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The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

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Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#231

Post by [deleted] »

codefreeordie wrote: post #144
ajuc wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. EU is "the west" too, and it's more people than US. And maternity leaves here are around 6-12 months. Population still decreases. Significant part of EU was under communism and had baby booms then despite abysmal pay and much WORSE standards of living then than now. Now their populations go down despite the face they are much wealthier and well off. I live in Poland. There's no comparison, when I look at photos…

Go back and read Adam Smith. The thing we don't appreciate today is that having more children used to be an investment -- not just in the idea of family, but literally an investment, as kids would grow up enough to start producing more resources than they cost pretty quickly, and were a net contributor to the family. Nowadays, having kids is wonderful and great and fulfilling and life-changing and all those things --…

[deleted]

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#232

Post by floxy »

Agamus wrote: post #212
anonporridge wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, this is one of America's superpowers. America is quite unique in the world by being so significantly multicultural, and increasingly so. It can tune and balance its demographics with immigration. It is especially good at attracting the best and brightest from around the world, because there is a realistic, and well trodden path, of not only fully integrating yourself and your children into American society, bu…

Thank you for posting this! I imagine some people reading it may have not considered it before. Does this idea also extend to ethnicity? This is far from the original topic, but if I emigrate to my wife's home country, I don't think I can ever say I am ethnically "Danish", (or can I?) but she has been "ethnically" American since the day they gave her an ID. Or perhaps there is no "American" ethnicity? I would love so…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_civil_religion

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#233

Post by notahacker »

danuker wrote: post #129
timmytokyo wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The takeover of government functions by multinational corporations is a cyberpunk trope. See any of William Gibson's fiction from the early 80s.

Does that make it any less likely? https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/may/12/industry-... > For the 81 states for which estimates were available, private security workers appear to outnumber police forces in 44 countries – with a combined population of roughly 4 billion people – or more than half of the world’s total of 7.5 billion.

There's a bit of a difference between a world in which it's common for rich people and big buildings to employ security guards (as it has been for most of history) and Mr Lee's Greater Hong Kong...

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#234

Post by baybal2 »

ch4s3 wrote: post #192
hintymad wrote: post #167

This is probably an unpopular opinion: it pains me to see the manufacturing industry decline in the US. I don't really mind paying $300 for a pair of shoes. Yes, it will be expensive, but then I'll just buy fewer pairs. In return, more people get decent jobs, or so I hope. And no, I'm not talking about just the so-called "low-end" manufacturing, but also the high end. Indeed, how can we even grow "high-end" talent if…

In the hey-day of manufacturing things like shoes and clothing in the US, these things weren't considered "good" jobs. You can easily find numerous articles in national magazines from the period decrying them as dangerous, monotonous, and otherwise awful. You can still buy a $600 pair of boots or derbys from Alden of New England (I have a pair) or Viberg. But these are niche products within a niche. If you're talking…

No post body was provided.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#235

Post by colinmhayes »

IAmWorried wrote: post #197
hintymad wrote: post #167

This is probably an unpopular opinion: it pains me to see the manufacturing industry decline in the US. I don't really mind paying $300 for a pair of shoes. Yes, it will be expensive, but then I'll just buy fewer pairs. In return, more people get decent jobs, or so I hope. And no, I'm not talking about just the so-called "low-end" manufacturing, but also the high end. Indeed, how can we even grow "high-end" talent if…

The only people who this is an unpopular opinion to are the rich fat cat execs who only care about their profits and share prices. Pretty much everyone I know thinks it was a bad idea to outsource manufacturing to less than friendly countries. Thanks, Krugman.

This just isn't true. Maybe they think that because they're not aware of what would happen if manufacturing hadn't been offshored, but the vast majority of people would be extremely unhappy if the cost of all manufactured goods doubled.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#236

Post by nineplay »

hintymad wrote: post #167

This is probably an unpopular opinion: it pains me to see the manufacturing industry decline in the US. I don't really mind paying $300 for a pair of shoes. Yes, it will be expensive, but then I'll just buy fewer pairs. In return, more people get decent jobs, or so I hope. And no, I'm not talking about just the so-called "low-end" manufacturing, but also the high end. Indeed, how can we even grow "high-end" talent if…

> Yes, it will be expensive, but then I'll just buy fewer pairs

This is key though, it presupposes everyone can buy fewer pairs. There are probably a lot of people who get by on one pair of sneakers - particularly children, who are going to grow out of them anyway. These are the people that will suffer if $300 shoes become commonplace.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#237

Post by ren_engineer »

derriz wrote: post #229
hintymad wrote: post #167

This is probably an unpopular opinion: it pains me to see the manufacturing industry decline in the US. I don't really mind paying $300 for a pair of shoes. Yes, it will be expensive, but then I'll just buy fewer pairs. In return, more people get decent jobs, or so I hope. And no, I'm not talking about just the so-called "low-end" manufacturing, but also the high end. Indeed, how can we even grow "high-end" talent if…

US manufacturing output has not actually declined though - it has never been higher and has increased over 40% in the last 2 decades[1]. The perception of US manufacturing decline is widespread. My guess is that this perception is due to a number of factors. Other sectors of the US economy have grown more, so manufacturing now represents a smaller share. And also as productivity increases, fewer people are required t…

relative output matters and the US has lost massively in terms of global manufacturing compared to what it used to be.

saying US manufacturing hasn't declined is like saying IBM hasn't declined in stature compared to decades past. IBM technically has more revenue than they did in the past, but they aren't considered a technology leader anymore and very few are impressed by them, many see them as a dying company

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#238

Post by dukeofdoom »

robertlagrant wrote: post #200
dukeofdoom wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the feeling that we might be in our current predicament because a few billionaires are reading the same books, and trying to bring about some ideological nonsense into reality.

Blaming billionaires is like like any sport: fun, but nothing to do with real life.

Politicians are there to provide cover so you don't blame the billionaires directly. But you would be surprised how much Politicians bend over backwards to protect them when it matters.

Putin went after some US connected oligarchs to clean up corruption in his country. US policy towards Russian literally changed overnight and US imposed sanctions, and we have everything that followed.

In Michigan a billionaire started building a bridge on public park land. Judge sent him to prison for contempt. Michigan legislature had an emergency midnight session to get him out.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#239

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

ch4s3 wrote: post #192
hintymad wrote: post #167

This is probably an unpopular opinion: it pains me to see the manufacturing industry decline in the US. I don't really mind paying $300 for a pair of shoes. Yes, it will be expensive, but then I'll just buy fewer pairs. In return, more people get decent jobs, or so I hope. And no, I'm not talking about just the so-called "low-end" manufacturing, but also the high end. Indeed, how can we even grow "high-end" talent if…

In the hey-day of manufacturing things like shoes and clothing in the US, these things weren't considered "good" jobs. You can easily find numerous articles in national magazines from the period decrying them as dangerous, monotonous, and otherwise awful. You can still buy a $600 pair of boots or derbys from Alden of New England (I have a pair) or Viberg. But these are niche products within a niche. If you're talking…

Viberg is, or at least it used to be, Canadian.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#240

Post by no_wizard »

sbierwagen wrote: post #199
CalChris wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

18 years and 9 months . Zeihan is very funny. I don't think he is particularly 'smart' (wait for me a second here). I think he instead makes obvious conclusions from undeniable evidence like demographics and geography. The 'smarter' more institutional types from Brookings and Hoover tend to argue from policy and politics backwards and then the facts become inconvenient.

>tend to argue from policy and politics backwards and then the facts become inconvenient There's the famous UN population projections where they show Europe and Asia declining for a while, then leveling out around 2050. Why? Well, they published their reasoning: https://population.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2019_Hig... >Evidence from surveys of childbearing preferences indicate that even in populations with low…

I agree this hasn't yet seem to bear itself out, though I think statistically we have until 2029 or so before you can "call it" as absolutely 100% incorrect (that, using very armchair back of the math sort of logic here, admittedly, would allot for a first wave of sorts meeting the timeline, anything later and perhaps it should really cause some panic)

With that said, and this is really the point, I think we failed at this goal:

>populations learn to manage and mitigate some or all impeding factors

We haven't done this yet. I mean, Europe maybe more so, but have we really moved the needle on removing impeding factors to encourage people to have families?

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