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The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

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Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#41

Post by brabel »

diego_moita wrote: post #26

Funny how things change. In the 90s the U.S., EU and Japan were the champions of free trade for industrial products and services. However, when it would come to agricultural goods they were the champions of tariffs and protectionism. Why? Easy: because 3rd world countries were very competitive on agriculture. Egypt had better cotton, Argentina had beef, Brazil had orange juice, Cuba had sugar, etc, etc. 3rd world cou…

This hypocrisy is why BRICS is so inviting to those countries that have suffered from the status quo for a long time.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#42

Post by translucyd »

diego_moita wrote: post #26

Funny how things change. In the 90s the U.S., EU and Japan were the champions of free trade for industrial products and services. However, when it would come to agricultural goods they were the champions of tariffs and protectionism. Why? Easy: because 3rd world countries were very competitive on agriculture. Egypt had better cotton, Argentina had beef, Brazil had orange juice, Cuba had sugar, etc, etc. 3rd world cou…

Not only that, but the US made a trap for themselves: Theres no know how and capable people to replicate the tech. This take decades, 2 or even 3 to build.

I have the impression that the China today is the result of the planning made in the 90s, implemented in the 00s. What planning the west did last 20 years? I think the west already lost and this is the tantrum. :(

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#43

Post by xvilka »

nradov wrote: post #30
EGreg wrote: post #18

If there’s one broad consensus in American policymaking circles today, it’s that global supply chains need to become less dependent on China. I agree, and the other way, in many BRICS and other countries, there is a broad consensus that global economies need to become less dependent on US Dollars. Both efforts at decentralization and lessening concentration of power are probably going to lead to new good results, as…

There is no consensus among the BRICS or other countries. All of them would like to have alternatives to the US Dollar for international trade settlement. None of them can agree on what that alternative should be. For example, there's no way that India will agree to widespread use of the Chinese Yuan.

In theory it can be done by creating a new currency, with no capital controls.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#44

Post by TheGigaChad »

diego_moita wrote: post #26

Funny how things change. In the 90s the U.S., EU and Japan were the champions of free trade for industrial products and services. However, when it would come to agricultural goods they were the champions of tariffs and protectionism. Why? Easy: because 3rd world countries were very competitive on agriculture. Egypt had better cotton, Argentina had beef, Brazil had orange juice, Cuba had sugar, etc, etc. 3rd world cou…

[dead]

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#45

Post by cnj »

Jupe wrote: post #3

> This will take time. Decoupling is not an instantaneous process. China spent two decades becoming the workshop of the world; the rest of the developing world isn’t going to mirror that accomplishment in one or two years. It is all about dependency trees. The US decides to divert imports from China to other countries, which in turn may import from China. This reminds me of my day-to-day work so much; especially w.r.…

Answering your technical question: Some companies let you deploy their "building blocks" onto multiple clouds (you typically choose the exact region/availability zone), and then also allow you to build proper multi-cloud deployments. There is usually no switch to flip, but these deployments (if properly setup) should tolerate if one region/cloud goes down.

Two examples from the top of my head:

Confluent Kafka: https://developer.confluent.io/courses/hybrid-cloud/intro/ MongoDB Atlas: https://www.mongodb.com/docs/atlas/cluster-config/multi-clou...

For higher level services, I can't think of an example. For the examples above, you're still thinking at VM level, whereas you typically don't do that if you purchase a higher level service.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#46

Post by sudosysgen »

strangescript wrote: post #37
diego_moita wrote: post #26

Funny how things change. In the 90s the U.S., EU and Japan were the champions of free trade for industrial products and services. However, when it would come to agricultural goods they were the champions of tariffs and protectionism. Why? Easy: because 3rd world countries were very competitive on agriculture. Egypt had better cotton, Argentina had beef, Brazil had orange juice, Cuba had sugar, etc, etc. 3rd world cou…

Having better beef doesn't translate to building weapons or global communication networks. Spinning up a new cattle ranch if supply is cut off is trivial. They are not on the same level. The movements we are seeing now are matters of national security.

It takes time and it has cascading effects.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#47

Post by jszymborski »

diego_moita wrote: post #26

Funny how things change. In the 90s the U.S., EU and Japan were the champions of free trade for industrial products and services. However, when it would come to agricultural goods they were the champions of tariffs and protectionism. Why? Easy: because 3rd world countries were very competitive on agriculture. Egypt had better cotton, Argentina had beef, Brazil had orange juice, Cuba had sugar, etc, etc. 3rd world cou…

Call it whatever you want, if freely trading with liberal democracies is protectionism then I am a big fan.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#48

Post by ericmay »

diego_moita wrote: post #26

Funny how things change. In the 90s the U.S., EU and Japan were the champions of free trade for industrial products and services. However, when it would come to agricultural goods they were the champions of tariffs and protectionism. Why? Easy: because 3rd world countries were very competitive on agriculture. Egypt had better cotton, Argentina had beef, Brazil had orange juice, Cuba had sugar, etc, etc. 3rd world cou…

"decoupling" tends to be how it's described in media, but every day people know exactly what it is which is "protectionism" (as if that's necessarily a bad word).

I'm also unsure about your comment about Southeast Asia competing with rich countries on industrial goods. It seems to me it's more specifically about China and not so much other countries in Southeast Asia.

I wouldn't disagree with your offhand comment about the 90s and such and the US, EU, and Japan. But I'm not really sure what the point of it is given that countries such as China (not the only one) have maintained protectionist policies. Since many didn't go along with the idea of free trade and the theory that free trade would open up global markets and raise everyone's living standard (which was probably just marketing from those who stood to profit) you can't then blame the US, EU, Japan, or others for reverting back to more protectionist policies to be in line with how most other countries tend to operate.

Hey we should all do this thing that stands to benefit everyone, but we all have to do it

Starts doing it

Hey we all have to do it or it won't work

No change

Ok fine we're not going to do it then

Repercussions/results/etc.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#49

Post by Tuna-Fish »

reisse wrote: post #24
throwawaymaths wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When all's said and done, Chinese factories haven't slowed down and Chinese GDP is still rising (by more than American GDP) which tells you that the "decoupling" has to be in some respect illusory. Can we really know that anymore? China has stopped publishing a majority of economic indicators.

If you don't believe Chinese statistics, you can check that US import from China is back to pre-COVID volumes and rising. Honestly, I'm tired of this "oh they're totalitarian, so we cannot believe their statistics when it's good" stance. It looks so much like a comfortable self-deceit.

It's just not that people distrust Chinese statistics, it's that they have stopped publishing statistics.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#50

Post by no_wizard »

Jupe wrote: post #3

> This will take time. Decoupling is not an instantaneous process. China spent two decades becoming the workshop of the world; the rest of the developing world isn’t going to mirror that accomplishment in one or two years. It is all about dependency trees. The US decides to divert imports from China to other countries, which in turn may import from China. This reminds me of my day-to-day work so much; especially w.r.…

In order for automatic switching to work though, you'd have to propagate everything between all 3 services, at all times, no?

Isn't that cost prohibitive?

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