Posted on 08/03/2021 4:31:51 AM PDT by Kaslin
Take a bow, America. It's official and irrefutable: The U.S. is blowing out the rest of the world in tech leadership. No other country in the world comes anywhere close in tech innovation and the dominance of our made-in-America 21st-century companies.
The Nasdaq index of once-small technology companies reached 15,000 last week. Only a few years ago, that index stood at 5,000. Yes, these companies have tripled in their market cap value -- and that doesn't include the dividends that have been paid out to large and mom-and-pop shareholders in America and across the planet.
We are told constantly that China is catching up and achieving remarkable digital-age leaps forward in biotechnology, artificial intelligence, green energy, robotics, 5G technologies and microchips. My friend George Gilder, who has written the wonderfully thought-provoking book about the future, "Life After Google," is high on Chinese tech companies. We should be ever vigilant.
But the value of America's 12 most valuable companies today in terms of stock valuation is well over $10 trillion. Those red, white and blue companies from Silicon Valley to the "Silicon Slopes" of Utah to Boston to northwest Arkansas are worth roughly as much as all of the Chinese publicly traded companies COMBINED.
Firms such as Google -- many of which didn't even exist 30 years ago -- have made millionaires of your next-door neighbor. Ordinary people are getting rich beyond anyone's imagination 50 years ago, thanks to American innovation and inventiveness. Risk-taking, old-fashioned can-doism is a hallmark of this unrivaled success story that has never been matched anywhere at any time in world history.
Almost all of this is a tribute to American financial markets that allocate capital in hyperefficient ways. Capitalists doing a spectacular job of allocating capital efficiently is our secret sauce to financial and technological success.
I am always mystified when highly successful Wall Street investors can't explain how it is they add value and sometimes concede that they are just unnecessary middlemen. Even Warren Buffett, one of the greatest of all time, expresses guilt about his billions, as if he and other great financiers are economic parasites. No. Steering financial resources to winners like Google, not losers like Solyndra, makes everyone in America richer.
Meanwhile, few politicians have any clue of how capital markets create wealth and jobs and shared prosperity in America. If they did, they would appreciate that without capitalists and capital, there is no enterprise -- no material progress. They would instantly understand the economic lunacy of increasing taxes on capital gains and dividends, wealth taxes, and, worst of all, death taxes that threaten the future survival of family-owned businesses. Cutting, not raising, the U.S. capital gains tax would be far wiser if we want America to maintain and widen our competitive lead and keep winning globally. Over a few decades, the returns to the government from more investment will pay a rich bounty to the coffers of the feds and states and cities.
The arrogant fools in the Biden administration believe that to keep America No. 1 technologically, we need to have a multibillion-dollar government-run slush fund with the politicians picking winners and losers with other people's money. China does this, and so does Japan, and it has never worked. One of the most famous stories of government-as-investment banker was when the Tokyo government's brain trust recommended that Honda not get in the business of making cars. Here in the U.S., the political class has made a $150 billion bet on wind and solar power since the late 1970s, and in return, that has produced only a small sliver of our energy needs.
Even more inexplicable is the movement in America coming from senators such as Democrat Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts on the left and Josh Hawley of Missouri on the right to break up our tech companies. Why? Because, evidently, they are TOO good at what they do. They make too much money. They have too many customers and too many advertisers. Put aside for a moment the rancid political persuasions of some of these leftist Silicon Valley CEOs. Somehow, the left and right agree that building a superior product and even crafting entire new industries is a punishable offense. God forbid.
The rest of the world -- the Chinese, Indians, Japanese and especially the technologically inferior Europeans -- would love to hobble American titans and tax away their profits. The role of the U.S. government should be to repel the foreign attacks. Crazily, the Biden administration has given the green light to foreigners pillaging American companies.
This doesn't put America first.
So, can America's tech dominance continue to blow away the foreign competition for decades to come? Bet on it. Unless we are foolish enough to decapitate our own industries through regulation, antitrust policies and raising tax rates on success. The challenge for U.S. supremacy is coming from Washington, D.C. Not China.
20,000,000 millionaires.
I find that to be just staggering. But fact is, a million dollars isn't what it used to be. A 65-year-old would have trouble making ends meet retiring on just a million dollars (which is just $40,000 a year using the 4% withdrawal rule).
Yes, an important factor is machines do most of the work, both physical and mental. That leads to higher wages which draws in many ambitious immigrants, leading to a brain and ambition drain in their home countries. Cheap energy is another major factor. Unlike many countries, America was blessed with large amounts of oil, coal, and natural gas. Another major factor is the huge amount of military spending. The military funds the "cutting edge" of technology when no other industry can justify it. There are other important factors, such as rule of law, lower taxes, respect for intellectual property, the reason China must steal and copy. If leftists knock down too many support columns, the whole American economy collapses, which wouldn't bother the communist left at all.
The kind of education that brought about geniuses that ran around with shitty cloth diapers or none at all.
90% of life is failure. Both capitalism and socialism are different solutions to the same problem. 90% of small cap businesses will fail, but the 10% that has a hit on their hands needs cash fast. That's when the capitalists rush in. Without that, the few winners can't scale up. Socialism attempts to make everyone a winner, minus a 50% cut of the wealth transfer by those at the top, and in the process makes everyone a loser.
Our tech is a often a sad joke.
It would be about two minutes before my Android phone will allow me to make a phone call.
It takes several minutes before I can get a browser to function on my Windows PC.
If I want to shut down my PC Windows, it won’t even allow me to access the shut down icon for about a minute.
My Windows PC will be sloth-sluggish for an hour or so quite regularly when Microsoft wants to do an operating system-related update.
My Windows PC get hot in the upper left corner while doing an update. Bill Gates’ company needs to walk his talk about reducing CO2 emissions.
Many news sites will cause my Windows PC to freeze and heat up. CNN webpages have caused my Windows PC to shut down twice due to overheating.
I don’t think I typed “Bills Gates”.
When I try to shut down my Android phone it will sometimes insist I do a reboot first. I have to watch over the phone for a few minutes and then finally shut it down.
Correct. The public school systems is the championing of the mediocre.
No child left behind was really dumb down everything for everyone.
Look at Germany’s system where kids are categorised from age 10. And college is only for the smartest in specific fields. Others go into technical or voca7schools and still can do very well in life.
But they recognize that not everyone needs to go to college to do well in life.
I think the best US institutions are to provide education for China’s “Thousand Talents” program.
He touts the value of Nasdaq but how much of this value is based on companies that are essentially spyware. (Facebook, Google)?
Companies like Microsoft, SpaceX, Cisco, Etc. provide real value compared to companies like Facebook which could disappear tomorrow and would be replaced very quickly or not be missed much at all.
Would have to take a hard pass at Germany’s system. The US already has Remedial, Mainstream, and Honors/AP where one can mix tiers (vs a hard commit to one tier w/ Germany).
#25 Windows 10 is confusing, a mess. It’s purpose these days is to be spyware. Microsoft does not improve, they just slap a new look on their programs.
I still use Windows 7 pro on my desktop pc. Win10 on the 2 laptops I have. I have had a few big problems with updates on Win10 so I refuse to update to Win10 on my desktop as Win7 is working great.
Backup your files. Everything you have is in c:\windows\users folder and the folder with your name. That is email, bookmarks and all other files. You can copy and paste over to a external drive or a 2nd internal one.
I use this for the copy/paste: FreeFileSync to backup files.
On the left side you Compare and on the right where your files will be backed up you Synchronize Mirror
I also have a for sale one that makes a backup automatically once a week called: EaseUS Todo Backup Home
Format the hard drive and get a SSD one if you don’t have already and install Windows again. Get Webroot - anti virus and Malwarebytes - anti spyware / ransomeware. They will not slow down the pc.
You might want to check if your programs are being slowed down by the anti virus and spyware programs. You may have to whitelist programs as I did as they are scanning them thereby slowing then down.
Try Firefox. I currently have version 89. The recent updates have speed up Firefox and given it a nice look. I recently had 40 tabs open to Youtube videos.... Not an issue with Firefox. You can also modify the look here at link below. I understand the newer version coming may block the ability to customize what you see at the link.
http://davidswebsite.com/Firefox_tabs/firefox_tabs.html
Google Chrome and Edge are slow with Edge dead slow to open. Vivaldi is very fast and has built in custom settings you may like.
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