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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?

#191

Post by shrubble »

edm0nd wrote: post #75
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]

About 20 years ago it was well-known that the cheap Cisco stuff on eBay was authentic in that there were say, two shifts worth of running the production line for Cisco and a partial shift for unofficial production sold outside of Cisco authorized channels and with no profit going to Cisco.

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

#192

Post by teachrdan »

Clubber wrote: post #69
ravelantunes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author’s point is that the lower cost of goods coming from Asia results in increased demand, which then generates more jobs in the post-manufacturing part of the chain.

I see your point. I suppose a counterpoint is now shoes won't be so disposable and professions for cobblers and the like will be in higher demand.

> shoes won't be so disposable and professions for cobblers and the like will be in higher demand.

It doesn't necessarily follow that more expensive shoes will be easier to repair. It's more likely that shoes will simultaneously become more expensive for the consumer AND lower quality and therefore even less amenable to repair.

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

#193

Post by ebruchez »

throw310822 wrote: post #106
edm0nd wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Yeah, it's real easy when you employ an army of nation-state hackers No it's not, even if it were true. Is it really that hard to admit that the Chinese people are industrious, smart, ambitious and have extremely high education level? And that the state has directed the development of the country wisely in the past 40 years?

This sounds like official Chinese propaganda. This was truer at some point, but things have started turning bad for China with the advent of Xi Jinping. 20-25 years ago, the country was hopeful, developing fast, opening up. Foreigners started moving there, seeing it as a new land of opportunity. Much of that is gone. The economy is in bad shape, youth unemployment is massive, the country is a dictatorship, nobody wants to move there (and China doesn't want you to anyway). I'll quote the Economist: "When Mr Xi took over in 2012, China was changing fast. The middle class was growing, private firms were booming and citizens were connecting on social media. A different leader might have seen these as opportunities. Mr Xi saw only threats."

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

#194

Post by 3abiton »

bombcar wrote: post #184
myrmidon wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fishing is less profitable for the whole UK than Warhammer. This sounded completely insane to me. I tried to look up numbers and found that Games Workshop brings in > 0.5 billion in revenue (!!), compared to all of UKs fisheries at 1 billion-ish (profit margins are, as you'd expect, pretty favorable for the plastic figurines that they don' even paint for you). Thanks for this interesting fact.

There's a problem with just directly comparing them - because JKR probably brings in more revenue to the UK than fishing, with Potter copyrights. But most of that revenue goes to JKR, whereas most of the fishing revenue may end up in "working class" people's pockets.

> But most of that revenue goes to JKR, whereas most of the fishing revenue may end up in "working class" people's pockets.

I am sure JKR has to pay taxes still, which goes back to the government.

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

#195

Post by wahern »

pjc50 wrote: post #102
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…

> US will find itself in the same position the UK is in now The thing is .. there's a point here, but it's not at all tied in with physical products. People are obsessed with one side of the ledger while refusing to see the other. Most of the stuff the UK is struggling with (transport, healthcare, energy) are "state capacity" issues. Things where the state is unavoidably involved and having better, more decisive lead…

> Fishing is less profitable for the whole UK than Warhammer.

There are 3x as many fishermen in the UK than employees of Games Workshop, and much more again if you count the number of related fishery jobs.

At the end of the day, politicians and voters alike respond more to employment than nominal monetary figures. A broader employment base is generally better for social and political stability than explicit wealth redistribution (e.g. tax + entitlements). The latter is what economic theory tends to emphasize--i.e. equivocate incomes based on state wealth redistribution schemes--but such economic theory is how we got Trump, Brexit, and a host of other ills. Economics hasn't figured out, yet, how to price the constituent inputs that produce political and economic stability. GDP, Gini, per capita income, employment rate, etc metrics are gross approximations that work well until they don't (though they're still better than rhetoric and handwaving). But to be fair, social and political theorists haven't solved that problem, either; at least, not with a rigorous quantification model.

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

#196

Post by singron »

aimor wrote: post #89

Trying to summarize the summary for myself From a $100 shoe that sells for $76: - $24 goes overseas (22 cost, 2 freight) - $8 goes to the US gov't (3 import, 2 Nike tax, 3 Footlocker tax) - $33 goes to US employees or businesses (5 Nike marketing, 11 Nike expenses, 17 Footlocker expenses) - $5 goes to Nike (11% return) - $6 goes to Footlocker (8% return) But now with 100% tariffs, it's a $100 shoe that sells for $100…

Just to say the obvious, they are also going to sell fewer/cheaper shoes according to the demand elasticity since the consumer price is 32% higher. Despite Nike making slightly more on a per-shoe basis, they are probably going to make less overall.

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

#198

Post by throw0101c »

pjc50 wrote: post #102
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…

> US will find itself in the same position the UK is in now The thing is .. there's a point here, but it's not at all tied in with physical products. People are obsessed with one side of the ledger while refusing to see the other. Most of the stuff the UK is struggling with (transport, healthcare, energy) are "state capacity" issues. Things where the state is unavoidably involved and having better, more decisive lead…

> […] are "state capacity" issues. Things where the state is unavoidably involved and having better, more decisive leadership and not getting bogged down in consultations, would make a big difference.

See "America needs a bigger, better bureaucracy":

> I believe that the U.S. suffers from a distinct lack of state capacity. We’ve outsourced many of our core government functions to nonprofits and consultants, resulting in cost bloat and the waste of taxpayer money. We’ve farmed out environmental regulation to the courts and to private citizens, resulting in paralysis for industry and infrastructure alike. And we’ve left ourselves critically vulnerable to threats like pandemics and — most importantly — war.

[…]

> If government spending isn’t going to pay government workers, it must be going to pay people who work in the private sector — nonprofits, for-profit contractors, consultants, and so on. In other words, state capacity is being outsourced. But this graph doesn’t actually capture the full scope of the decline, because it doesn’t include outsourcing via unfunded mandates — things that the government could do, but instead simply orders the private sector to do, without providing the funding.

* https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/america-needs-a-bigger-better-...

Mentions the paper "State Capacity: What Is It, How We Lost It, And How to Get It Back" (22pp, so short):

* https://www.niskanencenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/br...

And the book Bring Back the Bureaucrats: Why More Federal Workers Will Lead to Better (and Smaller!) Government:

* https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/templeton-press/bring...

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

#199

Post by logifail »

According to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41283368 we should be linking to the primary source.

Q: Is there a specific reason* that this thread links to threadreaderapp?

* other than politics, which we try Really Hard not to bring into HN...

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

#200

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

aimor wrote: post #89

Trying to summarize the summary for myself From a $100 shoe that sells for $76: - $24 goes overseas (22 cost, 2 freight) - $8 goes to the US gov't (3 import, 2 Nike tax, 3 Footlocker tax) - $33 goes to US employees or businesses (5 Nike marketing, 11 Nike expenses, 17 Footlocker expenses) - $5 goes to Nike (11% return) - $6 goes to Footlocker (8% return) But now with 100% tariffs, it's a $100 shoe that sells for $100…

Is there a reason, be-it special buildings, tools, skills that shoes can not be made in the US to avoid the tariffs?

If Nike shoes exceed the cost of domestically produced shoes, isn’t that… like… kind of the point?

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