The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospects for Recovery (1994)

Re:The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospec... by mindslight on Wednesday April 09, 2025 @01:01AM (#43629015)

When people talk about wealth concentration, they're not talking about artists with high-variance paydays. They're focusing on all of the captive-market middlemen that have been allowed to set up shop playing negative sum games via regulatory capture, externalities, lack of anti-trust enforcement, etc.

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Re:The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospec... by WalterBright on Wednesday April 09, 2025 @01:08AM (#43629056)

When people like Sanders talk about wealth concentration in billionaires like Musk, how did Musk make his money with negative sum games, regulatory capture, etc.?

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Re:The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospec... by mindslight on Wednesday April 09, 2025 @01:36AM (#43629189)

Oh boy. There have been tomes written on how Musk's companies are set up around capturing government subsidies. If you're earnestly interested, such analyses are not hard to find.

The stock market itself is a shining example of regulatory capture - a perma-bubble due to fake "fiscal responsibility" political marketing that causes massive streams of newly printed money to be handed out to banks to dump into the asset bubble (that newly printed money representing the gains from technology and offshoring that would have otherwise caused price deflation)

But sure, I'll also agree that some of Musk's riches are due to actual wealth creation - before the crippling social media addiction and subsequent spiral into lunacy, anyway.

But that's all focusing on the problematic ways wealth concentration can arise (the context it was originally brought up in). The other critique (likely what you're referencing about Sanders) is about the corrosive effects that concentrated wealth tends to have. And surely you can see how that applies pretty strongly to Musk...

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Re:The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospec... by WalterBright on Wednesday April 09, 2025 @02:30PM (#43635651)

So how much subsidy did Musk receive for SpaceX? (The answer is $0.)

SpaceX is worth around $390 billion.

> some of Musk's riches are due to actual wealth creation

Very generous of you! LOL

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Re:The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospec... by mindslight on Wednesday April 09, 2025 @03:39PM (#43636787)

> So how much subsidy did Musk receive for SpaceX? (The answer is $0.)

Wut? SpaceX's largest customer is the government. If you're just looking to play semantic games where that revenue isn't a "subsidy" then I don't see how it's possible to have a conversation.

You also didn't address the other point, which is especially salient given that Musk has now spent a chunk of his concentrated wealth lobbying gain significant control of the government that gives him funding. But I guess revolving doors, corruption, and grift is just normalized good behavior in 2025 as long as the person is wearing the right color hat?

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