Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not anymore it shouldn't.
why? has any immigration law been changed?
Worse: the law has become irrelevant
How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?
711–720 of 1001 posts
Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?
#712Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I would dismiss this article as pure fantasy. Why? The article starts from the point where Nike pays $25 per shoe boarded into a container on a boat, where that number covers all expenses until that point. Yes, this includes the shoe workers' wages, but it also has the factory construction and maintenance, manufacturing equipment, the inputs that go into the shoe, transport to get the shoes packed into a container…
Because $25 per "pair" of shoes is absurd. That's Nike "juking" the stats to make it look like they pay far more than they do per pair of shoes. For one thing, as a consumer you can buy individually shoes that are at least as good of quality as any Nike Shoe for anywhere from $8-$12 delivered. So the idea that Nike, in bulk, is running factories that are known to be questionable and paying $25 per shoe is "pure fanta…
The $25 number comes from Steve Bence, Nike's Program Director in Footwear Sourcing and Manufacturing. I would also take that number with a grain of salt, but another cited source, Sole Review, an independent sneaker review site, estimates that manufacturing a shoe that's $100 at retail shoe costs $22.
So those are the article's sources. What are yours?
I'm also curious about your claim about $8-12 shoes that are equivalent in quality, because while you can, indeed, buy very cheap shoes on Aliexpress etc, the quality or lack thereof is usually commensurate.
Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?
#713I worked in the retail; it is the shittiest job I ever had. I was given an abnormal schedule: two days closing, one day opening, one mid shift (and I should work either Saturday or Sunday). The churn is really high: people leave even if they find a better yet shitty job. Which jobs do you want to create in US? Retail jobs or manufacturing jobs?
Manufacturing jobs in Asia (e.g. making shoes) have much higher churn than retail jobs in Asia. That shit is hard work, but well paid by local standards.
Manufacturing also requires young people. You can't work in a factory in your 40s. The west is demographically ill-suited for those jobs.
Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?
#714Americans 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…
"Asia" is not about making shoes, but any company will manufacture where it makes the best economical sense. Currently if that's somewhere in Asia, so be it. It doesn't take anything away from Asian countries if they can offer lower labor rates. Some Asian countries are so big and has such staggering class differences that they might be able to continue offering cheap labor while being competitive in technology, because the people involved in both areas live in totally different ecosystems.
Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?
#715Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a lot more nuanced than that. China's internal diversity is much higher than Westerners typically understand, and their social cohesion and political stability are less well maintained than their external-facing image would lead you to believe.
Yeah, but that’s not the same level of diversity as an atheist Frenchman and a muslim Algerian and a Christian Ivorian. The Sichuanese might not get along with the Cantonese, but they’re ethnically the same people with a shared culture
No, they're not. The Chinese have never been especially unified until very recently and they're internally quite diverse on all the key measures of ethnicity: their languages are mutually unintelligible, their religious belief systems span the entire breadth of world religions plus a wide spectrum of home grown ones, and their value systems are very different.
One China is a convenient fiction invented by an authoritarian regime, not a day to day reality on the ground.
Westerners buy into it through some combination of propaganda (coming from the Chinese state and our own, both of which benefit from an exaggerated sense of Chinese unity) and our inability to distinguish the various ethnic groups because we're overly fixated on skin color as the primary physical marker of ethnicity.
Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?
#716Earlier quoted context omitted.
> cultural super power My impression is that Chinese culture has very little appeal elsewhere (at least in the West). They can't seem to be able to (or care to) package it in an appealing way. Sure, they're being catered to in films and video games but I see very little organic interest in Chinese culture, especially compared to Japanese or Korean culture.
It's true. It's changing though. Wu Kong Black myth and even the top grossing film of last year was chinese animation. See the comments under the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsiAYjyiIBM . The film was apparently incredible. The core culture of China is actually foundational to much of Asia. The stuff you see coming out of Japan and Korea is surface level aesthetics built on top of this foundation. You're…
If they're selling on historical and folklore how much is that really pushing culture? Is Modern China the same culture as pre-revolution China? Friends, Seinfeld, Sex and the City had actual influence on people on a portrayal of modern New York. What's the equivalent show that has worldwide audiences interested in modern Chinese life.
Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?
#717Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's true. It's changing though. Wu Kong Black myth and even the top grossing film of last year was chinese animation. See the comments under the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsiAYjyiIBM . The film was apparently incredible. The core culture of China is actually foundational to much of Asia. The stuff you see coming out of Japan and Korea is surface level aesthetics built on top of this foundation. You're…
Oh, I think they're already up there with the aesthetics, I just don't find the content appealing. I watched (on Netflix) some Chinese attempt at a Downton Abbey a few years ago, and the production value was through the roof, absolutely insane. But the actual writing was pretty vapid and it's still drenched in propaganda. I've had similar experience with film. Just compare the stuff coming out of Hong Kong today with…
The writing will improve too.
I actually don’t get what happened with Hong Kong. Stuff was good then it went bad. But in general it’s expected that stuff will be bad. Generally writing and story telling is the hardest to improve while production and special effects are easier.
The great story telling from China comes from its mythology and I feel China hasn’t yet found a method to depict this on screen without being too cheesy, fakeish or over the top.
I think this is why animation and video games work here temporarily. China will eventually get its act together.
Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?
#718Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except since no parliament can bind a future parliament it won't be worth the paper it's written on. The loudest voices calling for a scrap are exactly the people you DON'T want deciding what human rights you'll be "allowed". And incitement to violence is, and always should be, unprotected speech - your silly "two tier kier" is informing me greatly that you're on the "they locked them up for hurty words!" bandwagon.
Weird, the bill of rights act of 1689 is still in force. It’s literally the policy of this country to sentence white men to harsher custodial sentences with more chance of a custodial sentence than any other group, simply for the crime of being a white man. Are these the sorts of people you think should decide our rights? If the government would do what people have been voting for for decades and end mass immigration…
It is not the "policy of this country" you need to actually read how things work, what bodies have what power, and who is doing what.
The sentencing council is an independant body, they are not the government, and the government has said "no, that's not right" so they're passing a bill to stop the new guidelines coming into effect: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-introduce-l...
Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?
#719Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's true. It's changing though. Wu Kong Black myth and even the top grossing film of last year was chinese animation. See the comments under the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsiAYjyiIBM . The film was apparently incredible. The core culture of China is actually foundational to much of Asia. The stuff you see coming out of Japan and Korea is surface level aesthetics built on top of this foundation. You're…
If they're selling on historical and folklore how much is that really pushing culture? Is Modern China the same culture as pre-revolution China? Friends, Seinfeld, Sex and the City had actual influence on people on a portrayal of modern New York. What's the equivalent show that has worldwide audiences interested in modern Chinese life.
None. There’s no equivalent Chinese show. Just like how a while back there was no equivalent industry. It will get there. Follow the trendlines of all the industries and if it matches what happened with the entire manufacturing industry, solar industry, and various other industries it will eventually surpass the US. Right now it’s quickly becoming on par with a lot of stuff in the west. Eventually it will surpass the west.
But you also have to note there’s a shit ton of propaganda against China. I’m not even sure where it comes from given that we have freedom of press. you likely have no interest in the good stuff coming out of China likely because you don’t even know about it.
Think of it like this. You probably don’t think of BYD at all. Most Americans don’t. But to the rest of the world it’s a superior car to Tesla. And cheaper. It’s like Americans have some propaganda veil pulled over their eyes and I have no idea where it’s from. This absence of consideration of BYD is very similar to what Americans think of China. It’s just a very inaccurate perspective and full of holes.
Also a side note. Nobody inside China or Asia really gives a shit about Seinfeld, Sex and the city or friends. I love Seinfeld and friends but that's because I'm American. Outside of this culture those shows are just garbage. You need to look at the things with true world wide appeal across all cultures. Something like Avengers End game, which was an international phenomenon. (I know there's a lot of snobbish types who don't like it and I can understand why as it's not very sophisticated and it is a little too popular)
Anyway, China has yet to have something like Avengers End game. Or Star wars even. But out of all the countries in the world, it has the most chance of producing something on par with what America has done.
Re: How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?
#720Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're asking for decentralization. There's a reason you often get centralization in industries: higher productivity due to network effects and/or economies of scale. Even within China this is true, as some areas are particularly known for manufacturing (or specific types of manufacturing). Spreading things out sound good until you realize it's doubled your costs or halved your productivity.
But I think we're missing an important point here: moving production to low cost environments just moves costs from business costs into external costs, putting them on society. As for productivity, I think that's an issue that could be addressed but people generally avoid the answer to the why question.
> moving production to low cost environments just moves costs from business costs into external costs
[Citation needed]
Of course that can happen, but it's hardly guaranteed. If a company in the US moves a call center to a lower cost city, that's hardly foisting externalities onto anybody.
> people generally avoid the answer to the why question.
What does that even mean? What "why" question?