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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?

#771

Post by LightBug1 »

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…

You might be right. The USA seems to be indulging in its own Brexit moment ... and looks where that got the UK (...irrelevance).

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

#772

Post by herbst »

wordofx wrote: post #739
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…

> Today, China is competitive with or ahead of America in key technology areas, including nuclear power, AI, EVs, and batteries. I can’t tell if you’re brainwashed by propaganda or just spreading propaganda. China is great at making things flashy. But the quality things like EVs is low. The battery quality is not good. The promise of long range cars is often 30% of the promise. Cars leaking. Rusting like American mad…

Yet it took only 2 years and you see WAY more Chinese cars for example here in Switzerland than American ones (which was 95% Tesla anyway)

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

#773

Post by herbst »

horns4lyfe wrote: post #625
sien wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DJI is the premier drone company in the world. Also in places where Chinese electric cars are not being blocked they are really taking off. In 20 years for billions of people the most common car will be a Chinese one. China is able to build nuclear reactors while the US is floundering. The Chinese may well be the first to produce electricity from fusion. People come back from Shenzhen now to the US and say that the U…

Those things are all optimizing…

So was the iPhone just a optimized phone and ChatGPT just a optimized AIML client

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

#774

Post by marenkay »

beeflet wrote: post #767
marenkay wrote: post #664

This makes a good argument against centralized production and knowledge. It would economically be much more reasonable if any good could be produced anywhere at any time. Smaller production facilities for localized sourcing. Would IMHO also be much more in line with a free market. Everyone would be free to source goods in any country or location of their choice. Coupled with open knowledge this could be a truly free…

It will never happen because of economies of scale. What type of intervention of the free market do you approve of as an alternative that would incentivize local production over economies of scale? It essentially comes down to tarrifs and protectionism. Free market means voluntarism. You say that consumers ought to have the freedom to source goods anywhere, but the only way to preserve this "freedom" is to either for…

If a product becomes unstable due to increased competition it's not exactly been stable before. Also the whole premium is quite off. You got good items for fair prices before factories started producing bread. Often at higher quality. I'm old enough to remember. Honestly seems like the current market is only working because of regulation and protections of all kinds. That to me is a clear sign of volatility.

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

#775

Post by marenkay »

stahtops wrote: post #746
marenkay wrote: post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering I talked about a truly free market, central planning then seems to be a weird reaction. Why would that be related? It's not like I suggested a Chinese system, I advocated for one which is free from monopoly and focusses on local production and diversity for sourcing goods.

A truly free market? But free from monopolies and adhering to ? Kind of sounds like a regulation and not a truly free market.

Finally someone might get that the concept of a free market is a fairy tale

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

#776

Post by herbst »

da02 wrote: post #218
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…

Any experience or thoughts on Vietnam and Malaysia? Are they also moving ahead?

I was in Malaysia ~10 years ago. I saw a lot of weird things for sure, but I also saw a modern capital city that could easily shadow over many European cities today in terms of life quality, fancyness and nearly any metric.

I didn't see any shoe manufacturers :)

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

#777

Post by mattmanser »

matt-p wrote: post #256
wahern wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fishing is less profitable for the whole UK than Warhammer. There are 3x as many fishermen in the UK than employees of Games Workshop, and much more again if you count the number of related fishery jobs. At the end of the day, politicians and voters alike respond more to employment than nominal monetary figures. A broader employment base is generally better for social and political stability than explicit wealth re…

Sorry, but I don't think this is the reason. There were vastly more people in financial services calling for us NOT to have brexit than fishermen asking for it, even in number of people. I honestly don't think this was a numbers of people affected vs "% of GDP" affected issue. Not at all. What good did it do for us? At the time everyone was running around rubbishing and laughing at the "outrageous" claims of 10% GDP…

It's not actually about the fishermen, it's about the whole rural communities.

Just like farming, it's everyone living out there. How the fishers and farmers are being treated is how those communities at large feel like they're being treated. And they always feel like they're being shafted, even though that's just progress and other industries got shafted much worse in the past.

So for every 1 fisherman, there are 20 other votes. And they all generally vote conservative, those are blue strongholds (blue over here is conservative, red labour).

For every 1 Games Workshop employee, there's no other votes. Even spouses will be fairly uninvested in how the government is treating toy exports.

But on the other part of your comment, there's been no 10% GDP loss. Note, I voted remain, and would vote to rejoin in a heartbeat.

But we're roughly at the same position today in the world as we were in 2016, compared to other countries. Sitting about 6/7th in the world. Everyone's suffered since covid, everyone's struggling with growth. There's been no big drop in GDP. So it was actually scaremongering. It feels like there's a conspiracy of economists who lie, heavily influence markets, but their lies don't match reality. It's ideological propaganda for free-market capitalism, rather than fact.

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

#778

Post by refurb »

hkt wrote: post #480
watwut wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump has zero to do with previous level of US hegemony. He represents what large part of Americans are - for internal reasons that have nothing to do with geopolitics.

Americans might not know their number is up explicitly, but they can smell it. The days of US hegemony are numbered. In one way or another, people get it. Why else would they want to Make America Great Again? It is an inherent recognition of decline.

I’d say it’s the opposite.

So much of the US government has been focused on maintaining the global hegemony, US citizens wellbeing was sacrificed.

Trump was elected in reaction to rising global hegemony, or at least the effort put to maintain it, not the end of it.

To say US hegemony is numbered doesn’t make much sense. The US economy has only pulled headed further from any Western rival, and China’s economy is stumbling to the point it’s questionable if it can grow enough before it’s population starts shrinking. Russia has been stagnant since the 1990’s.

If anything, US ability to project power is greater now than any time in the past.

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

#779

Post by MrGreenTea »

ivandenysov wrote: post #765

What are the challenges that prevent humanity from further automating clothes production? We don’t weave fabrics by hand anymore, but we still sew pieces of it together by hand. Why is that?

Because weaving is simpler and more repetitive than sewing. Sewing is both a pretty precise job and also lots of different movements, angles and very few straight lines. All of these make it less efficient to automate.

If you're interested in the history: it took quite long after during the industrialization to invent a working sewing machine. There are quite a few interesting Youtube videos for example on the history and workings of the sewing machine.

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

#780

Post by herbst »

slt2021 wrote: post #457
hemabe wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

due to immigration, USA draws talent from global population of 8.2 billion, so the top limit of people with IQ>140 that can live in USA should be drawn from 8.2 billion, not 340 mln

So does every other immigration based country. Why do you think most talented people wouldn't choose a easier way and live somewhere with a higher living standard and less racism and hate?
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