Live data from Hacker News

Chinese Billionaire Linked to Giant Aluminum Stockpile in Mexican Desert

wsj.com

161–168 of 168 posts

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

#161

“My Moby-Dick has been Zhongwang,” says Mr. Henderson, president of the Aluminum Extruders Council, a U.S. trade group. Without context, I would have thought that a Markov text generator was on the loose.

Really? Why? Mr. Henderson is simply claiming that hist situation bears some similarities to Captain Ahab's. It might or might not really be true but the statement is clear enough for anyone moderately well read in English language literature.

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

#162
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To play devil's advocate, can someone provide a single historical example of a case where dumping "worked," in the sense that one country's manufacturers were able to rake in large profits after their foreign competitors went out of business due to subsidies? Because unless dumping actually succeeds at that goal, and I don't see any evidence that it does, it seems indistinguishable to American consumers from a huge t…

Rare earth metals dumping caused all US mines to close for decades.

Greed by American companies outsource to low cost countries played a part too. The owners of the mines would rather buy and operate mines in low cost countries. It isn't simply the case that evil foreign government sets up a mine and dumps the raw material; often they allow the owners of existing mines in the West to buy concessions to operate them because then the country receives the expertise and a profit at the expense of the workers in the West. But, the Western owners of the Western mines make even more profit, at least in the short term.

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

#163
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Of course, one could argue that those of us in the US are in fact the British Empire, the narrative slightly complicated by that civil war period of 1776-1812 of course.

True, this seems to be how Foreign policy people view things. This viewpoint shows up in things like "Five eyes" etc.

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

#164
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To play devil's advocate, can someone provide a single historical example of a case where dumping "worked," in the sense that one country's manufacturers were able to rake in large profits after their foreign competitors went out of business due to subsidies? Because unless dumping actually succeeds at that goal, and I don't see any evidence that it does, it seems indistinguishable to American consumers from a huge t…

Rare earth metals dumping caused all US mines to close for decades.

Sometimes US firms go out of business when they compete with foreign firms. Even if that's because of "unfair" subsidies from foreign governments, that's indistinguishable from some foreign technological improvement that allows competitors to produce their goods more cheaply than US firms. I'm specifically asking for evidence of the followup: the part where foreign firms have no competition and rack up massive profits at our expense.

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

#165
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_reform What the party calls themselves is irrelevant. "communism" as anyone would define it, is not what China's economy looks like today.

Indeed. The implied point being that capitalism didn't win either, regardless of what we call ourselves. In both cases what seems to have emerged from the 20th century as the successful governing model is varying degrees of democratic socialism.

There's a long elaborate etymology and syntax argument I want to make here.

The gist of it is that capitalism and communism aren't exactly two instances of the same class, communism implies a form of government that capitalism doesn't. Likewise communism implies a precise extreme economy where capitalism is more vague.

Most of the world is mostly capitalist. The presence of extensive social welfare programs doesn't really take away from this in the way that adding a market economy and entrepreneurial opportunity takes away from communism.

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

#166

“My Moby-Dick has been Zhongwang,” says Mr. Henderson, president of the Aluminum Extruders Council, a U.S. trade group. Without context, I would have thought that a Markov text generator was on the loose.

Really? Why? Mr. Henderson is simply claiming that hist situation bears some similarities to Captain Ahab's. It might or might not really be true but the statement is clear enough for anyone moderately well read in English language literature.

It's not that the reference is obtuse (it isn't), it's that one usually doesn't encounter "Moby Dick", "aluminum extruders" and "Zhongwang" in the same sentence. It can give one pause, in the same manner as if the sentence were full of alliteration.

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

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that the US has among the lowest social mobility of developed nations, this is highly unlikely today. Interestingly, Americans have more belief that their society is a meritocracy than most developed nations and so are especially unaware of the problem. I submit it is this commonly held perception rather than data that is informing you comment. Obviously in the past, when democracies were even fewer in number,…

> has among the lowest social mobility of developed nations The US also already has among the highest median income of any developed nation, and nearly the highest median disposable income. The US also has a higher median household net worth than either Germany or Sweden. That would inherently make it more difficult for the US to keep pushing the boulder up the hill. Further, in the US more people are moving up out o…

"middle class" is defined but the cohort of wages around the median. By definition, were it to disappear, exactly half the population will be above and half will be below its bounds. It is solely a measure of distribution of wealth not absolute wealth. In recent years more people have risen up out of it. And in many of the past 40 years, more have fallen down out of it. necessarily.

Likewise in the last 40 years, the US per capita GDP has risen close to 70% while the median income has risen less then 20%. But the problem of declining social mobility and rising inequality is not remotely unique to the US.

At least as disturbing is the resultant problem of the steady rise and now mainstreaming of politically extreme views in several western countries in (including the current presidential race obviously). I suggest the economic underpinnings of this problem are issues that we really ought to look at objectively rather than waving the flag and insisting we live in the best of all possible wolds.

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

#168
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Farmers do! And farmers also vote. And that's the reason for why they are subsidised. Farmers have a special interest in receiving subsidies, and politicians gain far more by pandering to them than by saving a little bit of money for everyone else.

I presume you are thinking mostly of the west here. Farmers voting has little or no impact on policy. In most developed countries total employment in farming is less than 5% of the population.

You'd be surprised how much a vocal minority (which is a lot more than 5% in agricultural states) can push senators around. Still, even 5% of the population constitutes a very powerful special interest.
Post reply on HN