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China is the manufacturing superpower

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Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#181

Post by tokioyoyo »

saturn8601 wrote: post #30
Animats wrote: post #10

The US can't even make cell phones any more. What would it take to get that capability back?

They are trying: Purism is selling the Librem 5 USA at $1,600 From the site: "The Librem 5 USA has Made in USA Electronics with all fabrication and manufacturing done at the Purism facility. Individual components used in fabrication are sourced direct from chip makers and parts distributors. We use US companies with US fabrication whenever possible. Most distributors are based in the US with the exception of large in…

It’s just going to be another Anom-style honeypot in the end, isn’t it?

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#182

Post by gruez »

saturn8601 wrote: post #30
Animats wrote: post #10

The US can't even make cell phones any more. What would it take to get that capability back?

They are trying: Purism is selling the Librem 5 USA at $1,600 From the site: "The Librem 5 USA has Made in USA Electronics with all fabrication and manufacturing done at the Purism facility. Individual components used in fabrication are sourced direct from chip makers and parts distributors. We use US companies with US fabrication whenever possible. Most distributors are based in the US with the exception of large in…

>Purism is selling the Librem 5 USA at $1,600

That's actually worse than it seems on the surface. $1,600 might seem only twice as expensive as a "normal" phone (eg. iPhone 16, $799), but if you look at the specs it's much closer to a low-end phone that sells for >$100. For instance the redmi a3[1] sells for ~$75 and is better in every aspect CPU, GPU, display, memory, storage, battery.

[1] https://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_redmi_a3-12822.php

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#183

Post by wakawaka28 »

randomname93857 wrote: post #168
wakawaka28 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, we spend more than anyone else but also get less for our money than anyone else. It would likely be an underestimate to say that our gear and labor costs double that of any of our competition.

labor cost contributes to higher prices, but why we always ignore corporate America and middlemen contributions to price gauging?

Some middlemen are critical. I used to be more skeptical of "mere merchants" but they often take significant risks to supply us with things we need at exactly the time we need them and not a moment before. They provide a service to you by efficiently getting products into your hands, and they provide a service to the producers by handling all the logistics of distribution. Some middlemen don't add significant value, such as drop shippers (IMO). But even they might be seen as providing some value, such as making it more convenient for you to buy and assuming risks on your behalf.

People don't ever ignore corporate America's actual price gouging. I think they are sometimes conditioned to see price gouging where there is none. Domestic costs are very high, and foreign costs are low (perhaps even suspiciously low; our competition is willing to operate at a loss to put us out of business). Don't get me wrong, it would be awesome if there was some obvious price gouging at work that could be cut to solve all our problems. But it is usually just market forces that drive prices high.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#184

Post by tokioyoyo »

rat87 wrote: post #56
coliveira wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Producing real things is not just a matter of money. You need know-how and supply chains. These things left the US at least 10 years ago. It can get them back, but the costs will be staggering, and it would need to compete against China and other Asian countries.

Many of those Asian countries are our allies. If you want to argue for weapon or dual use stuff like drones that's one thing but I don't see how making cellphones help. Also we do make real things both physical and non physical

As the last 15 years has shown, being ally only works until US decides to choose themselves first. Even weird comments about Canada’s independence can sway population’s perception. There are genuine conversations about “maybe we shouldn’t have severed our ties with China” on the ground nowadays.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#185

Post by greggyb »

maxglute wrote: post #67
deepsun wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but $$$ is the currently the most accurate metric of "units of stuff" by their usefulness. At least there's no other widely used metric. So $$$ is the most correct way to measure the output.

I think it's just the simplest (also default*) way of measuring, which doesn't mean it most correct or accurate. If PRC makes 5 cars @10k for every 1 US car @50k , and each PRC car is 80% as good, which metric do you use to measure gross manufacturing. Most people would say the guy that makes 5 cars. They might say the guy that makes 1 car if the 5 car guy's cars were 10% as good. What if its 3 cars that is just as g…

The price (that consumers are willing to pay) is the only decent proxy for quality we have. Quality, of course, includes consumers’ preferences.

If the one car sells at a market price of 1/5 of another, then the only reasonable conclusion is that, as judged by consumers, one car is worth 5x as much as the other, and therefore is 5x better.

That’s what market prices are: the collective valuation of goods/services and their alternatives. Of course, the market clears at a price that is a combination (you can think of “average”, but that arithmetic is not the process by which prices are discovered) of the preferences of all consumers in the market.

If you have a preference that goes counter to the market, e.g., if you do not think those two cars are 5x different in quality, then there is a great deal for you!

If you think the worse car is only 2/5 the quality (rather than 1/5), then you can get something for half the price you’d be willing to pay if the rest of the market agreed with your preference.

If, on the other hand, you think the better car is 10x the quality of the worse car, then the same “deal” is true for you. You’d be willing to pay 10x the cost, but you only have to pay 5x the cost.

There are plenty of good macro and micro econ courses available for free if you’d like to dig into this sort of thing more.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#186

Post by greggyb »

pjbk wrote: post #74
coverband wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one assumes that those 3M strips are authentic branding... I haven't come across a single tape that offered the expected brand quality.

When I visited China some years ago "3N" was also popular. Same logo font and color, but at least they tried to avoid blatantly infringing the genuine brand.

I imagine most courts in the US would, in fact, find “3N” as blatantly infringing the 3M trademark.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#187

Post by chengiz »

ipnon wrote: post #14
advael wrote: post #3

Huh. For all the claims that US manufacturing is down, it does seem that if we adjusted per-capita it's on par with China based on the figures presented here, which I really didn't expect to see I'm no expert and of course I have no clue if it even makes sense to measure per-capita manufacturing share, and also assume a lot of other factors matter here - what kinds of things we're manufacturing, how much those produc…

You might be surprised to learn that manufacturing is larger industry in the US than our tech industry, or that our domestic oil industry is even larger. America produces more oil than any other country. America was the world's factory for over a century. This dominance only ended around 2010, when China took the lead. It was our advantage to lose, and it was the result of deliberate political action. We offshored ma…

The oil industry is not larger. I believe oil and gas is not even a separately measured category so the numbers you're getting are probably including many sectors across the board and are quoted by some vested interest like the American Petroleum Institute.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#188

Post by coliveira »

manishader wrote: post #128
pm90 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly. The reality of the political situation though is that China is an authoritarian country ruled by the PRC, increasingly acting more like a dictatorship. While China’s economy, society and people have 100% the right to grow as much as they would like, those of us living in (sonewhat) liberal democracies would still want to contain the power of the PRC (and the cult of Xi Jinping).

If 1989 had gone in a different direction and China today is just a giant version of Taiwan, how would that possibly be better as an American? We would all be trying to figure out how to get paid in digital Yuan. Instead they have huge manufacturing capacity sitting on top of a completely busted financial system. Look at the returns of Chinese equities vs GDP growth the last 20 years. It is completely absurd. The fin…

> returns of Chinese equities vs GDP growth

The equity market is just one place where companies can go to receive investment. In China this is a small part of total investment pool. So, no surprise that these equities don't go as fast as the rest of the economy, there is a lot of competition. In the US this is the reverse because traded companies are allowed to swallow more and more of the real economy.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#189

Post by wakawaka28 »

kriops wrote: post #130
wakawaka28 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A reduction in the space of possible allocations of resources isn’t good. I would personally like to eliminate allocations of resources that put me out of business and wreck the country. >It is good for any particular set of parties insofar as it hurts some other set of parties more than themselves. There's a huge misunderstanding in here somewhere. Most people don't think of their own welfare in terms of a negative…

To the second half: If some other party seeks to hurt you, it is in your best interest to prevent them from doing so. Especially if the cost is less than the harm they would inflict. Presuming peaceful coexistence, then it is not in anyone's interest to limit anything beyond the basic idea of 'my freedom ends where your begins'.

>Presuming peaceful coexistence, then it is not in anyone's interest to limit anything beyond the basic idea of 'my freedom ends where your begins'.

Let me put it another way. Your comment suggests some kind of state of maximum efficiency in which the best producer can be charged with production in a monopolistic fashion, and that would limit the amount of resource usage and toil for everyone. In an ideal world with zero possibility of conflict or other externalities like tsunamis, volcanoes, extreme weather, disease, etc., along with perfect foresight of each monopolist, that makes sense. However, we do have possibilities of disruption that make redundancy beneficial. A monopolistic structure can also grow stagnant. With more competitors you have more chances for good ideas to break through. There is a cost but it is essential to maintain some competition and redundancy across geographic and cultural bounds even if it is not the absolute mathematical minimum resource solution. This redundant effort also helps the labor market by giving people something meaningful to do that might otherwise be unmarketable.

My idea of instituting duplicate effort requires support from a lot of people, because it's not free of cost. But I think it's the right way to manage society.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#190

Post by Barrin92 »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #174
chvid wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One example is what you seem to refer to; a solar panel reading made in Vietnam - assembled in Vietnam but by a Chinese owned company with all Chinese components. Another example is the iPhone reading made in China with a dollar value of 400 but the true value add in China is much lower as all the IP, profit margins, and high value components belong somewhere else. This means that even though these numbers look very…

People buy iPhones for their software, which is all made here. Otherwise all phones are black rectangles. The hardware isn’t that important.

it's the opposite. People buy iPhones and Apple products for the quality of their hardware and the cost of the devices themselves reflects this. Apple is one of the least software focused tech companies in the world. Everyone except for American teens obsessed with the colors of their chat bubbles uses WhatsApp, Telegram or FB Messenger and other completely platform independent apps. Nobody's ever bought an iphone for Apple Maps, everyone runs around with Google software on their phone.
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