It is better to distribute or sell shoes than to make them. It is even better to finance/own the making of shoes or even better - the selling/distribution of them. That is Economy 101, originally known as Das Kapital. The people who read those rules wrong call themselves marxists and insist on everyone producing a lot of the same standard shoes, and selling them to people at cost, $25. The people who read those rules right try to find how and where to make a factory, distribution center or retail store, or at least where to get a share of it :)
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?
#552Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yesterday your vice president referred to the Chinese as "peasants".
Something like 35% of China's population works in the agriculture sector, many of whom are poor with little or no land holdings living in small villages. Is there a word for that kind of person?
That number has been falling since 2012 and was around 22% as of 2023 (ignoring the hand-wavy conflation of the entire agriculture sector and stereotypical rural farmers)
https://tradingeconomics.com/china/employment-in-agriculture...
You could just as easily massage statistics to call the US a nation of gig workers or something, but neither is productive or informative.
Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?
#553Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Agreed, complex policies open the door for unintended consequences and have higher enforcement cost. If you do a sales tax or VAT it should be flat. If anyone thinks that it will be regressive or put poor people at a disadvantage, the answer IMO is UBI, even a small one can make up for sales tax on food while avoiding the deadweight loss from nonsense like that Jaffa cake nonsense.
Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?
#554Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not the best and the brightest who are lying flat, but those who lost the rat race. All things considered, most Chinese would prefer to stay in China, and if you're rich there you've got it made.
By all accounts, you do not get rich in china by work. I work with the most talented Chinese scientists and none of them expects to be wealthy at home, the best hope to be what would be middle class in the US. Unless they manage to get to the US they return, because they would not be safe from harassment anywhere else.
Scientists in most fields, sure, but that's the case anywhere. If you happen to be an AI expert though, pay at top Chinese companies is very competitive with Silicon Valley.
Also, the structural inequalities of Chinese society dwarf the West, meaning that the Chinese middle class gets a lot more bang for their buck: ridiculously cheap delivery services, taxis, and other services.
Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?
#555Earlier quoted context omitted.
it really seems like there's a push to de-skill Americans. like Bessent's remark that the laid-off civil servants could become factory workers as we bring back domestic manufacturing, and the recent corporate push towards vibe coding and integrating AI everywhere, and the purge of seasonal and unskilled migrant workers while keeping the H1B program. it almost seems like we're trying to clear immigrants out of the chi…
Bessent et al’s plan isn’t even internally coherent. Yeah, Americans are going to go back to working in factories. But not for low wages, because errr ummm actually it’ll be robots doing the work! So where will Americans be working? Errr ummm well… in the factories! (??)
Yeah and another thing I’ve noticed is the current administration has won on negativity and victimhood. It’s damaged Americas confidence and super power branding tremendously .
It seems to be the new image of America as some kind of wounded animal who is acting aggressively to protect itself from China. It might not be the case but perception is important and in my opinion it’s changing fast and in the wrong direction.
It’s almost like Americans are now begging for low tier jobs or something.
Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?
#556The old adage that distributors mark up 100%, and then retailers another 100%, rings true here
Nike is the distributor in this case
Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?
#557Americans 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…
Competitive edge is new innovation and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. The rules and culture favor it in the US, more so than anywhere else on earth.
China didn’t invent the iPhone or chat gpt. But they excel at optimizing.
Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?
#558Earlier quoted context omitted.
The free traders also need to accept the reality that the UK’s decline started long before Brexit and disputes about fishing. In terms of per capita GDP, the UK lost its edge over the rest of Europe in the 1970s, and then simply never recovered from the 2008 global financial collapse. Without the empire, the UK’s “competitive advantage” in financial and legal services wasn’t worth shit. I strongly suspect the US cann…
The US appears to be trying to end the reserve dollars. Something that surprisingly few people have mentioned recently is that having the biggest trade deficit is the same thing as being the global reserve currency . Because they're the same thing, ending one of them also ends the other. There does seem to be some sort of cycle in play: first a slave-driver-type economy creates a whole lot of wealth, then people get…
> Something that surprisingly few people have mentioned recently is that having the biggest trade deficit is the same thing as being the global reserve currency.
Can you explain this a little more? Why does having a trade deficit make your currency more valuable? My naive assumption is it would put more dollars in other countries, so they don't need them as much, making dollars less valuable.
Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?
#559Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I am sure JKR has to pay taxes still, which goes back to the government. Does JKR personally own the copyrights, or have they been sub-licensed to a corporation in (e.g.) Ireland?
With the levels of money involved, highly likely its all wrapped in legal fuckery.
Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?
#560Americans 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…
The most shocking thing for Americans when TikTok was shutdown for half a day was when they switched to the Chinese version of the app and they saw the truth -- that the middle class in China is living a higher quality of life than they are.