Workers on Samsung factory site battle police in Vietnam • Hacker News Board

Re: Workers on Samsung factory site battle police in Vietnam

#81

Post by pyre » Thu, Jan 09, 2014, 4:59 PM UTC

sanoli wrote: post #37

chmike wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Africa is the next eldorado for manufacturing. It has already started.

Probably true. I wonder why nobody ever counts Africa in these discussions. It's always "but what about when all the poor Asian workers start to earn higher wages and there are no more cheap countries left?".

As @smoorman1024 stated, too much political instability in much of Africa. It's true that some countries are stable, but (e.g.) being next to an unstable country doesn't affect the risk in a positive direction.

Re: Workers on Samsung factory site battle police in Vietnam

#82

Post by ssdfsdf » Thu, Jan 09, 2014, 5:00 PM UTC

ssdfsdf wrote: post #63

w1ntermute wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hundreds of millions of Chinese have been lifted out of poverty because of their manufacturing boom. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the fact that you're still clinging to the outdated economic beliefs that used to keep the Chinese people poor and starving.

It's a broken world where the solution to poverty is the exploitation of a generation.

To those who have replied: None of you have disagreed with my statement. It is a broken world. A generation is being exploited.

I made no further comment.

Re: Workers on Samsung factory site battle police in Vietnam

#83

Post by simonh » Thu, Jan 09, 2014, 5:01 PM UTC

ssdfsdf wrote: post #63

w1ntermute wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hundreds of millions of Chinese have been lifted out of poverty because of their manufacturing boom. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the fact that you're still clinging to the outdated economic beliefs that used to keep the Chinese people poor and starving.

It's a broken world where the solution to poverty is the exploitation of a generation.

Have you ever been to the Chinese countryside?

I have.

Re: Workers on Samsung factory site battle police in Vietnam

#84

Post by Artistry121 » Thu, Jan 09, 2014, 5:03 PM UTC

JonnieCache wrote: post #61

davidw wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then we should probably do what we can to help the worst off in the economy, whether they've lost their jobs due to new technology, moving factories, or whatever, rather than trying to nail the factories down to one particular place.

>help the worst off in the economy The problem with this is, the "factory owners" of the world run a political machine which they use to prevent that from happening, claiming it prevents them from building more factories. They use the same political machine to establish the moral goodness of continued factory building as axiomatic. This makes everything rather complicated.

Yes, government intervention does make things rather complicated.

Re: Workers on Samsung factory site battle police in Vietnam

#85

Post by anon1385 » Thu, Jan 09, 2014, 5:04 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #60

tveita wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the TV/Monitor market is price colluded to hell. How do you figure? TVs are cheaper and bigger than ever - they're practically giving them away. My understanding was that producers are pumping gimmicks like 3d and huge curved screens because there are absolutely no margins left in the commodity TV/monitor market.

Nah, I'm sure ten square feet of delicate electronics crammed with millions of transistors costs pennies to manufacture....

This seems to be a post implying that price fixing in the electronics industry is unthinkable because electronics are complex to manufacture.

The actual history of the industry would indicate that price fixing is common: the LCD[1], RAM[2], optical drives[3][4], GPU[5] and CPU[6] markets have all faced massive scandals involving price fixing or other anti competitive collusion, often resulting in huge fines.

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aP1P0...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing

[3] http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9243591/HP_sues_seven...

[4] http://www.pcworld.com/article/240937/hitachilg_data_storage...

[5] http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/28/nvidia-details-settlement...

[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/business/global/14compete....

Re: Workers on Samsung factory site battle police in Vietnam

#86

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 09, 2014, 5:04 PM UTC

sixthloginorso wrote: post #59

elohesra wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How nice that you can afford to pay extra to ease liberal guilt. Do you think that the poorest in your country can afford to pay extra too? For the relatively monied -- and software developers usually count among that number -- it's easy to argue that companies are too greedy, and that companies shouldn't use exploitative labour. For the lower class, paying extra so that someone in the third world can enjoy a better…

So you say that multinational corporations shouldn't compete on ethics? I thought you neoliberals didn't chastise anyone with respect to their choices in commerce. Yes, this is systemic. Are you trying to convince me that the situation isn't fucked? For all the claptrap about how the economy isn't a zero-sum game and that the tide lifts all the boats and so many other platitudes, there's no denying that the quality o…

[deleted]

Re: Workers on Samsung factory site battle police in Vietnam

#87

Post by jellicle » Thu, Jan 09, 2014, 5:04 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #28

jellicle wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> many people (millions) in Vietnam are going to experience higher standard of living. Aren't therefore many people (millions) in China going to experience lower standard of living?

The economy is not a zero-sum game. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy

Moving plants is not what the link you are linking to talks about.

And in fact, what you are linking to is a right-wing attack on very legitimate economic ideas. The introduction of the 40-hour week did increase employment, and further reduction of work weeks would indeed increase the number of people employed (as we see already: all job growth in the U.S. currently is full-time jobs being converted into multiple part-time jobs in the service industry).

That is, you've linked to a discussion of something on Wikipedia and you believe that the discussion of it proves its truthfulness; nothing could be further from the truth. See also: discussion of moon landing conspiracies.

In fact, if I fire someone in China and hire someone in Vietnam, I have indeed engaged in a zero-sum transaction - actually a negative-sum transaction, since I'll be paying the Vietnamese guy less than the Chinese guy. Overall, the world economy will be moving slower because of my actions.

Re: Workers on Samsung factory site battle police in Vietnam

#88

Post by icebraining » Thu, Jan 09, 2014, 5:09 PM UTC

sixthloginorso wrote: post #59

elohesra wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How nice that you can afford to pay extra to ease liberal guilt. Do you think that the poorest in your country can afford to pay extra too? For the relatively monied -- and software developers usually count among that number -- it's easy to argue that companies are too greedy, and that companies shouldn't use exploitative labour. For the lower class, paying extra so that someone in the third world can enjoy a better…

So you say that multinational corporations shouldn't compete on ethics? I thought you neoliberals didn't chastise anyone with respect to their choices in commerce. Yes, this is systemic. Are you trying to convince me that the situation isn't fucked? For all the claptrap about how the economy isn't a zero-sum game and that the tide lifts all the boats and so many other platitudes, there's no denying that the quality o…

no denying that the quality of life of most people in the world is nothing but a point in a gradient of declining living conditions

I won't deny it, but I find it hard to believe. In any case, the poorest are better off, even if the middle class is declining (700M out of extreme poverty in just 20 years).

Re: Workers on Samsung factory site battle police in Vietnam

#89

Post by gabriel34 » Thu, Jan 09, 2014, 5:12 PM UTC

sixthloginorso wrote: post #13

at-fates-hands wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>>Seems a little greedy. Which actually benefits us as the consumer. Would you prefer a less greedy corporation that goes where the most expensive labor is which then increases the cost of production which then increases the cost of the products you buy from said company? Greed is what keeps prices low, and competition high.

If they assured me that the extra price goes to ensure a better standard of living and better working conditions for their third-world workers, then yes.

Donate the difference.

Re: Workers on Samsung factory site battle police in Vietnam

#90

Post by mcguire » Thu, Jan 09, 2014, 5:13 PM UTC

virmundi wrote: post #20

Sharlin wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what happens when they run out of countries to move to.

Wars and a nanny-state. Probably before that hits, automation for most of the product. Eventually we will need very few people to produce any part of the product. We will automate resource extraction. Automate resource delivery. Automate resource refinement. Etc. So this leaves us with a large population that has little point in the current economic system. So we'll get higher unemployment globally. Historically this…

"Historically this has lead to wars, either internal or external."

War is always a safe prediction, but do you have a specific historical precedent for large-scale, long-term, structural unemployment? I cannot think of one.

(Subsistence agriculture is not unemployment.)