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The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

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Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#191

Post by joelthelion »

nicodjimenez wrote: post #180
hintymad wrote: post #167

This is probably an unpopular opinion: it pains me to see the manufacturing industry decline in the US. I don't really mind paying $300 for a pair of shoes. Yes, it will be expensive, but then I'll just buy fewer pairs. In return, more people get decent jobs, or so I hope. And no, I'm not talking about just the so-called "low-end" manufacturing, but also the high end. Indeed, how can we even grow "high-end" talent if…

If the opinion you share is unpopular, it's because it's correct, and the truth is the enemy of the oligarchs that are scamming citizens in the US and the West in general. US is now a scam that exports inflation and crap 2nd rate weaponry. Scam economy, scam military industrial complex, scam military, scam president, scam everything. If you have a feeling the US is in decline, it's because it is. The situation is muc…

Meh. Go to any other country and you'll soon discover that the US isn't so bad. And I say that as a European who's been to quite a few countries.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#192

Post by ch4s3 »

hintymad wrote: post #167

This is probably an unpopular opinion: it pains me to see the manufacturing industry decline in the US. I don't really mind paying $300 for a pair of shoes. Yes, it will be expensive, but then I'll just buy fewer pairs. In return, more people get decent jobs, or so I hope. And no, I'm not talking about just the so-called "low-end" manufacturing, but also the high end. Indeed, how can we even grow "high-end" talent if…

In the hey-day of manufacturing things like shoes and clothing in the US, these things weren't considered "good" jobs. You can easily find numerous articles in national magazines from the period decrying them as dangerous, monotonous, and otherwise awful. You can still buy a $600 pair of boots or derbys from Alden of New England (I have a pair) or Viberg. But these are niche products within a niche.

If you're talking about high end manufacturing like cars, planes, specialized steel or similar we still do tons of that in the US. In inflation adjusted dollar amounts we produce more than ever, it just doesn't take very many people to do those things anymore. Robots do most of the jobs people used to do in that kind of manufacturing.

Ship building has been killed largely by the low cost of over land transit since the highway system was built and government protectionism vis-a-vis the Jones act which allowed ship builders in the US to become uncompetitive. But realistically we never had a special advantage in ship building, beyond build a bunch of naval vessels really quickly.

> I mean, can a country as large as the US be really competitive without manufacturing?

We do manufacture a lot of things, just very few people work in manufacturing. We're also a world leader in agriculture. Services are fine, and very lucrative. One of our chief exports is education, which is a service.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#193

Post by dragonwriter »

vbezhenar wrote: post #56
BatFastard wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would imagine that this would first manifest itself in smaller countries. For example Mali employs the Wagner group out of Russia as a supplement for its Army. And I believe they are used by other countries as well. I don't see nuclear-armed nations using private companies, but possibly being the source of troops and technology. Really I don't see U.S. citizens joining mercenary groups, quality of life is too good.…

US mercenaries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_(company) One issue with mercenaries is that they're not subject to military laws and will be hang if captured. Like it happens with few american citizens captured in Ukraine by DNR.

> Like it happens with few american citizens captured in Ukraine by DNR.

The American and UK citizens captured by Russia and it's proxies have been regular Ukrainian soldiers subject to military law and protected by the Geneva Convention, but that doesn't matter because Russia and their proxies are ignoring international law (and not just where it comes to treatment of prisoners.)

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#194

Post by MR4D »

kapp_in_life wrote: post #106
next_xibalba wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of his predictions have failed? How many are timebound and falsifiable? I am not specifically familiar with Zehain, but I am very well acquainted with figures who generate many predictions, have a small number become true, and then get treated as oracles for years before the truth is exposed: predicting the future in massive, chaotic systems is nearly impossible.

Also some of these seem like almost vacuous statements. Predicting food insecurity(or any other type of insecurity) in the developing world is not a groundbreaking prediction.

Here’s one for you:

He predicted the invasion of Ukraine back in this video from 2017 (actually earlier, but this was the easiest source for me to cite): https://youtu.be/rkuhWA9GdCo

The whole video is pretty short, but he mentions Ukraine about 2 1/2 minutes in.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#195

Post by bombcar »

Engineering-MD wrote: post #150
divided wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a stretch to call enforcing terms of service “government-like” rules and enforcement. This is like calling a restaurant hanging up a “no shirt, no shoes, no service” sign the same. And thus far I haven’t seen them issue fines or imprisonment over breaking their rules.

It’s a continuum though. The restaurant example is limited scope and limited enforcement. Compare it instead to a school/university which does enforce code of conducts etc and suspends students. Similar with housing organisations.

And you already have it happening to businesses; companies such as payment processors effectively wield life/death decisions over many types of businesses, for better or for worse.

Can Google or PayPal legally kill you? No, but there are many other types of punishment in the world than imprisonment or death.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#196

Post by ROTMetro »

ProjectArcturis wrote: post #178
hintymad wrote: post #167

This is probably an unpopular opinion: it pains me to see the manufacturing industry decline in the US. I don't really mind paying $300 for a pair of shoes. Yes, it will be expensive, but then I'll just buy fewer pairs. In return, more people get decent jobs, or so I hope. And no, I'm not talking about just the so-called "low-end" manufacturing, but also the high end. Indeed, how can we even grow "high-end" talent if…

Shoes might be more expensive, but not $300. New Balance still makes shoes in the US, and they're priced about the same as other brands. But US-made stuff, on the whole, is also better quality and longer-lasting than Chinese.

Most New Balance shoes are now made in Asia. Some are still produced in the USA.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#197

Post by IAmWorried »

hintymad wrote: post #167

This is probably an unpopular opinion: it pains me to see the manufacturing industry decline in the US. I don't really mind paying $300 for a pair of shoes. Yes, it will be expensive, but then I'll just buy fewer pairs. In return, more people get decent jobs, or so I hope. And no, I'm not talking about just the so-called "low-end" manufacturing, but also the high end. Indeed, how can we even grow "high-end" talent if…

The only people who this is an unpopular opinion to are the rich fat cat execs who only care about their profits and share prices. Pretty much everyone I know thinks it was a bad idea to outsource manufacturing to less than friendly countries. Thanks, Krugman.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#198

Post by xeromal »

anonporridge wrote: post #154
harpersealtako wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't argue with demographics because, outside of immigration, it is physically impossible to change them in the short term. Even if e.g. Korea somehow managed to get a fertility rate of 10 tomorrow, it would takes many decades for that generation to begin to contribute to the economy as a class of high-skilled laborers. No matter what Korea does, absent implausible levels of immigration, they are still set for f…

To me, this is one of America's superpowers. America is quite unique in the world by being so significantly multicultural, and increasingly so. It can tune and balance its demographics with immigration. It is especially good at attracting the best and brightest from around the world, because there is a realistic, and well trodden path, of not only fully integrating yourself and your children into American society, bu…

Love this and I'm sure a few will start poking into this comment, but I appreciate you saying this.

There's a comedian, I think Bill Burr, that says one of the great things about US sports is our incredible diversity. Look at any of our Olympic teams and you'll see all kinds of ethnicities in our teams, whoever is the best. On the other hand, I doubt you'll see the same on the chinese Olympic team. Obviously, there are other countries that do the same as us, but we do it on a pretty big scale and I think our success in medals is often in being comfortable with this. Heck, there are a few athletes that have the option of competing for us or their native land and they choose to go back to their country for that. Naomi Osaka comes to mind. She has lived in the US since she was 3 years old yet chose to play for Japan.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#199

Post by sbierwagen »

CalChris wrote: post #125
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #75

I’ve been following Zeihan since his first book. I’m yet to find a credible counter argument to his theses. And he’s being proven right at an alarming pace this year. So far this year we’ve had: - A land war in Europe - Food insecurity in the developing world - Breakdown of supply chains and shipping routes - Nation states resorting to seizing each other’s ships (see Greece-Iran issue recently). Everything that he ha…

18 years and 9 months . Zeihan is very funny. I don't think he is particularly 'smart' (wait for me a second here). I think he instead makes obvious conclusions from undeniable evidence like demographics and geography. The 'smarter' more institutional types from Brookings and Hoover tend to argue from policy and politics backwards and then the facts become inconvenient.

>tend to argue from policy and politics backwards and then the facts become inconvenient

There's the famous UN population projections where they show Europe and Asia declining for a while, then leveling out around 2050. Why? Well, they published their reasoning: https://population.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2019_Hig...

>Evidence from surveys of childbearing preferences indicate that even in populations with low or very low fertility for decades, women continue to express a desire for around two children on average. The myriad reasons for the gap between desired and completed fertility include such factors as an incompatibility between childrearing and the demands of higher education and career building, a lack of affordable highquality child care, the decline of reproductive capacity at advanced maternal ages, and imbalanced gender roles for housework and child care.

>The fact that fertility preferences remain close to two children per woman, even as realized fertility has fallen well below that level, suggests that the fertility rate in low-fertility countries may increase as populations learn to manage and mitigate some or all impeding factors.

There doesn't seem to be much evidence of that actually happening, though. Japan has been below-replacement since 1973. Ukraine and Russia had TFRs of 1.23 and 1.5 respectively in 2019, and they're busy pointlessly killing a generation of young men, which won't help much with family formation. Where is the "mitigation"?

The UN's argument seems to be that it would be stupid for a country just to commit suicide for no reason, so they won't do that. Unfortunately, this report was written in 2019, before the events of the last few years. It is no longer quite so certain that countries won't pursue pointless self-destructive policies for no good reason.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#200

Post by robertlagrant »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #179
next_xibalba wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of his predictions have failed? How many are timebound and falsifiable? I am not specifically familiar with Zehain, but I am very well acquainted with figures who generate many predictions, have a small number become true, and then get treated as oracles for years before the truth is exposed: predicting the future in massive, chaotic systems is nearly impossible.

I have the feeling that we might be in our current predicament because a few billionaires are reading the same books, and trying to bring about some ideological nonsense into reality.

Blaming billionaires is like like any sport: fun, but nothing to do with real life.
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