@kentwillard but (my project these days is explaining this), that’s precisely China’s model, and it’s genius. when you say “take revenue”, you mean sell at any level above marginal cost, even if it doesn’t cover fixed (capital) costs. they’ve synthesized econ-101-style competition in high capital industries, by subsidizing cap investment that otherwise would never happen, because competition would forseeably reduce margins to below capital cost recovery levels at expected quantities sold.

@kentwillard to us, it’s “unfair” competition, but only because we rely on our producers gaining pricing power to recoup cap costs. which means we *cheer* capacity constraints as “rational”, “efficient” when in real terms, more capacity is always better than less. it’s our model, our expectations, that are dumb, inefficient, counter to competition and ultimately innovation. (that last claim would be heavily contested, but i’m glad to defend it.)