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drewdevault.com

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Re: China

#351

Post by CharlesColeman »

zeveb wrote: post #339
CharlesColeman wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well you may be fine if you have a lot of disposable income, but many poor Americans will not. Why are they poor? Hasn't globalization directly contributed to making the American working class poorer? For instance: Offshoring a factory obviously eliminates those workers' jobs. The owner of a American factory can also use the threat of offshoring to keep wages down. The owner is better off, but the workers clearly a…

> Hasn't globalization directly contributed to making the American working class poorer? My understanding is that our standard of living has continued to increase throughout my lifetime, and thus that the American working class is on the whole richer than it was decades ago. > The owner is better off, but the workers clearly aren't. Aren't they? If they make $10/hour instead of $15/hour, but the goods they buy are 40…

> Aren't they? If they make $10/hour instead of $15/hour, but the goods they buy are 40% the cost that they would have been, their $10/hour is effectively $16/hour (I think I got the math right there).

I think it's a mistake to treat it like a math equation, since (among other things) that engages in the fallacy of equating Homo economicus with Homo sapiens.

But if you do want to treat it like a math equation like that. The workers may still be worse off because they don't just buy trade goods. The owner's income didn't drop, and maybe increased, so he can use greater relative income to bid up non-trade goods like real estate, healthcare, and education, pushing those things out of reach of the workers.

Re: China

#353

Post by babisour »

You don't understand China. What I saw in this article is completely biased and brain washed by you know who.

Re: China

#354

Post by djokkataja »

notadamsmith wrote: post #96

I'm a Chinese. I admire your courage to post this article. But there's one thing that's fundamentally wrong in your article. Trading with China is, for now, beneficial to EVERYONE, including you, Drew DeVault, and the top 1% richest. Specialization and trading are the fundamental ways to advance the economy. Surely there will be blue collar workers in the US losing their jobs, but that's just how economy goes. We car…

> Trading with China is, for now, beneficial to EVERYONE

No, it's beneficial from an idealized economic perspective for economies.

Economics makes no guarantee that all individuals within an economy benefit economically benefit from free trade. And if you look at the actual average effect for US workers over the past few decades (period of opening trade with China), their purchasing power hasn't increased: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us...

How can this be? "The economy" is still growing on average because the top 1% have been getting richer and richer. Also China devalued its currency to protect its own industry (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/beggarthyneighbor.asp). Not exactly "free trade"...

But coming back to this:

> every working individual should be able to learn new skills and ready to move to new industries if the current industry no longer provides enough jobs.

Yes, from an economic ideal perspective, working individuals "should" do that to maximize their own income. And in the US, people have been doing it for a while, leading to a drain of talented individuals from rural communities to urban areas and repeatedly disconnecting people from their friends and families as they chase economic opportunities around the country. Now everyone is lonely and depressed, there's a huge political divide between rural and urban areas, and, well, Trump happened.

So I don't think chasing the shiny economic ideals is necessarily going to lead where we want to go as a society.

Re: China

#355

Post by junar »

uitersers wrote: post #211
baron_harkonnen wrote: post #21

If I might post an unpopular opinion, and let me assure you I'm not secretly a pro-CCP shill: what's happening HK has much more to do with changing economic realities than it does with an evil agenda from the Chinese government. In 1997 HK had 1/3 of the GDP of mainland China and was the only way for Western companies to interact with China. Today HK has 3% of the GDP of mainland China and a huge part of this is beca…

It’s definitely about the economy. Just look at Macau. There are no protests there. They were also a former Westen colony and now under 1 country, 2 systems like Hong Kong. The only difference is their GDP per capita is almost twice that of Hong Kong’s.

Macau's has been solidly pro-Beijing for over 50 years. While there are economic differences, there are certainly political differences as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12-3_incident

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_Assembly_of_Macau

Re: China

#356

Post by perennate »

uitersers wrote: post #203
novok wrote: post #129

I don't think that the cheaper goods that China gave the world only benefited the %1, and actually has helped a lot people in america and the world. I also don't think that the economic miracle that has happened in China is a bad thing, and they could of been more singaporean/south korean authoritarian vs. genocidal authoritarian to achieve it. I really want china to become another Japan or Korea eventually. I do agr…

I would say China is more like a modern day colonial America, with their own version of “manifest destiny” and treating the Uyghurs like how Native Americans were treated, by putting them into reservations and boarding schools [1] to and forcing them to assimilate. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_boarding_sch...

And I would say that US treatment of Native Americans in the colonial days and US treatment of Japanese-Americans during WWII were both similar to Nazi Germany's treatment of the Jewish people. But thankfully we have moved beyond it now, unfortunately in 2019 CCP is repeating the same mistakes in Xinjiang.

And please don't call them "boarding schools". It is so disrespectful for the Uighurs who have to endure the physical and mental torture in these camps. Japanese-American internment camps during WWII were concentration camps, and CCP's "re-education" camps in Xinjiang are concentration camps too.

Re: China

#357

Post by dang »

babisour wrote: post #353

You don't understand China. What I saw in this article is completely biased and brain washed by you know who.

Ok, but rather than name-calling ("completely biased", "brain washed"), it would be better to add good information in a neutral way, so readers can learn something. If you don't want to do that or don't have time, it would be better not to post, even though it's frustrating to see a thread full of comments you disagree with.

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

Re: China

#359

Post by brobinson »

perennate wrote: post #350
brobinson wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The PRC will most likely not escape the Middle Income Trap before their population pyramid massively inverts. No other country has aged so quickly at such a large scale before. Their population and working age groups are at the largest they will ever be right now and will steadily decline starting in 5-10 years. I think collapse of the current government is more likely than a peaceful ROC-esque (Taiwan) transition fr…

I'd argue that the ROC transition was not peaceful at all. Thousands of civilians were killed in the February 28 massacre [1] and tens of thousands imprisoned in the ensuing White Terror [2], and martial law did not end until 30+ years later. But now I think Taiwan is by far the leading democracy in east Asia. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_28_incident [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwa…

Well, "peaceful" relative to historical Chinese government transitions at least. :D

Re: China

#360

Post by natch »

philsnow wrote: post #296
natch wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi author, wondering what you think China should do with the organs of executed prisoners? It’s easy to find fault with them for (presumably) not asking for permission but it seems it would be a pity for them not to be used to help patients in need, no? This is separate from the question of what supposed crimes led to the execution. Short waiting lists can be explained by the lack of permission not only for execution…

If the prisoners didn't consent to their organs being used (to bolster the health of the people who imprisoned them), they should not be used. Anything else sets up a perverse incentive to execute more undesirables.

The perverse incentive part makes sense.

For the other part, I have trouble understanding why a dead person would care about anything after their death ...although I can understand them having wishes before death, but any such wishes should be weighed in context for their reasonableness given all factors.

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