An anecdote I remember was that during the 2008 recession German precision manufacturers did not lay off their workers. They reduced hours, sent a bunch to continuing education programs, and retooled for even more high tech manufacturing. When the recession eventually ended, they had retooled foctories with highly trained workers while US companies had to rehire and retrain their work force. Which again brings the focus back to long term versus short term profits.
Are you saying Jeff Bezos and Boeing/ULA had less resources than Elon did? They had far more resources. And SpaceX hires from the same pool of talent as they do.
For the most part Musk (and his businesses) and the administration, as well as US auto manufacturers, are playing nice now and realize they need to work together. The sniping between them has decreased a lot and is mostly coming from elsewhere while their collaboration has increased. Mostly because the economics of EVs have shown resistance is futile and SpaceX' capabilities are so useful.
The price and hype are based in part on not being a manufacturing company but the business model is certainly based on being a manufacturing company. And the manufacturing segment of both that is expanding. Just because the stock price is ridiculous does not mean the business models are unsound. They are a great example of bringing manufacturing and vertical integration back. They have made their factories work in California, Beijing, and Berlin.
It is fairly typical for poor, undeveloped countries to use a more centrally planned economy. The sheer lack of capital, as well as business and industrial know-how dictates that. Socialism and Communist parties were relevant in the 70s and 80s in Western Europe but later on were rejected as they were no longer relevant to their developed economies.
It makes me recall one of my favorite cars that was never built, the Norwegian Troll. The government decided not to expend their limited capital to the company as they could trade fish for Ladas to get cars.
Yes. Economics being at least partially directed by the state is actually a fairly sustainable route to parity with other rich countries (maybe the only one, according to the book How Asia Works).
