Quick: what will people do for a living in the future? How will market goods be transported to increasingly acquisitive and impatient customers? How will law enforcement protect people if a booming economy makes working in the sector a fool’s errand? Tick tock, tick tock…
What’s important about all three questions is that if anyone reading this opinion piece had a solid answer to all three or even one of the questions, this person would be staring at a prosperous future of the centi-millionaire, and realistically billionaire variety. Stated simply, the present is a lousy indicator of a commercial future that is opaque.
The lack of certainty about what’s ahead explains what Oaktree Capital co-founder Howard Marks, and other world’s greatest investors mean when they say the best investments are entered into with a great deal of trepidation, lost sleep, and realistically both. Wealth is knowledge borne of investment, but the path to knowledge can be incredibly costly.
The above truth rates serious thought as politicians from both sides of the political aisle, including Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT) and Rick Scott (R-FL), promote dangerous, economy-sapping legislation like the Countering CCP Drones Act. The latter, along with other legislation like it aims to place nosebleed tariffs on drones manufactured by DJI Technology, with a near-term goal of banning drone purchases from DJI altogether.
All of which raises a question: why the desire to suffocate and/or ban DJI drones? The answer is that DJI, while founded in Hong Kong, is based in China. Sadly, crucial Chinese products like those of DJI have become political pawns as Tester, Scott, Rep. Elise Stefanik, and many others have striven to prove their tough-on-China bona fides through the demonization of DJI.
Naturally, the legislators are wrapping their protectionism in national security sanctimony, but even there they reveal their thinking as hopelessly backwards. What’s the basis for the previous assertion? It’s very simple: when the productive in different countries are free to trade with each other, war becomes frighteningly expensive for the countries where the producers operate.
The above speaks to the genius of Tester, Scott, Stefanik and others getting out of the way. As a Wall Street Journal editorial has reported, “DJI accounts for around 70% to 90% of the American commercial, local government and hobbyist drone market. Real-estate agents, movie producers, firefighters, roof inspectors, utilities and law enforcement have all come to depend on the brand.” Think about what this means. Every day that the Chinese meet and lead the needs of Americans of all stripes and endeavors, the more expensive that any expansionary motives on the part of Beijing become. Call DJI yet another essential national security boost for the U.S. vis-à-vis China given the cost of warring with one’s best customers. Yet there’s more.
As this opinion piece made plain right up front, the jobs, transportation, and forms of protection that will create a better tomorrow are incredibly difficult to discern. What makes an opaque future less blurry is information, and DJI is providing this information to every American. If DJI is right that its drones will power ever more American economic activity well into the future, the American people will be quite a bit richer and safer thanks to DJI’s intrepid stab at inventing how things will be done.
On the other hand, if it turns out drones are replaced by something else, or many other things, Americans will have gained crucial knowledge care of DJI. Which is yet another reminder of the wonders of open lanes of trade: by working for each other, and leading one another, we all divide up the substantial cost of discovering the future.