Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

781–790 of 1001 posts

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

#781

Post by beeflet »

ibeff wrote: post #321
rayiner wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bringing “manufacturing back to the US” is a fool’s errand. The future of manufacturing is automation, not jobs. That’s probably correct. But the current trajectory means that China will have the robot-operated factories, not the US. What do you anticipate the US will do to obtain goods from those Chinese factories? Especially when AI stands poised to obsolete a lot of the white collar jobs where the US still retai…

> China will have the robot-operated factories, not the US. What do you anticipate the US will do to obtain goods from those Chinese factories? Why not let the market take care of it? It's cheaper to buy things from China then make them yourself. When that changes, production will naturally move to the next best place. I don't see the issue.

Because I don't want the chinese to control the world.

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

#782

Post by ungreased0675 »

While the hypothetical shoes from Asia retail for $100 and US made shoes are $220ish, in real life the Asian made shoes cost $190 and the US made shoes cost $220. It’s insane how much a little bit of fabric and foam gets marked up as it works through the value chain.

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

#783

Post by beeflet »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #239
rayiner wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bringing “manufacturing back to the US” is a fool’s errand. The future of manufacturing is automation, not jobs. That’s probably correct. But the current trajectory means that China will have the robot-operated factories, not the US. What do you anticipate the US will do to obtain goods from those Chinese factories? Especially when AI stands poised to obsolete a lot of the white collar jobs where the US still retai…

'The dollar might be weakened in the future so we must immediately blow it and our entire deeply thought out, researched, and supported policy since the 1940s up to now with no plan all based on a book the President read and hope things work out better than what might have happened sometime in the future (but that there were no signs was happening soon)'.

The dollar will be weakened in the future. Is there any doubt about it? We cannot continue operating in this post-war regime when the conditions for the post-war regime have been dismantled.

I have rarely ever aligned with this president, but it is clear that we need to bring manufacturing home if we are going to have any future.

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

#784

Post by literalAardvark »

electrondood wrote: post #682
Symbiote wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yesterday your vice president referred to the Chinese as "peasants".

Fair, but he's not exactly a shining beacon of the best we have to offer.

Unfortunately in a democracy the best we have to offer isn't what we actually offer.

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

#785

Post by pjc50 »

lmpdev wrote: post #608
eyko wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also worth considering that certain industries (fisheries and agriculture for instance) are subsidised. It's in our national interest to maintain production capacity, so profits are the least of our concerns. Both the UK and the EU's agricultural sectors are heavily subsidised mainly for this reason. It's cheaper to import than to produce locally, especially with our environmental standards and targets, but we n…

That’s the biggest thing I took away from the whole Boeing corporate disaster You need to maintain at least a minimum amount of internal competency in almost all areas If you completely give away a capability to other countries (in this case, fishing knowledge and labour) it is much harder to bring back than just coughing up the money Those sectors you let die might not matter right now, but they might matter later.…

Perhaps. But does a subsidized industry retain competence, or retain incompetence? After all, if you're making a profit no matter what, what incentive is there to do well?

Many of the EU farming and fishing subsidies are to NOT produce anything.

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

#786

Post by literalAardvark »

lanthissa wrote: post #382
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…

US wont end up in the situation that UK finds itself in because the land it occupies is some of the most productive land on earth and at a similar scale as china. The incredible wealth of america, is that its a land mass that in the old world would be supporting 500m-1.5b people, but is divided only amount 350m. The city at the center of the Missouri and Mississippi if it were in europe would be a major civilization.…

I'm not super knowledgeable about AU, but my gut impression is that it doesn't have much in the way of natural advantages.

Yes, it's lowpop, but that's about it.

Somewhat similar for CA, but CA is a lot better off than AU.

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

#787

Post by refurb »

Symbiote wrote: post #417
stronglikedan wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Americans need to get over their view of “Asia” as being about making shoes. The vast majority of us were over that decades ago. Please catch up for the sake of all humanity.

Yesterday your vice president referred to the Chinese as "peasants".

No, he said “"We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants make”

He did not refer to all Chinese as peasants. China would like you think that though.

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

#788

Post by pjc50 »

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…

There's tons of people in email jobs who are just clamouring to get up at 6am and gut fish! /s

Something not really addressed in all of this is that a lot of the people whinging about British jobs and so on, especially in high-Brexit areas, are actually themselves retirees.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36619342 "Of the 30 areas with the most elderly people, 27 voted leave".

Now, they're often living in economically depressed areas. I've seen Blackpool and Lowestoft (the sad little marker of the UK's easterly point, right next to a gas terminal). But you can't give them their jobs back, because they're not working any more. It's nostalgia.

I'm going to keep hammering the question of "why should people move from lucrative, comfortable email jobs to harder, less lucrative factory jobs, or, god help them, fishing?"

The UK is actually at ""full employment"" (NAIRU): https://obr.uk/box/the-equilibrium-unemployment-rate/ - that is, economists believe it cannot go lower without causing inflation, as shortages mean you can't hire people without having to offer more wages to poach them from other jobs.

(Another conundrum: people want higher wages without higher prices. How are you going to do the arithmetic on that?)

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

#790

Post by SiempreViernes »

briandear wrote: post #763
consp wrote: post #740

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SE will one day realize they are as screwed as the average worker and unionize in some way. The endless money pits are not for every SE, even today the majority does not work for the creme-de-creme of well paying companies. While specialists and smooth talkers might profit from the current model, as always is the case, most won't.

Then when they unionize, all the software jobs will head to cheaper locales. Unless of course you’re suggesting that the U.S. use tariffs on labor to prevent that?

> Then [...] all the software jobs will head to cheaper locales

Dude, how have you completed missed the ongoing push for AI to replace developers?

Post reply on HN