The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself • Hacker News Board

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#81

Post by yorwba » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 4:49 PM UTC

lefstathiou wrote: post #58

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…

I think decoupling is the right word. These south East Asian countries were unindustrialized nations before the hundreds of billions of foreign direct investment and hundreds of billions of intellectual property that transferred from the West to the East. America exported its manufacturing know how for decades, and now it is taking it back as the trade is no longer as favorable. Seems rational to me. SE Asia came out…

"Decoupling" mostly involves increasing investment in South and Southeast Asia to set up alternatives to Chinese suppliers. America is hardly going to take back much of the low-skill, low-wage, long-hours manufacturing of cheap consumer products that was offshored decades ago.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#82

Post by nvm0n2 » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 4:51 PM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #55

jszymborski wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The product is shipped overland from a Chinese factory to Vietnam or Korea, then some screws are tightened, some paint is slapped on, or a label is applied, and the product is re-exported. The whole point of this article is to rebute the point you've made. From the article: > The Economist’s basic argument is that because many of the goods exported to the U.S. from countries like Vietnam contain a lot of parts and…

Total 2023 Chinese exports are projected to be fairly close to what they were in 2021, which is not that bad given macroeconomic trends across the world. The risk for companies to build supply chains that completely avoid China is that they will be outcompeted by competitors who won't and who will make use of these loopholes.

Wouldn't that be extremely bad, given that 2021 was a year with many lockdowns and COVID related disruption especially in China? Surely 2023 should have experienced a rebound?

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#83

Post by woooooo » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 4:57 PM UTC

sdfghswe wrote: post #79

l3mure wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The United States was told last year that Saudi security forces were shooting, shelling and abusing groups of migrants, but it chose not to raise the issue publicly. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/26/world/middleeast/saudi-ki...

So? I'm talking about unfriendly countries. The fact that the Saudis abuse and kill migrants doesn't make them unfriendly to the West. Are you trying to make a point? Make a point.

The person I was talking to was moralizing. My point was that it's power politics, and the moralizing is for suckers.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#84

Post by whats_a_quasar » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 5:01 PM UTC

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…

It's not protectionism. Most of that manufacturing is not moving back to the U.S., it's moving to U.S. allies like Vietnam or Mexico, that would also be called third world countries.

It really is what it says on the tin. It's a risk for the U.S. to be economically dependent on a state whose government does not share American values, and that is threatening its neighbors with invasion.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#85

Post by whats_a_quasar » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 5:06 PM UTC

woooooo wrote: post #14

sdfghswe wrote: post #12

> Biden’s “friend-shoring” initiatives What's CRAZY to me is why this hasn't always been the case. Who thought it was a good idea to depend on unfriendly countries like China? Right, I know who thought that. Those who also claimed "if we trade with them enough, they'll like us" did. Fuck depending on China, or Russia, for that matter. The West should have all its critical dependencies within it. At most we could get…

They weren't unfriendly until we decided to make them so about 5 years ago. Policymakers in the late 90s couldn't necessarily predict swings in American opinion 20 years later.

China's government wants to attack the people of Taiwan and occupy a sovereign, democratic nation. The U.S. didn't "make" Russia and China unfriendly, they decided to be unfriendly by belligerently threatening their neighbors.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#86

Post by sudosysgen » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 5:06 PM UTC

nvm0n2 wrote: post #82

sudosysgen wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Total 2023 Chinese exports are projected to be fairly close to what they were in 2021, which is not that bad given macroeconomic trends across the world. The risk for companies to build supply chains that completely avoid China is that they will be outcompeted by competitors who won't and who will make use of these loopholes.

Wouldn't that be extremely bad, given that 2021 was a year with many lockdowns and COVID related disruption especially in China? Surely 2023 should have experienced a rebound?

The average Chinese was locked down for less than the average American, and while the lockdowns were far more severe, they weren't much worse for the economy.

2021 was a great year for Chinese exports especially due to COVID. It's one of the countries that suffered the least economic damage, and it's exports actually grew immensely compared to previous years.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#87

Post by projectazorian » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 5:09 PM UTC

reisse wrote: post #68

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US import from China is back to pre-COVID volumes and rising. Source?

Here you go, hope US government is reliable enough for you https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html

This data shows that imports from China are down significantly year on year, though?

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#88

Post by xwolfi » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 5:09 PM UTC

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #8

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.…

> 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 is already happening with more than ~80% of products that are "Made in Vietnam" and at least ~40% of products that are "Made in Korea." Not only do the raw materials come from China, but most of the work is done in China. The product is shipped overland from a Chinese factory t…

I'm in China, and I think you're wrong. The situation is absolutely catastrophic and we're slowly falling down the cliff. Those GDP numbers are BS, in the US, France or China, since they count public spending. Anyone can build ghost cities for billions, add it to GDP and show a growth of GDP: meant nothing more than a big dick number.

Truth is when they ask a random dude on TV if he's ok with drinking Japanese radioactive water (the trendy distraction these days), he replies that he didn't intend to make children so he doesn't care if he loses fertility due to contaminated water...

Nobody gives a fuck about shit, we all pretend to work while they pretend to pay us, we get jailed for months in our own homes when there's a stupid sneeze in the city and get all released under the "it's just a fever, wait a few days" admonitions of the same doctors who captured us when we all get it at the same time, we're either completely ignoring the communist bullshit and doing nothing they expect us to do, or totally believing in it and doing only the BS they expect us to do, which produces nothing.

Kids are unemployed, elderlies are fascists, politicians are spineless and factories impotent. The GDP growth is as real as the president's official salary.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#89

Post by giantrobot » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 5:11 PM UTC

davoneus wrote: post #64

bluGill wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GM traces all their dependency trees down to the mines or other sources of raw materials. This is often 6-7 levels deep. However they know what to watch for in the news and so when something happens they can jump to find an alternate, which often gives them 3 months before the production lines stop. They also do this so that they know nobody is using slave labor.

Yeah, I'm not convinced, given GM's (and most automakers) reaction to Covid and the continuing chip shortage. Maybe things have changed; I'd certainly be glad to hear it. But we all know of Wall Street's long history of hatred towards physical inventory.

> But we all know of Wall Street's long history of hatred towards physical inventory.

Accounting and taxes on physical inventory are pretty stupid and cause a lot of Wall Street's hate for inventory. The more costs there are to storing inventory the less desirable or even viable it is to store inventory.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#90

Post by projectazorian » Wed, Aug 30, 2023, 5:14 PM UTC

nstart wrote: post #60

From the article, wrt how the economist claims that decoupling is phoney because the underlying export by china in the process remains the same: > Startlingly, however, The Economist provides no actual data to support this claim. Ha! This was a reason I unsubscribed from the economist. A lot of times it makes broad claims and then leaves out the details to support said claim. Almost like it expects the reader to trea…

> This was a reason I unsubscribed from the economist. A lot of times it makes broad claims and then leaves out the details to support said claim. Almost like it expects the reader to treat the economist like a first hand source and therefore no citation needed.

This is kind of the point of The Economist; its intended audience is busy executives who are on board with its ideological bias and don’t care much about footnotes and citations. Sounds like it wasn’t the publication for you.