I don’t think all of them. I believe data center are a net negative for the residents in the area. I live in South Texas and the county here really gave it their all to get Space X down here. It has become a big employer in this area. There’s a few locals I know that work there as HVAC or welding. The higher skilled jobs move in people from outside here, but they contribute to the local economy by shopping, entertainment, eating, and taxes.

The last 20 years because of social media. The algorithmic echo chambers that people have created with their feeds has increased the divide.

Nostalgia more than anything. At the time a factory job could buy you a home out of high school, have a wife that stays home and takes care of the children. The factory job itself is a red herring. What people actually want is a post WW2 baby booming economy.

Without post WW2 taxes.

Part of the problem is that a lot of the extra wealth ends invested in the house market. This increases the cost of terrains for both old and new homes. It is also not very productive just to buy one thing to extract rents from it. ( There is value in handling the rent, building or reforming and old house).

The urban land is limited and requires government infrastructure to connect it.

Another big cost is the university.

Agreed. For that economy to come back, you need all possible competitors to be weak and poor, in the mid 20th century that meant either still agrarian (China) or rebuilding after war (Japan and Europe). It was a unique moment and it's never coming back.

China wasn't a factor in global economics until the 90s, and Europe only was relevant for US growth for a very short time following WW2 and the Marshall Plan.

They were talking about economic boom, not manufacturing dominance.

You won't hear me say that the housing market doesn't need an overhaul, but I'm not sure that the "a factory job could buy you a home out of high school" meme is entirely accurate. If you look at home ownership rates, the rates today are higher than (though not by much) the rates in the 1960s: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N

I can't find numbers from earlier than 1980, but 18-44 _is_ lower, though again the rate in 1980 was just a few percentage points higher, and not nearly high enough to imply that home ownership out of high school was in reach for the majority: https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/charts/fig07.pdf

One could argue China may have already surpassed the US or at least equalled it on the world stage as of now. It will be interesting to see how historians view the rise of China and write about the emergence of a new super power.

Just a hunch and I am really going out on a limb here but I could see China wait another year or two and then step in and force a peace settlement in Ukraine. This would really show the world who the new super power is, as the US and Western powers have struggled with this conflict, a patient China could step in and reach a peace deal as they hold significant leverage over Russia.

China has always been a powerhouse economy. It's really just a blip where they were surpassed in the last two hundred years.

Yes, this is the attitude I'm referring to. The people who run this country (emphatically including people who frequent this forum) are far more my enemy than anyone in china could even pretend to be.

I also don't think Americans realize how quickly we will slide from relevance once our grip on the world slacks. We could have built this world into something amazing but instead we just got fat.

To be fair though, China has its morons too. If you can't deal with Republicans where you share a common language/culture/history, how are you gonna deal with a Chinese Trump on the other side of the world?

In the last election, Latinos voted 50-50 for Trump. That should have been a massive warning sign.

I like liberals, but they're way too passive. They really need to play the Prisoner's Dilemma in high school until they learn what to do when someone refuses to cooperate.

Yea, but american voters have never acted rationally. It's all aesthetics.

Everyone is pushing trade school and blue collar work. You think their wages are going to increase with new supply? No. I feel like the powers that be said “learn to code” to increase supply. Now it’s “learn to weld” and once the supply increases they’ll bust their unions.

It’s not so much the people or the land, but rather what they can build. It’s the whole essence of the article. Not sure how far behind the West would fall if TSMC was controlled by the CCP. 5 years? 10?

We’d blow up the fabs ourselves.

But it’s in Taiwans interest for us to continue to provide them arms, training, and build regional alliances to pressure China.

I’m also not as convinced the US wouldn’t respond, but it would depend on South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and ASEAN nations to call for such action — if they felt threatened enough by China’s actions in taking Taiwan and Philippine islands to declare war themselves.

Edit:

Including article discussing blowing up fabs and Taiwanese response that cutting off ASML and similar would be just as effective.

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-would-destroy-taiwan-semi...

If the key thing is to avoid China getting access to TSMC plants, I'm sure there are ways to do it without risking US troops. The West would have to live with inferior Intel nodes for a while, but it would be better than anything China could produce.

Unless a series of unfortunate accidents occur at the TSMC fabs long before China can put them to use...

> There wouldn’t be a push to the Red Book if that was the case.

Isn't Red Book pushed by angry titk tok users, just like blue sky was the reaction to Musk buying Twitter?

> I dislike that China has a firewall for American companies, but will gladly enter our market.

China was invited by the USA in the USA market.

In exchange for their cheap and educated labor force and growing market.

Ask Apple if it was good or bad for them to exploit the Chinese market and labor.

It's the USA that pushed to invite them in the WTO.

Is it too much to ask to the USA to reflect a little before acting?

In a way you have to hand it to China for this master play. Globalization really complicates economies. China became the world’s factory because it produced products for a fraction of the cost, but it didn’t let the West in to provide services and products built by white collar workers into their economy. It copied and made sure that the services and products were produced by Chinese budding middle class workers. Now you can argue they’re on even footing with the West. I agree with you. They caught up and the handicap should be removed. They want their cake and to eat it too.

in no way are they on an even footing with the US, their wealth is more similar to Mexico.

there is a US-sized subset of China that is close to an even footing with the US, yes

Meta, maybe Zuck specifically, always seemed liked a pandering company trying to follow the social meta. VR gets popular, Meta goes all in. Twitter “dies”, Meta swoops in with Threads. Snapchat stories, FB stories. TikTok, FB shorts. Musk getting close to Trump, Zuck trying to get close. People say he’s a robot? Hey, he now has a chain, does jujitsu, and has a broccoli haircut. Puts Dana White on the board and does JRE. Now he’s removing fact checking and DEI as the left is losing power. It’s like Zuck just wants to be recognized as a cool kid in the group, but is clearly trying too hard. The last cool thing FB did was marketplace and then all the way back to timeline feature.

Yeah, but then you get laid off from your cushy VP or Director role at 45 and realize you weren’t as smart as you thought you were when you’re searching for your next role that will pay you your previous salary. You’ll probably think back to this crossroad and regret it. Especially since robotics hasn’t had its ChatGPT moment just yet, but looks soon.

As director or VP one should be able to retire at 45 in USA. Then you don’t care anymore about next job.

Most people making it to VP or Director by age 45 haven't been in that position long enough to retire. Not to mention that getting there by that early point generally requires a certain amount of drive that's difficult to just shut off and retire.