Verizon says to shed 10,400 jobs by mid next year

But it's been a 'frog in warming to boiling water' type scenario.

By that I mean - the protectionism, corruption, IP theft etc. has been going on forever - it's just that we didn't care.

Actually - we didn't mind - because a backwards mess of a poor economy might want to do 'whatever it takes' to move forward.

Everyone (well most) was very happy to see China come out of the doldrums. It's better for everyone, generally.

But now that they are reaching for advanced economy status ... the 'issues' become ever more apparent.

I don't like Trump one bit, I find him kind of nauseating in his demeanor - and - I'm not even sure his manner of approach to the 'war' is right.

BUT - 100% of politicians are otherwise incapable of standing up to China. Ironically, it just mike take a loose-cannon douche-bag to do it.

'The West' speaks with 1000 voices: CEOs, NGO leaders, politicians, bureaucrats, federal/state, different countries within federal entities (i.e. EU), heads of Universities, research establishments.

China speaks with 'one voice' and they have a plan, which can actually be carried out.

So if anyone tries to stand up to them, China can scare that 'little individual' with all sorts of things, and by 'little individual' I even mean heads of state.

But ironically, in totality, Western powers do have the upper hand, both because of the direction of trade, but also because of the size of economies, sophistication, all sorts of other reasons.

Example: Trudeau in Canada will mollify Chinese and would be afraid to do anything because China could threaten to not buy Canadian commodities. But here's the thing: they are commodities! So if China stops buying hardwood from B.C. and starts buying it from elsewhere, then as prices receded in Canada and prices increase 'elsewhere' - other buyers come to B.C. for hardwood.

China buying a commodity is like them scooping water out of a river -> it doesn't matter who buys what, the aggregate demand is the same.

But the interim calamity and fear from China walking away will push Canadian CEO's to make Trudeau cede whatever to China.

As an example.

NPR just had an interview with the Robert Lighthizer [1] who talks about the fact China has been saying they'll 'do things' on IP for over 20 years but they've done nothing really. These talks are the first time basically ever that the US is speaking with credibility in terms of actual response/retaliation.

I suggest the Chinese are just waiting for Trump to be out of office, or to give him something political to show for it, and then going back to normal. I would be ideal if the US political org. got together with the EU, Japan, S. Korea, India and Australia ... and made a coordinated, long term effort on these issues. It would actually be better for everyone - even the Chinese, in the long term.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2018/12/07/674730823/u-s-trade-represent...

That people are making the choice - and many don't seem to mind doing it, makes this quite a different thing than a regular layoff.

Apparently churn has been high, and people leaving their jobs voluntarily is in some ways a good sign for the economy. They certainly don't do that when times are bad.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It took senior people making 90-120 base and laid them off to employ (me and others) at 47-60k base salary in Massachusetts.

Then after 3 years, they laid us college kids off to employ even lower paid fresh graduates in Austin and San Antonio, because Texas cut them an even better deal than MA did I believe.