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Ask HN: How do you deal with the end of globalization?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with the end of globalization?

#71
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clothing factories is how it started. They weren’t exactly talking a whole lot of shit as we kept investing in that trade partnership up until they got to this advanced point. So, if this is the end of the line, we simply have to start again from zero in other economies. Start with the Nike sneakers all over again in some other part of the world, and don’t ever let it get so far where they also make your technology.

It's been happening for the last seven or eight years in Bangladesh. Now, knowing something about populations of countries, you might ask yourself, why there? Why not Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, or Nigeria? They all are bigger than Bangladesh, and all appear to have better trade links and geography (ports, location, and such). Finding out the answers can deepen your understanding of the world.

You guys are port country, direct access to a lot of water and centrally located between trade channels (dead smack in the middle of China and India and other places in the south east). That’s my best guess. Might be a little harder (longer) to ship stuff to and from Pakistan.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with the end of globalization?

#72
You need to have an exit strategy. What will happen to you if you lose your jobs and the only alternative is a minimum wage paying job? This is what most youngsters haven't had a life experience of. When you first get money you spend it freely on materialist things but it's all dependent on how quickly you learn that governments want you to be a slave to the work grind. If you have an ability to think and make decisions for yourself then you are a big problem for governments.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with the end of globalization?

#73

You need to have an exit strategy. What will happen to you if you lose your jobs and the only alternative is a minimum wage paying job? This is what most youngsters haven't had a life experience of. When you first get money you spend it freely on materialist things but it's all dependent on how quickly you learn that governments want you to be a slave to the work grind. If you have an ability to think and make decisi…

Exit strategy to where? There is no viable exit when the world is crumbling around you. Not even actual farmers might be safe.

We have a lot of actual physical labor to do, regardless of how much it is paid for. It can be paid for well or it can ruin you. What our societies did is devalue important physical labor, when it's more necessary then ever before.

We need to fix rivers, build exosystems - with a shovel and rake, oftentimes - and build these wind farms and solar panels, meaning restarting old manufacturing in a new clean ways. All while at the same time food and water still gets delivered and cleaned, garbage is properly disposed of, or better yet, reused.

None of which current revision of capitalism promotes.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with the end of globalization?

#74
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep wondering who'll work in all the factory jobs. How much will the jobs pay and how much will the rest of the people need to be able to make in order to afford Made in America things. Would appreciate insight into this.

It's just simply way too expensive to make things in America. We can build all the $B factories we want in the rust belt but shareholders will move it to places like Mexico at the first sign of profit. I'm seeing a real flow of software jobs to mexico too in the coming decades.

Is it expensive, or is it that dollar is just too valuable to people out there?

If they don't provide you with labor, (e.g. because they want it for themselves or they do not want to pollute their land) what will you do, raid them?

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with the end of globalization?

#75
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Climate change would like to have a word with you

Climate change will have a word with everyone. Investment in infrastructure and climate management might help in a stitch...

While India is building the infrastructure to not starve and drown they will not have sufficient exploitable labor to "grow" as translated into building and manning sweatshops and factories.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with the end of globalization?

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I think we can trace most of our problems back to the end of the cold war. If we have some common thing to fight against we stop fighting each other...." That never happened during the Cold War from what I've read, and from what I observed starting in the early 1970s it steadily got worse.

Note that the 1970s was a time of detente in the Cold War, so it supports the OPs point. As we started to forget about the Russians, we started to fight each other. The 80s is often held up as a time of renewed national unity, and it corresponds with heightened Cold War fears.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with the end of globalization?

#77

Since this is HN, here is a book recommendation: The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization by Peter Zeihan I’m going to add the usual disclaimers here about everything that comes with listening to a guy who has been predicting doom for a decade. He is very entertaining though and he has some unique insights and some unusual data comparisons - it’s fun to read. To be fair, he di…

Biden was warning about a Ukraine invasion a few weeks before it happened too. So Biden is equally a geopolitical guru.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with the end of globalization?

#78
post #53
post #37

That is not what's happening at all. China, Russia, India, Brazil, South Africa, and lots of other countries are currently building an alternative to western economy. These countries are where majority of the world population lives.

Definitely. And trade agreements will/do favor this alignment more than before Still, the majority of educated labor flow is moving towards the US and China/Russia make it comparatively incredibly hard for immigrants to move btwn these locations. Moving between China and India would be difficult, whereas all of these countries generally can largely rely on English being their common language esp India and S Africa, w…

>Still, the majority of educated labor flow is moving towards the US and China/Russia make it comparatively incredibly hard for immigrants to move btwn these locations.

That's false as well

First, China is already outpacing US in both quality and quantity of research https://physicsworld.com/a/china-overtakes-the-us-in-terms-o...

China is also outpacing US in number of STEM graduates now, many of top STEM universities in the world are now in China

https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/china-is-fast-outpac...

This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone given that China has a strong education system that's free and a population of 1.4 billion people.

Furthermore, there is already a huge brain drain happening from US to China thanks to xenophobic policies US has been enacting lately

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3196372/reve...

China alone is a comparable population to US and Europe. Russia also has a strong education system inherited from USSR, and has some of the top tech talent. For example, companies like Yandex and VK managed to outcompete US companies like Google and Fb in Russia. This hasn't happened anywhere else in the world.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with the end of globalization?

#79
post #66

China and Russia isolating themselves? You’ve heard of BRICS right?

Here is how your BRICS were doing up until 2017.[1] India and China: OK at that point (before Modi and Xi had really started micromanaging, and before Covid hit trade). Brazil, Russia, and South Africa: get a participation certificate and commiserations. The acronym "BRICS" was a western invention in the early 2000s, shorthand for a list of good places to invest. Nothing more. 1. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/A…

A lot has happened since 2017.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with the end of globalization?

#80
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just simply way too expensive to make things in America. We can build all the $B factories we want in the rust belt but shareholders will move it to places like Mexico at the first sign of profit. I'm seeing a real flow of software jobs to mexico too in the coming decades.

Is it expensive, or is it that dollar is just too valuable to people out there? If they don't provide you with labor, (e.g. because they want it for themselves or they do not want to pollute their land) what will you do, raid them?

yes that's one way of looking at globalization, advanced economies export expensive and stable currencies to less advanced parts of the world in exchange for labor.

That's the early 20s century model perfected by the Brits.

Obviously it didn't last long but at least it made sense.

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