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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?

#521

Post by ahartmetz »

ericmay wrote: post #482
nomel wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's especially related in this context, which is engineering success. IQ is directly related to academic achievement in STEM, which is directly related to engineering career success.

Well we're not talking about career success, we were talking about comparisons of nation states. Having an IQ advantage there might prove marginally more helpful, but it's not really that important. I'd argue physical size and strength of a people are even more important than IQ when we're looking at across the board averages. Plus you have things like, idk, access to raw materials, geographic advantages, cultural ad…

China has a millenia-long history of organizing a very large amount of people fairly well. They basically invented bureaucracy. Not everything is better in China of course, but don't forget about that aspect.

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

#522

Post by XorNot »

yodsanklai wrote: post #495
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…

> We need to anticipate a future where China is equal to America on a per capita basis, but four times bigger. Is it even possible in terms of resources? there are limits to growth and it may not be feasible for 1.5 billions people to consume and pollute as much as an average American. Also are the US willing to lose their supremacy peacefully?

It seems apparent that the answer is yes though. The US likes the idea of wars more then fighting them: the guy who talks about the greatest military on the planet is also not subject to the draft and never tried to join.

In so much as generalizing a nation can still leave large exceptions, wars of conquest are useless to America: it hates running occupations, and it's own citizens are not going to move abroad in sufficient numbers to provide a labor force to utilize the conquests.

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

#523

Post by ajmurmann »

lostlogin wrote: post #268
ajmurmann wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worse than a sales tax. Tariffs have a few market-distorting effects that a sales tax doesn't. * Domestic consumers and companies are incentivized to potentially go for the 2nd best product. This over time can impact productivity as the tooling will decline over time as inferior solutions are bought. * Reduced competition. We've seen this with the 25% "chicken tax" on pickup trucks. Arguably one culprit in US au…

> Tariffs have a few market-distorting effects that a sales tax doesn't. There are still stupid edge cases. The cake-versus-biscuit saga in the UK comes to mind. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_Cakes

Just double checking, you are saying reduced competition and scale economics are "stupid edge cases"?

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

#524

Post by e44858 »

chrisco255 wrote: post #340
asdefghyk wrote: post #147

my guess, less than $5

This is closer to correct than the article's claims. You can buy sneakers for $3 on Alibaba, as an individual: https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Cheap-New-Trendy-Leat...

Or $0.80 if you make a big order of 100k.

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

#525

Post by selfmodruntime »

boznz wrote: post #380
missedthecue wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China will probably be the only country that solves this.

..Any country can solve it, just incentivise families. Simple things like ensuring young people have access to affordable housing and daycare. If I was at the start of my career ladder in a major urban area now, having a family would be close to the bottom of my priority list. Its not rocket science.

> Any country can solve it, just incentivise families

The point of OP and what people don't get is that it's far easier to shift policies to brace for tough situations when you have a uniparty system and you're willing to make sacrifices. No 4 year administration is in any way incentivised to enact policies that only become effective after the next election. Note that I'm not saying that undemocratic systems are the solution.

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

#526

Post by bloqs »

nomel wrote: post #463
ericmay wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IQ isn't much of a proxy for anything, especially in this context.

It's especially related in this context, which is engineering success. IQ is directly related to academic achievement in STEM, which is directly related to engineering career success.

Performance IQ and verbal IQ create the compound IQ figure.

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

#527

Post by selfmodruntime »

ignoramous wrote: post #297
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…

> 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. I wrote this not long after (10y ago) and I think this view is still unpopular now as it was then (for reasons beyond me): I fully expect Baidu and other tech giants…

Silicon Valley has stifled its own innovation by making too much use of regulatory capture and IP laws.

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

#528

Post by selfmodruntime »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #260
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…

>We need to anticipate a future where China is equal to America on a per capita basis, This is a nice way to put it. Anticipate a world within your life time where China is the dominant economic, technological, military and cultural super power. Anticipate jealousy, anticipate fear, but know that as Americans who have been top dog for decades there is nothing wrong with not being the best. Additionally anticipate a c…

China is not communist in anything but name. They are an authoritarian capitalist country with social policies.

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

#529

Post by XorNot »

markus_zhang wrote: post #373
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…

> What will be America’s competitive edge in that scenario? I'm sure that the US still has many edges over China in high-end technology. I remember I read a research article back in 2012/2013 which listed all fields that China were lagging behind, including pharma, computer chips and some other stuffs. It's a fairly long list. I'm sure China managed to catch up in some of the fields but I doubt all of them.

China used to be lagging behind in all areas. Now it is not.

The US pre-WW1 was an isolationist nation with few I'd any exports, not the global manufacturing powerhouse it became afterwards.

Things change and always change.

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

#530

Post by lostlogin »

ajmurmann wrote: post #523
lostlogin wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tariffs have a few market-distorting effects that a sales tax doesn't. There are still stupid edge cases. The cake-versus-biscuit saga in the UK comes to mind. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_Cakes

Just double checking, you are saying reduced competition and scale economics are "stupid edge cases"?

I’m saying that using a courtroom to decide the definition of a biscuit indicates a problem with sales tax legislation.

Flat rate sales tax has its problems, but avoiding Jaffa cake situations is entirely desirable.

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