231–240 of 380 posts
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They should pay the cost of shipping their parts from China to the US without a subsidy from the US taxpayer.
seems like this will backfire if we ever want to access the emerging Chinese consumer market.
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And yet, if the profits can be prevented from all floating to the top, globalisation would appear on the surface to be an excellent way of redressing global inequality. Massive international wage gaps will be perceived by the market as an exploitable inefficiency, which over time will be ironed out. Or, to put it another way, if two people wish to trade, it must be in both of their interests. If I, as a westerner, go…
'Labor laws' is a bad argument, particularly in poor developing nations. If you enforce labor laws in developing countries, the cost of production will be high enough that industry doesn't develop. At that point, the people there have no industry and are much worse off (e.g. a sweatshop is better than subsistence farming). A better argument is 'labor choice'. Individuals need to have the ability to choose their circu…
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I don't think anyone sensible would fault China for taking advantage of something that is advantageous for their businesses, nor for them to advocate for it. It would be irrational for them not to, the subsidies exist so obviously any reasonable business would use them. Nonetheless, it's clearly not in the interest of US businesses. The US is not obligated to provide subsidies that, due to the scale of trade using th…
> I don't think anyone sensible would fault China for taking advantage But everyone faults the US for taking advantage. /petpeeve
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But the issue here is not the differential in efficiencies. It's China receiving subsidies from the US because it was considered a developing country in 1969. It's not anymore, it's a global superpower now, it can pay its own postage.
No it has no bearing on China. It is the same policy with Switzerland. You get the international package to America we pay for the final delivery. Pay for a package to Switzerland and Switzerland pays for the final delivery. It was suppose to be a wash for both parties. China just got a much better deal. Cost me more to mail a package the next state away then for me to get a package delivered from China. Now you have…
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Globalization is a hegemonic project of the West, best understood as a means to transfer capital from the economic peripheries to the imperial core, and has tended to wreak havoc on developing countries that have exposed themselves to it. China has been very sensible to ignore the dogma about free trade and to exploit weaknesses and loopholes in trade treaties when they find them.
Very true. In reality this is following the model South Korea, Japan took.
'I found a bug, therefore we should discard the entire system'; imagine it's a mature, complex, functioning system. If your CTO did it, you'd seriously doubt their leadership. The real question is, what are the outcomes we are choosing from? What is the outcome if we keep the system, and what is the outcome if we discard it? What would we replace it with - are we going to try to build a complex system from nothing? Are there third or fourth better options, perhaps improving the existing system?
The politicians have explicitly and repeatedly expressed their goals (see Trump's UN speech, for example): Undo international cooperation and jointly made rules, and create zero-sum geo-political competition based on power. It's fundamentally undemocratic and against the belief in the fundamental equal rights of all people ('all men are created equal') - i.e., that others should have an equal say. It also has a long and proven track record of leading to war, the experience of most of human history until the rules-based international order was built amid the ashes of WWII.
In this case it's backed by typical political talking points, designed to give people the impression that international treaties are generally bad and to rationalize the step they are taking toward their strategy. But as I said, it's should be transparent (and expected, though you never know which agreement is next).
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I’m not sure if Swiss fine machinery is the best example here. What is it about the nature of Switzerland that makes it a more natural place to create fine machinery then anywhere else? Similarly, using American corn as an example of how free trade should work is pretty underhanded. There’s a ridiculous amount of subsidies there, and the US doesn’t have any qualms with dumping the resulting product on international m…
The climate and soils in Iowa make it a great place to grow corn - even without subsidies farmers would grow corn in Iowa. Despite a much lower cost of labor in other countries Iowa can still compete well in the world markets because corn grows so much better. There is probably no advantage to making machines in Switzerland that you couldn't duplicate in Iowa, but because Iowa has the natural advantage in corn it is…
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Luckily there is a very easy way for people to avoid paying for shipping... although maybe things have changed since I was young. Shop at local stores if shipping costs make buying by mail too expensive. Like it was forever prior to Amazon. Prior to 2005 it was consistently less expensive to shop at the local CVS, book store, or radio shack than to order online. If my business model requires public subsidies for ship…
The only thing I do want to bring up about shopping locally, for electronic components specifically, is that stores like Radioshack are essentially extinct, at least where I am in the Midwest. There are no local electronic stores of any variation except for Best Buy.
Once Amazon or Wal-Mart are the only company left, they will be free to raise the prices to whatever they want.
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Depends. Are they so desperate that they want to go to war, or are they rather becoming more of a middle class that wants to play the newest video games?
Before WW I, France and Germany were each others largest trading partners. Trade and prosperity are orthogonal to war.
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> I don't think anyone sensible would fault China for taking advantage But everyone faults the US for taking advantage. /petpeeve
They're not in the same position. China takes advantage of bugs in the rules. The US writes and pushes through the rules, often quite forcefully.