The end of the world is just beginning for shipping • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by tablespoon » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:51 PM UTC

DubiousPusher wrote: post #35

prometheus76 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all government has ever been and will always be: a protection racket.

In the European tradition, the number 1 thing government protects is private property. There's a reason that deeds are recorded with the county amd that you must pay tax on real estate and that these are fundamental things local government does in even in the most backwater province where they may not even have a library system.

>> That's all government has ever been and will always be: a protection racket.

> In the European tradition, the number 1 thing government protects is private property. There's a reason that deeds are recorded with the county amd that you must pay tax on real estate and that these are fundamental things local government does in even in the most backwater province where they may not even have a library system.

Most (but not all) people who make sweeping statements like the GP's are ideological capitalists, but capitalism fails without the government record-keeping and enforcement systems you bring up:

https://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Capital-Capitalism-Triumphs-E...

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

#282

Post by peteradio » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:52 PM UTC

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…

I'm skeptical of those numbers although they may be wholly true, they may only be technically true because final "huge value add" simple assembly is done onshore while all the base parts are produced offshore.

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

#283

Post by selimthegrim » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:53 PM UTC

ajuc wrote: post #61

yrgulation wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their populations will shrink with mathematical certainty. Yeah you know why? Because both parents sitting in offices 8 hours a day have no means of looking after their kids. And a mother giving birth needs to return to work in a few months time, else she there's no pay. Oh and neither parent can give up work to raise these future adults because living expenses are too high. I don't know why everyone is so surprise…

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…

GDR had dropping birthrate as well as peaking suicide rate

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

#284

Post by Nasrudith » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:54 PM UTC

yrgulation wrote: post #41

Barrera wrote: post #26

Haven't read the book, but for those who don't know who Zeihan is, his work follows two threads of post-WWII history: 1. Deglobalization; and 2. Depopulation The article focuses mostly on deglobalization, but depopulation is in the horse pulling the cart. Many are familiar with the deglobalization idea from the last US presidential administration. The current administration kept those tariffs, and abided by the previ…

> Their populations will shrink with mathematical certainty. Yeah you know why? Because both parents sitting in offices 8 hours a day have no means of looking after their kids. And a mother giving birth needs to return to work in a few months time, else she there's no pay. Oh and neither parent can give up work to raise these future adults because living expenses are too high. I don't know why everyone is so surprise…

But working in the fields doing manual labor is what makes population explosions. It is crassly more a matter of economics. Kids are liabilities in urban and highly educated sections and an asset in rural manual labor situations. Urban vs rural has basically always seen that through different means.

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

#285

Post by spaceman_2020 » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:54 PM UTC

pphysch wrote: post #277

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #75

I’ve been following Zeihan since his first book. I’m yet to find a credible counter argument to his theses. And he’s being proven right at an alarming pace this year. So far this year we’ve had: - A land war in Europe - Food insecurity in the developing world - Breakdown of supply chains and shipping routes - Nation states resorting to seizing each other’s ships (see Greece-Iran issue recently). Everything that he ha…

> Nation states resorting to seizing each other’s ships (see Greece-Iran issue recently). The US Navy is a major player here, having recently seized Venezuelan and Iranian tankers on the basis of violating sanctions. Only in retaliation did Iran begin seizing boats. This undermines the thesis that the US Navy is somehow protecting the stability of global trade. They're actively destabilizing to advance Washington's h…

> You can absolutely argue against this. It's called automation.

You're viewing it from a myopic production-focused viewpoint. Whereas the problem is our consumption-led economic order and its reliant on adding an ever increasing number of consumers.

Compared to young people:

A) Machines do not consume goods and trinkets. Western economies are based on consumption, not production.

B) Machines do not pay taxes, making it harder and harder for the state to pay for the welfare of ageing populations.

C) Automation simply doesn't work for service-focused work. Otherwise there wouldn't be record number of job openings and labor shortages in the US right now.

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

#286

Post by ren_engineer » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:55 PM UTC

derriz wrote: post #257

ren_engineer wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't think using IBM is an appropriate comparison. It is a company in actual decline - revenues peaked at about $110B just over ten years ago and were less than $60B last year. Like I said US manufacturing output is growing and has been growing. And I don't subscribe to a zero-sum view. Just because other historically poorer countries have grown economically doesn't hurt Americans (the opposite) or their way of li…

the US objectively loses a massive amount of foreign policy leverage by not being the largest manufacturer anymore, this is undeniable and obvious when you see how many countries are openly not sticking with the US with regards to Ukraine because they can just side with China, Russia, and India.

The US has gone from 40% of global GDP in the 60s to less than 20%, they've lost relative power when it comes to global issues as a result of that.

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

#287

Post by nazgulnarsil » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:55 PM UTC

tacker2000 wrote: post #270

nostrademons wrote: post #2

Interesting to combine this line of thinking with the transition from nation-states to market-states: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1744057060106386... The power vacuum that's arisen from populism & isolationism is about to create a gigantic untapped market for firms that provide the services of a state - defense, dispute resolution, and currency - for a fee, to gigantic multinational corporations. At t…

Interesting idea, but where might the physical boundaries of such a entity be? Since we are physical beings… would the corporations buy land to live on? Would we be all just living this in a virtual world? Would we be on a gigantic spaceship?

Gated communities, like Brazil

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

#288

Post by puranjay » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:58 PM UTC

arcturus17 wrote: post #114

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #75

I’ve been following Zeihan since his first book. I’m yet to find a credible counter argument to his theses. And he’s being proven right at an alarming pace this year. So far this year we’ve had: - A land war in Europe - Food insecurity in the developing world - Breakdown of supply chains and shipping routes - Nation states resorting to seizing each other’s ships (see Greece-Iran issue recently). Everything that he ha…

You can’t argue with demographics, so you wouldn’t have argued with Malthus? He was completely wrong, at the very least in timescale.

You can't argue against demographics from a economic and geopolitical viewpoint.

To create a young person, you need a fixed number of years. If you want an 18 year old to hit college and take on a $100k loan (or join your army and shoot your enemies), you will have to have started in 2004. There is no way to accelerate this.

Even if you poured all your energy and resources into getting people to reproduce more starting today, you won't see an active worker or soldier or college student/scholar until 2040.

What happens in the interim 18 years?

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

#289

Post by ren_engineer » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:58 PM UTC

pas wrote: post #254

ren_engineer wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

offshoring is short term optimization and has long term negative consequences by killing the entire ecosystem it takes to go from raw material to finished products. The problem is that economists only think 1st order effects, not 2nd and 3rd order. Charlie Munger has a pretty good take on it and how many economists and our own government officials are in complete denial about it: >Now let’s follow and second and thir…

wow, that's some high-density bullshit. > But which nation is going to be growing faster in economic terms? well, likely both. because of trade and specialization. when the US offshored shoemaking people did not just went to the beach and called it a day. both capital and labor got reallocated for better returns. (yes, not everyone moved to the service industry, unfortunately not everybody was able or willing to chan…

>wow, that's some high-density bullshit.

your response to the argument that economists are wrong is to post more stuff from economists that don't look at 2nd order effects? China doesn't practice anything resembling free trade and as a result they are dominating naïve Western economies

the biggest problem is people who worship "free trade" as a religion while smarter nations use it as a tool to bash them in the head

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

#290

Post by pphysch » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:59 PM UTC

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #285

pphysch wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nation states resorting to seizing each other’s ships (see Greece-Iran issue recently). The US Navy is a major player here, having recently seized Venezuelan and Iranian tankers on the basis of violating sanctions. Only in retaliation did Iran begin seizing boats. This undermines the thesis that the US Navy is somehow protecting the stability of global trade. They're actively destabilizing to advance Washington's h…

> You can absolutely argue against this. It's called automation. You're viewing it from a myopic production-focused viewpoint. Whereas the problem is our consumption-led economic order and its reliant on adding an ever increasing number of consumers. Compared to young people: A) Machines do not consume goods and trinkets. Western economies are based on consumption, not production. B) Machines do not pay taxes, making…

> Western economies are based on consumption, not production.

Hence their present downfall.

> Machines do not pay taxes, making it harder and harder for the state to pay for the welfare of ageing populations.

Taxes are a relic of the long-gone physical money era. Vulgar taxation is a legacy technology that provides more waste than utility in the 21st century.

> Automation simply doesn't work for service-focused work.

Yes it does, increasingly over time. I just ordered my lunch through a virtual cafeteria cashier that was literally a human until a month ago. Someone still prepared it by hand by putting ~10 spoonfuls of different ingredients into a tortilla, but that is already being automated in more advanced societies.