What appalls me is how so many tiptoe around the F-word, using other terms or 'not quite there ' terms like proto-fascist. This goes right to the top, a political term that none seem dare to say its name.
It seems to me that the US seems to want the same thing, but done in a less Draconian way. For some time their has been a complaint in the SJ software industry that the likes of FB, Google, et all are sucking up talent and resources for an enterprise that offers financial gain, but relatively little consumer gain. Even the politicos want to see such tech giants reigned in, but in their case, to reduce their relative power. Tech people see social media and related tech as not very inventive or world-changing, despite the hype. Because much of that investment is by VC, the hunt for "unicorns" and a relatively quick payoff has been the business model, possibly making up for the losses in real technology development e.g. "clean tech".
There are so many areas of technology that are relatively starving of needed funding simply because the time to development is long and the market uncertainties are high.
About 20 years ago Bruce Sterling wrote an article about tech in 2050 stating that there was no particular excitement as new technologies were constantly coming into being, and if one failed, there was a similar one ready to take over. Sadly, this does not seem to be happening, at least not IMO.
So maybe the Chinese have the right vision, just an unacceptable way to achieve it by Western Enlightenment means.
Re: "’In the 20 years leading up to the financial crisis, international trade grew at twice the rate of global output. Since then, trade has struggled to recover. Recent data is more worrying still, suggesting that trade’s share of global GDP is falling. "
Is this worrying? While trade and financial markets are not the same, I can recall in the late 1980s how currency trading just grew out of all proportion to trade in goods. AFAIK, this is the same today. This was, and is, a waste of resources as currency traders vied to maximize zero-sum profits for their bank, and themselves.
We have seen how complex supply chains have become, shuttling goods back and forth between countries before finally landed and sold. This seems like a similar waste of resources, not to mention, environmentally toxic, all to try to minimize costs and end prices to the buyer. Perhaps winding this down to reduce moving goods and even reducing international trade might be a good thing, even if costs and prices rise a little.
Just what are the economic consequences of reduced trade in goods that require this frenetic shuttling back and forth before final sale? Is it major or minor? Could resources in transport be redeployed in some better way, preferably reduced if they just contribute to the externality of the climate crisis?
Re: Fascism.
What appalls me is how so many tiptoe around the F-word, using other terms or 'not quite there ' terms like proto-fascist. This goes right to the top, a political term that none seem dare to say its name.
Re: What Tech Does China Want?
It seems to me that the US seems to want the same thing, but done in a less Draconian way. For some time their has been a complaint in the SJ software industry that the likes of FB, Google, et all are sucking up talent and resources for an enterprise that offers financial gain, but relatively little consumer gain. Even the politicos want to see such tech giants reigned in, but in their case, to reduce their relative power. Tech people see social media and related tech as not very inventive or world-changing, despite the hype. Because much of that investment is by VC, the hunt for "unicorns" and a relatively quick payoff has been the business model, possibly making up for the losses in real technology development e.g. "clean tech".
There are so many areas of technology that are relatively starving of needed funding simply because the time to development is long and the market uncertainties are high.
About 20 years ago Bruce Sterling wrote an article about tech in 2050 stating that there was no particular excitement as new technologies were constantly coming into being, and if one failed, there was a similar one ready to take over. Sadly, this does not seem to be happening, at least not IMO.
So maybe the Chinese have the right vision, just an unacceptable way to achieve it by Western Enlightenment means.
Re: "’In the 20 years leading up to the financial crisis, international trade grew at twice the rate of global output. Since then, trade has struggled to recover. Recent data is more worrying still, suggesting that trade’s share of global GDP is falling. "
Is this worrying? While trade and financial markets are not the same, I can recall in the late 1980s how currency trading just grew out of all proportion to trade in goods. AFAIK, this is the same today. This was, and is, a waste of resources as currency traders vied to maximize zero-sum profits for their bank, and themselves.
We have seen how complex supply chains have become, shuttling goods back and forth between countries before finally landed and sold. This seems like a similar waste of resources, not to mention, environmentally toxic, all to try to minimize costs and end prices to the buyer. Perhaps winding this down to reduce moving goods and even reducing international trade might be a good thing, even if costs and prices rise a little.
Just what are the economic consequences of reduced trade in goods that require this frenetic shuttling back and forth before final sale? Is it major or minor? Could resources in transport be redeployed in some better way, preferably reduced if they just contribute to the externality of the climate crisis?