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Culture Clash at a Chinese-Owned Plant in Ohio

nytimes.com

41–50 of 86 posts

Re: Culture Clash at a Chinese-Owned Plant in Ohio

#41

It's somewhat surprising for the NYT to put forward the proposition that ethnocentrism and disregard for worker safety is a part of Chinese culture, but I guess I'll take their new wokeness as a sign of progress.

It's not so much culture as regulatory environment. Chinese labor laws are more lax, or at least more laxly enforced. Things are done pretty differently in the American Midwest, with its history of labor organizing.

Re: Culture Clash at a Chinese-Owned Plant in Ohio

#42

China is a gigantic investor in the USA. Whenever you hear the term "trade deficit" that the US has to China, there is an identical amount in "investment surplus" that the US gets from China. That investment is everywhere - in our stock market, in our government debt, in our real estate and in our Ohio Windshield plants. Every time you buy an iPhone, you're handing China hundreds of dollars which they then invest in…

The author of your link keeps repeating that things will balance simply because they will balance. That sounds like "what I say is true because I say it is true." Is there proof of this beyond the author's mere assertions? Also, the author says we pay for stuff that turns into capital for them. They use that capital to create more businesses or own more stuff here. That doesn't sound like it's going to balance for th…

Yes, read into the balance of payments: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/03/060403.asp#axzz1rYFT...

It's basically: Stuff+Investments sent = Stuff+Investments received

Think about it this way: China sends the US an iPhone, and the US sends dollars (paper / numbers on a screen) in return. China put a lot of work into the iPhones... what did they get? They got the opportunity to buy stuff in America with dollars! What do they want to buy? They could buy stuff, like airplanes and software, or they can buy factories.

And yes, when they buy American investment products, they will (or hope to) receive more back in the future. When you buy a productive asset, or save money, you expect to receive more back in the future. So when you sell that productive asset, you give up that future benefit for a smaller benefit today.

Re: Culture Clash at a Chinese-Owned Plant in Ohio

#43
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taiwanese people love queueing. Queueing for the train, queueing waiting for the bus, and - of course - queueing around the block to wait to eat at a 'famous' restaurant (:

My Taiwanese parents were the sort to enter a large queue without knowing what it was for, because whatever was at the end of it was bound to be good.

Are you sure they weren't English? :)

Re: Culture Clash at a Chinese-Owned Plant in Ohio

#44

>Such lapses are common in the brutally competitive auto parts industry... but they can easily lead to amputation or even death. This is exactly why these regulations need to exist and be enforced as strictly and evenhandedly as possible. If they didn't exist, your competitors will implement any measure, including ones that compromise worker safety, to undercut your prices. Market forces will attempt to shape this in…

For an example of this in action, you need look no further than a few states South along the Mississippi.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-03-23/inside-al...

Re: Culture Clash at a Chinese-Owned Plant in Ohio

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author of your link keeps repeating that things will balance simply because they will balance. That sounds like "what I say is true because I say it is true." Is there proof of this beyond the author's mere assertions? Also, the author says we pay for stuff that turns into capital for them. They use that capital to create more businesses or own more stuff here. That doesn't sound like it's going to balance for th…

Yes, read into the balance of payments: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/03/060403.asp#axzz1rYFT... It's basically: Stuff+Investments sent = Stuff+Investments received Think about it this way: China sends the US an iPhone, and the US sends dollars (paper / numbers on a screen) in return. China put a lot of work into the iPhones... what did they get? They got the opportunity to buy stuff in America with dollars! W…

> China sends the US an iPhone, and the US sends dollars (paper / numbers on a screen) in return. China put a lot of work into the iPhones... what did they get? They got the opportunity to buy stuff in America with dollars!

This makes it sound like every dollar from the US finds it's way "back home".

China has been doing a lot of investing in other places like Africa, and China. Where does that money come from? Not Africa and China I suspect.

Re: Culture Clash at a Chinese-Owned Plant in Ohio

#46
post #6

Glass is heavy and brittle, making it both expensive and difficult to ship. Many glass mills need to be within a certain mile radius of the factories they supply because of this. NYT missed this in the article.

The Chinese ship plenty of glass to NA. The weight is of no consequence since freight is charged per volume (40' container, 20' container). Typically a 40 ft container from China to NY State is about $3600-$4200 depending on the Logistics Company and time of year. Many of the Condo's in Toronto, Canada (condo capital of the world) are faced with Chinese glass. Glass is typically compromised when it is not packed or stored correctly. It is actually quite durable and is shipped from all over the world. A good example is the glass Apple used for its new campus, it came from Germany.

I think the problem here is "Just in Time" delivery to the Auto Manufacturers. It takes about 12 days on the water and another 5 on rail to reach the rust belt or east coast. So that is probably why they decided to start producing in the USA so they can meet tighter production and delivery schedules and take shipping lines/ports out of the equation.

Re: Culture Clash at a Chinese-Owned Plant in Ohio

#47
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno. Reading this article left a bad taste in my mouth. It wasn't the Chinese that turned a large portion of industrial America into a rusty meth-infused wasteland, yet it is the Chinese that are opening these factories. I applaud a desire to maintain safety standards, but if it wasn't for Fuyao, there wouldn't be anyone to unionize, you know?

So, that's what all it comes down to I guess. Like, be happy because there are jobs in the first place or unionise, make them accountable for all kinds of regulations and give them a hard time? Maybe the Chinese or perhaps anyone wouldn't have invested in the first place if they think they can not generate enough profits to sustain, so giving an easy pass for safety standards or any regulations would encourage this.

Over the long-term, the way Americans are fighting Communism is by introducing capital to modernize China which in turn should raise a middle class and cause them to evaluate capitalism on its merits. This is part of that struggle, and an attempt to avoid a bloody war if China were to decide on rapidly modernizing like Japan did pre-WW2. So I'd say China can take their trade and their factories and shove it, but that wouldn't be playing the culture war card.

The Chinese expect to open plants here and run them in the same subjugated way they do in China because that's their culture. They view the US as something to conquer. What they're going to realize very quickly is that this endeavor is a lot like trying to herd cockroaches who know how to use gunpowder. Before you know it, they've laid traps you don't even know about in the walls.

Trump's a warning shot across the bow of foreign powers and the establishment that the American public aren't going to put up with the lack of a social contract and continuous exploitation forever. He's not going to get a lot done, but that's part of the point; he's showing them that there are repercussions to economic warfare and subjugation.

I doubt the plant is going to be there in a few years. They are going to deal with everything from EEOC lawsuits to unions being unreasonable because of the way promotions are done. They won't be able to shake that. Period. The only way to shake a union is to shut down long enough everyone leaves or treat people well enough they don't feel the need.

Re: Culture Clash at a Chinese-Owned Plant in Ohio

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They were foolish to vote for the kind of person who left them jobless. Clinton's policies would've left them just as jobless (by way of her supporting the TPP, finishing off those crippled by NAFTA, which was a project of Clinton's husband during his presidential stint). When in doubt, vote for the person who says they'll burn everything down, which appears to be on schedule.

I think it's worth noting that there's a big gap in the perception of NAFTA (and its ilk) and their actual consequences. In terms of actual consequences NAFTA has had almost no effect on the US economy, either positive or negative: a 2003 CBO report found that it had increased the US's GDP by only a few billion dollars[1]. Different sides have presented job loss and gain in different industries over the last 20 years…

> In terms of actual consequences NAFTA has had almost no effect on the US economy, either positive or negative: a 2003 CBO report found that it had increased the US's GDP by only a few billion dollars[1].

Compared to speculation as to what the economy would have been without NAFTA.

> The real benefits of agreements like NAFTA for the US are geopolitical stability and economic dominance

Which the US didn't have before? If anything, the US is far less dominant now.

> The TPP presents (or presented) similar opportunities in Asia.

Asia is eating the US's lunch without China even being competitive at the top of the value chain, which isn't too far away. When they achieve that, things will start to deteriorate even more rapidly.

Re: Culture Clash at a Chinese-Owned Plant in Ohio

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A great, Democrat example of: "most districts vote out the honest, well-performing folks early." Leave us to Trump or Hillary by the end of it. Russian roulette has better odds of success.

I'd like to point out that the DNC argued in a court room that it's totally within their right to pick their candidate while smoking cigars in a back room, votes be damned; nobody voted for that. https://medium.com/theyoungturks/dnc-we-can-legally-choose-c... We could have voluntarily decided that, ‘Look, we’re gonna go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way,’” Bruce Spiva,…

And pro-Democrat voters enthusiastically avoid this fact. The state of politics in the West is just terrible.

Re: Culture Clash at a Chinese-Owned Plant in Ohio

#50
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They were foolish to vote for the kind of person who left them jobless. What 'kind' of person are you referring to? I think you might be over-generalizing. Trump has long been opposed to outsourcing American jobs, reportedly. In any case, we should differentiate between the actions of individual business owners, and the policy that establishes the playing field. For example, current US corporate tax policy creates…

"What 'kind' of person are you referring to? I think you might be over-generalizing. Trump has long been opposed to outsourcing American jobs, reportedly." How many employees does he have overseas? And how much does he depend on overseas goods when generating his wealth or power despite local ones available? I have a guess on one aspect given he spends a lot of time on Twitter using a smartphone that isn't 100% Ameri…

The parent comment addressed this phenomenon, although in a different context:

> A person can be in favor of changing policy even while they optimize within the current policy framework. For example: a wealthy person might be in favor of a tax on the wealthy even as they personally employ all available techniques to reduce their tax burden; there is no contradiction. No rational citizen will pay higher tax than the code obligates.

If you manufacture in the US while all your competitors manufacture overseas, you will go bankrupt, and would largely lose the ability to advocate for returning manufacturing the the US. Whether Trump is being honest in his promises is beside the point.

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