Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland • Hacker News Board

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#431

Post by laurencerowe » Sun, Mar 21, 2021, 7:19 PM UTC

audunw wrote: post #119

killtimeatwork wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's where China was smart I guess. They didn't sign any treaty which forced them into free trade or IP protection, but instead slowly allowed their industries to build up via IP theft and strong protectionism. Now they have giant companies on par with the West's. Whereas everyone who joined the EU in the decade of 2000 (and the Washington Consensus before that in the nineties) is now a pawn of the Western capital…

I really think China is making a huge mistake actually. See how TSMC (Taiwan) and Samsung are free to buy ASMLs EUV machines, while China is blocked. Part of that is due to their rampant IP theft. Why sell machines to China if they're just going to copy them? China also messed up big time by enforcing their 1 child policy, and taking so long to open up and industrialize. They're far behind economically compared to wh…

> But at the same time they don't have the positive image and reputation needed to be a big exporter of high-value goods.

Other than my car and some furniture, pretty much everything I've bought that cost more than $100 in the past 10-20 years has been made in China.

> Will a giant Chinese company ever gain the reputation of Samsung or Sony?

Perhaps not, but they'll likely continue to manufacture most of the products sold by the Sonys and Apples of the world.

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#432

Post by elmomle » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 1:15 AM UTC

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #389

elmomle wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's ostensibly for the translator (of course it's more for the publisher). You can get (typically Edwardian-era or earlier) public domain translations, or the original Latin, for free in lots of places.

I read it in russian, and I specially checked that russian translator died almost a hundred years ago.

Ah, yes that was rather Anglocentric of me, apologies. And that's a lousy situation--any idea why that's the case?

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#433

Post by fmajid » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 3:08 AM UTC

vmilner wrote: post #137

fmajid wrote: post #65

Divine Chocolate is owned by Ghanaian cacao farmer: https://www.divinechocolate.com/products A much better model than the Fairtrade scam by which white-savior consultants jet off to poor countries to lecture locals whose backs their fat salaries are extracted off.

It's about twice the price of Cadbury's in the UK, but significantly better quality. I often buy it when I see it, and it has fairly good shop distribution now.

Also Whole Foods in the US.

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

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Post by modo_mario » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 9:52 AM UTC

viro wrote: post #139

skocznymroczny wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The specific ownership and the details are irrelevant, what matters is that a large chunk of their profits is extracted out of the country and doesn't get reinvested.

Thats not how the economy works. Walmart profits don't get "invested" in the States. They get invested into Walmart. The wages and taxes those wages fuel always gets applied locally. Nothing is being "extracted". Thats just nationalist bullshit used to fuel protectionism.

So if wallmart buys a chain that wasn't competitive because they didn't decided to have wages so low their employees require foodstamps do you think that helps the local economy?

When the company buys in Romania and lays of the local marketing, sales departments, etc to make things more efficient, uniform and streamlined that doesn't help the local economy. That makes things more efficient tho but as a Romanian you're left holding the bag.

Now everything is foreign owned and the streamlining and competition has played out in such a fashion that there's potentially less competition and consequently less benefits off competition. (see all the modern industries that have turned into duopolies, monopsonies or the like that can easily keep new competition from coming in but also don't compete enough to drive consumer prices down.

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#435

Post by modo_mario » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 10:07 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #423

oblio wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free trade rarely is as free as in theory, was my point. Regarding US states, and though I absolutely abhor playing devil's advocate on this one, the Northern states did force the Southern ones to give up their economic model at gun point. Free trade, right? :-)

Still didn't turn them into colonies, despite free interstate trade. Your thesis was free trade turns countries into colonies. It clearly doesn't. It's other things that turn countries into colonies.

Not the previous commenter but do you recognise that these things can hamper local economies?

https://www.euractiv.com/section/trade-society/opinion/eu-fr...

Similarly to how Vietnams economy is hampered if it gets exposed to more mature parts and electronics industries from let's say Germany leaving only it's mature low skill industries sustainable trough low wages I can see the same in the west

I live in a western country and i enjoy relatively free trade with the US but I don't expect my country or surrounding ones to produce a software giant because I expect them to be stomped in the ground by existing duopolies or simply bought out. I don't expect something to join the competition between intel amd anywhere in a free trading world and potentially drive consumer prices down more because they'll perpetuate their copyrights and IP with well timed adjustments till the sun goes dark, etc

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#436

Post by auiya » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

zymhan wrote: post #182

auiya wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a smoked chili pepper which I believe is native to the area that is labeled as "ghana pepper" for export, and is hard to find elsewhere. It is _incredible_.

AFAIK peppers are native to the Americas, I'm not sure there is a "native" African pepper. Though they certainly could have been cultivating them for 400-500 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chili_pepper#Origins

That's what it must be then, a cultivar that's quite different from its origins.

Re: Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland

#437

Post by majgr » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 7:41 PM UTC

burntoutfire wrote: post #425

majgr wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Poland some share similar sentiment, but it was better to get rid of of all these inflexible, low quality companies than providing them with life support. Problem was with management and technology. You would need to get rid of whole management hierarchy, and at that time there was nobody who could replace it. Some relicts from communism still lingers here and there, for 30 years after fall of communism unable to…

That's a story told by the neoliberals. Meanwhile, a some of the communist-era companies survived and are thriving: PKO BP, Orlen, LOTOS, KGHM, PGNiG etc. The post-communist management and culture didn't prevent them from transforming into basically modern companies that aren't different from their foreign competitors.

one bank, 3 distribution companies, and one from mining segment. I wouldn't call this a success.