I have a MsC in CS. While I spent half of my career writing device drivers, the other half was doing computer architecture. You could say I had a foot on the low level software side, and the other foot on the high-level hardware side. I found them to be two sides of the same coin. Understanding how hardware folks see the world took a few years, but it was very doable.
My biggest gripe with the semiconductor industry as a career, compared to software, is twofold.
First, it is very concentrated. If you want to make good money there are only a handful of potential employers, and this only a handful of cities/neighborhoods where you will have to live; remote work is theoretically possible but not all employers make it effective. I found this the most frustrating. The upside is that people know this and this tend to stay at the same employer for a long time, so you get to learn from people with a deep understanding of the product, and people are mindful to keep a pleasant work environment.
Second, the pay isn't as good at the top end. If you have FAANG-level skills, you will typically do much better financially there than in the semiconductor industry —with the notable exception of NVidia for the past decade or so.
What incentive do any of the few actors with the ability to effect that change have to actually pull that lever? I imagine that you have spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I would like to understand your position.
That is the problem. Reigning in debasement is what needs to happen or the dollar is dead. But, reigning in debasement means spending less. Spending less means people can't be reelected for "bringing federal money home". So, there is no incentive for Congress to cut anything. But, the piece that makes me pretty sure that debasement is the goal, is that by debasing the currency it makes it possible to pay off dollar denominated debt. I can't be the only one that sees it. Nations have been divesting of US Bonds for years now.
I'll say it another way. The government can pay off its debt by making your money worthless.
I changed my investment habits as soon as I recognized it. I am already happy I did.
So, if I got it right, your argument is that the US government has issued so much debt that in order to pay for its interest in the future it will find itself forced to devalue the USD, and that will lead to the stock market to underperform.
Did I get the gist of it?
> I can't be the only one that sees it
Correct. It is a pretty common argument.
A common counterargument is that the US government has two advantages when it comes to issuing debt.
First, the USD remains the primary reserve currency around the world, and for good reasons, too. As long as global trade relies so heavily on the USD and, more generally, on exports to the US, foreign exchange rates will continue to prop up the value of the USD and USD-denominated debt.
Can this global economic system change in the future? Sure. But it has a lot of mass and momentum behind it. It can't stop overnight, any more than a tornado can.
Second is that the US government issues debt in USD and it has its own central bank, which allows them to pull levers both on the fiscal policy side and the monetary policy side. This allows them to issue pretty much as much or as little debt as they want, pay for it as much or as little as they want (let's not forget forget QE), and adjust inflation up or down with an enviable degree of freedom.
Can this destabilize? Of course, it is possible to mismanage it badly enough, in theory. But given its position as the world's reserve currency, they can get away with murder compared to other less privileged countries and currencies.
Lastly, understanding something is not enough to make money out of it. You need to have privileged knowledge that other people lack. Is that what is happening here?
Unless something changes the government will be forced to continue devaluing the USD. They have been doing it since 1913. This is late stage debasement, not the start. Unless there is a drastic change in spending or growth there is no stopping this train even for a reserve currency. Being the reserve just allows us to spread out the damage. This points back to countries selling their US debt. They see default as more likely and want to get rid of it before they get caught holding the bag. It doesn't help that we have been abusing reserve currency privilege by using USD as a weapon. Who wants to be friends when our friendship is conditional on compliance?
The stock market will continue to go up as long as inflation happens. The dollar losing value is now the dominant market force. That makes the stock market increasing dependent on cheap credit. It is too risky for me to have money in the stock market. That value can evaporate faster than I can realize it on a decision as common as a FedFunds rate increase.
The last stage of a currency collapse is the country selling assets priced in dollars to pay dollar denominated debt.
That's the core question. I would like to see the parent poster's answer as well, because I don't see it happening as long as the US can price debt in its own currency, and the only way that stops happening is after a catastrophe that isn't worth planning for because there's no way to survive financially.
Indeed. Timing a bear market is a waste of effort. Just look at historical returns: more often than not the stock market will be at all-time highs. This has been going on for over a century.
Dollar cost averaging (investing the same percentage of every paycheck) is the winning strategy over the medium and long run.
It goes to show that time in the market beats timing the market. You may get lucky predicting a downturn, but it's just gambling at that point. Just look at the past century of returns across the world.
Interestingly seeing, or smelling foods can cause insulin release[0]. Perhaps it's not surprising that tasting foods would.
But it does make me wonder. If evolution was so concerned about blood sugar control it led to insulin release even before you ate (and that in evolutionary terms foods were very low in sugar and simple carbs). What must a doughnut do to our physiology?
That article seems a bit misleading. While some sweetener packets, such as equal and splenda contain some sugar, I don't believe this is necessarily true when they are used in other products. A quick google implies that, for example, Diet Coke (my beloved) does not contain any real sugar, only aspartame. So it seems disingenuous to compare the metabolic impact of a sugar/aspartame blend to pure aspartame.
They have fractional charges because that is how we happen to measure charge. If our unit of charge had been set when we knew about quarks, we would have chosen those as fundamental, and the charge of the electron would instead be -3.
Now, the ratios between these charges appear to be fundamental. But the presence of fractions is arbitrary.
> If our unit of charge had been set when we knew about quarks, we would have chosen those as fundamental, and the charge of the electron would instead be -3.
Actually, I doubt it. Because of their color charge, quarks can never be found in an unbound state but instead in various kinds of hadrons. The ways that quarks combine cause all hadrons to end up with an integer charge, with the ⅔ and -⅓ charges on various quarks merely being ways to make them come out to resulting integer charges.
Isn’t charge quantized? Observable isolated charges are quantized in units of e. You can call it -3 and +3 but that just changes the relative value for the quanta. The interesting question is still why the positive and neutral particles are nonelementary particles made up of quarks with a fraction of e, the math made possible only by including negatively charged ones (and yet electrons are elementary particles).
Russia has been involved in covert sabotage operations in Europe for more than a decade [1][2]. You can learn more about this from investigative journalist Christo Grozev [3].
What are the chances that the high-speed rail crash that occurred in Spain a few weeks ago was also caused by them? [4]
Such groups are manipulated. Easy enough to do, especially if you provide money in exchange for doing things. Russia has been caught doing it in Ukraine, why in the world would you think it couldn't happen elsewhere? There are enough desperate suckers out there.
yeah, but no credible connection has been revealed or proven. there might well be a teapot orbiting the Moon, but without evidence it’s just random speculation
With social media encouraging and promoting divisive bullshit it’s really not hard for a hostile power to influence local groups to do their bidding.
Social media should be the main target of all these defense groups, but sadly politicians themselves derive their power from it so it’s unlikely anything tangible will be done.
The bad actors here are the social media platforms who host and promote divisive content since it generates more engagement thus ad revenue. Those are very much in reach of law enforcement and regulations can be passed to forbid such engagement-maximizing behavior. Simply moving back to chronological feeds of accounts the user explicitly chose to follow would be a big first step in curbing the spread of propaganda.
But this imposes an effectively impossible burden on them. You can't build a platform with anything resembling free expression without inherently creating a platform that can be used for evil.
I was coming out of Barcelona on a train to France on the 18th, and through the window spotted a blacked-out quadcopter just hovering quite high over the tracks. No incidents happened in that area of Spain though so I'm wondering why it was there, I suppose it could be civilian or police?
Anyone can fly a quadcopter though? You can buy one right now for a couple hundred bucks off Amazon (and strap explosives to it if you wanted to).
If anything, the fact we’re not seeing random drones carrying explosives and diving into groups of people on a daily basis shows the vast, vast (99.999%) majority of people is actually well-meaning and has no desire to kill or hurt anyone.
If you’re legitimately baffled by a random guy being able to fly a quadcopter around without any kind of government approval or oversight, I encourage you to buy one and play around (without explosives please!), just make sure to not fly it over places where people could be standing - terminal velocity is real and even a light one could cause serious injury if it were to lose control and fall on someone’s head.
Here in the USA quad-copter drones are used to inspect powerlines and other infrastructure; I see them a few times per year in my area. I don’t see why they wouldn’t use drones to visually inspect train tracks as well. Very cost effective and energy efficient alternative to manual inspection in a vehicle of some kind.
Russia is a candidate, but it's far from the only candidate, and it's not clear how this advances their interests. Why not China, for instance? Or a random terrorist group? Speculation is fun but it's important to actually make statements grounded in reality.
I don't believe that without evidence. Europe tacitly supports Israel even while some parts of it claim not to, and Spain is internationally irrelevant.
Exactly why they are singled out for chilling effect. They cannot retaliate substantially.
Evidence is not easy to find on these topics. It's espionage for christ's sake. You need to analyze material incentives and be familiar with the methods used. You cannot expect the media to hand you the answers, because that is not the purpose of the media especially on topics like this.
Israel responds to words with words. They respond to force with force. And they are busy enough dealing with the trouble that Iran keeps stirring up, they're not going to do anything to Spain. (Not to say that it would be out of the question for them to go after terrorists who were in Spain, but it would be very focused. Look at what happened after Munich--multiple European countries were incredibly inept about extraditing the attackers so Israel responded with assassination teams. Not strikes on anything they didn't believe had hurt them.)
(And there never was a genocide, but this isn't the thread for it.)
You're following the propaganda, not the reality. Just because Hamas calls them "press" doesn't make them so. And almost nobody will call Hamas on it because that would jeopardize future reporting. And unfortunately having something to report is far more important to "news" organizations than actually reporting the truth. We've even seen The Felon try to do that here--report only what I want if you want to be allowed into press conferences.
You seem to approve extrajudicial killing / assassination. Would be interesting if some countries decide to start assassinating Israeli terrorists in West Bank.
I'd suggest that radical left-wing elements indigenous to Italy, such as those behind the Turin protests that left 100 police officers wounded a few days ago, are a perfectly plausible candidate; not every attack comes from without. There was another protest against the Olympics in Milan itself last night by left-wing elements who believe the games are economically and socially unsustainable [0]
Unfortunately with stuff like this, nation states will use groups like that as proxies.
Lots of governments.
For example, there's some other news at the moment that the USA is financing pro-MAGA groups across Europe, which I mention more because of Jan 6 happened at all than due to any specific evidence that the US government has knowingly given state support for terrorists.
After 6 weeks in Taiwan, one thing became very evident, mainland China can take the island in 3 days without firing a single shot. The only thing that can stop mainland China taking from taking Taiwan is a US president like Bill Clinton who had the courage to put two United States aircraft carrier strike forces between the mainland and the island to defend democracy which gave us TMSC. I don't see the current snowflake leadership doing that. While I was there, mainland China told the people of Taiwan to shut their mouths and nobody said a word about China after.
The reason mainland China hasn't taken Taiwan is because they don't have to.
I do not like the government of China, however, they are building infrastructure around the world especially in Africa, Asia, and South America. They are not destroying things like Russia does every single day. Their approach to diplomacy now is building.
For the same reason, China isn't commit terrorist attacks on other countries. However, Russia is committing terrorist attacks on other countries so it easy to believe that they are responsible for terrorist attacks.
> After 6 weeks in Taiwan, one thing became very evident, mainland China can take the island in 3 days without firing a single shot
This does not reflect the opinions of any military person I know who has knowledgeably commented on the topic, all of whom have spent quite a bit longer than 6 weeks on Taiwan.
Their defense system is as big a joke as the architecture design in Hualien. Nobody living on the island will openly criticize the mainland for the same reason nobody will point a weapon at anyone from the mainland. They know if the mainland wants the island, they surround the island on day 1, take over the island on day 2, and install their own government on day 3. They know they do not want a record of opposing the mainland in words or violence because of the consquences.
I'm not saying this to be mean. I'm being honest and because the current United States administration is a bunch of snowflakes, it puts the democracy in Taiwan in great danger you need to honest about that too.
The only country I think that is prepared to defend against China is Vietnam.
> if the mainland wants the island, they surround the island on day 1, take over the island on day 2, and install their own government on day 3
Now add typhoon season, the artillery batteries in the mountains, China’s lack of blue-water naval operations (let alone combined arms) and, in terms of allies, the Philippines and Japan.
This will be much more like the Taliban recapturing Kabul. If the artillery batteries are like the infrastructure on the east coast, likely they don't work. Taking the train out there is very dangerous. Not 1 in every 100 people dying because the architecture is shit and the local governments are super corrupt dangerous, but incompetence and people just don't care about maintaining them dangerous. They have ~400 combat aircraft but the mainland won't allow them acquire f35s or patriot missiles and anything that would really be a threat.
The Taiwanese are not going to fight. China told them to be quiet and under threat that if they speak out they and their families will later face retribution, everyone went silent. They are surely not going to take arms against China. My dad had a friend, an scientist from China, in the 80s. She was a critic of the government. She had one child in China. They removed one of her young son's testicles and told her to shut up or they would remove the other. The Taiwanese know how it works.
I spent 3 weeks in the Philippines and 2 months in Japan. Neither can afford a war. The Philippines is too poor and Japan's debt is hovering around 235%–263% of its GDP. Japan doesn't even have official diplomatic relation with Taiwan let alone a defense treaty. Japan is a mess with or without a war.
The only thing that will stop China from attacking Taiwan, is a US president who isn't a whining snowflake. If you are US citizen I would recommend electing a US president with a backbone who isn't a pedophile -- for Taiwan's sake.
> If what you say is true, why ever would the US want to defend them?
Ho Chi Minh went to the Americans and asked for help because the French were raping the Vietnamese and other things. The Americans refused to help them. So the Vietnamese asked the Communists for help. It is strongly believed that the American-Vietnamese war would have been adverted and Vietnam would have had a similar economic trajectory as Japan and South Korea after WWII if the Americans had helped.
Bill Clinton who learned from history did the opposite as Harry Truman and put two aircraft carrier strike groups between the island and the mainland during Taiwan's democratic election defending both democracy and Taiwan self determination.
There were a few American presidents who promoted and defended democracy. Unfortunately the whiny snowflake administration in power now isn't one of them.
> Taiwanese are not going to fight. China told them to be quiet and under threat that if they speak out they and their families will later face retribution, everyone went silent
Sorry, this is nonsense. I'm not Taiwanese. But I have a lot of Taiwanese friends, none of them in politics, half of them in America. They all speak out. Forcefully. Exhibit A for this being B.S. is the electoral history of Taiwan, particularly since Xi started his wolf-warrior bullshit in the late 2010s.
> I spent 3 weeks in the Philippines and 2 months in Japan. Neither can afford a war. The Philippines is too poor and Japan's debt is hovering around 235%–263% of its GDP
You have to be joking. Both have prominent militaries they're building up.
> Japan doesn't even have official diplomatic relation with Taiwan let alone a defense treaty
This is your first valid point.
> Japan is a mess with or without a war
This is Zero Hedge nonsense. Japan is a financial mess. They're also an industrial power, scientific powerhouse and potent–and building–military force.
> If you are US citizen I would recommend electing a US president with a backbone who isn't a pedophile -- for Taiwan's sake
Americans don't vote on foreign policy unless there is a draft.
Japan has the highest proportion of elderly citizens globally. Moreover, there is extreme economic inequality between older and younger generations. This is a huge problem. Russian has lost 1,200,000 young men attempting to conquer Ukraine which is an expense Japan can't afford.
Japan can defend itself but it is not going to aid Taiwan if China creates a blockade around the island like it did 1 month ago takes over.
To be fair to a US president who doesn't deserve any kind of fairness, the US/China dynamic 30 years ago is very different from today's dynamic -- and this has a lot more to do with China's growth than anything the US has done (or not done).
The only thing that can stop China from taking Taiwan is a US president willing to put two aircraft carrier strike groups between the island the mainland. That is the same today as it was 30 years ago. However, today, unlike in the 90s the mainland can take the island in 3 days without firing a shot.
> this has a lot more to do with China's growth
That is my point. Because of China's growth they don't need to take the island by force or commit terrorist attacks against other countries especially in Europe. Today, countries like the Bahamas, Peru, Afghanistan, and Nigeria are welcoming China and their infrastructure money (not destroying infrastructure like Russia does) with open arms.
China most certainly can destroy Taiwan. What would be very hard is taking it intact. That needs lots of boots on the ground--and how do you get those boots on the ground when any ship that tries to get too close finds itself facing a variety of seeker weapons. China shoot them down when they are fired from a few miles out? Not likely. Even not near land, look at what happened to the Moskova--targeting a sea skimmer is hard.
And it's a sea battle--drones can pick their own targets and thus can't be jammed. What happens when the ship is met by a hundred drones with explosives? Doesn't take much of a processor to compare the image of a ship with the ocean.
One month ago the Chinese navy surrounded the island. [0] That is a siege. Nothing comes in and nothing goes out. The eastern side of the island's infrastructure is complete shit because corrupt local governments. They can't defend it. The Chinese can land and take the mountains and have the high ground easily. The west side can be completely obliterated with rockets from the mainland.
The citizens wouldn't challenged the mainland in 2024, they won't challenge the mainland today, and they won't challenge the mainland in the future.
Likely the reason the mainland hasn't taken the island yet IS because they can take it in 3 days if they wanted.
The sea still makes quite a barrier to invasion. The Russians had to abandon Kherson because there was a river in the way and have had to abandon most of the black sea because Ukraine sinks their boats with missiles and drones.
In this specific case, becuase China has historically had significant FDI within Italy's infrastructure sector.
China has significant issues with the EU and is aligned with Russia, but it isn't in China's incentive to conduct violent actions outside of the Chinese diaspora within Europe (which is a separate sticking point).
1. China's not particularly known to conduct this sort of activity this far from their mainland.
2. What would be their motive? China is actively trying to fill that "superpower" void being left in Europe by President Trump's unpredictable behavior.
> Or a random terrorist group?
Plausible.
> Speculation is fun but it's important to actually make statements grounded in reality.
I look at it from the standpoint of motive and history. See "GRU Unit 29155"[1]. Russia has both. Russia is on the brink of war with Europe.
This comment is correct, but puts undue agency on EU/NATO. Russia is already at war with EU/NATO, and EU/NATO will only tick the box that says there's a war.
Their argument is that NATO had agreed not to pursue membership with Ukraine, and broke that agreement. It is one point in a strategy of encirclement against them that hardly relented when the USSR fell.
But there was no formal or binding statement to that effect, only verbal statements during negotiations over East Germany in the 90s. Gorbachev corroborates this.
So you might see this as a bait and switch, depending on point of view. Given larger patterns in US/NATO, I do buy the encirclement argument.
And before someone makes childish allegations of me being a nefarious state actor propagandist, I don't support Putin or Russia. Ridiculous that I have to add this but no one seems capable of dispassionate discourse anymore.
Dialectical Materialism is a powerful explanatory and predictive framework that makes me rarely surprised by international developments. One needs not be a Marxist to use it. I am not one of those either, but I do have an anti-imperialist bias.
Your comment is a call to reason and doesn't make any susbtantive claims, yet it's downvoted into the grey. People are not debating this topic honestly.
Russia has its back against the wall and has little reason to invite retaliation. Israel has the means, motive, opportunity, and lack of restraint to punish its critics with these means, as well as the sway to cover their tracks with nonsensical disinformation. Media is pushing hard for the Russia Orc narrative and it says a lot about the people who are happy to buy it.
> Europe should stop tolerating these sabotages and go to war with Russia
Unnecessary. Just (a) pursue and seize its shadow fleet and (b) give Ukraine long-range weapons. (And radars so you can profile Russia's air defences.)
Russia is operating so comically outside its circle of competence, material constraints and international law that you don't even have to go kinetic to hurt it.
NATO could certainly rollover the Russian army in a conventional war, but that was just as true before the Ukrainian war. The idea that Russia is/was a serious threat is a convenient fiction: It helps maintain Russia's image as a superpower, and it provides a justification for the existence of NATO and the associated military industrial complex that supports it.
What is true however, is that Russia does possess a huge arsenal of nuclear and other weapons:
Despite Putin's posturing, Russia's never going to risk deploying them in a conflict with Ukraine. But in an actual war between NATO/Europe and Russia, with the regime facing an existential threat, then there's a very good chance they would. But even before it got to that point, the nature of the conflict itself would make nuclear escalation very likely. Both sides would be firing huge numbers of missiles, attempting to gain air superiority by wiping out the other's own missile launchers, radar bases, etc. With that many missiles flying, and stressed people and automated systems making split-second decisions, it's very likely that an error or miscalculation would result in an accidental nuclear strike, at which point it would be impossible to put the genie back in the bottle.
This of course assumes that you are not just delaying the inevitable and giving time for Russia to recover will just make the nuclear escalation worse when it happens (not if it happens)
Which is why we must never give Ukraine enough firepower to pose a threat to the Russian regime.
But that does not mean we can't arm them with long range stuff, just in fairly small quantities. A Tomahawk can't take down Russia. A Tomahawk a day raining down in areas away from the battle front--that can make Russia very much want to quit provoking them. Provide such weapons on the basis that the supply will be immediately cut off at status quo ante.
You know what, yeah, I will, in exchange for EU citizenship and it must be fully financed so we have available the best weaponry money can buy (and a written contract that has a big payout for my parents if I die in combat)
Only if you can’t fly to a neutral low-tax country and enjoy low tax and not being sent to war. But you do you, I do me.
(And of course, if they don’t have a problem with stealing over half of the fruits of your labor, do you really think they won’t send you to fight for them when the chips are down anyway?)
50% tax is absolutely not typical in the US as far as I know unless you can provide sources? I thought it was around 30% thanks to all the various schemes and deductions one can use?
I live in Bulgaria. My effective tax rate here is around 20%. Next destination is Dubai which is even lower, because again, if rich politican assholes’ kids are going there to live the good life, why not follow them in their grift?
(Would I recommend Bulgaria? Well the tech money you make is enough to live like a king and privately pay for all the services a government is supposed to provide… but then again it’s no different from the UK where I also had to pay for everything privately except I could barely afford it because I also had to burn 50% of my income on taxes with nothing in return, so from that perspective Bulgaria wins. Make of it what you will. Switzerland appears to be the only place with a functioning government and fair taxes, except the property Ponzi is reaching such breaking points that whatever you save on taxes is getting burnt immediately on rent, so you’re no better)
“Decent” in the form of hopefully not dying while you’re on the waiting list.
And bankruptcy is only a problem when you actually have significant assets, something not easy to acquire in western EU countries. If you’re the average under-30 western EU resident, bankruptcy won’t make a major difference in your lifestyle, it’ll be shit either way.
If you are spending an amount which rounds to zero on world-class healthcare, all of a sudden rent being even half your post-tax income (which would indicate you are living near the edge of your means, if not beyond) isn't so bad.
80k is 6.6k/month. That’s pre-tax, but for the benefit of the doubt let’s go with this figure instead of the post-tax.
Have you seen the prices of stuff nowadays? Whether energy, cars, technology or rent? 6.6k doesn’t go far at all anymore. Of course the post-tax is even lower.
> which would indicate you are living near the edge of your means
Real-estate being an investment means its price will adjust to extract maximum value. There’s an entire industry there that makes sure you can’t just work around this problem by adjusting your living standard or eating less Starbucks & avocado. Move to a farther away place? Well now you’re spending that rent reduction on transport instead. Move to a lower quality place? Well now you’re spending it on higher energy bills trying to keep the house warm. Willing to sacrifice all your social life and move in the middle of nowhere with ultra-cheap rent? Most roles are “hybrid” to prevent this very scenario, so can’t do that either.
>Have you seen the prices of stuff nowadays? Whether energy, cars, technology or rent? 6.6k doesn’t go far at all anymore. Of course the post-tax is even lower.
You said tax would be "over 50%". I disproved it. Stop moving the goalposts.
Anything that annihilates bed bugs is a net positive to the world. Drinking poison out of spite for those sons of the devil is well within reason. To hell with those infralings.
> It acts most strongly on glutamate-gated chloride channels, which vertebrates don't even have.
They are like little holes in the wall of the cell of worms that can be opened and closed, and ivermectin locks them in the open position. A much better and more technical explanation https://pdb101.rcsb.org/motm/191
My biggest gripe with the semiconductor industry as a career, compared to software, is twofold.
First, it is very concentrated. If you want to make good money there are only a handful of potential employers, and this only a handful of cities/neighborhoods where you will have to live; remote work is theoretically possible but not all employers make it effective. I found this the most frustrating. The upside is that people know this and this tend to stay at the same employer for a long time, so you get to learn from people with a deep understanding of the product, and people are mindful to keep a pleasant work environment.
Second, the pay isn't as good at the top end. If you have FAANG-level skills, you will typically do much better financially there than in the semiconductor industry —with the notable exception of NVidia for the past decade or so.
reply