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How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

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Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

#71

Post by thrill »

netsharc wrote: post #8
JSR_FDED wrote: post #4

It’s like people excited about the new datacenter being built in their town, think of all the jobs that will bring they cry. Nobody realizes it takes 6 people to run a datacenter. Bringing “manufacturing back to the US” is a fool’s errand. The future of manufacturing is automation, not jobs.

I saw a video today on Instagram (from Tiktok), AI generated of course, where rows and rows of people sit at sewing machines sewing shirts, but instead of the typical Asians one commonly expects to see, they're all overweight American-looking people...

Sometimes the darkest humor is the most accurate.

Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

#72

Post by 999900000999 »

danaris wrote: post #66
999900000999 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll start forcing us to make Nikes in prison. Even then the quality wouldn't be up to par. Since we've collectively agreed we don't need to have due process anymore, I guess I can look forward to making shoes will I'm being indefinitely detained.

But even that is impossible in the near-to-medium term. The US just doesn't have the supply chain that China does. You need to be able to source the materials, and they have, effectively, entire cities dedicated almost wholly to producing those "intermediate" raw materials—eg, things like the grommets for the shoelaces, the big sheets of faux leather that can be cut to the right size & shape to make the body, etc. Th…

>cloud-cuckoo-land

Welcome, this is where we're going to be for foreseeable future. Prison made inferior Nikes will end up costing 500$ a pair. Not that anyone is going to have money to buy them.

As you mentioned we'd probably need to still source from other countries. The bigger issue here is the USD may lose its reserve currency status.

The rest of the world might just trade in Euros and Yuan. Inflation will truly take off then.

Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

#73

Post by ttoinou »

bpt3 wrote: post #59
rayiner wrote: post #42

Americans need to get over their view of “Asia” as being about making shoes. When I was working in engineering in the early aughts, we mocked the Chinese as being able only to copy American technology. Today, China is competitive with or ahead of America in key technology areas, including nuclear power, AI, EVs, and batteries. We need to anticipate a future where China is equal to America on a per capita basis, but f…

Their population is declining, and they are a long way away from parity with the west on a per-capita basis. I think China missed their opportunity. Also, the UK hasn't dominated finance for a century and has never been dominant in services, so it doesn't seem like an apt comparison.

But look at per capita per purchasing power

Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

#74

Post by gorfian_robot »

tmaly wrote: post #57

I think the one thing I am not seeing much discussion on is, will the end consumer pay for these $150 sneakers or will they simply switch to lower cost alternative brands?

fun fact: sneakers are already $150. went shoe shopping at a "sketchers warehouse" and found a pair that fit well and noped them back on the shelf when I checked the price.

Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

#75

Post by edm0nd »

rayiner wrote: post #42

Americans need to get over their view of “Asia” as being about making shoes. When I was working in engineering in the early aughts, we mocked the Chinese as being able only to copy American technology. Today, China is competitive with or ahead of America in key technology areas, including nuclear power, AI, EVs, and batteries. We need to anticipate a future where China is equal to America on a per capita basis, but f…

[flagged]

Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

#76

Post by fach »

JSR_FDED wrote: post #4

It’s like people excited about the new datacenter being built in their town, think of all the jobs that will bring they cry. Nobody realizes it takes 6 people to run a datacenter. Bringing “manufacturing back to the US” is a fool’s errand. The future of manufacturing is automation, not jobs.

What's comical is the US commerce secretary literally says this out loud:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsyyGHuPR88

Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

#77

Post by dboreham »

Clubber wrote: post #68
grayhatter wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain the strategic value like I'm 5? I see people reference this idea all the time, but I'm unconvinced it's actually valuable enough to be worth it given all the other downsides. I don't actually believe it's a positive value proposition. I see the argument for things of military significance. The common one is electronic components. But PCBs manufacturing is easy to spinup quickly. Which leave the critical compo…

Imagine if China decided to invade Taiwan like they've been threatening to do for a while. They would instantly cut off all exports to the US, because that's the smart thing to do. They would probably blockade Japan and other countries as well to keep them from exporting to the US, because that's the smart thing to do. Now since our supply chains were greatly disrupted (remember COVID?) we can only go to war with the…

Well needless to say all this has been realized about 2000 years ago and there are legions of smart people ensuring that it isn't a problem. Heck I used to ride the light rail in Sunnyvale past an old fab that had notices on the doors saying it was owned by the US Navy.

Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

#79

Post by vlovich123 »

bpt3 wrote: post #59
rayiner wrote: post #42

Americans need to get over their view of “Asia” as being about making shoes. When I was working in engineering in the early aughts, we mocked the Chinese as being able only to copy American technology. Today, China is competitive with or ahead of America in key technology areas, including nuclear power, AI, EVs, and batteries. We need to anticipate a future where China is equal to America on a per capita basis, but f…

Their population is declining, and they are a long way away from parity with the west on a per-capita basis. I think China missed their opportunity. Also, the UK hasn't dominated finance for a century and has never been dominant in services, so it doesn't seem like an apt comparison.

> I think China missed their opportunity.

I think so too prior to the Trump tarrifs. Now their influence abroad is picking up steam again, with former WW2 enemies now becoming trade allies. I think this has reinvigorated their opportunity.

Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

#80

Post by giardini »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #64
bpt3 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their population is declining, and they are a long way away from parity with the west on a per-capita basis. I think China missed their opportunity. Also, the UK hasn't dominated finance for a century and has never been dominant in services, so it doesn't seem like an apt comparison.

> Their population is declining Not where it matters. China has a much larger under-employed population base than the US has. They still have a few hundred million peasant farmers whose children can and are getting educated and moving to the city. Their pool of labour is growing while the US's is stagnant. Not that it needs to grow -- over the last decade or so China's factory employment has been relatively constant…

We don't need "peasant farmers" to educate, we need AIs to program!8-))

The race between manual labor and machine labor is heating up anew. We don't yet have humanoid robots but they're on the design table, so it may be time to fasten your seat belt.

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