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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

#411

Post by brandonmenc »

cercatrova wrote: post #376
praeter wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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 co…

Can you blame them? It was cheaper to outsource than automate, so why wouldn't they have outsourced?

I can't "blame" a corporation, because it's not a person.

But they are run by people, those people are the ones crafting the legal and regulatory environment that encourages this behavior, and we can certainly blame them.

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

#412

Post by brandonmenc »

chillacy wrote: post #222
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…

> A factory in China is just as efficient as a factory in Spain or USA. I'm not sure how you're defining efficiency, but in the Netflix special American Factory, it would seem like the chinese workers were not only cheaper but also more productive.

> but in the Netflix special American Factory

A single, sensationalized data point.

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

#413

Post by Reedx »

finolex1 wrote: post #367
_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?

We'd see some adaptations though.

Apple would make cheaper, less fancy versions.

A lot of people would stop upgrading every year or two. That's hugely wasteful anyway.

More people would buy used.

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

#414

Post by chrischen »

Nasrudith wrote: post #309
FooBarWidget wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what is the obvious interpretation? Mine is ‘it is preliminary, so results can still change’ and ‘found no clear evidence does not mean evidence will not be found later’. Or maybe we can agree that there is no such thing as obvious, and different people will necessarily have different interpretations, for better or worse.

I see it as yours but recognize it as probably being read like the parents as not only is the default behavior for absense of evidence to treat it as evidence of absense or subtly of magnitude the fine distinction is lost on most. It is anti-communication in context as cunningly putting effort into /not/ being clear. If they truly weren't sure a more honest form would be "We have neither confirmed nor denied the poss…

Well then it's a good thing that we aren't governed by people who just spend 5 seconds misinterpreting tweets.

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

#415

Post by keiferski »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #278
keiferski wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China” It takes some serious mental gymnastics to interpret this in any way other than the obvious one. This isn’t a philosophical discussion about the limitations of empiricism, it’s a tweet that goes out to millions of people from a…

And what is the obvious interpretation? Mine is ‘it is preliminary, so results can still change’ and ‘found no clear evidence does not mean evidence will not be found later’. Or maybe we can agree that there is no such thing as obvious, and different people will necessarily have different interpretations, for better or worse.

By even posting this tweet, it is implied that there is no human-to-human transmission. They could have easily said, "So far, preliminary tests have found no evidence of human-to-human transmission, however we have only just begun research into the matter and thus still recommend social distancing."

Why didn't they say this? Because China seems to have pressured the WHO the entire time, including saying that the borders shouldn't be closed.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/02/china-coronavirus-who-h...

>And what is the obvious interpretation? Mine is ‘it is preliminary, so results can still change’ and ‘found no clear evidence does not mean evidence will not be found later’.

If that's what they meant, then they should have said so. They didn't. As I said before, this is a major health organization that needs to be clear in its communication, not speak in riddles.

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

#416

Post by zepto »

int_19h wrote: post #390
zepto wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t it clearly immoral to sacrifice the interests of the people who elected you to support another nation?

The morality argument here considers countries (defined as government + population) as actors, rather than governments. So the question is rather whether it's immoral for the people who elect a government to demand that it represents solely their interests to the point of sacrificing other people.

That’s not what is happening if it is a tragedy of the commons.

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

#417

Post by tim333 »

kyuudou wrote: post #375
pkaye wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China knows this, which is why it has factories in both the E.U. and the United States filled with Chinese laborers churning things out so they can be labeled "Made in {$anywhere_but_China}." Can you mention one major factory in the US with Chinese laborers?

Probably means Vietnam, Laos and the Philippines? Since less tariff and cheaper labor pool and especially in Vietnam, less individual rights.

A lot of Chinese production had moved to Vietnam and Cambodia, partly due to tariffs, partly cheaper labour. Mostly the factories are Chinese owned and managed but with local workers.

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

#418

Post by redis_mlc »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #167
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…

> First CCTV report that I recall was around the 15th. Could you link to a source? I have not been able to find any sources that definitively point to something concrete (as opposed to merely rumors and heresay). > There’s even US intel reports dating back to November. Ah yes, the CIA reports from November. I find this highly suspicious. How did the CIA know about it that early? And if they did know about it that ear…

See my comments just below. There is a link with a timeline, and it's very likely this started in November.

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

#419

Post by not_exactly__ »

redis_mlc wrote: post #410
redis_mlc wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fascinating ... the dates Dec. 1, Dec. 6 and Dec. 16 are mentioned in this article, which almost match the flu dates I mentioned above: https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/chinas-devas... Based on those dates, it's possible Covid-19 was on Chinese airliners as early as Dec. 1 - 8. Wuhan has an international airport that connects to Shanghai (Pudong), which is a major international hub. So that moves the o…

Not to mention there are direct flights from Wuhan to both LA and SFO (China Southern). Wuhan may not be very well known in the US, but it is absolutely a major city in China. I’m not sure what the best comparison would be, but maybe a St Louis or Denver of sorts.

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

#420

Post by dorgo »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #61
wendyshu wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trade barriers, price controls, stimulus, etc. -- remarkable how fast economic liberalism goes out the window in a crisis.

What I get from this is it's remarkable how inept the model established by 'economic liberalism', with its just-in-time delivery and 'globalized production to cheapest labour zone' is at delivering on people's real needs in time of crisis. It's amazing how quickly the very proposition that we can get by without any state-level macroeconomic planning, -- and that the free market organically produces superior results -…

> with bare shelves

yes, this is a mystery. Free market should have fixed that. Even if the last roll of toilet paper would cost $1000000 the shelf should not be empty. Is the price regulated in some way?

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