless.
Don't get me wrong - I would also like to see decisive action to this attack. But escalating a relatively local dispute into a conflict between world powers would risk a WW. Moving in troops into a non-NATO ally would also be extremely difficult to explain on the world stage.
There probably is decisive action being implemented behind the scenes right now, it's just not visible to the public.
To be honest this war does make me doubt my assption that Putin is very rational and predictive. What is the rationale behind such a full-scale invasion? I don't see benefits that outweight the costs. I am happy to hear them, if they are any.
You can’t let countries with active conflicts enter NATO, you might as well declare war with Russia at that point. Russia was weaker back then so they may have resorted to nukes sooner.
NATO shouldn’t have expanded eastward, or the US should have left NATO. The West has been such utter fools in our negotiations with the world, being too powerful for too long has eroded diplomatic skill and left us ignoring the legitimate grievances of our adversaries and delivering one sided ultimatums.
As per him, Ukraine should be in Russia's domain due to the shared history/culture. And he's okay to pay any price for it. A side benefit for him is that he will be added to the long array of Russian leaders (Peter, Catherine, Lenin, Stalin., etc.) who are remembered for taking decisive actions(good and bad) for the Russian nation.
The "NATO Problem" is probably just a ruse to rile up support for his amibitions.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/lavrov-rus... "Their intentions are different from ours too. Putin’s goal is not a flourishing, peaceful, prosperous Russia, but a Russia where he remains in charge. Lavrov’s goal is to maintain his position in the murky world of the Russian elite and, of course, to keep his money. What we mean by “interests” and what they mean by “interests” are not the same. When they listen to our diplomats, they don’t hear anything that really threatens their position, their power, their personal fortunes."
Well, my impression is similar regarding Putin, but I have also read opinions that this offensive is not the full-scale reckless invasion quite yet. Russian forces have supposedly invaded quite carefully and between each move they’re waiting to see the Ukrainian response. Like in a chess game, tit-for-tat. They are basically keeping themselves ready for anything, including a retreat or unexpected pivot.
A lot points to the fact that Putin has extensively prepared and calculated the benefits and costs of all the possibilities and endgames. Everything, including how we are talking about it here is potentially a component in this strategy.
What is difficult for all of us here in the West to comprehend, is how completely different the elite Russian POV is from our own. I highly recommend looking into the Gerasimov and Primakov doctrines.
At the same time, Putin is pretty old and has been in power for so long that there is a real chance that he has become narcissistic. There is a real chance that he has developed a misperception of his own strength and that this is a turning point. Something similar happened to Napoleon at a certain point.
If Ukraine is annexed by Russia, the defense of the Baltics becomes much more difficult, as Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania then become susceptible to Russian attack. (Moldova too but they're not in NATO)
In the graph of adjacent nations, Ukraine has a high betweenness centrality
> To be honest this war does make me doubt my assption that Putin is very rational and predictive. What is the rationale behind such a full-scale invasion?
He accurately perceived weakness.
> I don't see benefits that outweight the costs. I am happy to hear them, if they are any.
> Their intentions are different from ours too. Putin’s goal is not a flourishing, peaceful, prosperous Russia, but a Russia where he remains in charge. Lavrov’s goal is to maintain his position in the murky world of the Russian elite and, of course, to keep his money. What we mean by “interests” and what they mean by “interests” are not the same. When they listen to our diplomats, they don’t hear anything that really threatens their position, their power, their personal fortunes.
And the West's "punishment" may actually enrich the people who started this war:
> And perhaps most notably, Mr. Putin and his closest aides and partners in Moscow might not suffer much themselves from sanctions, analysts say....
> Some of the hard-line nationalist men around Mr. Putin were already on a Treasury Department sanctions list and accept that they and their families will no longer have substantial ties to the United States or Europe for the rest of their lives, said Alexander Gabuev, the chair of the Russia in the Asia-Pacific Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
> “They are the powerful everybodies in today’s Russia,” he said. “There is a lot of posh richness. They’re totally secluded. They’re the kings, and that can be secured in Russia only.”
> Furthermore, because of their roles in state-owned enterprises and their business ties, they are “the very guys who are directly benefiting from the economy becoming more insulated, more detached from the outside world,” he added.
> There probably is decisive action being implemented behind the scenes right now
Many, many strongly worded letters will go out.
I’m sure Putin will cry himself to sleep tonight.
I dunno, Putins behavior reminds me of my 3 year old son. When he does something he knows he’s not supposed to do, he checks your reaction, and if you don’t respond he’ll see how far he can push it.
Neon is a byproduct of producing liquid nitrogen, oxygen and other gas products.
Many other plants could start producing neon pretty easily. They just haven't so far because neon isn't profitable to produce and sell. But with a relatively-large but globally-insignificant price increase it would be.
First of all Stoli and Stolichnaya are the same thing. The former is a nickname. Further the Stoli vodka available outside of Russia is produced in Riga, Latvia[1] by SPI Group. Latvia is a member of both the EU and NATO. Boycotting this spirit would be as misguided as it is misinformed. Please don't post stuff like this without at least doing a tiny bit of research first.
Could you explain the motivation for avoiding these? Are they run by the government? Is there a risk that they will be? If not, why exactly should I have a problem with Russian software developers?
> is free in Russia.
I just visited the Russian version https://www.win-rar.com/start.html?&L=4 from Russia. There is still "Buy WinRAR" button. Although anyone can get an infinite trial version (like Sublime Text), some Russian companies buy it just in case, according to some random comments in threads that joke about mythical buyers of WinRAR.
Also I found rumors that the developer (Eugene Roshal) moved to Germany or the USA. No info found about his brother who is the WinRAR's copyright holder, which is what matters.
Can someone explain why neon is critical for "lasers used in chip manufacturing" ? I don't think they'd be using He-Ne lasers, and if they are I would think those could be replaced fairly easily with solid-state lasers.
Somewhat counterintuitively, the primary gas species used in excimer lasers are noble gasses. A typical gas mix for a 193nm excimer laser would be ~97% neon and just a few percent of the actual argon/fluorine excimer mix. [1]
Since you mentioned them -- as hard as it may be to believe -- HeNe lasers are only just beginning to be phased out in the semi industry in the somewhat esoteric use case of precision position measurement using interferometry. The output wavelength of a HeNe lase is extremely stable--with a simple feedback loop on the cavity length (ie, temperature) a HeNe laser is essentially an atomic clock locked to the 473.612248 THz 5s2 → 3p HeNe line. Interferometers built around such systems can accurately measure sub-nanometer displacements and are able to achieve a lifetime absolute stability of better than 10ppb--comparable to a rubidium atomic clock! [2]
Deep-ultraviolet excimer lasers, I think (?). Not a domain expert!
- "Excimer laser gas mixtures are a combination of rare gases (argon, krypton, xenon, or neon) and halogen gases (fluorine or chlorine). The mixture of gases determines the wavelength of DUV light produced. Argon+fluorine+neon (193nm) and Krypton+fluorine+neon (248nm) are the two most common mixtures used. In terms of volume; neon makes up approximately 96–97.5% of the mixture."
There could very well be HeNe lasers used as an interferometric length standard in lithography equipment. There are some solid-state lasers that could substitute for that role, such as NPRO lasers, but they're much more expensive and not widely produced.
After all those lies I've been told over and over and over again, over decades, about all those countries which got invaded by the US, bombed by the US, had their governments overthrown by the US ...
... why would I believe them about Russia?
Based on an image in a news-livestream yesterday, targets are solely military structures. The reporter did not fail in trying to make russia look bad, showing actually no regard to the information itself.
Personally, I can absolutely understand the desire to remove military equipment next to my doorstep, especially when it's ran by a country which, FOR DECADES, used lies to take over countries and kill millions of people.
No, Ukraine doesn't produce neon. Russia produces it and sends it to Ukraine for processing and distribution. But, wait, there's more.
Ukranian company Iceblick is the major producer of neon. It has production facilities in Odessa, Ukraine and Moscow, Russia. But wait, there's more.
Iceblick is not a major producer of neon, Chinese companies produce a lot more... which is what is used in global chipmaking.
The claim in the article is that "[Ukraine] supplies more than 90% of U.S. semiconductor-grade neon"... which may not be true in the first place, but the modified title here suggests completely something else... which is blatantly false.
It’s worth noting that Chinese incursions into Taiwan’s ADIZ are a routine occurrence and don’t really represent any increase in aggression above the baseline:
“On Wednesday (February 23), two Chinese military jets flew into Taiwan's air defence identification zone (ADIZ), marking the 12th intrusion this month.”
I agree these stories should not be overblown, and have been a regular occurrence. It isn’t a worrisome escalation.
But it is incorrect to say they are happening because the ADIZ extends over Chinese territory. The repeated incursions are out over the ocean, most commonly over the SW corner of the ADIZ which is not over mainland China. China is doing it intentionally, and is both testing and prodding Taiwan.
To be clear, though, under international law China has every right to fly in those areas. Just like when we fly/sail 12 miles off Russia, or send ships past the islands China's making in the South China Sea.
When we do it, it's a "freedom of navigation" exercise. Yes, it's testing air defenses, but it frustrates me when officials breathlessly act like it's a big deal.
Yes, with military aircraft. ADIZs have no (international) legal standing; international law says countries control airspace only over their territory, which means the same 12 mile limit ships are subject to. Other countries have every right to fly or sail up to that 12 mile limit.
Again, Taiwan's ADIZ extends over China.
When we fly close to Russia, they send fighters up to escort. We do the same when they fly planes near Alaska.
> The Russian aircraft were in the ADIZ north of Alaska for about 4 hours, according to North American Aerospace Defense Command, which said the planes came as close as 50 nautical miles to the Alaskan coast but did not enter U.S. or Canadian airspace. The ADIZ extends 200 miles from the U.S. and Canadian coasts, but territorial airspace only extends 12 miles from the coast.
> Moreover, the U.S. Navy's Commander's Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations states the ADIZ applies only to commercial aircraft intending to enter U.S. sovereign airspace, with a basis in international law of "the right of a nation to establish reasonable conditions of entry into its territory". The manual specifically instructs U.S. military aircraft to ignore the ADIZ of other states when operating in coastal areas...
International law view Taiwan as province of China. Nevermind the ADIZ / clipping median line drama, PRC can "legally" fly over Taiwan airspace if it wanted to. And vice versa. See ROC Black Cat squadron flying U2s over mainland in the 60s. It would be destabilizing, but legal. Either side can choose to resume Chinese civil war if they wanted to.
"We saved some money" is how economics works in price competitive markets. This is a result of many players doing what keeps each one competitive, but without collaborating on what the large scale effects are down the road.
>"We saved some money" is how economics works in price competitive markets. This is a result of many players doing what keeps each one competitive, but without collaborating on what the large scale effects are down the road.
An excellent and accurate elaboration of the modern economic theory that led us, nevertheless, to our current precarious position.
Modern economic theory doesn't disallow subsidies - it's very possible to exist in a primarily capitalist society with either tariffs or domestic business subsidies to ensure certain key industries remain on local shores - it might be politically infeasible for such laws to be passed in the US, but it is a very reasonable response.
The United States has all kinds of tariff and other subsidies for key industries. Foreign airlines and shipping companies are literally blocked from providing domestic US services. (That's also why all major US cruise ships touch a foreign port in their journey). Steel and autos and much of agriculture are also heavily protected.
These are all anti-consumer and bad public policy.
> That's also why all major US cruise ships touch a foreign port in their journey
In a pedantic sense, major US cruise ships don't need to touch a foreign port in their journey. The catch being there is only one major US cruise ship - The Pride of America, which generally does Hawaiian cruises: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_of_America
The other major cruise ships you see operating in the US are actually foreign-flagged so they can avoid US environmental, gambling and employment regulations, etc. These are the ships that must touch a foreign port during their journeys.
Good info. But why is this bad policy? Is globalization really just better? Because "the consumer" (whom is usually also an employee/business owner and a citizen) may be able to buy stuff for a bit less?
That's not the right question to ask. The right question to ask is 'Who is this bad for?'
The Jones act, for instance, is good for US shipworkers, and for enforcement of US shipping laws, but moderately bad for Hawai'i, and really, really bad for Puerto Rico.
Who do you care more about? Preserving the comfort of the continental American middle class employed in maritime transportation, or a bunch of people in Puerto Rico? The answer to that question determines how you see the Jones act.
> The Jones act, for instance, is good for US shipworkers, and for enforcement of US shipping laws, but moderately bad for Hawai'i, and really, really bad for Puerto Rico.
Alas, the Jones Act isn't actually good for US shipworkers in general. The Jones Act makes it so that there are nearly no US shipworkers in the first place.
(However, the few US shipworkers that do exist are to a certain extent protected by the Jones act.)
Left unchecked, globalization will likely lead to just a single huge shipworking company, or maybe two or three. Does that benefit shipworkers in either the US or Puerto Rico?
Generally anything that gets in the way of pure competition shifts the incentives that players have to make good products or services. When this happens, the consumer is usually the one that gets the bad end of the stick with faulty goods or services, while the producer still gets to keep the proceeds.
Yes, but looking at this only from the perspective of a consumer seems rather limited. One additional consideration, the one we're talking about here, is the importance of being somewhat self-reliant when shit hits the fan.
And even if only consumers matter, what you're saying only hold in theory, given a 'perfect market'. In practice, consumers have imperfect (read: atrociously bad) information, and big corporations hold many unfair advantages.
Unfair advantages, or simply advantages? Companies have a hard enough time surviving in a market where everything is not hitting the fan, their concern about surviving when shit hits the fan is on the fringes of things to worry about.
I absolutely never said consumers are the only thing that matter. I don't know where you read that between my lines. I said that in a market that is propped up by subsidies, the consumer is the one that gets hurt the most.
It doesn't disallow them but it discourages them - the ruling class of the Western world has been on the side of globalization for many decades now (still is) and that is really what is in question.
Until running into an agent that does exhibit collaboration on large-scale, long-term effects, that uses these economic principles against countries foolish enough to hold on to them.
And "direction" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your statement about China. They were, and still are, very protectionist of their internal market, using official and unofficial means.
Not to imply western countries are exempt - they also made (and make) use of protectionism in growing their industries. Only after industries matured, would the market be opened, and economic propaganda launched how unrestricted trade was the only way to prosperity (and, by pure chance, this would give the now globally-competitive industries new export markets). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism#In_the_United_St...:
Alexander Hamilton, the first United States Secretary of the Treasury, was of the view, as articulated most famously in his "Report on Manufactures", that developing an industrialized economy was impossible without protectionism because import duties are necessary to shelter domestic "infant industries" until they could achieve economies of scale. The industrial takeoff of the United States occurred under protectionist policies 1816–1848 and under moderate protectionism 1846–1861, and continued under strict protectionist policies 1861–1945.
In other words, protectionism has a proven track record of developing economies, while unrestricted free trade is only theoretically able to accomplish this. Of course economists are immune to empirical proof - from that same wikipedia article:
There is a broad consensus among economists that protectionism has a negative effect on economic growth and economic welfare, while free trade and the reduction of trade barriers has a positive effect on economic growth.
> Not to imply western countries are exempt - they also made (and make) use of protectionism in growing their industries. Only after industries matured, would the market be opened, and economic propaganda launched how unrestricted trade was the only way to prosperity (and, by pure chance, this would give the now globally-competitive industries new export markets).
Yes, western countries have often shot themselves in the foot with protectionism. They aren't perfect.
We optimize for price so you cant align with something that price doesnt capture. Taxes and subsidies allows us to take those factors into consideration
Thats what we get told, but there is always strategic reasons with so much stuff which few people get to hear about.
On the news a while ago, the news was going on about how the UK is banning dual use goods, so this tells us some Govt dept has audited potentially every business and its goods and compiled a list of devices which can be considered multi use. You see this alot with chemicals, Glycerine, used as a cosmetic can also be used for bombmaking. I only found this out when I purchased a litre and then some internet forum started going on about how it can be used for bomb making.
Its why we dont get taught everything, not even in the news. Anyway oil prices have gone up which will push more people towards electric vehicles, and yet Russia has the largest oil reserves in the world, so no doubt they will benefit, because if another internet forum is to be believed, the Saudia's have all but exhausted their oil reserves which is one of the reasons for them IPO'ing their national oil producer.
Kind of explains why I also wasnt allowed an export licence for an app but also highlights who was behind it!
>Glycerine, used as a cosmetic can also be used for bombmaking. I only found this out when I purchased a litre and then some internet forum started going on about how it can be used for bomb making.
It's the chief component in dynamite.
>Kind of explains why I also wasnt allowed an export licence for an app but also highlights who was behind it!
This was like 5-10years ago, I developed a bug reporting app and developed a form of encryption which was uncrackable. Now I'm not qualified in anything, never even went to Uni, but what should have taken 6weeks with the UK Dept BIS, took like more than that and then got denied so I shut the business down I'd set up for it.
Dont have the source code anymore or anything and its not ever going to happen now.
When I say it was uncrackable, it was based loosely on code books which were used in ww2, which is something I subsequently read about later on in the news.
> [...] developed a form of encryption which was uncrackable.
No, you didn't.
> When I say it was uncrackable, it was based loosely on code books which were used in ww2, which is something I subsequently read about later on in the news.
Could you please elaborate? Code books only work when both parties have a copy. Obviously for an app, you need to assume that the attackers have access to the app.
Lets just say it not only resource burned me because this wasnt just a simple string of data encrypted with an encryption algo, but it would have resource burned anyone else who decided to have a go at decrypting it because of some of the methods I employed. I set out to defeat any automated brute force cracking with Amazon cloud/Bluffdale level of resource at their disposal. This could also apply to quantum computing, because in a way there are probably enough computing devices connected to the net to emulate a quantum computer in near realtime.
I turned their weakness into my advantage, but you would have had to have thought out of the box.
I cant go into any more details, its as simple as that, so you can say what you like, but I'm not here to convince you, but I will say current internationally recognised encryption methods are just lazy imo.
Edit. The difference with the resource burn though is I would get paid anyone else would be needing more tax dollars, so over time it could have been possible to see who was spooking on the reports because of their actions.
It's exceptionally easy for a person to devise an encryption system they can't crack. It's exceptionally hard to devise an encryption system others can't crack.
That's why generally cryptosystems are only seen as trustworthy when they have been out in the open and been attacked---without success---by many smart people with a track record of breaking cryptosystems.
Eg do you know how differential cryptanalysis works? Or linear cryptanalysis?
Or assuming you know about RSA, would you be able to figure out which classes of keys are deemed weak without looking it up? (Ie can you repeat this attack?)
Do you know which existing cryptographic systems are vulnerable to quantum computers? And which are not? And why?
economists have a certain tendency to disregard tail events, which happen much more often than they think, as they don't follow the normal distribution. there's been a plethora of six sigma market movements in the past few years, and six sigma by definition should happen once every 3 million observations or so...
Every company or government will eventually see itself in checkmate. It is in the best interest of companies to push that as far down the road as possible.
It's actually a result of the spineless geriatrics in the government not being willing or able to keep up with an evolving world. We see the same with climate change.
I think the big advantage that companies have is a mission statement in which most everyone is progressing towards within the company. Much of government operates almost the complete opposite, and in a world that is changing faster and faster every day, the politicians are falling farther and farther behind.
It really depends on the market...we have to weigh the risks or worst case scenarios. While economics can be pretty cut and dry, the real world is very messy.
And most importantly, economics assumes that the market is perfect, which it most certainly is not in practice.
What we didn’t do enough is take the geopolitical landscape into this equation (or a potential pandemic, for that matter), which I hope changes after recent developments.
I blame the governments mostly for this, I completely understand the businesses needing to do what’s best for business.
> I blame the governments mostly for this, I completely understand the businesses needing to do what’s best for business.
How do you blame government for businesses running around with planning models that miss wars and pandemics, the two most common causes of ruin and disruption for the entire duration of human history?
...Because making sure businesses in economies plan for that sort of thing is generally something that you have to be a non-transient actor to ensure.
Businesses/corps come and go
... the Nation of $nation only tends to do so on the next timescale up. When their actually looking out for systemic blindspots no one else is, and not pandering to the elite.
Also (or as a corollary), otherwise businesses have no incentive to plan for rare, adverse events. They will be out-competed by businesses that don't care.
Personally I think the solution is for governments to have a contingency plan, and opposed to forcing any individual business to do anything, but if we did want businesses to change their behavior, it's definitely a government issue.
Unless somehow "buy my product , it's more expensive because our business hedges against war and pandemics" works in advertising (eco-friendly seems to get some traction, so maybe?)
Part of the challenge is that governments tend to come and go on 4 or 5 year cycles, so their priorities tend to be focused on issues likely to (or certain to) happen before the next election or other democratic event.
Governments often assume (wrongly) that businesses have incentives to handle long-term risks, since they want to exist for a long time and remain profitable. The reality though is most are more focused on their share price and dividend than handling strategic risks.
> And most importantly, economics assumes that the market is perfect, which it most certainly is not in practice.
do physicists assume frictionless surfaces and perfectly elastic collisions? yes when they're explaining the basics of Newton's Laws, but they also develop theories and models for friction, etc.
Same with economists, they study economies and do their best to come up with complete models. Are they perfect? no. Do they know more about economies than anybody else? yes.
> And most importantly, economics assumes that the market is perfect, which it most certainly is not in practice.
What makes you think economics makes that assumption? The economics literature is full of papers investigating various kinds of market imperfections. (Mostly because all the papers involving perfect markets have already been written. It's publish or perish in academia after all.)
Business are still run by people. Nobody was forced to see someone else doing something shitty and then say "well I just need to be a bigger asshole than that guy! Must be okay 'cause it's not illegal"
People have far too simplistic models of how things work, this is the consequence of a lack of understanding and shortsightedness
Businesses also need to have customers. No clothes maker was forced to manufacture in poor countries, but the alternative was to simply stop existing since insufficient customers are willing to pay the price premium for purely American made clothes. Hence the only solution would have been legislation forcing domestic manufacturing.
You say it like it's a bad thing that textiles are manufactured in poor countries?
As an example: Bangladesh has been on a multi-decade long streak of excellent economic growth. Mostly thanks to the textile industry. Regular people are better off.
> In last decade, poverty dropped by around one third with significant improvement in human development index, literacy, life expectancy and per capita food consumption. With economy growing close to 6% per year, more than 15 million people have moved out of poverty since 1992.[64]
I think it is a good thing. Short of all the rich people in the world donating their wealth to poor people, I do not see any other way for the wealth transfer to happen other than labor price arbitrage.
You seem to be making the assumption that their working conditions are better than what they were doing before. When considering working hours along with stress and working environment, I'd say probably not
Some argue that industrialization under these conditions is not good for the countries and people being exploited for their labor
You're trusting the perspective of other people who are biased as well, and it's more about indigenous communities around the world rather than just Bangladesh.
There are many communities whose opinions and perspectives we just seem to ignore and we trust the "western" institutions who make publications on such matters
I'm not talking about how "wealthy" a community is in terms of material gains or technological improvements.
Communities see changes in their fundamental way of life due to industrialization which impacts their relationships with each other and their natural environments which, on average, seem to be worse than what they were doing before.
All of this industrialization comes from people wanting more profit, and we see working conditions and level of pay that would be unacceptable in the US but people write it off as being "okay" because "they're a developing nation" or "its a third world country" when the real reason is greed and a desire to skirt local regulations.
You will have to elaborate on what life looks like without businesses selling to customers, and otherwise going out of business if they do not sell to customers.
At least it does not seem to involve any conventional use of the word business.
Exactly, and that might be a good thing. I don't have the answer to that question but it sure seems to me like our current system ruins lives and the environment to enrich the few who are willing to step on everyone else. Doesn't seem ideal to put it lightly
I do not see how you can judge others for being “bigger assholes” if you do not have an answer for what better choices they should have made.
> Business are still run by people. Nobody was forced to see someone else doing something shitty and then say "well I just need to be a bigger asshole than that guy! Must be okay 'cause it's not illegal"
And then what? Go out of business because people prefer to shop at H&M and Old Navy due to their lower prices?
The blame here lies solely on society and the politicians it elects. There is no other solution where individual business owners can be expected to take on societal problems.
Per Einstein: 'A model should be as simple as it can be but no simpler'. I think people tend to overcomplicate things than oversimplify. A true understanding of something can be hinted by being able to explain it in a simple way.
I view the same quote from the opposite perspective. Our current model is far too simple, Einstein would have said we're missing a whole bunch of nuance and variables.
Yeah that's your answer right there. American management, at least those who go to business school, like how can I put it fairly to the people I know who've studied business...They just fucking hate paying wages. It's a huge business school teaching to treat wages and taxes as counterproductive. Are you really going to propose American management likes paying taxes? The fair thing to say is they fucking hate paying taxes. Those words carry the real emphasis of the negative emotion, I'm not trying to be pejorative, that's just how they actually feel about that matter. I've seen businesses decline quite profitable opportunities because they'd produce too much in taxes in the process, from some double taxation effect.
So then, the MBA just has to hate the factory. After all, that was where everybody used to get their wage.
Engineering failures can trivially be caused by management failures. Beuracracy kills innovation, and, from what I've been told, there aren't many engineering/tech companies that are more beuracratic than Intel.
Oh no. We didn't do that. They just beat us. We kept our fabs and we kept our fab engineers and we built and we built, but they just beat us.
This technology isn't easy. Notice how far China is behind despite massive investments. Sometimes we just don't have the tech. But it's okay, TSMC and friends will bring it here.
On the other hand without globalization, there is no way the relatively tiny island of Taiwan could have become the world leader in chip manufacturing, and the US would have less incentive to invest in their security.
How do you identify all the vital components for not just what you need to manufacture, but the components of those components? How many people here knew Ukraine was a major producer of neon prior to this, and its importance to semiconductor manufacturing?
You could try to become totally autarkic, but then you have to support a national semiconductor industry along with every industry it relies upon indefinitely, while foreign semiconductor companies won't be encumbered by restrictions to purchase every component for their process from within your country; they, at least, will have the option to go with the cheapest or the best options. And so, if you want your national semiconductor industry's chips to actually be used, you have to provide incentives for that, too, and/or require domestic electronics companies to use their chips. Then, since you're making domestic electronics companies uncompetitive, you have to incent consumers to purchase those electronics, ban or heavily tax foreign electronics...
In a modern, globalised economy, it seems to me the only way to have a semiconductor industry that isn't vulnerable to these sorts of problems is full top-down control of a substantial chunk of the economy.
Does it need full top-down control of a substantial chunk of the economy to happen? A few regulations saying 10% has to be made in-country, along with investigators and fines to back it up seems like it would work without going full centralized-and-planned economy.
10% of what? Semiconductors? Sure, that's easy, and already done; US semiconductors are 13% of the global market, so presumably they're about that share of the domestic market and probably more.
The components necessary to manufacture them? Much more difficult. And remember, any encumbrance you put on Intel provides a competitive advantage for TSMC.
The other issue is if you require 10% of semiconductors to be made in the US, and 10% of their components likewise, that only leaves you with 1% of the semiconductor capacity you need if you really need to become autarkic. And that's only considering first order dependencies; what about the components needed for the components you need?
Now, even ignoring that, consider if Intel has to make 10% of its chips using machines and components made in America. Say ASML makes the best photolithography machines in the world. Some other foreign company makes the best of another machine in the world. And so on. So Intel has to manufacture 10% of its chips using subpar equipment. Who's going to buy those chips? If electronics need better chips, can you replace them with these in a pinch?
You either need to fully commit, or else it's pointless to begin with.
Love him or hate him, if you don't think Trump caused a monumental, almost overnight shift in both public and governmental opinion towards going back to promoting American manufacturing, bringing jobs back to America, and finally fighting back against China for their decades of taking advantage of us... you're letting your bias do all the talking, and that's sad.
You'll note that in his debates, Biden took some lines almost directly out of Trump's playbook regarding those subjects (made to sound more polite of course), and in fact many of Trump's policies and executive orders, Biden has kept in place. Because they're having a positive effect. We just needed someone with balls like Trump to finally enact them.
Big Tech, China, offshoring, and globalism can shove it. The tides are finally turning. If there's one good thing to come out of Trump's presidency, it's this!
Bernie and Trump basically had the same policies on immigration as well (for labor politics purposes). Trump was basically an old school labor democrat who said some edgy things.
Politicians of all sorts have been saying lots of things for decades. The fact is, nobody as influential or as powerful as Trump ever actually did anything about most of them. In particular, the anti-China anti-offshoring sentiment.
It took Trump yelling about it from the rooftops for over 5 years, and getting over half the population as passionate about it as he was, and then Trump actually doing things about it while in office, for things to actually happen and be set in motion.
You still failed to prove that he "did nothing"; choosing one particular metric that shows there was zero change does not mean Trump did nothing. It just means the trajectory didn't change, by this one metric.
You also don't account for the fact that there may have been a negative change in trajectory of that particular metric if not for Trump's policies and executive actions.
But, again, he absolutely did do things about it, these are all well documented. (As is the change in trajectory of public opinion towards offshoring thanks to Trump promoting them heavily.)
Yes of course it was funny that a conman got millions of idiots to believe he would do something that might hurt the balance sheet of his biggest donors.
That was the stated goal for bringing steel production back to the USA at least, not sure about the imputed goals of other manufacturing jobs, but it should follow a similar line of thought, redundancy of critical-supply-chain parts.
No, that was a jobs play. Steel is well diversified, and we get our steel from a variety of largely trusted producers. The largest import source of steel was Canada. We also produce and export a lot of steel.
Steel is important but it’s not similar at all to something like Taiwan’s unique situation
Yeah, there was a definite "Trump said it so it's wrong" zeitgeist among the left that led to some uncomfortable moments. Tribal politics is a hell of a drug.
Neon is used in excimer lasers that generate ultraviolet light. These lasers are used in photolithography and for annealing amorphous silicon to polycrystalline silicon in flat panel display manufacturing. Laser manufacturers and users already faced a Ukrainian neon crisis during the last round of fighting and made changes to reduce consumption of fresh neon:
I expect that neon price spikes this time are going to impact laser users less than they initially did back in 2015 since lasers now require less fresh neon.
Perhaps not as important but the humble helium neon laser is also still an important practical standard for position measurement at submicron accuracy.
I've heard that repeatedly and I used to believe it to; however I have been recently studying WW1 and found out there were many people back then who said pretty much the same thing. They said that no one would want a war things were too profitable and there was too much trade, they were terribly terribly wrong.
The problem is WW1 wasn't one big "let's go to war" like Hitler and WW2, WW1 was the effects of hundreds of little consequences, edge cases, and constraints upon individuals and nations that interacted in a way no one could see. I believe the same thing will happen again, and it will probably come as a result of a Pakistani-Indian conflict or something from Iran. It isn't something anyone can see right now, but its coming, just like no one would've guessed the assassination of an Archduke would lead to 10 million dead across Europe, in the same way it will be something we can't determine right now that will push upon the constraints, agreements and edge cases to push us towards another global war.
My non-expert POV says the problem isn't global trade it's unbalanced global trade. Everyone depends on China, so Xi has little incentive to fear economical reprisals.
Every time they do this Taiwan has to scramble their own jets in the air. So most likely it is to test Taiwan's response times and wear out their aircrafts. Each flight of those fighter jets adds to a maintenance cost on top of the fuel costs, which is disproportionately higher for Taiwan considering the size of the economy.
That makes sense. Most of China's military policy seems to be economic. They make cheap subs for defense. US buys really expensive subs so they can attack. They spend some money their military and all the countries around them spend more money on their military. The other countries get poorer since military investment returns nothing so they have to borrow from China for critical infrastructure.
Not really, it is well alleged that CCP has a lot of military spending off the books. So the % figure of GDP we see might be higher.
Also, China's posturing is not just defensive but has an offensive side as well, as seen by the naval bases it has been trying to build across the world, even in Africa.
China has 1 small Navy base in Africa. China is a long way away from having a blue water navy. There is a lot of fear mongering in the US from Admirals that want a bigger Navy. China has never conducted a Naval operation.
As of today, Beijing has just one overseas military base in Djibouti – a country which also hosts American, French, Italian and Japanese military bases, some of which also host British, German and Spanish troops.
https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2020/08/31/chinas-overseas-milita...
Why would it stop? Not sure how the Chinese military works, but presumably their pilots need a certain # of flight hours to stay current. It's not like there's really a downside for China
It is so disgusting to me that we allowed our oligarch class to de-industrialize our country and ship all of the jobs and everything we built overseas.
100 years of industrialization and worker movements gutted, abandoned, and disassembled with the help of our two-faced neo-liberal[0] government.
And for what? 40 years of profit for the 1%? And then encountering the fact that we have outsourced ourselves into a profound strategic weakness in the international markets.
0: As in: Both sides, globalization. Not as in Dem vs Republican.
Neon purification and leading edge chip manufacturing concentrating in Ukraine and Taiwan respectively have nothing to do with neoliberalism. The former is a historical accident rooted in soviet space laser initiatives, and the latter is because TSMC executed technology development better than western, Japanese, and Korean competitors
And Xi moving on Taiwan at the start of increased activities in Ukraine was the thing feared the most. What a shitshow it would be if China invaded Taiwan. The pandemic shortages would pale in comparison.
as a Chinese raised in China myself, this happens pretty regularly since years ago. I don’t think Winnie the Pooh has big balls to attack Taiwan in recent future. China has too much to lose right now.
But China is too much coupled with the western economy to even sanction effectively. I think CCP must be watching this to see the cost and benefits Russia gets for invading Ukraine, which would definitely influence their decision even more than Afghanistan would have. If the cost for Russia is too low, then they wouldn't be risking much.
Russia’s economy is interesting. Russian debt is 14%. It isn’t like the UK which requires external input. Their availability cash and balance sheet is quite vast. This limits the immediate impact of sanctions?
Militarily attacking Taiwan would destroy the chip factories. China waiting 100 years to get HK back. They will wait for Taiwan. Slow economic warfare and they get it all without messy bullets.
It might but it also gives Xi something that will immortalise him like Mao. CCP didn't have the military might to fight the British Empire and by the time they could think about fighting UK for Hong Kong, the lease was about to get over and UK knew it might be difficult to get ally support to keep Hong Kong with them.
China does not want to get involved in major conflicts. They will be opportunistic if/when they have a chance to take power, but they are not as risk tolerant as Putin. Only since 2016 or so have they started to come out of their shell to take advantage of relative American weaknesses.
Ironically, I think the above statement is irrational.
Why does being a dictator automatically make you more irrational? Absolute power has no direct causal bearing on human intelligence. It does not make you more irrational or more rational.
There are plenty of examples of good kings, bad kings, good emperors and bad emperors throughout history both for ancient china and plenty of other civilizations. Modern China, despite all the negative press, has done plenty of rational things in order to get toe to toe with the US as both a military and economic rival.
I think the negative connotation associated with the word dictator paints anyone labeled with it in a biased light. Not saying anything bad or good about pooh bear in general. Whatever that man is, him being a dictator is not a causal origin of his current character.
> Why does being a dictator automatically make you more irrational?
People, including leaders, are influenced by those around them.
A sane leader has advisors, which they trust to provide rational arguments, which sometimes may differ from their own.
A dictator on the other hand is only surrounded by yes-men since anyone else would be thrown to the lions. So, there is no one to provide a counter argument to the dictator's own viewpoints and makes them believe in their supreme power. This is what makes them dangerous and act irrationally.
Pick any dictator/supreme leader and you'll see the trends.
a single person does not have the mental nor technological capacity to run everything. they must delegate. the way dictarships work is the dictator's subordinates, friends, whatever, must live in constant fear of each other, so they are incentivized to lie (or at least omit truths) to the dictator. a benevolent dictatorship doesn't exist, because no benevolent person would survive the process of getting dictatorship.
decisions based on falsehoods may look irrational from the outside.
of course, putin may very well be getting plain crazy. certainly no shortage of normal civilian russians admit it off the record.
Additionally monarchies are essentially old forms of dictatorship with slightly different customs and titles. It's one and the same and plenty of good kingdoms exist. I have PLENTY of examples:
The Pharaohs of ancient Egypt;
The Byzantine Emperors;
The Habsburg Monarchy in its various incarnations;
The Capetian Kings of France;
The Tsars;
The Tang, Ming and Qing - my three favorite Chinese dynasties;
The Incas.
If you’re looking for something more present-day, I’d look into Bhutan, Lichtenstein and Monaco.
Tibet it also an example. A little iffy this one, it's actually not benevolent but the West has definitely painted them as such to use as propaganda against China. Chinas actions against Tibet were quite horrific and wrong but even still... Tibet was not an example of a benevolent dictatorship... more of an example how a dictatorship can be PERCIEVED as benevolent and how your perceptions can be easily influenced. Tibet and China is an example of evil acting on evil to simplify the situation, but again I want to emphasize that the actual reality is not so black and white.
You may also want to look into the term enlightened absolutism.
Also China is an example of a benevolent dictatorship despite all the bad things they've done (TBH China is more of a mixed bag, and by mixed bag I mean both benevolent and self interested at the same time... but then again so is the US).
You cannot deny that the rise of China has been unprecedented. The amount of people lifted out of poverty at such a velocity has never been seen before in the history of human civilization. That is benevolence. While of course what is happening in Xinjiang is not benevolence; blinding yourself to the good because of the bad is irrational. You must acknowledge both.
US has its share of bad stuff, too, but I never said they're benevolent. They're a democracy, which means the winner of a beauty contest is in power instead of somebody who took forcefully or has been gifted it. No good options here, but at least in the contest somebody actually wins.
If you read the last paragraph of my post you'd see I addressed Xinjiang. You should try reading that fully before replying because your response is redundant.
Lifting an entire population out of poverty and into a 1st world status is benevolence at an unprecedented scale. It cannot be ignored.
> Tibet it also an example. A little iffy this one, it's actually not benevolent but the West has definitely painted them as such to use as propaganda against China
Or perhaps you've bought on to the Chinese propaganda to justify Tibet's invasion, subsequent occupation and genocide of Tibetans by China.
>You cannot deny that the rise of China has been unprecedented. The amount of people lifted out of poverty at such a velocity has never been seen before in the history of human civilization. That is benevolence. While of course what is happening in Xinjiang is not benevolence; blinding yourself to the good because of the bad is irrational. You must acknowledge both.
Just copying what I wrote earlier. This is benevolence on a scale huge scale.
>You cannot pick and choose to define bullies and human rights' abusers as benevolent just because they benefited their preferred section of society.
Right just like how the US enslaved black people and put the Japanese in internment camps, slaughtered millions of civilians with nuclear bombs in world war 2, displaced entire societies of pacific islanders because of the same testing of nuclear bombs, killed thousands of Chinese Americans building railroad tracks...
The US has it's fair share of atrocities. Many of them on par with China if not Worse. Do these atrocities define a nation? No. No they do not. However they remain a part of the nations identity permanently.
It is the same with China. The atrocities do not define a nation that is far more complex then the black and white characterization you seem so adamant about maintaining. The benevolence of lifting an entire civilization out of poverty into first world status isn't just a "preferred section" of society. China is the most populous country in the world with 18.47% of all humans living in that country. It is a major achievement and more people would be suffering in the world right now if China didn't exist.
What's the preferred section of society in the US? White people? Come on man. You may not want to call China Benevolent but looking at the US and other countries, China is no more and no less benevolent then the other places.
The main point here is that "dictatorship" doesn't necessarily automatically mean a horrible regime of hitler level evil. Just like how it's hard to call the US purely good or purely evil it is the same with China.
> Why does being a dictator automatically make you more irrational?
Lack of constructive feedback paired with that all your thoughts including irrational ones are amplified through the echo chamber.
It's easy to get caught up with weird ideas (and the more power you have the weirder it might get because you have to solve more complex problems and have much more vast capabilities). If you don't have external feedback you need to be much more resilient to irrationality than under normal circumstances.
I agree that this can happen. But the opposite can also happen. There is no hard rule that says what you describe is the exact case for every centralized power.
In fact there are multitudes of successful "dictatorships" throughout history. I cite many in another reply in this thread:
>You like to argue, but no one seems to agree with you.
I'm not offended
I do like to argue. A better way to put it, is I like to talk to people and convince people on a viewpoint I truly believe in while at the same time I'm open to learning as well.
Whether someone agrees with me or not doesn't correlate with whether I'm right. That is the point. And I am right and you are wrong.
You view international politics from the microcosm of US news. The entire population of Asia which outnumbers the US population by a huge number has a more nuanced and complicated view of the situation.
Dismissing China as evil or putin as crazy is an oversimplification.
The fact that you asked such a silly question about dictators and than refuse to learn from any of the multiple answers shows that you are not open to honest or intellectual debate. You care more about being "right" which is why you deleted your original comment and have been stuck replying to people for almost a day while the rest of us have moved on.
I think you're wrong, I think you're angry, I think you're arguing in bad faith, and I believe multiple people/instances have been provided and you have yet to prove anything other than insolence when it comes to being "right".
Honestly, I don't even think you know what you're arguing anymore because you're all over the place. I never called China evil or Putin crazy so why are you putting words in my mouth that I never claimed? The original question is what makes dictators more irrational. If you can't understand the many answers you recieved, that is your problem, not mine. I'm going to bid you a farewell, have a wonderful day.
I didn't delete any comment. This is a lie. If you want to engage in conversation with me do it on good faith. Do not LIE.
>The fact that you asked such a silly question about dictators and than refuse to learn from any of the multiple answers shows that you are not open to honest or intellectual debate
Your post was flagged. And died. This happens when multiple people disagree and are offended by your post. I still chose to engage with you even though your post had offensive intent.
Additionally the amount of karma on my original post is 5. So 5+ more people agree with me. I'm assuming everyone who disagrees with me down voted.
If anything you're the one no one is siding with.
>I never called China evil or Putin crazy so why are you putting words in my mouth that I never claimed?
You never made the claim but your attitude made it seem like this was what you think. If I'm wrong then I take it back. Logically speaking though, you believe dictators are irrational. Which is equivalent to crazy. So essentially you think Russia and China are crazy because both countries are basically dictatorships. That is a logical deduction from what you implied.
So my statement still stands. China and Russia are examples of dictatorships that are much more complicated then the singular label of irrational. That's all.
> I'm going to bid you a farewell, have a wonderful day.
Why. You obviously don't like me. What's the purpose of wishing me a wonderful day after such accusations? Also what's the purpose of disengaging in the conversation? You said something with offensive intent, I'm still here. What's making you leave? Are you emotional?
We've been watching Russia prepare for major war for more than a decade. Anyone who said they wouldn't be willing to enter this war was deluding themselves. It was a matter of when, not if Russia would embark on this path.
I think they'll be watching what happens in Ukraine very carefully. Then they'll be calibrating their predictions about what would happen if they invaded Taiwan with Russia's experience in Ukraine.
It's worth pointing out that even physical destruction may be unnecessary. Due to the complexity of the semiconductor supply chain, many say that an embargo of materials and the removal of experts are enough to paralyze the fabs for many years to come...
Any Taiwan invasion would be spearheaded by surgical strikes against those fabs via some type of special forces. Whether those forces would be able to successfully secure the fabs before they get blown or not is anyone's guess, but China isn't stupid enough to think this is something they can just throw their standard troops at.
The CCP understands (or at least was predicting back with Jiang and Hu) that eventually China will democratize. Taiwan is a democracy right now. Democratic countries almost never re-unite into a single country. I can only name one instance of this happening in the last 70 years, and in some ways East Germany wasn't really a democracy yet.
The CCP knows that Taiwanese reunification will never really happen peacefully. Leaders will talk about it, they'll negotiate a bit, but then it won't happen because the status-quo is always more attractive. They know that their only chance at national reunification is now or in the next 10 years or so.
It's now or never. It has to happen by force or it will never happen. If China swallows Taiwan and then democratizes, that can be managed - a restive province can be placated and bought-off. But if China democratizes before reunification, then Taiwan is separate forever.
The CCP won't democratize. It was heading in that direction under Hu, now under Xi Jinping things are consolidating back towards a centralist power.
I do agree that to China, Taiwan isn't about TSMC. TSMC is the reason why the US cares about Taiwan but not the reason why China cares about it. If it was the main reasoning why doesn't China go after the Dutch? The dutch have ASML, which manufactures the more critical components involved with EUV lithography. But China never made a single move against ASML.
There is deep history between Taiwan and China, and it is this history that is the main reason why China eyes Taiwan. Think of it like if California rebelled and became a separate country from the US 50 years ago. How would the rest of the US think about California?
The CCP won't democratize. It was heading in that direction under Hu, now under Xi Jinping things are consolidating back towards a centralist power.
I agree completely. But if you're in the CCP, and a Chinese patriot, you understand that that makes peaceful Taiwanese reunification even less likely. Also, as long as Taiwan is defacto-independent, there's a terrible risk that they will declare themselves officially-independent. That would be a humiliating loss of face for the CCP and at the very least would probably precipitate a power struggle within the party.
There is deep history between Taiwan and China, and it is this history that is the main reason why China eyes Taiwan. Think of it like if California rebelled and became a separate country from the US 50 years ago. How would the rest of the US think about California?
Jokes aside, if that were to happen, the rest of the US wouldn't think "they belong with us whether they like it or not." It would take a significant government propaganda campaign to get Americans to be okay with forcibly reuniting a state like that.
No, that's what'd you'd do if you were the US because China is your rival. This is what you want from a foreign perspective.
If I was Taiwan, or in other words a shareholder or OWNER of TSMC, I wouldn't want something I own being destroyed. I would rather fold into the new regime and keep my original ownership.
If China has to eat the cost of the TSMC being destroyed, it’s probably less likely to invade. China in a large part depends on TSMC whether it “owns” Taiwan or not.
Yeah good point. I didn't realize what you meant. I thought you meant Taiwan should take a scorched earth policy, but you're really saying that Taiwan should advertise this policy as a defensive measure. Whether they carry it out is a different matter.
The western world's economy is dependent on china - any sanction immediately hurts the local economy. That's why every country is happy to fund the Chinese government's genocide.
The nature of globalism is that there's many steps in the supply change that are dependent on one or two countries. Semiconductors are also dependent on the Netherlands (ASML) for example.
Also violations of the air defense zone, though not meaningless, are not super important. The air defense zone covers a part of mainland China larger than Taiwan, as well as waters that might at least be considered international waters. News articles about that are pretty pointless.
Are we in favor of economics/capitalism here or are we not?
Because the economics literature is quite clear that international trade is beneficial to all involved. It's what we insist that developing countries focus on exports when loaning them money. For many years, Taiwan has been the poster child that we point to when trying to change the ways of Cuba or Venezuela.
Are these principles so weak that we would allow a dictator who doesn't even have the support of his own people to shake them?
> Because the economics literature is quite clear that international trade is beneficial to all involved.
If you narrowly focus on economics, yes. But what are other consequences, outside of economics? By outsourcing everything, you lose control. You allow uncontrollable external factors to affect you. You open yourself to be blackmailed.
So in a way yes, those principles are weak because they are incomplete. They do not take into account the full range of possibilities that can happen in the real world.
In theory by allowing private entities to run these businesses you're also losing control. If you need absolute control then what you're asking for is a command economy - I lean toward socialism but that's a bridge too far for me.
Some supply chain instability is the result of allowing healthy economic activity especially when the modern goods we're talking about are immensely complex and require incredible specialization to reasonably manufacture.
Any theory which does not take into account a country manipulating a market so it can get a monopoly on a key economic element for other countries, then use that to subjugate or conquer them is a hopelessly naive theory.
This entire theory has been disproved by modern China essentially becoming a Singapore writ large with a very bustling economy not only tied to but pivotal to the international trade system, but managing to remain authoritarian without liberalizing much.
Economics is clear on nothing. The curve maximizing behaviors for international trade have a few assumptions built in, e.g. that Taiwan does not get annexed by China and suddenly the trade incentives change horribly.
I think the assumption is that when the system is threatened, the leaders of all the countries benefiting from said capitalism would grow a pair and do something.
Because if they don't, and the system collapses, then what?
The system has already collapsed if war is happening. The opportunity cost of economic trade is dependence. There’s more at play than basic competitive advantages to actual trade.
> Are these principles so weak that we would allow a dictator who doesn't even have the support of his own people to shake them?
In practice the principles don't matter too much. The reality is that industry has optimized for cost and converged on a small set of suppliers. The single points of failure introduced as a side-effect of this could certainly be exploited by a bad actor.
> international trade is beneficial to all involved
But what kind of trade? Not unrestricted - Taiwan itself used protectionism to grow its industries when they were not yet able to compete on the global market:
James K. Galbraith has stated that [..] " ... none of the world's most successful trading regions, including Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and now mainland China, reached their current status by adopting neoliberal trading rules." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage#Criticis...
I would say that the economics literature is very clear that international trade is frequently not beneficial to all involved. Haiti would be a clear example of a case when it was not.
Do you want a scary thought? Imagine if Taiwan gets invaded and China manages to steal all of America's computer chip designs. Technology problems solved.
Low birth rate, high death rate, little immigration to make up the short fall (who wants to move to Russia :)), and to top off a weak economy that will struggle to support a small less active workforce. Interestingly Ukraine has pretty much the same population problem.
This will be increasingly common problem for countries as population growth slows.
ukraine's population growth and birth rates have been negative and below russia's for some time now, so annexation only makes that worse per-capita.
it's not clear that a flattening of the growth rate is a bad thing for quality of life or economic security, in spite of how it affects an economy on paper
The entire Western world is declining birth rates. It's very worrying. People complained about over population, but a nose dive in birth rates can become near irreversable.
There is no lack of people in the world. This is only an issue if you have some sort of deep-set racist need to only be around people of a particular skin colour.
Now you're thinkin! It's strange that this would fool anyone. The US has been transparent and accurate with stories, and it doesn't seem that USS... er Russia is firewalling off the internet just yet. Although I think that is soon to follow so that western stories will be limited except to those who tunnel through. I had hope Putin was just doing some dick swinging before April elections but it looks like I'm 100% wrong. it's not like he was going to lose anyway or that he's anything other than a dictator.
I always think that's a weird comparison when it's made; the U.S. has a long history of hiding 'true-black' project budgets in non-military (usually scientific) ledgers.
That's highly relevant! China may spend 1/3, but they are more efficient. We probably waste 1/2 or more of our spending. So it's possible we are closer to parity than it would appear if solely comparing budget.
They aren't more efficient. However, their costs (especially for labor) are much lower than in the USA except for stuff they can't source from government owned sources.
What would be some good stocks to invest to capitalize this? Perhaps some trading in Russian/Ukrainian Stock Exchange? Is there any significant US company listed in Nasdaq or NYSE in this space?
Ever heard the phrase "don't try to catch a falling knife"? We don't know how far this crisis will go. And we've only just started on the path of serious sanctions.
The risk of the companies disappearing may indeed be low.
One historical fact does come to mind: the St. Petersburg stock exchange reopened in 1917 (after being closed for world war 1), then closed two months later because of the Russian Revolution. It did not reopen and shareholders of Russian stocks lost everything.
I don't see something like that happening today. But what if Russia confiscates the shares of foreign shareholders?
But will it go lower? Will it ever go back up higher? Will the company you invest in go bankrupt, or its factories get destroyed (intentionally or accidentally)?
I mean if you have the money and confidence by all means, take the gamble, but keep in mind it's a gamble. Don't sell your house, don't spend your reserves, don't bet everything on one horse.
For Russian one - Putin controls all of the companies in a way. Shareholders have no say. This is reflected by the markets. Market cap of the exchange was 700b, largest US tech companies are larger on their own.
For Ukrainian one - the country might not exist in a few weeks in the current state.
If you want to play on the effects of the conflict, either buying or shorting the ruble is the best way to go.
- "Neon was regarded as a strategic resource in the former Soviet Union, because it was believed to be required for the intended production of laser weapons for missile and satellite defence purposes in the 1980s. Accordingly, all major air separation units in the Soviet Union were equipped with neon, but also krypton and xenon, enrichment facilities or, in some cases, purification plants (cf. Sections 5.4 and 5.5). The domestic Soviet supply of neon was extremely large but demand low."
- "Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, global crude neon production was approximately 500–600 million l/a (= 500,000–600,000 m3/a). It was dominated by far by large-scale air separation units associated with metallurgical combines in Russia and Ukraine. Simultaneously, demand was estimated at around 300 million l/a (cf. Section 4.2). In the years between 1990 and 2012, therefore, most crude neon was not purified, but released into the atmosphere, because there was no customer base."
https://www.deutsche-rohstoffagentur.de/DE/Gemeinsames/Produ... (chapter 5.2)
For context, this would have overlapped with Energia/Buran's launch of the Polyus weapon (which was a megawatt CO2 laser).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyus_(spacecraft)