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I do agree on the points, but I think the root cause it's more connected to the use of the resources available. US has lots of resources and is willing to "bet" most of them on risky things. One implication is that they don't use them for other things - like trying to improve the life quality of their population.

Now, if I look at the evolution of tech, nowadays there is so much already possible with open source solutions (think 2000s - did you have an open source office solution? communication platforms? mobile os? etc.) that I think developing new solutions not relying on American companies will be orders of magnitude easier. Will it be efficient economically? Probably not. But if it is required it will work.



The question is why does the US have a lot of resources?


Because of the Bretton Woods system and the subsequent Nixon shock. The combination of these meant the USA can print much more money than anyone else, give it to whoever it likes (it always ends up at shareholders), and the resulting inflation is the whole world's problem. Because the USA prints so much money that ends up at shareholders and some at bondholders, the rest of the world buys US shares instead of the rest of the world's shares. The US ownership class basically ends up with so much money and not enough things to do with it, and some of it gets put in these risky technology bets. Other side effects include low wages, since US owners don't have to pay workers to make good products as much as they do in other parts of the world, preferring to just siphon off the endless free money stream, and high non-financial asset prices (e.g. houses), since there are so many wealthy owners to sell to instead of workers.

And the Bretton Woods system is basically a side effect of the fact that Europe had World War 2 and the USA didn't.


Because the vast majority of "Western" capital is invested there.

4% of the world population, 25% of GDP, 65% of the equity valuation.

That's probably not sustainable over the long term, but that's the way it is now.




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