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Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China

bloomberg.com

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Re: Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China

#361

Post by int_19h »

nybble41 wrote: post #225
tomp wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I don't understand what efficiency gains this kind of globalization was supposed to bring anyways... A factory in China is just as efficient as a factory in Spain or USA. Obviously, cheaper workers work for less, but that's not exactly efficiency , (1) more a question of fairness, (2) can be done domestically (low-cost immigrant workers) and (3) there's plenty of cheap workers worldwide, not just in Chi…

> cheaper workers work for less, but that's not exactly efficiency It is efficiency, really, because it's making better use of an underutilized resource. Over time, of course, the price of labor evens out because the resource is no longer underutilized. > more a question of fairness If it's fairness you want, telling companies to hire locally isn't going to cut it. That's the opposite of fairness, really—you would be…

> Over time, of course, the price of labor evens out because the resource is no longer underutilized.

The price would have evened out if labor could cross borders as freely as the goods that it produces - then it would flow to areas where it's in high demand. But with borders and immigration controls and different laws (esp. environment and labor) in different jurisdictions, it's not really a free market. Instead, it looks a great deal like a contraption that's deliberately designed to allow transnational corporations to extract massive economic rents from otherwise pointless brokerage (outsourcing).

Re: Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China

#362

Post by redis_mlc »

philliphaydon wrote: post #84
not_exactly__ wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But this time, reporting to WHO took ~5 days. It was discovered by dr Zhang Jixian on Dec 26, then reported to WHO on Dec 31. False. It took much longer than five days. The WHO was indeed notified on the 31st but the Chinese government organs knew about this long before. First CCTV report that I recall was around the 15th. First confirmed cases were early December. There’s even US intel reports dating back to Novem…

We heard about it just before Xmas time in Singapore. Basically that there was another SARS outbreak in china. It was definitely known before the 26th.

FYI: there was a powerful, contagious flu-like disease circulating already in SE Asia between Dec. 6 and Dec. 15.

If anybody in public healthcare seriously wants to know more, contact me and I'll narrow down the dates, symptoms and locations and you can verify if it was corona virus or a different illness.

Re: Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China

#363

Post by redis_mlc »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #228
remarkEon wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COVID-19 is SARS2. Not sure what your point is unless it's to be pedantic that Novel Coronavirus is not what is colloquially known as "SARS". https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-conditions/covid-19

The initial scientific name is similar, but it is still a different virus with very different characteristics. As I said: it is less lethal than SARS but MUCH more contagious, plus a much longer incubation time and possibility of asymptomatic spread. Sars cannot be spread asymptomatically. About the only things similar are that they are both coronaviruses, and the symptoms. I am not being pedantic at all, these chara…

I don't agree. SARS-1 and SARS-2 are both highly contagious and had similar effects on decimating hospital staff.

You can read the effect on Toronto hospitals in 2002 by SARS-1 to get an idea of the panic it caused, wiping out whole ICU teams. Just like SARS-2 (Covid-19.)

Re: Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China

#364

Post by praeter »

nybble41 wrote: post #225
tomp wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I don't understand what efficiency gains this kind of globalization was supposed to bring anyways... A factory in China is just as efficient as a factory in Spain or USA. Obviously, cheaper workers work for less, but that's not exactly efficiency , (1) more a question of fairness, (2) can be done domestically (low-cost immigrant workers) and (3) there's plenty of cheap workers worldwide, not just in Chi…

> cheaper workers work for less, but that's not exactly efficiency It is efficiency, really, because it's making better use of an underutilized resource. Over time, of course, the price of labor evens out because the resource is no longer underutilized. > more a question of fairness If it's fairness you want, telling companies to hire locally isn't going to cut it. That's the opposite of fairness, really—you would be…

>> cheaper workers work for less, but that's not exactly efficiency

> It is efficiency, really, because it's making better use of an underutilized resource. Over time, of course, the price of labor evens out because the resource is no longer underutilized.

It's not efficiency at all, it's stagnation. Since the 80s instead of trying to innovate and automate production lines too many companies have been hopping from country-to-country looking for the cheapest labor pool. We lost 40 years of manufacturing innovations because they were economically unnecessary due to offshoring.

Re: Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China

#365

Post by greedo »

stainforth wrote: post #230
tomp wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I don't understand what efficiency gains this kind of globalization was supposed to bring anyways... A factory in China is just as efficient as a factory in Spain or USA. Obviously, cheaper workers work for less, but that's not exactly efficiency , (1) more a question of fairness, (2) can be done domestically (low-cost immigrant workers) and (3) there's plenty of cheap workers worldwide, not just in Chi…

I think the problem is in allowing capital to continuously seek out higher profits by finding places and people that they can exploit.

Unrestrained capitalism leads to slavery (J. Pournelle). So we have to regulate it so that it doesn't get to that state. Capitalism is built around exploitation; either workers, physical resources, or knowledge. This has the benefit of increasing prosperity over time, though at a cost. As unfortunate as these costs are, Capitalism is the worst economic system, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

(Apologies to Sir Winston Churchill)

Re: Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China

#366

Post by arkades »

jennyyang wrote: post #4

At the very least, medical supplies and drugs manufacturing will get pulled back into each country. The 3M spat between Canada and the US makes it abundantly clear that in a time of true crisis, you can't even trust your closest friends when something terrifying happens to the world like this pandemic. Whether it means all manufacturing will move away from China or if it means that they will spread it globally, is an…

No, it won't.

Speaking as someone who is currently spending his days sourcing medical equipment for his medical center: the cheapest US-based face shield costs nearly 3x what the average face shield in China does (the most expensive US face shield is >10x). Even with shipping hiccoughs and the desire to buy American, I can't justify purchasing 1/3 the personal protective equipment.

Re: Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China

#367

Post by finolex1 »

_wldu wrote: post #83

The USA really needs to stop rewarding the quarterly profit driven stock market approach to management. It's the same thing that caused Boeing to build bad airplanes and the same thing that causes companies to build insecure software. We need to get back to engineers and architects (who actually know what they are doing) making decisions and building solid solutions and products. Companies can be reasonably profitabl…

Easy to say now. How many people would be willing (and able) to pay, say, 20% more for an iPhone?

Re: Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China

#368

Post by petertodd »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #53
remarkEon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got a link detailing what happened between Canada and the US? My understanding of the 3M debacle is that they use a distributor model for their consumables, and essentially "wash their hands" of what their distributors do once they have product in hand - and in the 3M case, the PPE was just going to the highest bidder, regardless of national origin.

Not at all applicable in this case. Some federal authorities in the US attempted to halt some 3 million (or 500,000 depending on reports, it seems) purchased shipments destined for Canada from 3M. It was only the intervention at the highest level of the Canadian government that stopped this. It's worth pointing out that without Canadian nurses from Windsor who cross the border every day to work in Detroit hospitals,…

The N95 masks are made out of plastic, not pulp.

I looked into the pulp claim, and it's true that pulp is used to make some types of lesser surgical masks. But there's no reason to think there is anything all that special about that pulp - it could be sourced from the US too at somewhat higher cost.

Re: Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China

#369

Post by greedo »

jtdev wrote: post #247
_wldu wrote: post #83

The USA really needs to stop rewarding the quarterly profit driven stock market approach to management. It's the same thing that caused Boeing to build bad airplanes and the same thing that causes companies to build insecure software. We need to get back to engineers and architects (who actually know what they are doing) making decisions and building solid solutions and products. Companies can be reasonably profitabl…

We must start asking: is this good for the bottom line and the country. Fiduciaries, including business executives are currently required to do everything within the law to maximize profits for shareholder - even if that means doing things that are bad for the country in the long term. The current "race to the bottom" approach seems like a great way to run a country into the ground - which is now on spectacular displ…

This fiduciary responsibility is often brought up, but is largely inaccurate. Many companies, quite legally, do things that don't contribute to the bottom line, and in fact may damage it. And the courts have been fairly lenient in ruling in these companies favor.

Re: Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China

#370

Post by int_19h »

jacques_chester wrote: post #325
smacktoward wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economist Norman Angell ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Angell ) published a highly influential book, The Great Illusion , making this exact argument. In 1909. It has, let’s say, not aged gracefully.

The problem with this argument is ignoring the counterfactual cases: the wars that have not occurred, that would have occurred otherwise. Europe was mired in endless wars for millenia. It's now in the longest stretch of peace in centuries and, by sheer coincidence, at its highest levels of trade. In the rest of the world trade has steadily risen and wars and deaths from wars have fallen steadily. Correlation might no…

You could just as well argue that the highest levels of trade are the result of peace, not the other way around. Especially given that levels of trade were already high enough for people to make this same argument before WW1, as this book illustrates.
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