How important are 'economies of scale'?

Re:How important are 'economies of scale'? by rossdavidh on Saturday February 22, 2020 @07:36PM (#22394318)

While I agree with much of what is being said, I find the anti-China tone troubling. The monopolization and centralization of the U.S. economy (and thus politics) would be equally problematic, even if China had a democratic government and we had 0% chance of a military conflict with them. The "China is dangerous, we need to be ready for a war with them" subtext, I think, just detracts from the overall point about the problems of bigness in the private sector (which, again, I fundamentally agree with).

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Re:How important are 'economies of scale'? by artemisyna on Sunday February 23, 2020 @03:01AM (#22395693)

I can see where you're coming from (that bigness is an issue, regardless of whatever role China may play), however I do think the China example helps better concretely illustrate some of the author's points.

In particular, 'bigness' alone reduces innovation and can cause misaligned incentives. However, 'bigness' in addition to an outsourced supply chain means the misaligned incentives are allowed to be that much stronger -- now, not only is the US economy less innovative than it otherwise would be, it has also enabled a feedback loop that would not necessarily act in its best interests.

Does said entity necessary need to be a foreign country or even a foreign entity? No. However, as "the entity that has captured critical components relevant to the US manufacturing supply chain", China is a nice example of an "entity with bigness" and one with some explicit misaligned incentives (at least, in terms of certain cultural values), so it illustrates the point more directly than some other examples.

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Re:How important are 'economies of scale'? by eropple on Saturday February 22, 2020 @08:26PM (#22394509)

This sort of complaint is weird to me. Sure, monopolization and centralization in the US would be a problem too, but...that's not what actually exists. We have a number of large companies that probably should be parted out for better competition--something I'm super in favor of--but the state is not actively pulling their levers.

Is criticism of China subject to dismissals of "anti-China tone" when it describes what's happening?

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Re:How important are 'economies of scale'? by StreamBright on Sunday February 23, 2020 @02:27AM (#22395609)

It _is_ a problem. There is no need to use hypothetical here.

- healthcare

This high degree of concentration has been building for years. A study published in the American Economics Review in 2012 found that the share of U.S. communities in which health insurance markets had become “highly concentrated” (using the standard deployed by Federal anti-trust regulators) increased from 68 in 1998 to 99 percent in 2006. The same study concluded that this increase in concentration had caused a seven percentage point increase in premiums over the period.

- telco

https://www.groundedreason.com/does-the-u-s-have-a-broadband...

The actual list is long. There are 2 more obvious examples.

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Re:How important are 'economies of scale'? by eropple on Sunday February 23, 2020 @12:38PM (#22398201)

If you don't grok the difference between unhealthy levels of corporate concentration and every major business in every industry having agents of the ruling party in the org chart, I don't know what to tell you.

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Re:How important are 'economies of scale'? by jjeaff on Saturday February 22, 2020 @11:11PM (#22395093)

You really think that right now, given what we know is happening in China on a large scale (cultural genocide, sterilizations, social credit systems, political prisoners, mass protests being squashed by violence, etc...) That too much power concentrated in the US would be just as bad as with China?

I think it's pretty clear that the current absolute dictatorship in China is not even on the same level of bad as the current US system, orange warts and all.

Maybe ask Hong Kong. If they had to be ruled by China or the US, which would they choose?

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Re:How important are 'economies of scale'? by clairity on Sunday February 23, 2020 @12:03AM (#22395247)

the US has a ton of problems too: homelessness, drug addiction, crushing debt, pollution, gun violence, corporatocracy, terrorism hysteria, incarceration, suicide, heart disease, cancer, obesity, etc. and we strongly oppose the single biggest, easiest fix: import a bunch more people into the country to juice the economy (since baby-making has stagnated here due to all the aforementioned problems).

the hong konger would choose neither of course.

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