WTF Just Happened? | The Corrupt Memory Industry & Micron
WTF Just Happened? | The Corrupt Memory Industry & Micron
31 comments
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Steve still doesn't quite see that this is the capitalist system working as intended - serving the owner (capitalist) class, but he's definitely getting radicalized by the current reality of it.
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capitalism worked pretty well in the 40's and 50's, in the USA, and then the corporate leaders realized that they could be overlords if they just stopped caring about everything but money.
We know kindness and money can coexist, but if little boy jack is taught from day one that if you don't game the system, you will lose, he's going to grow up to be Elon Musk.
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They knew they could be overlords and were that before The Great Depression too. We are just surpassing the level of wealth inequality that was reached prior to the system collapsing back then. What followed in the 40s and 50s was an abnormal period created by the implementation of a significant number of socialist policies that stemmed the desire for blood by the disposessed masses. These fuckers have been working to dismantle them ever since. If we find a formula that allows for such reforms to stick for longer than several decades, that would be nice. There's good reasons for skepticism though.
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It also worked because most other advanced economies had just been bombed into the ground twice over leaving the US with a huge advantage that made prosperity easy, those conditions simply don't exist anymore.
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The worst of it hasn't happened yet. The point where consumers can no longer afford to consume is coming. The system isn't self sustainable if they continue to chase profits in the short term regardless of what happens in the long term. They're creating a system where only they will be consumers and that leads to a devaluation of all the currency they're hoarding.
Prices can't continue to go up if people can't afford things. This price hike is going to have far reaching consequences and increase prices of everything.
The people of Germany were burning German marks in the street. They traded goods for goods when they were available, and burned the money for warmth.
The rich of our current generation seem to think they can golden parachute out of this. They haven't thought about the long term repercussions of a world power of the US's magnitude descending to third world country status, but that's what is coming.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_the_Weimar_Republic
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The worst of it hasn’t happened yet. The point where consumers can no longer afford to consume is coming.
Its mostly already arrived.
"As of June 30, the top 20% of earners accounted for more than 63% of all spending"
This means that the other 80% of Americans represent only 37% of the spending done today. If a company is looking to maximize profits the typical path is to do so by marketing to the group where they could earn the most money. That is less and less the bottom 80% of Americans.
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I mean, yeah, this is the system working as intended: corporations chasing profits and feeling no regrets about burning bridges in the process.
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Capitalism can work well when it's coupled into a virtuous circle of funding R&D to create new products and services to increase income to put back into more R&D.
At the moment it seems that a lot of companies are just trying to seek ever increasing rent extraction on existing products rather than investing in trying to innovate and relying on high barriers to entry to keep competition out.
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If you look at the history of capitalism you could observe the stage where capitalism does put profits into R&D is temporary. Eventually capitalists reach enough power that lets them generate profts without significant reinvestment and instead spend them on luxury goods. Happened in the late 19th/early 20th century. It's happening now as well. In-between that there was a massive state intervention that took significant economic power from capitalist class and put it into the state. The period when capitalism worked well for the majority was a deviation from the mean. Relevant.
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I don't know why this is getting down voted. With regulation and healthy competition, this is what happens. When antitrust regulation is weak, R&D and innovation stops and rent seeking takes its place.
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The creator in that video seems to think the Chips Act subsidies were to benefit consumers by having affordable memory produced domestically. That wasn't the goal. The goal was to derive drive GDP by having another source of domestic production, and drive job growth/tax revenue from workers working at the domestic facility. Lastly, it was to have strategic domestic production decoupled from other nations so we, as a nation, could not be held hostage by another nation (like we do to so many other nations) for crucial (pun very much intended) resources we need.
Nothing about that is about making RAM cheaper for retail consumers.
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I think that's the surface level, rational reading, but I think the realistic reading is it was simply a kickback to fortune 500 companies that got these politicians elected. Haven't we already funded at least one factory that ended up being smoke and mirrors?
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but I think the realistic reading is it was simply a kickback to fortune 500 companies that got these politicians elected.
If there were no legitimate geopolitical reasons, then the "simply a kickback" would be much more plausible. Also, if it was a single source company, then "simply a kickback" would look true. Additionally, if was perhaps just domestic companies "simply a kickback" would certainly be even more likely. Lastly, the Chips act wasn't just about production domestically. It also blocked sales/exports of completed high end chips and chip making equipment to China. If the Chips act was "simple a kickback" you wouldn't do all that other stuff, and you certainly wouldn't allow foreign winners (like Taiwan's TSMC).
Was their rewards because of industry lobbying? Certainly. However, unless you're in a purely communist system of government where all the companies are owned by the state, you're always going to have private companies benefiting from government spending, tax breaks, and subsidies. As to this just applying to fortune 500 companies, there isn't really a "mom and pop" semiconductor industry making handfuls of chips at a time except outside of engineering sample that are used in R&D for fortune 500 companies.
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The comments on that video 🤐🤐
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I used to order micron ram directly, best ram I could find. Now I buy laptops because they're cheaper than building a pc
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The concept of a "corrupt industry" doesn't really make sense.
Corruption only works in non-profit/political/governmental contexts. It's when you have a job that requires you to value some specific higher goal more than your own personal benefit.
The whole purpose and the higher goal of an industry, same as capitalism in general is personal benefit. A capitalist cannot be corrupt. Or to put it differently: The thing that would make e.g. a public servant corrupt is the modus operandi of capitalism.
Edit, since a lot of people don't seem to get it:
Corruption means that you have some higher purpose that is corrupted in favour of personal gain.
Capitalism has no higher purpose than personal gain. A capitalist prioritizing personal gain is not corrupt, he is a capitalist.
Saying a capitalist is corrupt is like trying to make water wetter or trying to burn a fire.
What we call corruption for a public servant is ideal behavior for a capitalist.
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A capitalist cannot be corrupt.
Alex, I'll take stupid things said on the internet for 800.
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To be corrupt, you need to have another purpose than personal enrichment that you are corrupting in favour of personal enrichment.
The whole goal of capitalism is personal enrichment. There is no other purpose that could be corrupted.
It's like saying that you make water wet or that you burn a fire.
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I think I get what you're saying -
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When we say corrupt, we mean someone is manipulating something for personal gain and otherwise would have a different purpose. Capitalism is just for personal gain. Therefore, capitalism cannot be corrupted by manipulation for personal gain, because that's its true purpose. TLDR: saying capitalism is corrupt is a tautology. Capitalism sucks
Did I rephrase your point correctly?
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Pretty much, with the difference that corruption can only happen if it takes something off it's path, so to say.
If the path itself is bad, being bad is not corruption.
If steel rusts, it's being corrupted. Rust itself cannot be corrupted, because it is what it is.
And yes, I very much think that capitalism sucks.
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