Agreed. If you consider chips to be a strategic resource - like the food supply - then the government will need to step in and set a subsidy / price floor to ensure over production.

Fyi, the US government subsidizes the overproduction of food so that we do not experience famine in the event that a significant portion of the food supply gets taken out (e.g. bad harvest, drought, etc).

> the US government subsidizes the overproduction of food so that we do not experience famine in the event that a significant portion of the food supply gets taken out (e.g. bad harvest, drought, etc).

That's the first time I've heard that reasoning, and not that the farm lobby had enough power to obtain subsidies. What evidence is there that the subsidies (from taxpayers to the farms, many run by large companies) are driven by some kind of famine protection?

The loss of commercial ship building in the US is something I want to learn more about. Did it happen simply because other countries subsidized their own industries and the US couldn’t compete? Would love a long form history of that industry going back a few centuries.

Im sure environmental aspects play a role - the shipyards in asia are unbelievably huge.

Plus the chinese shipyards build literal battleships/aircraft-carriers and cruise ships and cargo ships sitting right next to eachother - and its said they steal/share technologies from the various contracts/products.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6520357/Satellite-i...

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And there is this:

China builds mock-US ships in what seems to be for battle scenario training ops..

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/08/satellite-china-us-...

US consumers got a lot of cheap chips from their subsidy. US businesses had to close because they couldn't compete but US consumers still won in the end. I wondering if the US government will have to subsidize this industry in perpetuity if the subsidized fabs can't become competitive.

>but US consumers still won in the end

Sure, but the point is that an entire industry which added employment and other positives to the economy evaporated.

By saying "customers won, because they could still buy stuff through sending money to companies and industry in other countries" -- could be argued as a loss.

The US is so myopically built around consumption its sickening.

> an entire industry which added employment and other positives to the economy evaporated.

Unemployment is at record lows. Uncompetitive companies and industries fail by design - it's essential to the free market. Then resources can be shifted to something that's productive.

> The US is so myopically built around consumption its sickening.

What's sickening to me is this growing trend for advocating corporate welfare - we can't provide healthcare to poor people, but we can take money out of my pocket and give it to Intel.

You completely!! missed my point.

>unemp at record low!

YAY - Look at how many absolutely fucking terrible, useless, non-growth, subsistence level jobs with zero healthcare, no protections, shitty wages, union busting, oligarch politicians telling people to shut the fuck up and we cant afford healthcare, college, living wages. We are "fighting" for you! Dont you get how hard it is for us to develop agreements that are for the benefit of such a diverse... wait.... Hang on a sec - Ukraine is on the phone, hes an important war buddy of mine...

> You completely!! missed my point.

It doesn't seem like you are trying to make it clearly, or trying to understand me.

I am not arguing against you.

I find your comments interesting and have great points. We are both not wrong. :-)

your comment style is interesting in that you start with a refute, then end with an agreement...

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I enjoyed this exchange.

Your argument falls under the lump of labour fallacy, a lot of new jobs were created when we had cheaper chips. If it was a loss then it wouldn't have been an economic loss :)

Sure, but unless we didnt actually move those industries/services/jobs off-shore - we would never truly know what would have resulted.

We can only look at the outcome as being satisfactory to the statistics of politicians and economists - rather than the effect upon the actual families, towns, and cottage support undustries around those enterprises which left the USA... Good to see that "well, it looks good on paper" -- because the labour fallacy also suffers from thinking that all the new shit we do in the US would not have happened.

Further - the new jobs that have been created (aside from the tech industry are things like massive fastfood, and consuption-capital-growth...

If I an wrong, I would like to learn... but this appears to be the emgergent reality of the US, as evidenced by the ridiculous situation this country is in economically.

(No, Oligarch level wealth creation and stock market actions for the 1% and corporate/hedge funds profits are not the indicators of a truly strong economy: The health, happiness, prosperity of the populous and the quality of both the countries infrastructure and of life is.

And in these regard, imo, USA is flailing horrifically.

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Also, and when we look at the strength of the pretty much every industry in the US, such as tech, pharma, healthcare, finance, etc... Every single one of them is 100% dependent on the brain-importation from other countries.

Yet, we can't even service the needs of the overall citizenry.

> We can only look at the outcome as being satisfactory to the statistics of politicians and economists - rather than the effect upon the actual families, towns, and cottage support undustries around those enterprises

Where do you think the chip industry and every other industry came from, but from resources freed up when other industries and companies failed. Look at the composition of economic output 50 and 100 years ago and now - most of that is gone and less productive than what we do now.

Certainly having government driven by lobbyists to pick the 'winners', rather than the marketplace, isn't going to help our economy. It will temporarily help the lobbyists' clients.

To focus on social welfare for a moment, we don't do enough to offset the effects of a major industry leaving a town. Many people don't relocate to continue to be productive and so we end up with large amounts of poverty in those areas. I think relocation benefits should be part of the social safety net in the US, as areas see more loss of industry from competition. Wage increases are also causing industries to leave as competition heats up which is in a large part caused by our disastrous housing and healthcare situation driving up the cost of living.

>Many people don't relocate to continue to be productive

Many people can't relocate to continue to be productive ; due to the cost of living, the substance living that the current system provides to 90% of the population.

If you look at vast swaths of jobs, they are 100% barely substance (work to ensure you dont die, only)

I think the word you are looking for is "subsistence"

Obviously, as it was further up in thread... it was a typo. Thanks

> but US consumers still won in the end.

US consumers have still won to date but the worry is that this move will in the long term hurt US consumers.