> If you can snatch them, they will build SpaceX or Google for you.

Sure, but the vast majority of the wealth of building SpaceX and Google doesn't go to me. It goes to people like Musk and Larry Page.

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ertian 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

So you'd be better-off if SpaceX and Google were Chinese companies?

Also, a lot of the wealth from the tech industry does spill over to the larger community. You're strictly better off having it. If the US had just stuck with their 1970s economy on the theory that any new industries wouldn't distribute their benefits equally, it would be vastly smaller, less powerful and less wealthy. Surely that's obvious?

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confidantlake 3 days ago | parent [-]

Ah the famous trickle down rebranded as "spill over".

	▲	ertian 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		"Trickle-down" has become a thought-terminating cliche. Of course your country is better off if you have successful companies and high-income jobs.

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inglor_cz 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Ceteris paribus it is better to live in a country which can generate lots of technological progress than in a country that cannot.