Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why?
OK, I guess first you might want to read it.
I did! Did you?
Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong
601–610 of 610 posts
Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong
#602Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The higher cost of [US] labor could be offset by higher [US] worker productivity. I suggest you watch American Factory ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9351980/ ) to completely disabuse yourself of this notion.
https://www.conference-board.org/publications/Productivity-A... >Among major economies and regions, the United States has the highest rate of production of goods and services per hour worked, with only a few small European economies outperforming it. Productivity rates in most parts of the world are well below the US’. Indeed, according to research conducted by The Conference Board, nearly 75% of the global populatio…
Serious comment: how does comparing productivity (or anything) by dividing into GDP work - let alone to three significant figures - when all countries measure GDP differently?
The USA for example includes about $7t of hedonic and imputed values that a) never happened in the real world, but b) exceed Japan's entire GDP.
Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong
#603Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.conference-board.org/publications/Productivity-A... >Among major economies and regions, the United States has the highest rate of production of goods and services per hour worked, with only a few small European economies outperforming it. Productivity rates in most parts of the world are well below the US’. Indeed, according to research conducted by The Conference Board, nearly 75% of the global populatio…
Serious comment: how does comparing productivity (or anything) by dividing into GDP work - let alone to three significant figures - when all countries measure GDP differently? The USA for example includes about $7t of hedonic and imputed values that a) never happened in the real world, but b) exceed Japan's entire GDP.
US: Large public sector of debatable value (please no flames)
Japan: Paves entirety of Yokohama
China: Tofu real estate and more...
I agree that it is silly. If the state or the public sector digs holes and refills them, it adds to GDP. Typically economists say, "Yes, GDP is a flawed metric, but it is better than no metric"
That said, we can evaluate the added benefits of automation and the productivity gains thereof, purely from first principles, without resorting to empiricism.
Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong
#604Earlier quoted context omitted.
The degree of automation affects this very little, for 2 reasons: - Anything you can easily automate (like pick & place machines for electronics, industrial robots for welding/assembly) will be automated anyway (no advantage for the US as location there) - Even if you have 100% automation, you still need to pay (mainly) local workforce to set the whole thing up, and a lot of those jobs are even less competitive in th…
So China subsidizes a lot of their factories and now they have all the factories and they also have rising standards of living so ... seems to be working for them?
The factories are not in China because they were subsidized, they are there because wages are lower. Yes, some caveats apply, there is some network effect, and you need sufficient infrastructure, suitable workforce and administrative stability to get the process rolling, but the notion that China "bribed" those industries into their country is nonsensical.
Also note that this development (low-skill manufacturing migrates to growing, lower-wage country, then the migration propagates up the tech level) is something that occured basically exactly the same way in the past (with Japan in the 1990s).
> now they have all the factories and they also have rising standards of living so ... seems to be working for them?
This is basically the point of international trade.
Things also worked out for the US, because they reaped the fruits of that cheap Chinese labor-- all-American electronics would have been significantly more expensive.
I'd also like to point out that those living standards are WAY below US levels-- there is absolutely no way that US-americans with comparable education levels would be willing to work in comparable conditions.
Note also that artificially messing with this process has consequences: If the US had forced electronics and heavy industry to stay fully domestic starting in the 80s or so (with tariffs, regulations and subsidies), then their products would have stayed much less affordable for decades, and a lot of bright STEM graduates that made software/CPU development/Hi-tech happen might have taken cushy, tax-payer funded jobs instead...
Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong
#605This is going to utterly fuck so many R&D projects at my company. We actually do large-scale manufacturing of industrial valves in the USA. But a lot of our prototyping involves working with Chinese suppliers and getting small batches of samples / prototypes / revisions sent in packages on airplanes. I literally do not know how the electrical and firmware engineers will do their jobs now if we cannot receive packages…
>I literally do not know how the electrical and firmware engineers will do their jobs now if we cannot receive packages from China As a software engineer who works closely with electrical and firmware engineers I know what you are saying is completely true. The question is how did we let it go this far? Why has there never been serious Western alternatives to JLCPCB, PCBWay, JLCCNC etc.? Has anyone asked themselves h…
The other posters are describing the state of China right now, so I'll describe things on a more macroeconomic perspective.
The lack of manufacturing in the US can be linked to the lack of investment from the low savings rate as the flipside of high consumption, and a strong dollar (relative to surplus countries like China) that both boosts imports, driving consumption even higher than lowering savings rate, and weak export competiveness.
That lack of savings manifests as the Current Account Deficit, and normally the dollar should weaken due to it, strengthening exports and naturally rebalancing the trade. Unfortunately, because the rest of the world does the opposite in having an abnormally high level of savings, they push all their capital into the USA. This overall appreciates the dollar, and is good for the finance industry, but persistently doing this for 40 years has basically destroyed US manufacturing.
Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong
#606Earlier quoted context omitted.
China makes quality things, they just keep it for themselves, and ship their crap to us.
That's hilarious. The most popular grocery stores in Shanghai right now are Costco and Sams, with lines everyday out the door, not Chinese grocery stores. Chinese citizens don't want to buy cancerous food products for example.
Then why is lead in everything from China?
Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong
#607Earlier quoted context omitted.
So China subsidizes a lot of their factories and now they have all the factories and they also have rising standards of living so ... seems to be working for them?
The factories are not in China because they were subsidized, they are there because wages are lower. Yes, some caveats apply, there is some network effect, and you need sufficient infrastructure, suitable workforce and administrative stability to get the process rolling, but the notion that China "bribed" those industries into their country is nonsensical. Also note that this development (low-skill manufacturing migr…
China has a demographic collapse coming so there is probably baked in inflation coming in the 2030s. The era of cheap chinese junk might go away. It doesn't just mean Aliexpress/Temu junk. It means a lot of fun things we take for granted may not make sense in a more inflationary environment so they dont get made.
If you watch manufacturing videos, its crazy how many people actually come together to make the cheap mundane things we take for granted: For example, count the number of people who touch this random RGB bluetooth speaker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFYxSX6xP2U
Maybe you could automate that, but it really would be more effort than its worth to set up robots to make what I assume is a fairly cheap product.
Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong
#608Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Not quite at China prices" is something of an understatement. JLCPCB offer five 100mm*100mm 4-layer boards for $7. Not $7 each, $7 total for five boards. Shipping to Europe is $1.50.
For a company doing R&D, this difference is so small it hardly matters. It's less than an hour of an engineer's time.
If the whole Twitter -> X transition and DOGE has taught us anything, those costs don't magically disappear, they add up over time and get passed down as inflation. Are you really measuring an engineer's time properly? There is an implicit assumption that an engineers time is at 100% utilization which is never true. This mentality you described allows people to get sloppy with costs. At some point you need to do a form of Zero Based Budgeting.
Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong
#609I have a jclpcb job that finished today :o 2025-02-06 01:52:00 Shipment information received,ZHUJIANG DELTA AREA - CHINA, PEOPLES REPUBLIC
DHL shipments seems to still be moving OK
2025-02-08 23:00:00Processed at FRANKLIN PARK - USA,FRANKLIN PARK - Illinois - USA 2025-02-08 22:51:00Clearance processing complete at FRANKLIN PARK - USA,FRANKLIN PARK - Illinois - USA
Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong
#610Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most US-based PCB manufacturers can do low-volume PCBs rather cheaply for you, but not quite at China prices. AdvancedPCB in the US has their "$33 each" which gets you a very quick turnaround on a pretty-good-tech 2-layer board for $100 total (minimum 3 boards). They do 4-layer PCBs for $66/board and they apparently also do RF materials for $100/board. Sierra Circuits, for example, also has similar prices. This is a…
OSH Park has been doing 4 layer boards for at $10 per square inch for a set of 3 for years. Shipping included. 2 layer for $5/sq in. Much cheaper for anything but the largest boards. It was actually only recently that China low volume manufacturing beat out OSH Park for very small boards once you factored in shipping.
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