I second that. In addition, most of those companies use a portion of their revenue to buy back their shares, pushing their price up. So, the value created worldwide ends up growing the US stock market.
Ths stock market is not considered in GDP. So by that measure it does not directly impact "economic growth." I can see an indirect relation that says that US investors (primarily through pensions and 401Ks) are the primary benefactors of a growing US stock market which then translates to more investment and opportunity of US citizens, but that is a pretty long trail to account for our economic path right now.
And then even more specifically - at least in terms of local problems - that pushes up the value of compensation for a lot of people in the SF Bay Area which inflates the cost of land there.
Staying out of whether or not the concentration is a problem at the national/international level, is there any realistic alternative short of massive protectionism a la China to force home-grown tech companies in other parts of the world?
The US has a massive advantage of being the largest economy, having a vast single market, issuing the world's reserve currency, and having unique hubs like the Bay Area attracting the best and brightest. It would be hard to replicate its success elsewhere without having some of the above prerequisites.
>being the largest economy, having a vast single market
America is NOT the largest market the EU is MUCH BIGGER. And it is not "America" that commercialises technology, but a small portion of California called The Valley.
I guess I still don't understand though. Is the claim that tech innovation in the rest of the world is being turned into money in the US only? If so, why is that happening?
The claim here is that the tech innovation is occurring in the US. It adds value globally, but most of the profits from that value are being realized in the US b/c the innovation is by US companies.
There’s no natural law that says technical innovation must occur in NA, but due to contingent historical conditions, it is occurring here. Thus, the gains are being realized in the US stock market b/c it’s the one capitalizing the winners.
>It adds value globally, but most of the profits from that value are being realized in the US
this is contradictory. profits are added value. if value is added globally, there are extra profits (likely as cost savings by other industries adopting tech)
US cultural dominance for one thing, then success begets success - lots of VC money in the US because the US is rich which gets invested which returns even more and makes it richer.
US businesses more likely to work with US suppliers, US customers more likely to buy from US businesses, then those dominant domestic positions can be used to expand globally far easier than say a Spanish firm can expand into the US.
They’re generalising to say the world uses Apple, Google, Microsoft, Zoom, Cisco, Tesla, and so on… US tech stocks. We use them and they gain revenue and profit.
Of course there are many successful tech co’s outside the US but (and I haven’t looked) I imagine the US tech stocks must overshadow every other countries tech sector.
From a stock market perspective, if you look at a graph of Vanguard FTSE All World ex US ETF (ticker VEU), it looks like normal growth, but looks vastly different from say Vanguard Total Stock market (ticket VTI) which shows phenomenal growth. This is because VTI includes US tech stocks and VEU doesn't. Take out the tech stocks and maybe VTI would look like VEU.
To be clear VTI is only US stocks and VEU is everything else. It is confusing because "Vanguard Total Stock Market" contains only United States equities.
