Too big to fail

[stas]

Из Superfreakonomics: Китобойная индустрия одно время (в конце 19 века) была пятой по величине индустрией в США (сейчас пятое место страховая индустрия, если кому интересно) и в ней было занято ок 70 тысяч человек (ок. 1% всех занятых - в автоиндустрии сейчас занято ок 0.5%). В наше время, по крайней мере в США, в этой области индустрии практически не существует - различные эскимосские народные занятия этим словом назвать трудно.

В наше время вряд-ли кто-то может себе представить, чтобы пятая по величине индустрия исчезла? И чтобы правительство это допустило? 

P.S. как вы уже догадались, я сейчас как раз читаю Superfreakonomics, так что будет оттуда еще много заметок. Всем интересующимся подобными вещами усиленно рекомендую.

Comments

[vityokr.livejournal.com]

the reason to save the auto industry, imho, was not to preserve the actual jobs of ppl working there, but the ability of usa to manufacture cars and attendant technologies.

[stas]

The relevant question here would be why USA has to manufacture cars? Only reason I can see is that it is a profitable enterprise - i.e. you can sell US-made car for substantially more money that went into making it. However, if it stops being profitable for one reason or another - why keep it? Whaling was very profitable too and US was an undisputed world leader in it. But it's not around anymore and US survived.

[vityokr.livejournal.com]

you don't see the positive externalities to having a viable industrial base?

[stas]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

[vityokr.livejournal.com]

a country can't all be services, you need an industrial base (unless you are a small country reliant on trade).

[stas]

I'm sorry, but I'm not sure again what you getting at. Do you say that is it hardly probable that a situation would occur that a large country like USA would have absolutely no profitable business opportunities in industry sector? I would then agree, and it more or less agrees with what I said earlier. Of course, one can imagine a situation when all manufacturing goes the way of whaling, but if it would ever happen then not very soon.

Or, on the other hand, you say that there are some special "industrial base" businesses that should be kept located on US territory regardless of their viability or profitability? Then I would probably wonder why is that. Many things that were thought as very basic and irreplaceable were soon replaced by much better alternatives.

[vityokr.livejournal.com]

the problem with car industry is not making of cars but pension costs. this article from new yorker a few years ago explains it well

https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~bmayes/The_Risk_Pool_Gladwell.pdf

so the reason to save/bail out the industry is to reogranize it and not to close it down. if pensions /healthcare are dealt with, they will be profitable.

so the point is that it's wortwhile spending money on this now (rather then letting them just go down) in order to preserve us industrial base.

[stas]

How you can close down an industry, especially if it's profitable? If it's profitable to make cars in US, then if some company fails to do it (say, because it promised its workers to pay millions in retirement benefits or did some other stupid thing) - it can fail, its assets would be sold through bankruptcy process to another company which would happily resume the profitable business without being burdened by stupid obligations. So I must be missing the part about "worthwhile spending money now" - do you think that bankruptcy instantly destroys all industrial base? What do you call "industrial base" then?

[ai-sur.livejournal.com]

And next time you need an armored corps - to fight some epic superpower battle - you just call on production facilities previously outsourced to China. Brilliant!

[stas]

There are many countries that do exactly that - buy weapons in China, Korea, Israel, USA, etc. and fight using them just fine.
But anyway we aren't talking about military industries.

[dmpogo.livejournal.com]

Разница в том, что китобойная индустрия исчезла вообще, а автомобильная - перетекает к конкурентам

[stas]

Китобойная индустрия не исчезла вообще. Она, правда, очень сильно сократилась. Но я не говорю об автомобильной индустрии конкретно. Я говорю вообще о любой крупной индустрии - 1% занятых это ж дофигища!

[yankel.livejournal.com]

Freakonomics ты прочитал? Или прямо с Супер начал?

[stas]

Конечно прочитал.

[yankel.livejournal.com]

Стоит ее читать перед Супер?
Потому как я ее только скинул на ридер и начал читать

[stas]

Я думаю да, стоит.

ужас в том что страховщики

[freedom_of_sea.livejournal.com]

практически паразиты. Так как доля добровольного страхования думаю очень мала.