251–260 of 322 posts
I think the unfortunate fallout from this is that China now has confirmation that they are in a dominant position world wide and likely will start to exploit that fact. This isn't a statement on the country, as any country in that position would do the ame and has done so in the past many times over.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a third option. Apply the same regulations to the manufacture of all products sold in your country. You want to manufacture in China and sell in the US, that's fine -- but you have to do it in accordance with US environmental rules. That does two things. One, no more cost advantage to global manufacturing in whatever place has the least respect for the environment, which lets others compete better and remove…
There's a fourth option: close down all U.S. trade ports for a month once a year. No paperwork or other administrative headaches. "Just" a dry run once a year.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They could introduce some new GAAP rules like... Add 10% of the value of all inventory sourced outside North America as a "risk liability". Same for 10% of yearly labor that's outsourced. Basically find ways to make short term thinking visible in their financial reports, since that's what's measured and rewarded.
Not really an accounting issue & messing with those numbers to highlight a risk is just asking for trouble. Companies are required to disclose significant risks, but the quality of that disclosure...varies.
I think the unfortunate fallout from this is that China now has confirmation that they are in a dominant position world wide and likely will start to exploit that fact. This isn't a statement on the country, as any country in that position would do the ame and has done so in the past many times over.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you build in redundancy, though? If China makes widgets for $0.13 a unit and the US makes widgets for $0.15 a unit, how do you incentivize people to buy some of them from China, and some of them from the US? It seems like the logic of free trade and specialization dictates it's mostly all-or-nothing. That's a genuine question, by the way. I'm curious.
Like Chaos Monkey, but with import/export bans and/or tariffs?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The price advantages of globalised supply chains vs. the relative rarity of an event like this means that, during normal periods, firms using them will enjoy a significant advantage over those doing the "right" thing and market forces will weed out the latter. So I don't expect management to be taking a lead on this. That's correct. It's a market failure that needs to be remedied through law and regulation. Hyper-s…
Would you agree with Trump’s stance on reducing American reliance on Chinese manufactured goods? Trump has been doing that since his election.
Counterpoint: YKK (look at your zipper) relies on absolutely no one else for its supply chain [0]. This could easily be seen as a waste by those who would say YKK should just source its metal from the foundry down the street. It's easy to do a quick thought experiment in your head to think about how feasible it might be for every company to vertically integrate the way YKK has. On the other hand, YKK can't get jerked…
Fascinating link, I had no idea YKK was like that. Vertical integration stories like this, or Ford's Rouge plant[1], make me reconsider my general predisposition towards "buy" in the software space. For many years, I've argued against building software you can easily buy or download, but maybe reinventing the wheel is not so terrible if someone wants a company to be long-lived. Primary benefit is the software can be…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Never heard of them. We had an argument in a CS class once about what the most "pervasive technology" in the room was. We were examining claims that "computing would become so pervasive and ubiquitous that it would become invisible" like electricity and that zipper. The reason it won was because we could count more of them than any other piece of tech in the room. Every person had more than they thought -- often as…
The thing about zippers is, YKK is hands down the best and most reliable zipper. Yes I know there are types of zippers, metal coil, molded plastic etc- YKK makes the best of each. Plenty of companies try to source their own (Levi's is the first to come to mind), but the best companies all use YKK zippers because they know. If it doesn't say YKK on it, it's not a YKK zipper.
ITW Nexus did something similar with fasteners.
Often, when bad things happen, humans tend to go broad and deep and question everything around them. This is the wrong approach, IMO. Nobody has the power to alter everything around them, so nothing gets done. If we look at history, we see tiny, continuous improvements in reaction to bad events are what have led to the relative stability of modern life. Bad thing happens, we figure out the (usually small) root cause,…