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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   27626 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 15, 2024

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When it comes to mass manufacturing pieces of steel financial hubs won't do well. The US sees itself as economically superior because smart americans work with insurance, investment banking and Netflix while Russians work in a tractor factory. The tractor factory will produce far more mortars than Netflix.

The US produces more steel than Russia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_steel_production

And "smart americans" can buy steel from the Chinese, who massively outproduce Russia (or the US).

The US is also a major tractor manufacturer and exporter, Russia is not: https://blog.howdeninsurance.co.uk/tractors-where-are-they-manufactured/ -------- though Russia does import a lot of tractors from countries with better tractor manufacturing industries: https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/russia-agribusiness

Just because the US outperforms Russia in service industries, it doesn't mean that the US doesn't ALSO outperform Russia in manufacturing.

The fact that China outcompetes Russia and US is bad for US prospects against Russia when China is currently supplying Russia.

when China is currently supplying Russia.

Are we talking about steel? Because the US also imports from China. And, if there wasn't the current glut in steel production, the US could outbid Russia easily.

I don't think China is going to stop selling to the US just because they might integrate the materials into weapons that will be sent to Ukraine. China is pro Russian, but not that pro Russian.

Definitely. But in this case, China is exporting arms to Russia, which it does not really export to the West. I wouldn't put it past them to sell to both sides if they wanted to, but it moots any simple analysis about the US arms industry being larger than Russia's.

The Russian steel industry is more or less at American levels. Meanwhile the US has to fight a bunch of wars in the middle east and compete with China. It isn't that Russia is an insurmountable problem, it is that the combined weight of all problems is greater than the capacity to deal with them.

So that's your update after finding out that your image of "Netflix producing Americans vs. steel producing Russians" was wrong?

"Well, actually US steel production is not enough, because of this qualitative analysis I just developed. The US is entangled in the Middle East (unlike Russia?!)"?

The US spends 3.5% of GDP on defence, around the lowest in its history. For illustration, Russia had been spending 4.1%, but it is now increasing defence spending to 6%. The US is very far from exhausting its capacity to deal with military problems.

Meanwhile the US has to fight a bunch of wars in the middle east and compete with China.

And Russia doesn't have the same issue? They are in the Syrian conflict and countless brushfire conflicts in africa on the GDP of Italy.

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