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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?

#571

Post by tptacek »

hemabe wrote: post #426
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…

China could not only be ‘equal’ but ‘better’ than the USA - we should get used to the idea. China has an average IQ of 104 out of 1.4 billion people, while the USA has an IQ of 97. In purely statistical terms, this means that the USA has around 700,000 people with an IQ >= 140. China has 11,480,000 people with this IQ. This human capital will make the difference.

None of this is meaningful. IQ as national population-level statistic is folkloric. China may well have a human capital advantage over the US; that's what you'd expect from a country with over 3x as many people. But it has nothing to do with biological differences between Americans and Chinese people.

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

#572

Post by ForOldHack »

999900000999 wrote: post #47
JSR_FDED wrote: post #4

It’s like people excited about the new datacenter being built in their town, think of all the jobs that will bring they cry. Nobody realizes it takes 6 people to run a datacenter. Bringing “manufacturing back to the US” is a fool’s errand. The future of manufacturing is automation, not jobs.

They'll start forcing us to make Nikes in prison. Even then the quality wouldn't be up to par. Since we've collectively agreed we don't need to have due process anymore, I guess I can look forward to making shoes will I'm being indefinitely detained.

Of course! That would save them even more money! Prisoners make $0.33 to $0.45. I saw a McDonald's sign during an uprising that said "Prison Labor = Slavery"

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

#573

Post by ForOldHack »

lamp_book wrote: post #238
xienze wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for the whole military superpower thing. The US is actually in a somewhat unique situation compared to other countries.

See the threads on the state of US shipbuilding.

Yes. You should point out that >50% of ships are built by China, and 30% are built by Korea, and United States is not even on the list... Do we even make ships? Maybe a few military wessels.

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

#574

Post by [deleted] »

yostrovs wrote: post #18
netsharc wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a video today on Instagram (from Tiktok), AI generated of course, where rows and rows of people sit at sewing machines sewing shirts, but instead of the typical Asians one commonly expects to see, they're all overweight American-looking people...

https://x.com/damengchen/status/1909288019750011006?t=kO7hvU...

[deleted]

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

#575

Post by ForOldHack »

devb wrote: post #207
logifail wrote: post #199

According to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41283368 we should be linking to the primary source. Q: Is there a specific reason* that this thread links to threadreaderapp? * other than politics, which we try Really Hard not to bring into HN...

One great reason is that you need an account on X to read the thread. I deleted my account many months ago, along with many, many other people.

Thank you.

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

#576

Post by singleshot_ »

ViktorRay wrote: post #515
bunderbunder wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. And the more of that that happens, the better for the economy overall. The less of that that happens - implying more of it ends up in JKR's proverbial dragon hoard, not doing much good beyond being an impressive pile of wealth for the dragon to sleep on top of - the less good for the economy overall.

I don’t think your comment is accurate. When rich people get large amounts of money they don’t hoard it like they did in Roman times. That money either goes into the stock market or to a bank. If it’s in the stock market that money is being used in investments that further economic growth. The portion of the leftover money that’s in the bank is then lent out by the bank to others in the forms of loans and so on for p…

My largest investment is my home. I’m not sure there’s any other way to think of my home as anything other than “a pile of wealth… to be slept on.”

Am I missing something about modern economics?

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

#577

Post by subsubzero »

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…

I see what you are getting at but I have to disagree with alot of what you are saying.

> the US will find itself in the same position the UK is in now

The US and UK are totally different animals at the height of their "empire". The UK currently has little land and alot of it is devoid of minerals(sans coal). They achieved most of their might subjecting other countries and extracting resources from their colonies. Once the colonies and the rest of the world objected the British empire began to crumble as the colonies broke off from the UK.

Contrast that with the US which if it were to jettison its "colonies" (Puerto Rico, Samoa etc) you would see very little drop in GDP. The US has vast swaths of land which is excellent for farming, energy extraction and contains valuable minerals. It has widespread and diverse populations with wildly different ecologies and climates. In addition to a huge amount of resources it has a kings ransom of some of the best universities in the world(stanford, harvard, MIT, etc) and a highly educated society with living standards just below some small asian and european countries. The US also has a peerless military (we need hypersonic weapons however) and many aircraft carriers and nukes as well as world renown special forces groups. And lastly of the top largest 100 companies in the world, 65% are US based and this despite the US only having 4.2% of the worlds population, looking at GDP per country is almost comical as the US has 30T compared to the next largest economy China(19.5T), 3rd place is Germany at 4.9T.

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

#579

Post by clown_strike »

bdangubic wrote: post #450
bilbo0s wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure China managed to catch up in some of the fields but I doubt all of them. And if you could guarantee that they'll never catch up in the others, we'd all feel a bit better about the permanency of American superiority. Absent that guarantee, we need to bench test those scenarios and be prepared with plans that best serve American interests should those scenarios come to fruition.

american has superiority in like number of incarcerated people per capita and infant mortality - that’s about it :)

Consumer debt too.

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

#580

Post by rcpt »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #441
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…

The US was going down the "let dominate IP/technology" angle for awhile, but we only accomplished it with imported labor (look at any SWE shop). China is obviously developing the talent to do the same, and they are rapidly automating manufacture work as they approach a demographic cliff. They are basically making all the right investments for the future while we try to go back to the 1950s. It is extremely frustratin…

They're doing the right thing just about everywhere. Except real estate. One wrong move and it's 90s Japan all over again.
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