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Culture Clash at a Chinese-Owned Plant in Ohio

nytimes.com

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

#61

Post by stephen_g »

mistermann wrote: post #45
tuna-piano wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 A…

True, it partially breaks down as the US dollar is a de facto international reserve currency. Since so many countries will accept US dollars for their exports, a portion of that cash can keep circulating around outside the US.

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

#62

Post by nichtich »

analyst74 wrote: post #20

Out of curiosity, is it a common practice to require foreign companies opening American branches to have a "predominantly American management corps"? I always assumed that multi-national companies tend to send executives from their headquarters for strategic decision making, and only hire local managers for execution.

And the factory is set up by the Chinese company. It would be an understandable demand to insists on local management if the Chinese bought the already existing local operation. But for a brand new operation it's a weird thing to ask.

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

#63

Post by Sunset »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #10
jacquesm wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those jobs were historically there to begin with, then tooling + process + jobs were shipped overseas because that was cheaper, the resulting trade surplus made it possible for the Chinese to ship the factory back to the United States. The big question then is can they remain profitable in the long run if they do things the US way, and if they can why couldn't the same plant be owned and operated by Americans?

"and if they can why couldn't the same plant be owned and operated by Americans?" You already know the answer to that. It's why they shipped the jobs overseas in the first place. In many cases, the workers even keep voting for the kinds of people that do it. I especially found it amusing that Trump was appealing as a capitalist to workers whose jobs were lost due to capitalism like this. Many of these areas are self-…

Ah yes, all of those protectionist politicians who want to levy import taxes. Do you even listen to yourself?

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

#64

Post by mbreese »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #29
nickpsecurity wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also true. They were foolish to vote for the kind of person who left them jobless. They thought it wise to vote for the only person promising them something. The latter happened because they're too superficial: most districts vote out the honest, well-performing folks early. That superficial "he-said-she-said" stuff is what they need to stop doing the most.

> 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.

NAFTA went into force under Clinton, but was negotiated by Bush. By the time Clinton came around, it was a done deal waiting for congressional approval. Bush tried to get it done before he left office, but ran out of time.

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

#65

Post by Natsu »

hourislate wrote: post #46
bduerst wrote: 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 s…

From back when I was working in that industry, I was told we couldn't really compete on price with China. They were trying to get glass from China because it was cheaper than what we could make in our own float plants. We were trying to compete on quality, that is to say, delivering less broken or damaged glass.

That said, you're right--I don't remember too much trouble shipping raw glass. It was just coated in Lucite and the first sheet is always a write-off. We had more trouble when people had packs fall when trying to load them into the gantry every so often, though broken sheets were quite a pain to deal with sometimes more from a safety perspective, when the crane can't get suction on it to drop it and it's too big to safely handle.

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

#66

Post by firethief »

chii wrote: post #60
mistermann wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 A…

ultimately, only place you can ultimately spend american dollars is in america. Some spent indirectly do find its way back to america, some stay out and circulate for a very long time, but imagine a scenario where america collapses (suddenly for an unknown reason). Will countries that used to take american dollars as a form of payment continue to accept it? I'd say no. Therefore, money spent by china in africa in the…

That would be more true if currencies could not be exchanged.

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

#67

Post by zxcmx »

bduerst wrote: 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.

Yes, it still does get shipped a lot of places though.

For example,"float glass" is not manufactured in New Zealand - no windows have been made there for 25 years, every single one is imported.

It seems that at the scale these plants operate, it's not economic to run one for a country of 4.5 million people (with a first world minimum wage) without tariffs or subsidies.

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

#68

Post by Spooky23 »

MR4D wrote: post #18
Spooky23 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US model right now is is exporting cash and hard assets in exchange for mostly consumable goods. It's a pretty obvious bad idea. It's ok in the sense that it isn't a moral hazard. But it's bad in that we're exporting our wealth and hollowing out the country.

I question the comment about not being a moral hazard. It's almost like a free-rider problem, but shifted in time instead of person. Not saying you're wrong, just questioning it's assumption in economics.

It's a good point. Economics as practiced today is very "transactional" vs looking at the long term.

It's pretty obvious that we've morphed into a poorer country over the last 30 years. We've also shifted our thinking about prosperity from employment to GDP.

Also there's no concept of nationalism in modern economics, and many advocates for the current way of doing stuff inject revisionist social agendas to the mix. (I.e. Why should Westerners be privileged?)

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

#69

Post by someguydave »

rhcom2 wrote: post #55
MachinShinn- wrote: post #54

Do you know why manufacturing left America? It has nothing to do with costs. It has everything to do with regulations and attitudes. If you want a manufacturing industry, workers WILL get killed on site. Workers WILL get cancer from dangerous chemicals. There's no free lunch. Everyone knows this, but somehow we care more about a high school dropout getting exposed to fumes in a factory than one that ODs on heroin bec…

Why are those the only two options? Why can't we continue make manufacturing safer like we have been since the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire?

Because at a certain point increasing safety regulation causes production under a regime to be less profitable than moving to another country with fewer safety rules. Regulators are usually not punished for destroying profit and are usually incentivized to choose safety over private profit.

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

#70

Post by whack »

mistermann wrote: post #45
tuna-piano wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 A…

You've got your order reversed. China uses it's currency to buy investments in Africa. The Africans now have a bunch of Chinese currency, and clearly, they are going to do something with it. Most likely they will use it to buy consumer goods made in China. Thus creating a trade deficit that's exactly equal to the investment surplus.

There's nothing mysterious or sinister about the balance of payments. It's a mathematical and accounting tautology. I suggest spending some time reading about it from a good source, if you're still skeptical.

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