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Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

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Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#381

Post by refurb »

exhilaration wrote: post #188
zymhan wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK peppers are native to the Americas, I'm not sure there is a "native" African pepper. Though they certainly could have been cultivating them for 400-500 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chili_pepper#Origins

Thanks, another item to add to my list: corn, tomatoes, potatoes, and peppers. All are now staples worldwide but were unknown outside of the Americas until ~500 years ago.

Blew my mind but dragonfruit, which is strongly associated with Vietnam, actually came from Central America.

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#382

Post by tim333 »

martinald wrote: post #351
tim333 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is the kind of thing that hobbles the economy - it's not like those counties are building their own Intels and Apples as a result of the tariffs.

Yeah exactly. I think the idea of protectionism to kick start the economy probably worked a lot better in the 20th century. In a reasonable space of time you could clone a lot of the products you need and then start exporting. Take cloning a 1970s car vs an electric one from 2021. While not trivial, I feel if you can make, stamp and weld steel you are half way there for the 1970s. For an electric car you need an enor…

It can work for things with high capital costs where the tariffs are used to keep the plant at full utilisation which is kind of what S Korea did and the US might do with a chip fab partly for strategic reasons.

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#383

Post by thundergolfer »

msg3 wrote: post #21
m12k wrote: post #15

I'm reading the book The Divide at the moment. It makes the argument that it takes time and the right conditions to build up an industry - infrastructure needs to be built, education and a skilled labor pool with the necessary know-how as well. To begin with, a fledgling industry in a developing country cannot compete with those of already industrialized countries - these are already so effective that they can underc…

The Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang makes similar arguments in his book Bad samaritans. He argues that this model was successfully followed by Korea (Samsung, Hyundai, etc), Japan, and even Henry VII in 15th century England - well worth a read.

Similar ideas in his 21 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism. That book was really influencing on how I think about economic rhetoric.

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#385

Post by oblio »

WalterBright wrote: post #344
oblio wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The starting point for the US states is/was much closer than that of random countries around the world, to each other. US states, despite what Americans tell themselves, are culturally/socially/economically a lot more homogeneous than random countries around the world are to each other. And US states are all protected by the same federal government. None of them can really be abused by outside forces with little/no r…

The original 13 colonies were pretty diverse. For example, some of them had slave economies and some didn't. That's a huge difference. Even today, some states are much larger than others, some are very populous compared to others, some are resource intensive others are manufacturing intensive, different ethnicity populations, etc. Their economies are diverse. > They really can't be compared Sure they can. They show t…

You sidestep the security aspect.

Plenty of nations around the world are bullied. The US and the banana republics (which sounds a lot like arrogant victim blaming from the Americans!), Eastern Europe and Russia/the Soviets, Afghanistan and everyone, etc.

US states don't have that problem. When was the last time Idaho had to defend itself from foreign interference, invasion, trade embargoes, etc?

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#386

Post by 300africans »

fogihujy wrote: post #121
eloisant wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering Switzerland is less than 9 millions people, their total consumption is a drop in the ocean of the global market so I'm don't think protectionist measures would change much. And I don't see why the big markets (EU, US) would want to protect Swiss companies.

The big markets won't care about Swiss chocolate. It's far more likely that Swiss chocolate producers will simply focus on the high-end market and leave it at that. Now, if other African countries tried doing this to the EU and re. other raw materials on the other hand...

It will eventually happen. In my opinion, in the medium term, from China pressure and them outcompeting Europe in Africa. Chinese are having more boots on the ground all across Africa compared to 20 years ago and one of their main focus is resource extraction. I don't think Europe will be able to dictate to the Chinese in 5 - 10 years in how to conduct their business there. Not that they can do that now either. One of the things to watch your for is the loss of control of west and central african currencies by the French

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#387

Post by znpy »

kiba wrote: post #322
mpoteat wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The theory is that nobody will invest in e.g. researching how to build a complicated lumber cutting machine if they don't have protections against their competitor copying the results. Let's say this research costs 1 million dollars, and the company bankrolls this via a loan. They build it and are successful, and begin paying it off. Their competitor copies their idea, and exploits the fact that they have more capita…

So, under a zero protection scheme it is optimal to wait until your competitor invests in research, and then just steal it. Which is what happens on a geopolitical level where there is no feasible enforcement possible. Is it such a bad thing? The United States did it in order to industrialize and I would say that's a good thing.

One might argue that the us did it in a time where markets weren't really developed on a global scale like they are today, so that comparison is only valid to a certain degree.

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#388

Post by danielscrubs »

908B64B197 wrote: post #280
brutus1213 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people who think China can be contained are being naive. As an academic, I am extremely impressed with the improvement in scientific publications in CS out of China of late. In 10 years, they are now killing it on a consistent basis (personal anecdote: a paper from Tsinghua or Shanghai Jiao Tong on average is as good as one from Berkeley, Stanford or MIT). I have a feeling it has to do with the reality that C…

> (personal anecdote: a paper from Tsinghua or Shanghai Jiao Tong on average is as good as one from Berkeley, Stanford or MIT) Wait until Berkeley Stanford and MIT get better network security! [0][1][2] [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/31/us/chinese-scientist-canc... [1] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-11/chinese-... [2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/chinese-researcher-e...

Those links provided doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Berkeley, Stanford nor MIT?

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#389

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

elmomle wrote: post #318
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "without copyright there will be no writers" Just recently had a bit of a good laugh about this. I decided to read Caesar's notes on Gallic wars, and downloaded some random .fb2 It turned out to be a preview fragment, which ended with a stern warning that it is illegal to break copyright laws and that this book can be legally purchased via provided link. I'm sure Gaius Julius is very happy with how these guys prote…

That's ostensibly for the translator (of course it's more for the publisher). You can get (typically Edwardian-era or earlier) public domain translations, or the original Latin, for free in lots of places.

I read it in russian, and I specially checked that russian translator died almost a hundred years ago.

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#390

Post by petre »

oblio wrote: post #27
m12k wrote: post #15

I'm reading the book The Divide at the moment. It makes the argument that it takes time and the right conditions to build up an industry - infrastructure needs to be built, education and a skilled labor pool with the necessary know-how as well. To begin with, a fledgling industry in a developing country cannot compete with those of already industrialized countries - these are already so effective that they can underc…

> So the book argues that when developing countries are pressured into free trade agreements This should have been obvious since the Opium Wars and the Opening of Japan (see Commodore Matthew Perry). All developed countries are pro free trade for markets where they are strong and fiercely protectionist where they are not (or they consider those markets strategic priorities). I'm from Romania. Romania joined the EU in…

So keep your money in a Romanian bank and buy locally sourced goods when there are alternatives available. I'm not talking about bananas.
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