Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland • Hacker News Board

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#391

Post by leto_ii » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 9:26 AM UTC

majgr wrote: post #374

leto_ii wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also a Romanian here. My take is similar to yours, but I would go even further in saying that the 90s were even more catastrophic in terms of privatization and liberalization. Remember the 'shock therapy' years? Prices doubling every few months? Entire industries collapsing, prized factories being sold for scrap metal? Millions losing their jobs etc. - a lot of that stuff didn't have to happen that way. A lot of it w…

In Poland some share similar sentiment, but it was better to get rid of of all these inflexible, low quality companies than providing them with life support. Problem was with management and technology. You would need to get rid of whole management hierarchy, and at that time there was nobody who could replace it. Some relicts from communism still lingers here and there, for 30 years after fall of communism unable to…

I don't know the situation in Poland very well, but I think in general in Romania you (assuming you're Polish) are perceived as a success story.

In Romania it's actually quite hard to buy products and services that are not provided by some foreign company. Most banks, all big shopping chains (as GP noted), lots of the food and clothes, agri-business, almost all the telcoms are foreign. As a matter of fact, even though we have our own currency, a lot of products are pretty much directly priced in euros: cars, home appliances, electronics, apartments, land, rents, utility bills. All of these go up when the euro goes up (they don't go down when the euro goes down - and the euro never goes down).

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#392

Post by danielscrubs » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 9:29 AM UTC

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.

Was it all from _South_ America?

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#393

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 9:58 AM UTC

oblio wrote: post #385

WalterBright wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I infer then you agree that free trade does not convert countries into colonies.

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#394

Post by disabled » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 10:16 AM UTC

killtimeatwork wrote: post #87

oblio wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

That's where China was smart I guess. They didn't sign any treaty which forced them into free trade or IP protection, but instead slowly allowed their industries to build up via IP theft and strong protectionism. Now they have giant companies on par with the West's. Whereas everyone who joined the EU in the decade of 2000 (and the Washington Consensus before that in the nineties) is now a pawn of the Western capital…

> Whereas everyone who joined the EU in the decade of 2000 (and the Washington Consensus before that in the nineties) is now a pawn of the Western capital with no clear path of escaping the trap of mediocrity.

Not true. I hope you are joking. Most countries that joined the EU in the 2000s and 2010s become pretty westernized within 5 years of joining. Have you ever spent significant time in these countries, pre-EU or post-EU? Also, the countries that benefit the most from being EU members are the new members.

> So far, the standard of living in post-Soviet EU countries is still higher than in China, but that's because of the much better starting point and also because it's just hard to provide wealth for over a billion people in a modern, heavily automated economy.

The standard of living is pretty high in a lot of those countries, and not all of them are post-Soviet. Look at Malta or the ex-Yugoslav countries (Slovenia, Croatia) for example. I do not understand why westerners (particularly Americans) like to talk trash about the EU. I hope the Americans doing this realize where they are going, as in the wrong way, or on the wrong trend line. Of course America can wake up from being on some trend line, but to win the battles they are up against, profound societal changes will need to occur.

U.S. life expectancy will soon be on par with Mexico’s and the Czech Republic’s: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/0...

Also, according to that article, American women's life expectancy is soon to mirror Croatia. You know, that war-torn, ex-Yugoslav country that had a nasty war in the 90s and displaced a lot of people. Americans should be embarrassed.

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#395

Post by petre » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 10:48 AM UTC

yorwba wrote: post #125

audunw wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really think China is making a huge mistake actually. See how TSMC (Taiwan) and Samsung are free to buy ASMLs EUV machines, while China is blocked. Part of that is due to their rampant IP theft. Why sell machines to China if they're just going to copy them? China also messed up big time by enforcing their 1 child policy, and taking so long to open up and industrialize. They're far behind economically compared to wh…

> See how TSMC (Taiwan) and Samsung are free to buy ASMLs EUV machines, while China is blocked. Part of that is due to their rampant IP theft. Why sell machines to China if they're just going to copy them? ASML's machines aren't something you can just copy by buying one of them. (You'd do better by hiring ex-ASML engineers to teach you how to do it.) And ASML would've sold their EUV equipment (just as they continue t…

Israel seems to be selling chips to Chinese companies and weapons to Azerbaidjan unhindered by US pressure though.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/cheap-drones-china-tur...

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#396

Post by znpy » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 11:20 AM UTC

justinclift wrote: post #375

klipklop wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. My 4 year old Oneplus phone taught me that China can make a phone just as good as anyone else. It's a quality product and was at a great price. With that said, my next phone will be an iPhone. I am trying to de-china whenever I can when it comes to buying stuff.

> With that said, my next phone will be an iPhone. I am trying to de-china whenever I can when it comes to buying stuff. Isn't Apple extremely well known for it's production lines being in China?

Yes but apple users casually happen to ignore that fact when it comes up

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#397

Post by user_of_the_wek » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 11:21 AM UTC

cycomanic wrote: post #240

jopsen wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are those supermarkets really all that French or Belgian anymore? In practice, many large companies are owned by investors from all over the world looking for diversification.

Aldi the 3rd (or 4th) biggest supermarket chain is still owned essentially by the Aldi families (there are in fact 2 Aldi chains, because the brothers could stand each other.

They are planning to fuse the two companies together btw. - both brothers have been dead for years now.

https://www.manager-magazin.de/unternehmen/handel/aldi-nord-...

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#398

Post by user_of_the_wek » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 11:28 AM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #86

kar1181 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar things are happening in Croatia.

To the point that when I traveled around a couple of years ago along the coast, most people I met along the way seemed to be more confortable speaking German than English.

When I visited Croatia I got the impression that many older locals liked me and Germany in general. I came to realize that this does not have to be a good thing when people started to speak positively about Hitler :( Apparently, many Croatians are Nazi sympathizers and in the same vein dislike England. At least that's what my croatian friend told me.

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#399

Post by oblio » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 12:42 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #393

oblio wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I infer then you agree that free trade does not convert countries into colonies.

Free trade rarely is as free as in theory, was my point.

Regarding US states, and though I absolutely abhor playing devil's advocate on this one, the Northern states did force the Southern ones to give up their economic model at gun point.

Free trade, right? :-)

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#400

Post by imtringued » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 1:05 PM UTC

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.

Some protection is good but there is this sort of hedonic drive to keep extending protection even though only a certain amount is needed to keep industries alive. At that point it is purely a wealth transfer.