Colby Badhwar (Twitter/X)
@Dawidaltexian: The USAF F-16 Division is having the exact same conversations with Lockheed Martin. I published this yesterday.
https://defensearchives.com/news/peru-to-acquire-12-f-16s-from-lockheed-martin-in-historic-1-5-billion-direct-commercial-sale/
@Dawidaltexian: The USAF F-16 Division is having the exact same conversations with Lockheed Martin. I published this yesterday.
https://defensearchives.com/news/peru-to-acquire-12-f-16s-from-lockheed-martin-in-historic-1-5-billion-direct-commercial-sale/
Defense Archives
Peru to acquire 12 F-16s from Lockheed Martin in historic $1.5 billion Direct Commercial Sale - Defense Archives
Lockheed Martin has emerged as the victor of the Peruvian Air Force’s competition to modernize their fleet with a new fighter aircraft. The intensive, year and a half-long process pitted America’s largest defense contractor against European rivals Dassault…
Colby Badhwar (Twitter/X)
@AlexHollings52: It's in their current contract but they're not quite at a consistent 2/month yet.
@AlexHollings52: It's in their current contract but they're not quite at a consistent 2/month yet.
Colby Badhwar (Twitter/X)
@Praecox87 @auricgold196 @Dawidaltexian: To the extent the Navy views that as problematic, they only have themselves to blame.
@Praecox87 @auricgold196 @Dawidaltexian: To the extent the Navy views that as problematic, they only have themselves to blame.
Colby Badhwar (Twitter/X)
@Praecox87 @Dawidaltexian: Not at all as far as I can tell. It's been over 2 years. I don't think they intend to buy.
@Praecox87 @Dawidaltexian: Not at all as far as I can tell. It's been over 2 years. I don't think they intend to buy.
Colby Badhwar (Twitter/X)
@barratt_dewey @vantortech @danpiemont @longwalldefense @Kemp @Astra @FireflySpace @tectonicdefense @payloadspace: Livestream for those of us outside the Beltway?
@barratt_dewey @vantortech @danpiemont @longwalldefense @Kemp @Astra @FireflySpace @tectonicdefense @payloadspace: Livestream for those of us outside the Beltway?
Colby Badhwar (Twitter/X)
@marcthiessen: There are no weapons that the US has sold to Ukraine under Trump that Biden refused to drawdown, contract or sell. The Trump Admin has maintained Biden era policies that have prohibited Ukraine from commercially procuring things like PATRIOT Fire Units.
The only "new" thing in the pipeline is ERAM, which again, began during the Biden Admin.
@marcthiessen: There are no weapons that the US has sold to Ukraine under Trump that Biden refused to drawdown, contract or sell. The Trump Admin has maintained Biden era policies that have prohibited Ukraine from commercially procuring things like PATRIOT Fire Units.
The only "new" thing in the pipeline is ERAM, which again, began during the Biden Admin.
Colby Badhwar (Twitter/X)
RT @lugaricano: We stopped everything to write an answer (link below) to Paul Krugman's two posts of today (one informal, one with a simple model) arguing that Europe is broadly not falling behind the United States.
The change measured by the Draghi report, he argues, is mostly due to growth in the technology industry, which has distorted GDP numbers without actually leading to higher standards of living. We should believe our eyes when we walk around France and walk around Mississippi.
Krugman is wrong. The measures he uses understate European stagnation. This matters enormously. Divergence with the United States is the strongest evidence for reform in Europe.
1. The growth numbers
Krugman compares the United States, France, and Germany at purchasing power parity in current prices. On that measure, France's and Germany's position relative to America has been roughly constant since 2000.
But current price comparisons miss productivity gains in sectors where prices fall. If America produces twice as much software while the price of each unit halves, the value of American software output looks unchanged even though the volume has doubled.
Most economists therefore use constant prices, which fix the base-year PPP level and apply each country's real output growth on top of it. American output growth has concentrated in tech, where prices have fallen tremendously as productivity rises. In terms of the volume of things produced, America has pulled away from Europe.
2. Is it all the tech industry?
Krugman concedes this tech divergence but says it is not welfare-relevant. The American growth lead is an accounting artefact of measuring more iPhones at base-year prices, not a sign that Americans are actually richer, because Europeans buy the same iPhones at the same world prices.
This is not the right way to think about the world today, as an earlier Paul Krugman would have argued.
His model assumes tradable goods, interchangeable workers, marginal-cost pricing, and no profits. Each assumption fails.
Most of what households buy is non-tradable: housing, healthcare, childcare, education. When American tech firms bid workers from haircutting to coding, American haircut wages rise. Germany has no growing tech sector to do the bidding, so German wages stay flat.
Technology is not priced at marginal cost. Apple's margins are around 40 percent. Anthropic's inference margins are at 70 percent. The major platforms enjoy network effects, switching costs, and lock-in that hold prices well above what a competitive market would deliver. A large share of the productivity gains in technology stays as profit.
A lot of the value of American technology dominance shows up in equity, not in wages. Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon together are worth $21 trillion, more than the entire combined stock market value of all European stock markets. Around 60 percent of US equity is held by American households. The median French or Spanish household holds almost no equity.
The median employee at Meta, a company with almost 80,000 employees, earned $388,000 in 2025.
This advantage is not going to go away. Krugman's own 1991 paper, cited in his Nobel prize, showed that comparative advantage in modern industries is produced by increasing returns to scale, specialized labor markets, supplier networks and the agglomeration of suppliers, workers, and ideas in particular places. Once an industry concentrates somewhere, the concentration is self-reinforcing. Europe is being pushed away from the next round of technology industries (AI!).
3. What about inequality?
Another retort is that GDP per capita hides substantial inequality, and so even if America is rich on average, this is mostly due to the super wealthy.
But despite the US's high pre-tax income inequality, it also achieves higher median incomes than Europe, in part because of such a high base, and in part because it actually redistributes more than many European countries.
The cleanest comparison is median...
Перейти на оригинальный пост
RT @lugaricano: We stopped everything to write an answer (link below) to Paul Krugman's two posts of today (one informal, one with a simple model) arguing that Europe is broadly not falling behind the United States.
The change measured by the Draghi report, he argues, is mostly due to growth in the technology industry, which has distorted GDP numbers without actually leading to higher standards of living. We should believe our eyes when we walk around France and walk around Mississippi.
Krugman is wrong. The measures he uses understate European stagnation. This matters enormously. Divergence with the United States is the strongest evidence for reform in Europe.
1. The growth numbers
Krugman compares the United States, France, and Germany at purchasing power parity in current prices. On that measure, France's and Germany's position relative to America has been roughly constant since 2000.
But current price comparisons miss productivity gains in sectors where prices fall. If America produces twice as much software while the price of each unit halves, the value of American software output looks unchanged even though the volume has doubled.
Most economists therefore use constant prices, which fix the base-year PPP level and apply each country's real output growth on top of it. American output growth has concentrated in tech, where prices have fallen tremendously as productivity rises. In terms of the volume of things produced, America has pulled away from Europe.
2. Is it all the tech industry?
Krugman concedes this tech divergence but says it is not welfare-relevant. The American growth lead is an accounting artefact of measuring more iPhones at base-year prices, not a sign that Americans are actually richer, because Europeans buy the same iPhones at the same world prices.
This is not the right way to think about the world today, as an earlier Paul Krugman would have argued.
His model assumes tradable goods, interchangeable workers, marginal-cost pricing, and no profits. Each assumption fails.
Most of what households buy is non-tradable: housing, healthcare, childcare, education. When American tech firms bid workers from haircutting to coding, American haircut wages rise. Germany has no growing tech sector to do the bidding, so German wages stay flat.
Technology is not priced at marginal cost. Apple's margins are around 40 percent. Anthropic's inference margins are at 70 percent. The major platforms enjoy network effects, switching costs, and lock-in that hold prices well above what a competitive market would deliver. A large share of the productivity gains in technology stays as profit.
A lot of the value of American technology dominance shows up in equity, not in wages. Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon together are worth $21 trillion, more than the entire combined stock market value of all European stock markets. Around 60 percent of US equity is held by American households. The median French or Spanish household holds almost no equity.
The median employee at Meta, a company with almost 80,000 employees, earned $388,000 in 2025.
This advantage is not going to go away. Krugman's own 1991 paper, cited in his Nobel prize, showed that comparative advantage in modern industries is produced by increasing returns to scale, specialized labor markets, supplier networks and the agglomeration of suppliers, workers, and ideas in particular places. Once an industry concentrates somewhere, the concentration is self-reinforcing. Europe is being pushed away from the next round of technology industries (AI!).
3. What about inequality?
Another retort is that GDP per capita hides substantial inequality, and so even if America is rich on average, this is mostly due to the super wealthy.
But despite the US's high pre-tax income inequality, it also achieves higher median incomes than Europe, in part because of such a high base, and in part because it actually redistributes more than many European countries.
The cleanest comparison is median...
Перейти на оригинальный пост
Siliconcontinent
European stagnation is real
Paul Krugman, iPhones, and the walking around test
Necro Mancer (Twitter/X)
RT @larafain14: Ппц. Работорговля на рыфы. Двое армян украли белоруса и продали его в российскую армию.
RT @larafain14: Ппц. Работорговля на рыфы. Двое армян украли белоруса и продали его в российскую армию.
Necro Mancer (Twitter/X)
Работает #53омбр #всу: зачистка лесонасаждений, "уговаривание" рашистов сдаться в плен
youtu.be/ZCnqqHknTsw #архив
Работает #53омбр #всу: зачистка лесонасаждений, "уговаривание" рашистов сдаться в плен
youtu.be/ZCnqqHknTsw #архив