A Reading List, Watering Down Citizenship, & Quarter Time Jobs

#1 What Biden Did Will Have 2nd & 3rd Order Consequences

American Executives in Limbo at Chinese Chip Companies After U.S. Ban - WSJ (archive.ph)

"American workers hold key positions throughout China’s domestic chip industry, helping manufacturers develop new chips to catch up with foreign rivals. Now, those workers are in limbo under new U.S. export control rules that prohibit U.S. citizens from supporting China’s advanced chip development."

"For many senior executives at Chinese companies, the rule will likely force them to decide between their jobs and their U.S. citizenship or permanent resident status"

In simple terms, the Biden administration has said, if you're an American, you're not allowed to help China with semiconductors.

On the one hand, banning Americans from supporting the Chinese semiconductor industry makes sense. It's a savvy move by a Biden admin that wants to present strong foreign policy. ie: China is a massive rival and Biden wants to slow their progress down.

But on the other hand, it waters down the value of citizenship if your government can say - quit your job or we'll take away your citizenship.

Imagine being an American born citizen working abroad, still filing American taxes, and then having the American government tell you who you can and cannot work for. What is the true value of natural born citizenship if it can be taken away so easily?

The other aspect worth following is how China chooses to retaliate. Will they do what Russia did and slowly try to squeeze the American economy? ie: closing the "pipeline" of cheap and critical manufacturing components that the American economy relies on? If that happens, what will that mean for an already stressed American economy? Think about all the things in your life that are made in China. Those could start to disappear if China chooses to retaliate.

The point: Biden's chip policy has massive consequences and they're likely to impact how the world operates. Pay attention because this likely is just beginning.

#2 The Quarter Time Job Has Arrived

A lasting consequence of winter's global recession is that the "quarter-time" job will become a permanent part of mainstream society. ie: "white collar" workers will transition to gig-style project work.

A compromise between worker & company.

Think of these jobs as more formal and longer-term than freelance work but not hourly contracts like a part-time worker. Instead, quarter time work will compensate based on projects and tasks completed as opposed to hours worked.

Do X, get paid Y.

For workers, it provides flexibility and more consistency of income in undertrain times. For companies, it lowers HR costs & means that work still gets done.

And guess what? It's already happening.

Souring Economy Gives Tech Freelancers a Lift - WSJ (archive.ph)

"Facing economic headwinds, companies are filling gaps in information-technology teams with freelance software developers, coders and other high-skilled tech workers, while pulling back on efforts to recruit full-time staff, recruiters and industry analysts say.

"The number of job postings for software developers on Freelancer.com, an online freelance marketplace, rose 54.7% in the third quarter on a year-over-year basis, the sharpest gain among more than 2,000 job-related skills tracked on the platform, Freelancer.com reported this week."

Watch this trend. It will spread beyond software jobs and impact many fields. Workers that adapt to this workstyle will be able to pick up more jobs and create a comfortable lifestyle for themselves.

#3 Plumia - The Internet Country's Reading List

100 links to articles, essays, & videos being discussed by a digital nomad nation.

Rapid Fire

• Semiconductors Maker TSMC Will Not Need to Be Destroyed in China’s Invasion - Bloomberg - If you're supprised by how fragile the energy supply chain is, wait till you see how fragile the semiconductor supply chain is. Specifically, focus on what a major disruption to Taiwan would mean for digital age abundance around the world.

• NFX Masterclass Season 1 - Network Effects - "We’ve been studying network effects for 20 years - here’s everything we’ve learned, streamlined into 11 episodes, for free. You’ll learn how network effects drive impactful businesses and how you can use them to win." Imagine living in the digital age and not studying network effects.

• A Brief History of the Past 10,000 Years of Monetary Policy and Why Last Week Was a Big Deal - Epsilon Theory (archive.ph) - This is unbelievably long - but good. Especially if you want a straightforward explanation of financial markets and how they impact the world around us.

• Biden chip curb: ASML stops US staff from servicing customers in China (cnbc.com) - Nationalism continues to thrive around the world and it's manifesting in new ways. Like Biden's curb sanctions on American's from working with China on semiconductor technology.

• Rents Are Growing Half as Fast as They Were Six Months Ago (redfin.com) - Rents and home prices are the primary costs and assets for everyday people. Watching swings in cost of living and the value of home assets gives us a good leading indication of which direction the economy is moving in.

• Germany's Scholz calls for bigger European Union | Reuters - What would it mean to global trade, travel, and the geopolitical order if more countries were added to the Eurozone?

• The world is starting to hate the Fed | Financial Times (archive.ph) - Me too. "Monetary pain is America’s fastest growing export."  How will the monetary pain that the US exports over the next few months change the dollars relationship with the world? Especially in a world with bitcoin and other alternative cryptocurrencies.

Extras

A book I'm thinking about buying. More expensive than usual. What do you think?