Startups need a lot of capital flowing in because they don’t turn a profit early on. Traditional smaller businesses usually don’t have this sort of funding because the reward is lower. With tech, there’s a strong chance that company could become public or could get bought out. Or it could stay private and eventually become profitable. Regardless, they need investments made so they can continue to operate to eventually deliver a valuable product that will possibly offer significant returns to the investors.

The pandemic happened, which led to several outcomes. For one, a lot of boomers retired. Boomers were earning a lot of money. Then they stopped earning money and started dipping into their savings. This had a strong reaction. Capital became more scarce. Don’t believe me? Look at what banks are paying for 12-month CDs and the interest rates in savings accounts. It’s insanely high compared to two or three years ago.

This trend likely won’t last forever. Gen Xers and millennials have been moving into vacated roles by the boomers and are now earning more than before. They’re able to generate excess capital that investors can use to fund startups. There’s no shortage of innovative ideas in the western world, but there is a shortage of capital.

Not every county in the west is going to recover the same way. The boomer generation is the largest generation in history. Not every country kept having kids at a relatively similar pace. Typically, developing countries have much higher population growth. As countries industrialize, we see certain trends like both men and women joining the workforce and people moving to the cities for work. People generally have fewer kids with these trends as they are more focused on their careers and have less room to raise them. Nobody wants to raise a child in a one-bed apartment!

The United States is one of the rare exceptions. With a trend of consistent domestic population growth and immigration, the U.S. has avoided the fallout from rapid industrialization. Because of that, we’re seeing some interesting trends:

• Under Biden, the post-pandemic POTUS, the U.S. has entered a prolonged period of rapid onshoring of manufacturing jobs. The addition of factories, distribution centers, and more have been increasing exponentially.

• Germany, Italy, South Korea, Japan, and other similar economies have seen the impacts of a shrinking younger population and a ballooning senior population. These nations will likely keep the design of their products onshore, but will send manufacturing offshore. The U.S. and Mexico are the biggest winners here, but Mexico is at a disadvantage compared to the U.S. due to a greater difficultly in maintaining infrastructure.

• Emerging technologies make the production of goods in the U.S. more feasible. Advancements in AI, robotics, and renewable energy will make production in the U.S. more logical despite the higher wages its workers command because less workers will be needed, or other savings in the realm of security, stability, and access to transportation infrastructure offset that factor.

There will not only be excess capital generation in the U.S., but there will also be excess capital flowing into the U.S. It’s also not to say that tech jobs will never recover outside of the U.S., but the reality is that we are in a capital shortage for a specific, acute reason. Less people of working age able to not only fill the vacated roles left by boomers, but also difficultly in paying the pensions and benefits offered to retirees. This will dry up even more capital in those particular nations.

Tech jobs have always been finicky. That won’t change going forward. But if you’re in the U.S., there’s a strong chance you’ll see things bounce back quicker than they will in other countries.

Pretty cool how thinking like this is what led to the fall of abortion right. Cool cool cool. Very neat.

It’s why Huawei is what it is. The company is built upon stolen tech

God I hope not. I can’t believe I’m even saying that. He’s been better than I thought. But to be fair, I had the bar set so unbelievably low for him. He should get no credit for doing the bare minimum, but the bare minimum has been a lofty goal for Republicans in the House as of late.

Some things I’ve been thinking about. If the U.S. pulls out of NATO under Trump, the alliance becomes much easier to push around. Of course, NATO would still easily win a confrontation even without the U.S., but the alliance would effectively fall apart. Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Hungary would withdraw from NATO. Western European markets would struggle significantly with the threat of a direct confrontation with Russia realized.

Russia would remain the shithole country that it is. It’s not like their economy can get worse. Forcing a direct confrontation would result in a quick defeat for Russia, but it would have catastrophic effects on all of Europe, which almost gives Russia the win even with a tactical loss. NATO wouldn’t dare strike within Russia after Putin somehow increases his nuclear saber rattling.

But this of course will only happen if Trump does withdraw the U.S. from NATO. With the U.S. in the alliance, I don’t believe Putin would force a direct confrontation

I would argue that the insulin thing was not tiny at all. Biden has been a good President.

Wait hold up. Am I seeing this right? Only around 100k people voted in the primary? That feels… incredibly low. I would assume that’s even higher than most GOP primaries in the state, but this one has had unparalleled attention. I would have expected at least double that

Whoever planned that is a genius

I didn’t think we’d ever see evidence of Russia protecting civilians but in January of 2024, I finally stand corrected

I hope Israel tosses Netanyahu and elects a more liberal leader who doesn’t want to genocide their neighbors. Netanyahu fucking sucks. Hamas fucking sucks. I want both to become history and for Israel to have peace with Palestine and the rest of the Arab world

Booo

I fuckin love the SPLC