Chinese Billionaire Linked to Giant Aluminum Stockpile in Mexican Desert • Hacker News Board

Re: Chinese Billionaire Linked to Giant Aluminum Stockpile in Mexican Desert

#111

Post by vidarh » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 8:33 AM UTC

Kenji wrote: post #61

oxryly1 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some (likely outdated) idea to do with treating farming capacity as a strategic reserve.

Look, in war times, we can plant potatoes in all our gardens and take our spare meadows. We don't need these farmers in peace time; we really don't. They are leeches.

Some places can - if you have huge gardens and areas you're free to make use of. Many can't.

Norwegian farming policy is focused on maintaining near-independence in the food supply because the British embargo during the Napoleonic wars in the early 1800's is still seared in the collective consciousness. E.g. every Norwegian primary school child will go through the very long, very tedious poem "Terje Vigen" about a man who tried to evade the British embargo by taking a small boat to Denmark to get food to feed his starving family.

Starvation happened despite farming most of the available land.

The concern of local food production rose to prominence again during World War II, when German occupation meant strict rationing, which led to "fun" food innovation such as flour substitute made from bark, as growing vegetables etc. in your back garden simply doesn't produce enough for most people to sustain a family.

Re: Chinese Billionaire Linked to Giant Aluminum Stockpile in Mexican Desert

#112

Post by colechristensen » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 8:38 AM UTC

icantdrive55 wrote: post #107

colechristensen wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't subsidize farming in rich countries, all your food will come from poor countries. Poor countries without standards for food safety, scruples about burning down rainforest for a few years of fertility, or worker rights or fair wages. You starve poor countries by selling off all of their food to rich countries and making what's left very expensive. What farming is left in rich countries can only possibly b…

Walk through the produce section at Whole Foods, or Safeway. Play a little game. Try to find the fruit, or vegatables that arn't produced in the rich country, fair wage country, safety conscious country of Mexico.

If even a simple majority of the calories you consume come from the produce aisle, you are in a tiny elite minority.

Even then, where it was produced doesn't matter much, if it wasn't grown in Mexico or shipped in from somewhere more exotic, much of the human labor was likely done by migrant workers from Mexico anyway.

Let's not pretend that the working conditions for the unmechanized portions of most produce-related jobs are anything but appalling.

To put a fine point on it, I don't want any part of my quality of life to be put on the backs of a workforce outside the middle class (or a foreign equivalent through trade)

----

The question is – is your goal replacing all food production with foreign wage-slaves? Are you holding up the current American market for "unsubsidized" produce as a shining beacon to be emulated? If you look into it, you realize far too much of it exploits the desperate and poor and creates shitty situations everywhere it goes. Proper subsidies and market regulations could mean that you could be proud to be a part of the food economy instead of feeling like a 21st century colonialist.

Re: Chinese Billionaire Linked to Giant Aluminum Stockpile in Mexican Desert

#113

Post by meanduck » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 8:39 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #97

Kenji wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I loathe farmer subsidies. I have no idea why our government gives farmers so much money and so many advantages - nobody in our society really benefits from those incredible spendings and it's a significant fraction of our state budget.

If you don't subsidize farming in rich countries, all your food will come from poor countries. Poor countries without standards for food safety, scruples about burning down rainforest for a few years of fertility, or worker rights or fair wages. You starve poor countries by selling off all of their food to rich countries and making what's left very expensive. What farming is left in rich countries can only possibly b…

Everyone is egocentric. For countries, egocentric-ness is maximum.

UBI/FB like threads are filled with comments that seemed to forgot this so obvious fact of life. Its the worst thing about HN.

Re: Chinese Billionaire Linked to Giant Aluminum Stockpile in Mexican Desert

#114

Post by colechristensen » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 8:46 AM UTC

meanduck wrote: post #113

colechristensen wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't subsidize farming in rich countries, all your food will come from poor countries. Poor countries without standards for food safety, scruples about burning down rainforest for a few years of fertility, or worker rights or fair wages. You starve poor countries by selling off all of their food to rich countries and making what's left very expensive. What farming is left in rich countries can only possibly b…

Everyone is egocentric. For countries, egocentric-ness is maximum. UBI/FB like threads are filled with comments that seemed to forgot this so obvious fact of life. Its the worst thing about HN.

What point are you trying to make?

Re: Chinese Billionaire Linked to Giant Aluminum Stockpile in Mexican Desert

#115

Post by colechristensen » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 8:53 AM UTC

cmarschner wrote: post #104

colechristensen wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'real' free market capitalism can't exist because without proper regulation, power/wealth tends to concentrate to a level where the strong ruin the 'free' bit. 'real' communism can't exist (outside small rare communities) because the industrial revolution failed to bring about a post-scarcity economy which was marx's failure of prediction. A post-scarcity economy which eliminates the importance of capital is probably…

Communism failed because of human nature. It is incentives gone wrong. If there is no pressure to become more efficient, or even remain efficient, things will become less efficient and everybody suffers (to the point of starvation). Central planning failed due to complexity of the task. Free market / small government doesn't work because a) it is inherently unstable due to power laws (rich get richer), b) lots of ext…

Communism or something like it can easily work post-scarcity.

You can't trust human nature to toil away in factories and hard jobs and do so efficiently for 1/2 of waking life.

Make that fraction a lot smaller... say the only people that needed to work on whatever were the ones that actually wanted to... and suddenly communism works. Open source software works and so much of it is done because people just want to do it. Some day automation and efficiency will get to a point where nerds who have interests will end up doing all of the work because it's what they want to do. Imagine a 3d printer capable of making complex metal/plastic/ceramic/electronic/whatever objects. You'd get hordes of people designing and sharing things just because they wanted to. Design a 3d-printer that can print copies of itself (as well as most of the things a person could want) and suddenly a huge chunk of capitalism is just unnecessary.

50 years after the creation of Star Trek, we should be able to at least imagine the Star Trek economy being technically feasible in the not too distant future.

Re: Chinese Billionaire Linked to Giant Aluminum Stockpile in Mexican Desert

#116

Post by lostlogin » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 8:55 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #97

Kenji wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I loathe farmer subsidies. I have no idea why our government gives farmers so much money and so many advantages - nobody in our society really benefits from those incredible spendings and it's a significant fraction of our state budget.

If you don't subsidize farming in rich countries, all your food will come from poor countries. Poor countries without standards for food safety, scruples about burning down rainforest for a few years of fertility, or worker rights or fair wages. You starve poor countries by selling off all of their food to rich countries and making what's left very expensive. What farming is left in rich countries can only possibly b…

This argument doesn't hold up. By that reasoning (safety, workers rights, environmental concerns) every industry is special and deserves subsidy. Can mine be better subsidised please?

Re: Chinese Billionaire Linked to Giant Aluminum Stockpile in Mexican Desert

#117

Post by lostlogin » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 8:58 AM UTC

ittekimasu wrote: post #83

CountSessine wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I was thinking. If China wants to subsidize American manufacturing by selling us cheap aluminum, what's the problem? This is is bad if you're part of the tiny American aluminum mining and extraction business, but it's probably pretty fantastic if you're part of the huge and important industries making anything with aluminum, like cars and airplanes. Why do we want to protect primary industries when histor…

Do you know the story of how the British went from petty traders to "greatness"?

And then back again. That's empires for you.

Re: Chinese Billionaire Linked to Giant Aluminum Stockpile in Mexican Desert

#118

Post by lostlogin » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 9:00 AM UTC

hourislate wrote: post #45

This isn't happening with just Aluminum. All Carbon and Stainless Steel also. The Chinese have hacked and stolen many of the recipes the Steel Industry has spent decades working on. It was one of the reasons Washington had to act. Now they can supply markets where their product was not within spec. Chinese industry gets subsidized by the Chinese Government. Depending on the exact industry they get a certain percentag…

Nicely said. Crap Chinese still is causing problems here in New Zealand - and I thought we were too far away to matter.

Re: Chinese Billionaire Linked to Giant Aluminum Stockpile in Mexican Desert

#119

Post by lostlogin » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 9:02 AM UTC

monopolyshit wrote: post #68

Good timing to distract public from Clinton's scandal.

Are you referring to the one which she has been cleared of pretty comprehensively? I can't stand her but the faux email scandal is tiresome.

Re: Chinese Billionaire Linked to Giant Aluminum Stockpile in Mexican Desert

#120

Post by colechristensen » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 9:09 AM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #116

colechristensen wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't subsidize farming in rich countries, all your food will come from poor countries. Poor countries without standards for food safety, scruples about burning down rainforest for a few years of fertility, or worker rights or fair wages. You starve poor countries by selling off all of their food to rich countries and making what's left very expensive. What farming is left in rich countries can only possibly b…

This argument doesn't hold up. By that reasoning (safety, workers rights, environmental concerns) every industry is special and deserves subsidy. Can mine be better subsidised please?

To be fair, I don't believe in free trade outside equal partners.

That is, I think trade should be completely unrestricted to foreign markets that are within some economic margin (let's say US, Japan, Canada, and Germany to come up with a very incomplete list) and in any other cases should be subject to significant restrictions.

I don't like the fact that it's nearly impossible to pay someone in America an honest wage to put together t-shirts or running shoes. I don't like the fact that I'd be hard-pressed to buy a t-shirt or a running shoe that wasn't assembled by a person who is more like a slave than not.

But also,

Food is something fundamental, something important, more important than almost anything else and really easy to export the production. We might be ok letting some industries be entirely foreign, because maybe they're less essential... basic sustenance though is in a different class of importance. It's not a fad, it'll never go away unlike many industries that seek protections when they should just be allowed to die.