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Apple Not Able to Open Stores in India Without Selling 30% Locally Sourced Goods

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Re: Apple Not Able to Open Stores in India Without Selling 30% Locally Sourced Goods

#31

Post by baddox »

wrong_variable wrote: post #13

Before people get out their pitchforks. These laws in India are a direct result of 200 years of British 'free' trade. Imagine the amount of damage something like NAFTA has done to the american working class - multiply that with 200 years. While america was in its infancy - before it industrialized - it too used protectionism as a way to allow its local industries to grow, how is it bad if India is trying to do the sa…

> While america was in its infancy - before it industrialized - it too used protectionism as a way to allow its local industries to grow, how is it bad if India is trying to do the same thing ?

I was under the impression that anti-protectionism was one of the least controversial positions among economics. Obviously it can help the specific local industries that are being protected from competition, but it seems almost obvious to me that it's going to be a net negative for the people of India. (I am not an economist.)

Re: Apple Not Able to Open Stores in India Without Selling 30% Locally Sourced Goods

#32

Post by baddox »

arey_abhishek wrote: post #16
wrong_variable wrote: post #13

Before people get out their pitchforks. These laws in India are a direct result of 200 years of British 'free' trade. Imagine the amount of damage something like NAFTA has done to the american working class - multiply that with 200 years. While america was in its infancy - before it industrialized - it too used protectionism as a way to allow its local industries to grow, how is it bad if India is trying to do the sa…

I'll add that America is the most protectionist country according to Credit Suisse: http://www.businessinsider.in/The-country-that-imposes-the-m... (Couldn't find link to original report) Worked out well for America. Protectionist laws are a legitimate tool for social and economic progress.

What is the evidence that Americans wouldn't be better off if there were less protectionism?

Re: Apple Not Able to Open Stores in India Without Selling 30% Locally Sourced Goods

#33

Post by dxbydt »

wrong_variable wrote: post #13

Before people get out their pitchforks. These laws in India are a direct result of 200 years of British 'free' trade. Imagine the amount of damage something like NAFTA has done to the american working class - multiply that with 200 years. While america was in its infancy - before it industrialized - it too used protectionism as a way to allow its local industries to grow, how is it bad if India is trying to do the sa…

What's really going on in India ?

You paint a pretty bleak picture. Then I read firsthand reports by someone like yummyfajitas who lives and works there - https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=11766615&goto=item%3Fi... According to that, it is the US that's in the dumps. India has jobs for everyone at every level, whereas in the US people are living in filthy homes because maid service too expensive because $15 minimum wage.

I'm not sure what to believe anymore.

Re: Apple Not Able to Open Stores in India Without Selling 30% Locally Sourced Goods

#34

Post by argonaut »

arey_abhishek wrote: post #16
wrong_variable wrote: post #13

Before people get out their pitchforks. These laws in India are a direct result of 200 years of British 'free' trade. Imagine the amount of damage something like NAFTA has done to the american working class - multiply that with 200 years. While america was in its infancy - before it industrialized - it too used protectionism as a way to allow its local industries to grow, how is it bad if India is trying to do the sa…

I'll add that America is the most protectionist country according to Credit Suisse: http://www.businessinsider.in/The-country-that-imposes-the-m... (Couldn't find link to original report) Worked out well for America. Protectionist laws are a legitimate tool for social and economic progress.

Your links cites a report that itself gets its numbers from the "Global Trade Alert," which is an org that aggregates a variety of trade-related actions published by the governments of each country. Only a fraction of these are actually related to governments being protectionist. A huge number of these "actions" appear to be petitions by companies inside a country for trade investigations against other companies or nations. Another big chunk appear to be listings of every law enacted that gives even a few million to some factory in a given nation. Not unsurprisingly, the aggregator just lists a bunch of state laws in the US.

The fact that America, with its very transparent political/legislative/corporate-grievances system would be recorded more often by this aggregator, is not surprising. In other words, this aggregator is going to be biased to record more trade-related events coming from more transparent nations that have more corporations located inside of them, and whose corporations will tend to try to resolve their trade disputes in the courts.

But I guess you couldn't be bothered to investigate the numbers when you could just cite BusinessInsider.

Re: Apple Not Able to Open Stores in India Without Selling 30% Locally Sourced Goods

#35

Post by notahacker »

dxbydt wrote: post #33
wrong_variable wrote: post #13

Before people get out their pitchforks. These laws in India are a direct result of 200 years of British 'free' trade. Imagine the amount of damage something like NAFTA has done to the american working class - multiply that with 200 years. While america was in its infancy - before it industrialized - it too used protectionism as a way to allow its local industries to grow, how is it bad if India is trying to do the sa…

What's really going on in India ? You paint a pretty bleak picture. Then I read firsthand reports by someone like yummyfajitas who lives and works there - https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=11766615&goto=item%3Fi... According to that, it is the US that's in the dumps. India has jobs for everyone at every level, whereas in the US people are living in filthy homes because maid service too expensive because $15 minim…

India has jobs for everyone at every level if you consider "temple beggar" to be a job and wizened old women in their sixties to be appropriate people to be doing road maintenance. $200 dollars per month sounds like an unusually generous salary for unskilled labour there too - engineering degree or no engineering degree. Of course, it also has plenty of opportunities for a growing middle class that didn't exist for their parents.

The reality is it's a developing country facing significant challenges, and no amount of trade liberalisation (or increased protectionism towards domestic manufacturing) is going to change that overnight. It's pretty hard to pin most of those challenges on the British destroying cottage weaving industries by dumping machine-made Manchester cotton on them in the early nineteenth century, or to argue that banning Apple Stores is a rational response likely to solve that problem.

Re: Apple Not Able to Open Stores in India Without Selling 30% Locally Sourced Goods

#36

Post by argonaut »

wrong_variable wrote: post #13

Before people get out their pitchforks. These laws in India are a direct result of 200 years of British 'free' trade. Imagine the amount of damage something like NAFTA has done to the american working class - multiply that with 200 years. While america was in its infancy - before it industrialized - it too used protectionism as a way to allow its local industries to grow, how is it bad if India is trying to do the sa…

> Imagine the amount of damage something like NAFTA has done to the american working class - multiply that with 200 years.

Citation needed. This is still a controversial issue in policy, and anyone certain of any one side has no idea what they're talking about. There is evidence it net hurt jobs. There is evidence it net gained jobs for the US.

Re: Apple Not Able to Open Stores in India Without Selling 30% Locally Sourced Goods

#37

Post by [deleted] »

wodenokoto wrote: post #15
jordanb wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume the law is for products that can not be produced at all in India. There is nothing Apple does in China that it can't do in India. All the really high tech components come from Korea, Taiwan, etc. Free trade aside this is a smart move for India: Apple has saturated the markets in the west and needs Asian consumers for future growth. It's been shut out of China despite being based there from a production stand…

Shut out of China? How so? It's been a few years since last I was in China, but I remember visiting several Apple flagship stores and seeing iPads and iPhones everywhere on the street.

[deleted]

Re: Apple Not Able to Open Stores in India Without Selling 30% Locally Sourced Goods

#38

Post by yorwba »

davmre wrote: post #25
wodenokoto wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shut out of China? How so? It's been a few years since last I was in China, but I remember visiting several Apple flagship stores and seeing iPads and iPhones everywhere on the street.

Not shut out completely, but the government is pushing back: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/technology/apple-no-longer...

Discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11549697

Re: Apple Not Able to Open Stores in India Without Selling 30% Locally Sourced Goods

#39

Post by perseusprime11 »

argonaut wrote: post #36
wrong_variable wrote: post #13

Before people get out their pitchforks. These laws in India are a direct result of 200 years of British 'free' trade. Imagine the amount of damage something like NAFTA has done to the american working class - multiply that with 200 years. While america was in its infancy - before it industrialized - it too used protectionism as a way to allow its local industries to grow, how is it bad if India is trying to do the sa…

> Imagine the amount of damage something like NAFTA has done to the american working class - multiply that with 200 years. Citation needed. This is still a controversial issue in policy, and anyone certain of any one side has no idea what they're talking about. There is evidence it net hurt jobs. There is evidence it net gained jobs for the US.

What about robots replacing jobs? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36376966

Re: Apple Not Able to Open Stores in India Without Selling 30% Locally Sourced Goods

#40

Post by whatever_dude »

wrong_variable wrote: post #13

Before people get out their pitchforks. These laws in India are a direct result of 200 years of British 'free' trade. Imagine the amount of damage something like NAFTA has done to the american working class - multiply that with 200 years. While america was in its infancy - before it industrialized - it too used protectionism as a way to allow its local industries to grow, how is it bad if India is trying to do the sa…

I agree with the sentiment, but expecting the company to bend over backwards is pretty naive. It's more likely that'll make products more expensive or just harder to find, not help the country advance.
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